Online Games, Social Narratives

Online Games, Social Narratives
The study of online gaming is changing. It is no longer enough to analyze

one type of online community in order to understand the plethora of players
who take part in online worlds and the behaviors they exhibit. MacCallum-
Stewart studies the different ways in which online games create social envi-
ronments and how players choose to interpret these. These games vary
from the immensely popular social networking games on Facebook such as
Farmville to Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games to “Free to
Play” online gaming and console communities such as players of Xbox Live
and PS3 games. Each chapter deals with a different aspect of social gaming
online, breaking down when games are social and what narrative devices
make them so. This cross-disciplinary study will appeal to those interested in
cyberculture, the evolution of gaming technology, and sociologies of media.
Esther MacCallum-Stewart is Research Fellow at the Digital Cultures

Research Centre, The University of the West of England (UWE), and Senior
Lecturer at the University of Surrey in Digital Media Arts. Her work exam-
ines player communities and the ways in which they understand and inter-
pret the game narratives around them, and sexuality, love and gender in
games. She has written widely on deviant play, roleplaying, responses to gen-
der in games, player communities and aspects of love and sexuality in games.
Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture
1 Cyberpop 8 Creating Second Lives

Digital Lifestyles and Community, Identity and Spatiality
Commodity Culture as Constructions of the Virtual
Sidney Eve Matrix Edited by Astrid Ensslin and
Eben Muse
2 The Internet in China
Cyberspace and Civil Society 9 Mobile Technology and Place
Zixue Tai Edited by Gerard Goggin and
Rowan Wilken
3 Racing Cyberculture
Minoritarian Art and Cultural 10 Wordplay and the Discourse
Politics on the Internet of Video Games
Christopher L. McGahan Analyzing Words, Design, and Play
Christopher A. Paul
4 Decoding Liberation
The Promise of Free and Open 11 Latin American Identity in
Source Software Online Cultural Production
Samir Chopra and Scott D. Dexter Claire Taylor and Thea Pitman
5 Gaming Cultures and Place 12 Mobile Media Practices,

in Asia-Pacific Presence and Politics
Edited by Larissa Hjorth and The Challenge of Being
Dean Chan Seamlessly Mobile
Edited by Kathleen M. Cumiskey
6 Virtual English and Larissa Hjorth
Queer Internets and Digital
Creolization 13 The Public Space of
Jillana B. Enteen Social Media
Connected Cultures of
7 Disability and New Media the Network Society
Katie Ellis and Mike Kent Thérèse F. Tierney
14 Researching Virtual Worlds 18 Cyberactivism on the
Methodologies for Studying Participatory Web
Emergent Practices Edited by Martha McCaughey
Edited by Ursula Plesner and
Louise Phillips 19 Policy and Marketing Strategies
for Digital Media
15 Digital Gaming Re-imagines Edited by Yu-li Liu and
the Middle Ages Robert G. Picard
Edited by Daniel T. Kline
20 Place and Politics in Latin
16 Social Media, Social Genres American Digital Culture
Making Sense of the Ordinary Location and Latin American
Stine Lomborg Net Art
Claire Taylor
17 The Culture of Digital
Fighting Games 21 Online Games,
Performance and Practice Social Narratives
Todd Harper Esther MacCallum-Stewart
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Online Games,
Social Narratives
Esther MacCallum-Stewart
First published 2014
by Routledge
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and by Routledge
2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN
Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group,
an informa business
© 2014 Taylor & Francis
The right of Esther MacCallum-Stewart to be identified as author of this
work has been asserted by him/her in accordance with sections 77 and 78
of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or
utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now
known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in
any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing
from the publishers.
Trademark Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or
registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation
without intent to infringe.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
MacCallum-Stewart, Esther.
Online games, social narratives / Esther MacCallum-Stewart.
pages cm. — (Routledge studies in new media and cyberculture)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
1. Internet games—Social aspects. I. Title.
GV1469.15.M344 2014
794.8′1—dc23
2014004466
ISBN: 978-0-415-89190-5 (hbk)
ISBN: 978-1-315-76375-0 (ebk)
Typeset in Sabon
by Apex CoVantage, LLC
To the gamers, Simon, and my mother
Contents
List of Figures xi
Acknowledgements xiii
Introduction: ‘Give Honeydew 46 /1’ 1
1 A Brief History of Online Gaming—or Not 19
2 ‘Did He Just Run in There?’: Defining Gaming Communities

and Players 36
3 ‘Digging a Hole’: Reframing Game Narratives

through Webcasting 60
4 ‘Someone a Fan Made’: Gaming Fan Communities

and Creative Practice 85
5 One More Block: The Essentials of Indie Gaming 112
6 Indie Grows Up: A Man Called Steve 131
7 Always in Beta: Strategizing Gaming Communities 149
Coda: Final Thoughts 168
Bibliography 171
Index 191
Figures
3.1 The Yogscast, 2013 64

4.1 Fan art of The Yogscast. Brindley and Lane’s avatars
are placed next to those of the artist. 96
6.1 The Creeper from Minecraft, demonstrating the
simplistic graphics of the game 136
Acknowledgements
For much of my research and play, I have met people known only by abstract
names and gamer tags, acronyms and anonymous posts on forum threads.
I have known people for years, sometimes conversed with them on a daily
basis, yet have never known their ‘real’ names. While this does not matter
in a virtual space, it makes acknowledging all the people who have had a
huge influence on this book very difficult. So, to all the gamers, casters and
community members who have taken part in this book, thank you.
