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Independent Videogames investigates the social and cultural implications of contemporary forms of independent video game development. Through a series of case studies and theoretical investigations, it evaluates the significance of such a multi-faceted phenomenon within video game and digital cultures. A diverse team of scholars highlight the specificities of independence within the industry and the culture of digital gaming through case studies and theoretical questions. The chapters focus on labor, gender, distribution models and technologies of production to map the current state of research on independent game development. The authors also identify how the boundaries of independence are becoming opaque in the contemporary game industry – often at the cost of the claims of autonomy, freedom and emancipation that underlie the indie scene. The book ultimately imagines new and better narratives for a less exploitative and more inclusive videogame industry. Systematically mapping the current directions of a phenomenon that is becoming increasingly difficult to define and limit, this book will be a crucial resource for scholars and students of game studies, media history, media industries and independent gaming.

From its humble beginnings as a video game launched in the mid-90s, Pokémon has become a global entertainment franchise, even reaching into the world via "augmented reality" with the mobile game Pokémon GO. In the work, Nakazawa Shinichi argues that the Pokémon worldview is the best contemporary example of Claude Lévi-Strauss's "savage mind" (la pensée sauvage), suggesting that computer games can often be viewed as attempts to reconnect the human unconscious with the true, hidden essence of nature.

Redefines games and game culture from south to north, analyzing the social impact of video games, the growth of game development and the vitality of game cultures across Africa, the Middle East, Central and South America, the Indian subcontinent, Oceania and Asia.

"Queerness in Play examines the many ways queerness of all kinds - from queer as 'LGBT' to other, less well-covered aspects of the queer spectrum - intersects with games and the social contexts of play. The current unprecedented visibility of queer creators and content comes at a high tide of resistance to the inclusion of those outside a long-imagined cisgender, heterosexual, white male norm. By critically engaging the ways games - as a culture, an industry, and a medium - help reproduce limiting binary formations of gender and sexuality, Queerness in Play contributes to the growing body of scholarship promoting more inclusive understandings of identity, sexuality, and games."--Provided by publisher.

Burn the Boards (Causa Creations, 2015) portrays the life of an Indian worker who recycles electronic waste in a precarious environment. Phone Story (Molleindustria, 2011) simulates the journey and process of production and consumption of mobile phones, from Congo and China to Pakistan. Whereas Phone Story is described as ‘an educational game’ that addresses the player directly as a consumer, Burn the Boards is a resource management puzzle that creates compassion through role playing. These games bring to the fore a hidden reality of the everyday that is ingrained in historical relationships and power dynamics, drawing attention to what Michael Rothberg has recognized as ‘exploitation in an age of globalized neo-liberal capitalism’ (2014: iv).  This article explores how these games denounce the smartphone industry by using that same technology. For this purpose, we refer to Game Studies theory on procedural rhetoric; values and ethics; and the role of the player, combined with questions of (neo)colonization, globalization, and neoliberalism drawn from Postcolonial Studies. Our analysis shows the complicity of users and their confrontation with the extreme vulnerability of others, emphasizing how the coloniality of power works in our global consumer society. Thus we study the power relationships described and established by these games, the affective reactions which they seek to trigger, and their potential to transform players from passive observers into ethical players and consumers.

The in-depth, diverse, and accessible essays in Queer Game Studies use queerness to challenge the ideas that have dominated gaming discussions. This volume reveals the capacious albeit underappreciated communities that are making, playing, and studying queer games, demonstrating the centrality of LGBTQ issues to the gamer world and establishing an alternative lens for examining this increasingly important culture.

Video games have long been seen as the exclusive territory of young, heterosexual white males. In a media landscape dominated by such gamers, players who do not fit this mold, including women, people of color, and LGBT people, are often brutalized in forums and in public channels in online play. Discussion of representation of such groups in games has frequently been limited and cursory. In contrast, Gaming at the Edge builds on feminist, queer, and postcolonial theories of identity and draws on qualitative audience research methods to make sense of how representation comes to matter. In Gaming at the Edge, Adrienne Shaw argues that video game players experience race, gender, and sexuality concurrently. She asks: How do players identify with characters? How do they separate identification and interactivity? What is the role of fantasy in representation? What is the importance of understanding market logic? In addressing these questions Shaw reveals how representation comes to matter to participants and offers a perceptive consideration of the high stakes in politics of representation debates. Putting forth a framework for talking about representation, difference, and diversity in an era in which user-generated content, individualized media consumption, and the blurring of producer/consumer roles has lessened the utility of traditional models of media representation analysis, Shaw finds new insight on the edge of media consumption with the invisible, marginalized gamers who are surprising in both their numbers and their influence in mainstream gamer culture.

Video games have become a global industry, and their history spans dozens of national industries where foreign imports compete with domestic productions, legitimate industry contends with piracy, and national identity faces the global marketplace. This volume describes video game history and culture across every continent, with essays covering areas as disparate and far-flung as Argentina and Thailand, Hungary and Indonesia, Iran and Ireland.

