Gaming Globally Production, Play, and Place

293 Pages·2013·2.384 MB·English

by  Aslinger, Ben;Huntemann, Nina B

Gaming Globally
Critical Media Studies
Edited by Janet Wasko and Eileen R. Meehan
Gaming Globally: Production, Play, and Place
Edited by Nina B. Huntemann and Ben Aslinger
Gaming Globally
Production, Play, and Place
Edited by
Nina B. Huntemann and Ben Aslinger
GAMING GLOBALLY
Copyright © Nina B. Huntemann and Ben Aslinger, 2013.
All rights reserved.
First published in 2013 by
PALGRAVE MACMILLAN®
in the United States— a division of St. Martin’s Press LLC,
175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
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this is by Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited,
registered in England, company number 785998, of Houndmills,
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the United Kingdom, Europe and other countries.
ISBN: 978–1–137–00632–5
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available from the
Library of Congress.
A catalogue record of the book is available from the British Library.
Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.
First edition: January 2013
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
List of Figures and Tables vii
Notes on Contributors ix
Introduction 1
Ben Aslinger and Nina B. Huntemann
Part I Macro
1 Who Plays, Who Pays? Mapping Video Game
Production and Consumption Globally 19
Randy Nichols
2 Women in Video Games: The Case of Hardware
Production and Promotion 41
Nina B. Huntemann
3 Redefining the Console for the Global, Networked Era 59
Ben Aslinger
Snapshot 1: Brazil: Tomorrow’s Market 75
James Portnow, Arthur Protasio, and Kate Donaldson
Snapshot 2: Video Game Development in Argentina 79
Agustín Pérez Fernández
Part II Play Practices
Snapshot 3: Crafting a Path into Gaming Culture 85
Sean C. Duncan
4 Heterogeneity in Game Histories 91
Philip Tan and Konstantin Mitgutsch
5 Playing at Being Social: A Cross-Generational Case Study
of Social Gaming in Shanghai, China 101
Larissa Hjorth and Michael Arnold
vi CONTENTS
6 Unintended Travel: ROM Hackers and Fan Translations
of Japanese Video Games 119
Mia Consalvo
Part III Localization
7 Equip Shield: The Role of Semipermeable Cultural
Isolation in the History of Games and Comics 141
Bryant Paul Johnson
8 Indiana Jones Fights the Communist Police:
Local Appropriation of the Text Adventure Genre in
the 1980s Czechoslovakia 163
Jaroslav Švelch
9 How Do You Say Gamer in Hindi?: Exploratory Research
on the Indian Digital Game Industry and Culture 183
Adrienne Shaw
Snapshot 4: Australian Video Games: The Collapse and
Reconstruction of an Industry 203
Christian McCrea
Part IV Strategies
Snapshot 5: Game Censorship and Regulation in
the United States 211
Carly A. Kocurek
10 Space Wars: The Politics of Games Production in Europe 215
Aphra Kerr
11 Internet Development and the Commercialization
of Online Gaming in China 233
Peichi Chung and Anthony Fung
12 Video Game Development in the Middle East:
Iran, the Arab World, and Beyond 251
Vit Šisler
Index 273
Figures and Tables
Figures
1.1 Global hardware consumption, 2009 21
1.2 Global participation in software development and
publishing of top-ten video games of all time 24
1.3 National involvement in the production process of
Xbox 360 and other video game consoles 29
6.1 A partial list of utilities and tools found at RHDN 125
6.2 Screenshot of Mother 3 handbook 133
7.1 The Dungeon Masters 151
7.2 Beyond the Wall 156
8.1 The loading screen (left) and the opening screen of
the first Czechoslovak Indiana Jones game 167
8.2. Hacking games: System 15000 and Sting III 169
8.3 Indiana Jones as a protagonist of intertextuality in
Czechoslovak text adventures 172
8.4 The title screen and an in-game screen of City of Robots 175
8.5 The title screen and an in-game screenshot of . . .
What the Heck?! 176
12.1 Theoretical framework of video game development
in the Middle East 253
Tables
1.1 Purchasing power for employees in computer and electronics
manufacturing across countries in US Dollars, 2007 31
11.1 The growth of Internet users and Internet penetration
in China from 2000 to 2010 238
11.2 The growth of the online game market in China
from 2006 to 2010 239
11.3 China’s top-ten online games in 2010 240
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Contributors
Michael Arnold is a senior lecturer in the School of Historical and
Philosophical Studies at theUniversity of Melbourne. He is a founding
committee member and current secretary of the IEEE Society on Social
Implications of Technology (Australian chapter), and is an Australian
committee member of the Community Informatics Research Network.
Ben Aslinger is an assistant professor at Bentley University. He has pub-
lished multiple book chapters and articles about the industrial practices
of popular music and video game production, including writing in Velvet
Light Trap, Popular Communication: The International Journal of Media
and Culture, and FLOW.
Peichi Chung is a professor at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. Her
research compares the industrial dynamics of online game companies in
Korea, China, Singapore, and Southeast Asia, and the formation of gam-
ing cultures in online spaces in Asia.
Mia Consalvo is the Canada research chair in Game Studies & Design
at Concordia University. She is coeditor of the forthcoming book Sports
Videogames (Routledge 2013).
Kate Donaldson is writer and director of operations for Extra Credits, a
Penny Arcade TV web series about video games and game studies.
Sean C. Duncan is an assistant professor in the Learning Sciences pro-
gram at Indiana University. His research focuses on the relationship of
collaboration and play in gaming, game design, and gaming culture. He
is the coeditor (with Elisabeth Hayes) of the Learning in Video Game
Affinity Spaces (Peter Lang 2012).
Agustín Pérez Fernández is an independent game developer and multi-
media artist from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is the creator of several
short films and the experimental game Mantra. He is also founder and
administrator of Duval.vg, a community of video game developers from
Latin America. His multimedia work is available at www.tembac.com.