For everyone else, the list is fulsome. First, the guilds and the groups: the
Munchkin crowd, Frail Realities, Dawn of Hope, Final Chapter and The
Nels Quizzas. Of these, Dorian Rogers, Teresa Jacklin, Matt Pope, Dan
Hume, Nic Newman, Ken Mackriell and Shane Tompkinson earn extra spe-
cial thanks for the Christmases in Berlin, Arkham and the Reikspiel. Martin
Burns, Tanya Smith and Leon Cox all helped provide sanity.
To the casters, it was my pleasure to interview you. Your feedback and
interest throughout the writing of this book has been invaluable. Special
thanks go to Simon Lane, Lewis Brindley, Hannah Rutherford and Mark
Turpin for being so patient and dealing with queries, debates and discussions
throughout the writing-up stages.
Peter Taylor needs a section of his own: GM, friend and voice of reason.
To everyone else, Tanya Krzywinska, Ashley Brown, Justin, Chris C.,
Heather, my mother, Jude Melling, Dave Tart, the Hamers, Mekkins, Kali
and MKF, I owe you all in different ways. Thanks.
Introduction
‘Give Honeydew 46 /1’
Online communities are not virtual. The people that we meet online
are not virtual. They are real communities populated with real people,
which is why so many end up meeting in the flesh. The topics that we
talk about in online communities are important topics, which is why
we often learn about and continue to care about the social and politi-
cal causes that we hear about through our online communities. Online
communities are communities; there is no room for debate about this
topic anymore. They teach us about real languages, real meanings, real
causes, real cultures.
—Kozinets (2010: 15)
The people who made money from the gold rush were not the gold rush
miners. It was guys named Levi Strauss and Crocker, and folks who ran
banks, and people who sold jeans, and sold picks and axes.
I think ultimately in the long term that the money that will get made in
Minecraft will not be about Minecraft, but will be about the services
and products that get introduced into it. And so that’s what’s most
interesting . . . the ecosystem.
—Hilleman (in Sheffield, 2012)
In 2008, two friends and podcasters, Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane, started
to upload webcasts to the video-sharing website YouTube. Using footage of
themselves playing digital games, the Yogscast added a voice-over in which
they discussed aspects of gaming, geek culture and anything else that struck the
duo as interesting or amusing as they played.
At the same time, the Russian company Digital Sky Technologies bought
a 180-million-dollar share in the rapidly growing social gaming company
Zynga (5% of its worth). Zynga made games designed to run on social
platforms such as Facebook. Based on the principles of gifting and time
delay, these games encouraged players to engage in a relatively novel type of
gameplay. Instead of spending long sessions at the computer, players were
encouraged to come back to the game frequently and often, limiting the
length of actual play sessions to only a few minutes.
Last, a Swedish man, Markus Persson, released a small Indie game in
which players used cubes, or ‘blocks’, to build houses and other structures
2 Online Games, Social Narratives
in order to survive from frightening monsters that came out at night. The
game, Minecraft, was unfinished, but by originally uploading the game to
an Indie games developers forum, TIGSouce.com, Persson, also known by
his gaming title ‘Notch’, used an existing community of developers and
enthusiasts to publicize and troubleshoot early versions of the game. As an
additional carrot to interested gamers, he promised that anyone who bought
Minecraft would never have to pay another registration fee again.
These three groups are symptomatic of the huge changes that have taken
place in videogaming culture in recent years. In 2011, Zynga was one of the
largest and most profitable gaming companies in the world, and dominated
the casual gaming market across technological platforms and social net-
works, but it was on social networking site Facebook that they really held
sway. By 2012, nearly 25% of the 1 billion Facebook accounts in existence
had accessed a Zynga game (Appdata, 2012), and Facebook attributed more
than 12% of their revenue to the company, (estimated at 445 billion dol-
lars) to sales taking place within Zynga games (Takahashi, 2012). These
games frequently ask players to spend real world money on in-game arte-
facts or events—a purchasing mechanism known as micro-transactions—
and bombard them with messages to virally share the games with their
friends. Zynga, and the many other social gaming companies rapidly tak-
ing advantage of this boom, appeared to encourage players to involve their
circle of friends by sharing items from each game and encouraging them to
take part in collective tasks. However, this relationship was in fact used to
generate more income by guilting the player into spending money in order
to keep up with his or her peers or by spreading the game virally across
social networks. When Zynga’s tactics became too intrusive, the popularity
of their games rapidly began to wane. In 2012, Zynga shares crashed to a
low of $2.09 after the company announced huge losses. The company was
almost universally vilified by the gaming press for its exploitative gaming
practices and resulted in a general distrust of Facebook gaming, even as it
was rapidly replaced by an almost identical sales model on the (now boom-
ing) Android market (Wiggins, 2013). By 2013, Zynga had been involved
in series of high-profile buyouts of other companies, desperate to recoup
its losses by investing in games which apparently supported less aggressive
means of micro-transactioning.