Video games are inherently transnational by virtue of their industrial, textual, and player practices. This collection includes essays from scholars from eight countries analyzing game cultures on macro- and micro-levels and investigates the growing transnational nature of digital play

Game Studies is a rapidly growing area of contemporary scholarship, yet volumes in the area have tended to focus on more general issues. With Playing with the Past, game studies is taken to the next level by offering a specific and detailed analysis of one area of digital game play -- the representation of history. The collection focuses on the ways in which gamers engage with, play with, recreate, subvert, reverse and direct the historical past, and what effect this has on the ways in which we go about constructing the present or imagining a future. What can World War Two strategy games teach us about the reality of this complex and multifaceted period? Do the possibilities of playing with the past change the way we understand history? If we embody a colonialist's perspective to conquer 'primitive' tribes in Colonization, does this privilege a distinct way of viewing history as benevolent intervention over imperialist expansion? The fusion of these two fields allows the editors to pose new questions about the ways in which gamers interact with their game worlds. Drawing these threads together, the collection concludes by asking whether digital games - which represent history or historical change - alter the way we, today, understand history itself.

In this chapter, the creation of a value chain during the process of digital games development in Turkey is discussed using a critical political economy approach. This study claims to be the first of its kind that intends to examine the topography of the digital game industry in Turkey and gives a brief history and describes the present status of digital games production in Turkey. All the components of a value chain, namely, the industrial structure and development process, publishing and licensing, distribution and marketing structure, labor force, legal regulations, and governmental policies will be considered in that order to map out the present topography of the industry. The final part of the study will deal with possible solutions for further development in the industry. At this point, the study stresses the fact that all components of the value chain must be performed uninterrupted if the actors in Turkey’s digital game industry desire to position themselves as “producers” in global or local markets.

Focusing on The Fall (Tarsem Singh, 2006), The World {Zhangke S\a, 2004), and Avalon (Mamoru Oshii, 2001), this essay proposes a mode of heterotopic perception and analysis that recognizes the composited layers and material residues of giobally dispersed production sites and laboring bodies in mediated transnationa! spaces.

This article explores issues of racial essentialism and ethnicity in the massively multiplayer online role-playing game World of Warcraft (WoW). The fantasy world of Azeroth mirrors elements of real-world race-based societies where culture is thought to be immutably linked to race. The notion of biological essentialism is reinforced throughout the gamescape. Race plays a primary role in the social and political organization of Azeroth. Among other things, race determines alliances, language, intellect, temperament, occupation, strength, and technological aptitude. The cultural representation of the respective racial groups in WoW draws upon stereotypical imagery from real-world ethnic groups (e.g., American Indian, Irish/Scottish, Asian, African, etc.).

From Nausicaa to Sailor Moon, understanding girl heroines of manga and anime within otaku culture.

This chapter examines the relationship between culture, economics and policy within the creative industries (which for the purposes of this paper, are assumed to be equivalent to the cultural industries), and their manifestation in Asia. Addressing any one of these three issues is a challenge in itself, but addressing all three of them together raises the complexity even further. Early writers on the “creative economy” have noted how it works differently from the traditional economy (Florida 2002; Howkins 2001).1 Culture is vitally important to understanding how creative industries develop, but the role of culture in shaping national competitive advantage is not that clear. The same can be said for policy, and a discussion of the triad can be quite convoluted. Having said that, all three levels are still very relevant to the proper description of a creative industry — as I will show in this chapter.This paper attempts to address this triad of issues primarily with a production-and-innovation-oriented view of industrial organisation, bringing in creativity, culture and policy where possible. I shall do this primarily through the lens of one sector in particular — the video games industry — in which Asia has been investing heavily lately, and in which Japan has been an early leader. I will also provide a limited focus on the animation sector for comparative purposes. I will first provide a summary of how creative production in video games occurs in the US, followed by an examination of how Asian patterns compare. In particular, I am interested in whether individual and industrial level creativity differs in Asia. Within Asia, more detailed cases of the Chinese online games industry and the Philippine animation industry will be discussed, but relevant observations are also drawn from general knowledge and a literature review of Japan, Korea and Singapore, as well as interviews which corroborate those observations.

Video games have become a limitless and multifaceted medium through which major corporations and Hollywood visionaries alike are reaching broader global audiences and influencing cultural trends at a rate unmatched by any other media. This book traces the growth of a global phenomenon that has become an integral part of popular culture.

Today’s media are vast in both form and influence; however, few cultural studies scholars ad-dress the video gaming industry’s role in domestic maintenance and global imposition of U.S. hegemonic ideologies. In this study, video games are analyzed by cover art, content, and origin of production. Whether it is earning more “powers” in games such as Star Wars, or earning points to purchase more powerful artillery in Grand Theft Auto, capitalist ideology is reinforced in a subtle, entertaining fashion. This study shows that oppressive hegemonic representations of gender and race are not only present, but permeate the majority of top-selling video games. Finally, the study traces the origins of best-selling games, to reveal a virtual U.S. monopoly in the content of this formative medium.

The US Army developed multiplayer online First Person Shooter video game, America's Army, was examined as the first instance of an entirely state-produced and directed enterprise leveraging video game popular culture. Specifically, this study is concerned with the potential of the America's Army gamespace as a US civilian-military public sphere of the Information Age, as assessed through Habermasian theories of democratic communication. Interview fieldwork was carried out in several America's Army game communities including those of real-life military personnel, Christian Evangelicals, and hackers. The political activities of these exceptional game communities are considered for the ways they escape and transcend current critical theories of Internet-based public spheres.