At the other end of the scale, Markus Persson became a CEO of Mojang
Specifications, a company formed after he was approached by the gaming
company Valve Corporation, which wanted to integrate his work into its
downloadable games platform, Steam. He and his team still create small-
scale Indie games, but Minecraft has sold more than 24 million copies across
console, Android and PC platforms (Dyer, 2013). Mojang relies on the gam-
ing community for publicity and famously has no employees for marketing,
although it does have a director of fun, who promotes the game and helps
organize the yearly Minecon convention. These members are encouraged to
spread and endorse Minecraft through word of mouth, but unlike the anger
Introduction 3
directed towards Zynga for aggressively enforcing this tactic, respect for
Notch as a solo designer and a gamer in his own right encouraged players
to support Minecraft. Notch’s tolerant attitude towards the modification
(modding) of Minecraft by players influenced subsequent developments in
the game, and allowed a plethora of stories, maps, technical changes to
change the game in one form or another. Notch has frequently champi-
oned the Agile approach to development and frequently added updates that
responded to fan demands. Until 19 November 2011, Minecraft was also
still in beta, and although Notch passed development of the game on to
colleagues, the game continues to be regularly updated with bug fixes and
new content.
Finally, Simon and Lewis are still making webcasts. Most Yogscast vid-
eos, released daily ‘just around teatime’, are viewed by more than 1 million
people. The Yogscast capitalized on the success of Minecraft, writing stories,
playing fan-made maps and discussing various changes to the game made
by both players and Mojang’s development team. However, it also began to
expand with playthroughs of other games, at first including fellow gamer
and third founding member, Hannah Rutherford, and then by employing
friends, former guild members, popular UK webcasters, talented video edi-
tors and Yogscast fans themselves. The main Yogscast channel is the most
subscribed YouTube channel in the UK, and is regularly part of the top ten
in the world, with more than 5 million active subscribers and 2 billion page
views since the videos were first released (July 2013). In 2013 the Yogscast
community employed more than 30 members of staff and had gained a huge
fan following amongst millions of gamers around the world.
Together, Notch, Simon, Lewis, Hannah, and Zynga represent the huge
differences evolving within online gaming communities: a large corporation
creating games that millions of people were happy to play while socializing
on Facebook, until marketing became too aggressive; players who endorse
an obscure title such as Minecraft to the point where Persson was forced to
admit that his company was no longer ‘Indie’ (Makuch, 2012); and support
for the common gamer through the Yogscast, with billions of individual
views on its channels.
In this book, I investigate these changes. I argue that although gamers
have become too large a group to be examined as a cohesive whole, they are
becoming hugely influential in modern cultural practices. The nature of gam-
ers, who are hardwired to play because their intent within games is to play,
means that they are constantly experimenting and toying with the medium.
Although not every gamer is a producer, the gaming community has a huge
investment in perpetuating itself, and is a dynamic force in online society. It
is also a community keenly aware of the stereotypes that surround it, and
although it does not always use these creatively, it does work to explore
them. I argue that the fan-producers and developers who act as spokes-
people for these games are becoming an increasingly powerful element of
gaming culture and have an important role to play in the development of
gaming culture. Even gamers who are not as high profile as The Yogscast or
Notch often work to effect change, express ideas collectively and develop
new modes of gaming activity. Increasingly, gamers have realized that their
consumption and interaction with games and gaming culture can be influ-
ential. As a result, they are turning away from more hegemonic modes of
production and are relying on themselves to provide authoritative voices.
INTRODUCING THE GAMER
Online gaming is a gateway to a hugely diverse community. Millions of peo-

ple log onto their given world every day (or week, or month), and a vast
amount of these people also engage in social interactions that deliberately
surround or have been created for each game. The media generalize about the
players of these games and still cannot resist the unfavorable monikers—the
young, obsessive player of World of Warcraft (2004); the 5-minute housewife
or office worker player who loves Diner Dash (2004); and the slightly over-
enthusiastic couple who met through a guild in Everquest (1999). Even the
games in these examples are tried and tested signifiers of each genre.
Yet even though all of these people exist as stereotypes, they are simply
not an accurate portrayal of the player. Nor is the often repeated definition
of the ‘average gamer’ as 35, lower middle class, white and of either gender
(Cook, 2013; Entertainment Software Association [ESA], 2013; Warr, 2013)
particularly useful, since it is so bland as to be virtually meaningless.
The ‘average online gamer’ is a title that cannot be applied to a genera-
tion, because players include students, young professionals, mothers, retired
silver surfers and children just learning to use the computer. It cannot be
pinned to a specific subculture, because criminals, farmers, swimmers, ago-
raphobics, schoolchildren, dog lovers and hunters, from all ages, social
classes, religions and races, play together. Most importantly, it cannot be
applied to gamers, because the revenue generated from the games industry
has been regularly surpassing cinema releases since 2009 (Chatfield, 2009;
Martin, 2013). This suggests that a vast social demographic are consuming
games, and were the metrics to be reversed, it seems laughable that anyone
would ever try to categorize an ‘average’ moviegoer. In short, the online
community is as diverse as anyone who can access a computer.
The demographic of games has also shifted, accommodating a growing
number of players who have grown up with games, so called ‘silver surfers’
who play games during their retirement, and children who are experiencing
games for the first time. Female players were estimated to be about 40% of
the player base in 2008 (ESA, 2008), and grew to a 45% split in 2013 (ESA,
2013). This is reflected in the diversity of online gaming as well as attempts
to produce more gender-neutral titles.
Free Realms (2009) is specifically a ‘family friendly’ game (Smedley in
Hindman, 2011) and aims to create a new pool of players familiar with
Introduction 5
gaming conventions who will hopefully integrate games into their leisure
activities throughout their lives. The gender-neutral marketing of the game
suggests that gaming companies such as Sony have clearly recognized that
they are trying to attract both sexes in a shared (family) environment, rather
than simply returning to more stereotypical images of the target audience
as male. All these groups, and others, form a disparate audience which can-
not be grouped into one package and which does not have one unanimous
gaming desire.
At the same time, modes of play have emerged in new arenas, and gam-
ing patterns have changed. Jesper Juul (2010) and Mia Consalvo (2009)
have argued persuasively that casual games are often played in what might
be considered a ‘hardcore’ manner. Players investing huge amounts of time
in casual games, which may involve the creation of networks, socializa-
tion and play behaviors such as grinding which in the past have been more
commonly regarded as aspects of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying
Games (MMORPGs). Conversely, gamers in an MMORPG may log on to
do nothing more than socialize or check their post, briefly grind the mini-
mum of materials to add to the communal bank for the raid later in the
week or spend the rest of the evening chatting to people on Ventrilo without
performing any in-game objectives. In this respect the ‘hardcore-casual’ and
‘casual-hardcore’ behaviors are reversed (Consalvo, 2009). There is also
considerable agreement that the casual gaming audience outstrips that of
‘hardcore’ games; the Casual Games Association (CGA) estimates that more
than 340 million people play casual games on a regular basis (Benedetti,
2010; CGA, 2012). Finally, the growth in free-to-play games, download
platforms which supply multiple titles or socially networked games, has
changed where and how players interact with games.
With gaming becoming a more pervasive leisure activity, it should be
unsurprising that it is becoming more acceptable to be a gamer, or so one
would think. During the writing of this book, I read a series of game biogra-
phies with natty titles such as The Elfish Gene (Barrowcliff, 2008), From
Fantasy Freaks to Gamer Geeks (Gilsdorf, 2009), Of Dice and Men (Ewalt,
2013) and Confessions of a Part-Time Sorceress: A Girls’ Guide to the Dun-
geons & Dragons Game (Mazzanoble, 2007), in which the authors redis-
covered their roots in the early gaming scene. Rather impressively, all these
authors seemed to have played Dungeons and Dragons (D&D) with the
original rule book, despite the fact that the first print run consisted of only
1,000 copies. What disappointed me throughout these books (excepting
Mazzanoble, whose book was published by current D&D license holders,
Wizards of the Coast) was the continuous Lacanian Othering of the player
that took place. The author—usually a middle-aged male suffering a self-
confessed mid-life crisis—regarded the gamers he met and interviewed as
carrying on with an obsession (not a hobby) that he had left behind once
the heady days of college, beer and girls had intruded on his fantasy world.
Gamers who had continued to play throughout their lives were regarded with
suspicion. Gilsdorf, early in the struggle to find himself through gaming,
writes a list of issues to which he sees gamers subscribing:
Why Fantasy?
1. Blatant escapism (from problems: emotional, marital, societal-

terrorism, economic)
2. Feelings of powerlessness (relate to 1)
3. Desire not to feel ordinary, to feel ‘heroic’; to feel part of larger
narrative (immortality?). (2009: 41)
The list continues to a tenth point, ‘Regress to childhood / relive childhood’,

and the emphatic, overanxious eleventh point: ‘FYI, this is not me’ (ibid).
It seemed to me that this placement of the gamer was unfair; especially
when compared with the people discussed in this book. If gaming was becom-
ing so all encompassing, why were gamers still seen as reclusive freaks? My
own background has been that of someone who continued to play games
since childhood, and I initially experienced a self-defensive response to the
people suggesting that my way of life was somehow wrong. Yet, condemna-
tion for remaining faithful to a beloved leisure activity seemed rather unfair,
especially when my gaming life seemed so varied—from running player meet-
ups, to raiding with guilds and groups online, to teaching Game Studies at
my university. Fortunately, the huge variety of players that I came across
during my research immediately gave me cause to validate this extremely
diverse suggested perspective, but, despite this, to realize I had picked up a
few bad habits of my own.
Despite my own immersion within various gaming cultures, I still had
a narrow view of the gaming world and its players, separating them into
those with long term experiences with games, and those without; those
who played games consistently, and those who dipped in occasionally. In
my mind, there were ‘good’ and ‘bad’ associations for these activities, ones
which authors such as Rachel Kowert are at pains to dissect and present in
a more diverse light (Kowert, 2013a). These binary, black-and-white, one-
or-the-other assumptions turned out to be very wrong. Some players had
no prior knowledge of the genre and were discovering it for the first time.
Others adamantly refuted the title of ‘gamer’, despite being experts at casual
games or having multiple titles on their Facebook or iPhones. These people
would actively deny that they were playing games, afraid of the stigma, even
when I could actually see the game paused on their smartphone screens or
‘caught them in the act’ during lunch breaks. Others had always wanted to
play games but never had the opportunity. Simon Lane of The Yogscast, who
one might expect to epitomize the geek stereotype, admits he did not really
play D&D as a child. Instead, he ‘used to play it a bit, but never as often as
I wanted to. I mostly sat around reading the rulebooks and dreamt of slay-
ing dragons’ (Lane, 2011). Some gamers had no interest in games beyond
Introduction 7
the one they were playing. Others were too young to have experienced early
games (and sometimes genres of games), or came from cultural backgrounds
that made access to gaming difficult.
From these melting pots, some unexpected results emerged. It was fasci-
nating to observe, for example, players with no knowledge of the conven-
tions of D&D (which many scholars, including myself, see as the birthplace
of modern gaming); for them World of Warcraft set the gaming tropes they
understood, and a good example of a roleplay event was returning Onyxia’s
head in procession, not rolling a die and scoring a ‘natural 20’. Discovery
seemed as important here as a return to or a continuation of gaming, with
gamers able to chart new and interesting patterns without the preconcep-
tions of prior habits or by using old ideas brought back to life. Others,
of course, had no interest in such abstract concepts and simply wanted to
blow things up with guns and space lasers. Finally, there were large groups
of gamers who saw play as a leisure activity, those who were just as likely
to watch the match together as they were to play a version of it on FIFA
(1993–present) or Madden (1998–present). All these sentiments reflected the
huge diversity of people actively playing games, both together and apart, in
the online domain.
TOGETHER WE STAND?
Even from a cursory look at the gamer, it was obvious that generalizing
about gamers was both endemic to gaming academia, media discussions
and throughout the communities themselves. The understanding of ‘gamer’
or ‘gamer community’ was incredibly flawed, full of preconceptions that
simply did not represent the people I was encountering or already knew of
through my own play. Previous delineations about online games and the
people who play them do not work because the demographic and the genre
have become too large. In this book, I focus on online play, but this does
not necessarily mean ‘togetherness’. It is possible to play Minecraft as a lone
adventurer, watch nothing but YouTube videos without actually playing the
game featured or play a single-player game while talking to friends. All
these are versions of group play or take place online and demonstrate the
complexity of assuming that all players respond to games in the same way.
Yet despite this, players like to identify themselves as a unanimous group
and often use unifying terms and concepts when discussing their behavior
with themselves and others. Regardless of their hugely different origins and
behavior online, they are also able to act cohesively—for example through
forums such as Reddit or in response to perceived slights against the commu-
nity at large. Clay Shirky (2008a) describes this behavior in his book Here
Comes Everybody, seeing both the collective action of groups online (for
good or ill) and the collaborative production that results from it as a strong
indicator of online society’s newfound empowerment. The online sphere is an
excellent place to mobilize groups of people, and the information-seeking
nature of the web also allows these groups to rapidly lay their virtual hands
on pertinent information. However, these types of activity also highlight the
anonymity and temporal nature of these groups. As I argue in later chapters,
this can cause confusion and distress to gamers when their understandings
of their own communities are challenged.
One of the questions I seek to answer in this book, therefore, is why gam-
ers are so willing to self-identify as a large community, yet they cannot be
classified as cohesive groups. Gamers are an extremely motivated commu-
nity, with sites such as Kickstarter and protests both for and against the ‘Fake
Gamer Girl’ (Letamendi, 2012) showing that they take an active part in self-
representation, protest and support. Indeed, protests and discussions about
the state of gaming communities in general are commonplace—encouraged
by the fact that gamers like to think of themselves as an emergent minority
that now needs to establish itself as a recognized element of cultural prac-
tice. At the same time, this leads to what Sheri Turkle (2011) calls ‘Alone
Together’, the idea that despite being such a mass of apparently like-minded
people, we are still separate from each other, often dramatically so. Is band-
ing together to bombard feminist Anita Sarkeesian with rape threats a sign
of a newly empowered community? The argument can go both ways, but
this is certainly not a desirable activity. In this book, therefore, I ask whether
there are ways in which such toxic activities can be overcome and how some
games are instigating more formal ways of controlling socialization online
in order to prevent such behaviors.
ONLINE GAMES AS PLAYFUL EXPERIENCES
Gamers take part in a genre where they are constantly encouraged to engage
in various types of play. Famously, Salen and Zimmerman have tried to clas-
sify these types of play, drawing from the many different theories available.
In Rules of Play (2003), they discuss (and in places act out) the various types
of play available. Additionally, they map some of the ways in which players
facilitate and understand play activities. For Game Studies scholars, Rules
of Play helped to identify play as a multifaceted concept, and opened the
discussion out for many subsequent illuminating, daring, prosaic, practical
and downright daft ideas. Because so many people engage in play, on so
many levels, this idea has also been explored across the gaming strata—from
theorists trying to identify critical aspects of Game Studies, bloggers writ-
ing about their own experiences and ideas, and people taking part in games
and trying to remake or break the systems within them. As a concept, play
is therefore incredibly useful to the objectives of this book because it is uni-
versally experienced by academic, journalistic and layperson gamers but, as
I argue, is a unique and personally tailored experience.
The constant struggle to define play and gaming throughout these groups
is testimony to the plethora of options available. No matter what a player
Introduction 9
is doing when they engage with a game, at the centre of this is a version of
play which informs their behavior. However, Frans Mäyra (2009) argues
that ‘games do not exist in separation from their players’, and this can be
seen in multifaceted events, behaviors and understandings that shift from
moment to moment as players navigate their way through gaming experi-
ences. Throughout this book, I argue that it is this attitude to play and play-
ful behavior which causes a fundamental difference in gaming communities
from other cultural groups. It makes players experimental and more willing
to pursue different options. Play carries with it an ethos of ‘not-serious’,
located (for the moment) within Huizinga’s Magic Circle (1954), where
rules can change and different attitudes and actions can be tried on for size.
My argument is that players take this attitude beyond games in a way that
makes them more pro-active, although this tends to be within online envi-
ronments where their identities are shielded, or they are not in the direct,
physical company of other players, which might force them to account for
their behavior in a more immediate manner. In this way more recent ideas
of the magic circle as a malleable construct (Juul, 2005) help the gamer to
explore the potential of playful activity both within and outside of the game
context. This attitude ‘bleeds’ into the real world (Waern, 2011; Montola,
2012), giving players freer rein to try out new ideas with the expectation
that failure or imperfect results are part of the learning process. In short,
the nature of gaming means that players are hardwired to play, and this is
adopted as an ethos which they then use in subsequent modes of production,
from fan-created texts to the aforementioned protests online.
MMORPGs are usually seen as the default type of online game—in fact,
many academic texts use the two terms interchangeably. MMORPGs usu-
ally follow established fantasy or science-fiction conventions and appeal to
players by providing familiar playstyles, statistical attributes and graphic
design. They are also easily recognizable through their traditionalized sys-
temic forms—battles, competitive play, multiple characters and group play
which requires large numbers of people to be present simultaneously. Online
games are also recognized as being largely collective experiences, played in
persistent environments by many people at the same time, thus becoming
a social activity in and of themselves (Klastrup, 2003; Klastrup and Tosca,
2004). Successful MMORPGs generate huge revenues and consist of large
player bases. As such, when online games are mentioned, it tends to be titles
such as World of Warcraft (2004), EVEOnline (2003), City of Heroes (2004)
and Everquest (1999) that are first used as examples, alongside MMORPGs
that involve franchises (Star Wars, The Old Republic [2011], Lord of the
Rings: Online [2007]), or other well-known fantasy tropes (superheroes,
wizards, etc.) which a non-gamer audience might recognise.
World of Warcraft (WoW) is often used to exemplify the success and social
complexity of online games. Now more than a decade old, WoW comprises
a sprawling world of expansion packs and added content, and in its heyday,
generated an income of $100 million a day (PC Gaming Alliance [PCGA],
2010). WoW has played a huge role in defining MMORPG tropes and for
several years has been a key text for Game Studies theorists (e.g. see Cor-
nelliussen and Rettburg-Walker, 2007; Nardi, 2010; Karlsen, 2011; Glas,
2012). However, WoW must be contextualized in terms of other games and
playstyles that exist in the online sphere, especially in more recent years as the
overall player base has expanded and the nature of play has developed in new
directions (for example the Indie scene or social networking games). WoW
also tends to eclipse many other highly successful games in the MMORPG
genre; for example, the free-to-play game Runescape has been running since
2001, has had over 200 million registered user accounts, and plays a major
role in the gaming experience of many younger players who often play Run-
escape aged between 10 and 15 (Edge, 2013; Steinkuehler, forthcoming).
I also consider other forms of online gaming and gamer communities.
One of the core arguments that emerges from this broader context is the
realization that single-player games or games that do not have easy ways for
players to communicate during gameplay, also form thriving online commu-
nities. In the absence of geographical nexus’ for gamers to meet and social-
ize, sites online, both directly game related (such as downloadable content
platforms such as Steam, Desura and X-Box Live) and indirectly (such as
Somethingawful.com and Reddit.com), become places where gamers con-
gregate to discuss their ideas, gameplay and issues.
Online gaming is becoming a huge industry, but it is also becoming a
diverse one. The player of Candy Crush Saga (2012) is probably unlikely
to log into a link-up game of Red Dead Redemption (2010) at the end of a
hard day’s work—although given that it has 44 million individual users on
Facebook as of August 2013 (Appdata, 2013), they might. Online games
are not only diverse, but they cater to specific audiences. The person who
helps his or her friends gather thousands of raeli tiles to make an aqueduct
in A Tale in the Desert (2003) almost certainly considers the tricky, devious
world of ancient Egypt more socially complex than forming a dungeon party
in Age of Conan: Hyborian Tales (2008), and the fan of retro multiplayer
Gauntlet (1985) on Xbox Arcade probably does not feel the need to tell
his or her Mafia Wars (2009) friends how good he or she is at it. The truth
is that these games hardly compare anymore. Like players, online games
have become so broad in scope that grouping them together is becoming
impossible. Even the more specific classifications used in this book—casual,
MMORPG, social, networked, console based—all fall apart under even the
most inexact of scrutiny. Not only is there crossover, but there is hybrid-
ity: MMORPGs based on non-combat, casual games which take months
to complete; console games which rely on large fan-based communities to
succeed; free-to-play games that borrow heavily from puzzle, casual and
Nintendo DS genres; and so on until the list of categorizations becomes
totally meaningless.
More recently, online gaming has changed focus from MMORPGs, and
there has been a dramatic rise in other types of online play. As well as the
‘social’ games covered later in this book, MOBAs (Multiplayer Online Battle
Introduction 11
Arenas) have increasingly dominated online play. These games originate from
a customized Starcraft (1998) map called Aeon of Strife and include Defence
of the Ancients, or DotA (2003; itself a modification of Warcraft III: Reign
of Chaos [2002]); League of Legends (2009); and Team Fortress 2 (2007).
All these games have eclipsed the big MMORPGs in terms of users (Dyer,
2012; Lyons, 2012; Savage, 2013). DotA 2 was so popular that Valve did
not initially recruit new users into the game or release it fully until 2013,
citing its 3 million strong user base as sufficient to sustain it in beta (which
began in 2011), as well as concerns about introducing a new community of
inexperienced players to a very well-established one with a core understand-
ing of the game (Jackson, 2013).
Blizzard’s other major franchises; Starcraft and Diablo (1996), also have
more active users than WoW, and provide focal points for the thriving
e-sports industry (see Taylor, 2012). Games such as the Call of Duty fran-
chise (2003), Left 4 Dead 2 (2009) and Team Fortress 2 (2007) series rely
on online play to quickly gather groups of players together for FPS (First-
Person Shooter) matches, and more traditional board- and card games such
as Dominion (2008), Magic the Gathering (1993), Settlers of Catan (1995)
and Scrabble (1938) have also taken advantage of online play to produce
successful copies of their games.
Online gamers are additionally not limited by platform. Gamers can
get online in a variety of ways; through smartphones, consoles, personal
computers and screen-based technologies technology such as the iPad. This
means that the term online gamer must necessarily extend beyond players
of MMORPGs to anyone who is connected to others during play sessions.
It encompasses a larger variety of genres—from competitive play in Team
Fortress 2 to solo players of Skyrim (see The Elder Scrolls V, 2011), as well
as breaking the traditional view of the MMORPG as the sole recourse of
the online gamer. This definition of the online gamer additionally places
them within other genres such as casual gaming; a medium that is often
seen as secondary to MMORPG or AAA gaming, despite its hugely lucrative
place in the gaming market today. In 2008, Kathy Vrabeck estimated that
the casual gaming market would be worth 13.5 billion dollars (Vrabeck in
Ingham, 2008), a figure that now seems conservative given the vast amount
of people playing online across different genres and platforms. Collectively,
therefore, these gamers point to a need for online gaming to be reassessed as
a popularist cultural activity with a vast amount of permutations.
GETTING TO KNOW YOU?
Perhaps because of the huge boom in socially driven gaming, gamers are
increasingly seeking each other’s company. The period that this book was
written in saw a rise in the popularity of conventions, meet-ups and gam-
ing days. Many of these had been running for several years, but were
increasingly attracting more and more people. Seventy thousand people
attended PAX in Seattle, 2011 (Khoo in Callaham, 2011), and in the United
Kingdom, 65,000 went to Eurogamer (Eurogamer, 2013) and 70,200 peo-
ple attended MCMExpo in London (MCMExpo, 2013). These events were
characterized by their friendly atmosphere—an attitude that is discussed
in more detail later. The gamers in attendance appeared, for the most part,
to be tolerant and interested in other people, willing to talk to each other
in queues, on escalators, or when playing games. The rules written on the
attendee pass at PAX reflected this: ‘No cheating!’ ‘Don’t harass anyone!’
‘Don’t mess with stuff that is not yours!’ The crossover between real life
and gaming life was epitomized by rule 4, ‘Don’t punch or kick people!’,
suggesting a shared discourse which promoted a tongue-in-cheek atti-
tude towards rules, appropriate social behavior, and common sense. The
interesting transition in the rules between social and functional rule sys-
tems are discussed further in subsequent chapters and is explored in more
depth elsewhere (MacCallum-Stewart, 2009, 2011b). On a smaller scale,
the three sessions of the boardgame event Players vs. Games that supported
research within this book attracted growing numbers of people—including
interest from larger sponsors who wanted to be involved in promoting
their products at a grass-roots level, as well as spawning satellite groups
that began in more distant towns. The need for gamers to reach out to
each other in a more tangible way—and to feel more comfortable in doing
this—seems to be increasing.
Although old prejudices about the gamer being a lonely, socially inept
obsessive still remain, often supported by the focus that a game requires
and bolstered by media that find this representation irresistible, it is obvious
that these attitudes are changing. Gaming is simply too large a medium now
for the press to continue alienating players who also comprise their reader-
ship. When a player is socializing online with others, to the observer they
may appear introverted as they concentrate on the game in hand, however
this is not always the case. Games designers are factoring social interaction
into their games far more, since it helps to retain players and prolong con-
tent (especially if the player is socializing rather than advancing the game).
Increasingly, socialization is becoming an essential (and lucrative) part of
gaming and is built into many designs as a deliberate attempt to keep gamers
playing. Games facilitate strong relationships and group ties (Nardi, 2010;
Taylor, 2008); as a result, designers have come to realize that retaining play-
ers through social means is a useful way to generate revenue (Debeauvais
et al., 2011; Blumental, 2013). Most online games contain extensive tools
for group play, as well as tools which allow longer-term relationships to
form. MMORPG, FPS games and MOBAs rely on cooperative play through
the individualization of roles, meaning that players have to interact with
each other in order to reach shared goals. The shared-goal theme is often
taken by other less obviously social games, in which sharing or gift econo-
mies are created in order to foster social links. Competitive and single-player
Introduction 13
online games are also increasingly adding functions whereby players can
communicate either during or after play.
However, assuming that the communities formed are harmonious can
lead to an overly positive picture of the game as a Utopian social space,
and from the early studies of gaming communities, a more reasoned line
of enquiry has evolved. As Bogost argues, ‘instead of standing outside the
world in utter isolation, games provide a two way street through which play-
ers carry subjectivity in and out of the game space’ (2006: 135), and Dyer-
Witheford and de Peuter continue this cautiousness in Games of Empire, in
which their discussion of the online gaming community ‘does not assume
that socialisation for the prevailing social order is benign, instead . . . games,
and the discourses surrounding them [are] vectors of contending interests
and agendas, and inculcat[e] skills that can serve—but also potentially
subvert—established norms’ (2009: xxvii).
Players do not simply socialize in order to make friends and attachments.
They also use these networks to grief, steal, offend and manipulate each other.
Kozinets argues that ‘the pattern of relationship development in an online
community is one in which task-orientated and goal-orientated informa-
tional knowledge is developed in concert with social and cultural knowledge
and social relationships’. (2010: 27). As a result, ‘fact based information is
learned alongside knowledge of the online community’s specialized language
and sensitized concepts, norms, values, rituals, practises, preferences, and
the identities of experts and other group members . . . a group structure of
power and status relationships is learned. What began primarily as a search
for information transforms into a source of community and understanding’
(ibid.; see also Kozinets, 1999). This is important, becuase Kozinets’s argu-
ment leaves room for other types of communities that form quickly or tem-
porarily. The online MOBA DotA 2, for example, is a game in which teams of
players fight each other in short player-versus-player (PvP) battles that last
between 20 minutes and an hour. The game has been praised for its ability to
have millions of players active at the same time; at 17:00 GMT on 23 August
2013, 441,012 people were playing DotA 2 (Steam, 2013). Communication
in this game is fleeting, and at first glance, it seems that the relationships
formed are temporary; lasting merely the duration of each match. However,
the opportunity to communicate is evident throughout both the play phases
and the main splash screens between games. Players enter a chatroom when
they are matched together in a game in order to greet each other and to dis-
cuss character choice and pre-game tactics. They are able to chat during the
match and again when the game has finished in another shared chat space.
Much of the advertising for the game on the main splash pages promotes
e-sport battles and highlights specific teams, suggesting that the game is
played more effectively with group members who know each other. Live events
and webcasts are hosted by chatty, informal presenters who not only give
news and current events from the game but also emphasize human interest
stories or spotlight individual players. Overall, a game which appears to
comprise ephemeral meetings from match to match encourages its players
to form strong networks in order to strengthen meaning within the group
activities it comprises. And yet, as Bogost and Dyer-Witheford foresaw, the
community is well known amongst gamers for its aggressive, unforgiving
player base and dislike of new players (DotA Team, 2013).
Activities such as this, whereby good social relations are not only encour-
aged, but elements to sustain them are also provided as an integral part of
the design process, are becoming common aspects of gaming online. They
acknowledge that groups have formed outside of gameplay and demonstrate
how game design tries to manipulate players into forming certain types of
relationships. If the spectrum of online gaming is a diverse one, it also means
that the people who take part in it must also epitomize that diversity, both
in the ways that they play and in the ways in which they relate to the game.
These relationships are heavily influenced by the type of world the player
exists in. In Lord of the Rings: Online (LOTR:O; 2007), players are accus-
tomed to negotiating their avatars within semiotically social and homely
areas, from guild houses which comprise separate instances to the quest
hub town of Bree, where activities are focused on the inn, The Prancing
Pony. LOTR:O lends itself towards roleplay because of its setting in Tolk-
ien’s imaginative world of Middle Earth. Players recognize this from the
films they have seen and the books they have read, and respond accord-
ingly (Krzywinska et al., 2011). On the other hand, Super Street Fighter IV
(2010) players rarely communicate in game, since the online play is rapid
and requires a high level of concentration; however, the technical prowess
needed to play well means that the game supports a thriving e-sports com-
munity and discussion forums where players analyze play, provide technical
breakdowns of each character’s moves and suggest playstyles. Café World
(2009) players rarely speak to each other in any context, but visit other
people’s restaurants and recruit players into their social networks because
they gain needed experience points or ludically beneficial objects as a result.
This relationship among the narrative of the game, the ways it directs play-
ers to behave and the social behavior it entails is symbiotic but strangely
under-recorded. These are social narratives this book will start to unpick.
Online worlds are what Tanya Krzywinska (2008) calls ‘rich texts’. They
contain detailed worldscapes which are deliberately open to multiple inter-
pretations, and allow a variety of play styles through ‘deliberately planted
intertexts [which] encourages a certain type of in-depth engagement with the
game’ (Krzywinska, 2008: 124). MMORPGs are specifically designed to be
complex, with large internal narratives and several modes of play, encouraging
a variety of player types and behaviors. A rich world compensates for the fact
that players want different things from the game by trying to provide as many
of them as possible. Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011) is a fairly typical
example. The game contains solo play, in-depth storylines which encourage
roleplay, group play and shared dungeons (instances), PvP arenas and quest
hubs which also contain cantinas (Star Wars’ slang for a bar) where they can
Introduction 15
meet or simply rest. Social networking games are usually not rich texts, but
they contain elements that help players to adopt various different approaches
(although some of these may be rather illusory). Online console games vacillate
somewhere in between. They tend to have more linear play structures; obey a
more traditional pattern and are usually composed of single-player game titles
or competitive multiplayer games, but this does not stop multiple gameplay
styles from being used, including those created by the live community. So for
example a game of FIFA can be played with different objectives—to win a
championship, to grind points, to best a friend or to scale the online rankings.
The rich texts of online worlds are further complicated by letting players
loose upon them. These unruly sons, daughters, wives and grandfathers of
the Xbox generation promptly start engaging in emergent play, misinter-
preting things which may have seemed obvious to the designers, exploiting
content for their own ends, complaining, griefing, meeting people, satiriz-
ing holy cows, having sex with each other, designing things to change the
game, discussing the game in person, making webcasts and podcasts and
machinima and guides, doing whatever it was they were originally supposed
to and so on and so forth. In short, online games and rich texts cannot exist
without players to bring them alive, and this is probably the most exciting,
exuberant aspect of studying them.
PLAYERS VERSUS GAMES?
In this book, I present online communities as rich texts in themselves. I argue

that the sociable nature of videogaming, which has been a factor from its
inception, has led to the development of complex communities. These com-
munities now play an active role in the formation of the game itself. Most
importantly, this exists as much outside the text of the game as it does when
the player is engaged in play. This is because gamers need to share their
experiences. They often do so in creative ways which ultimately affect the
ways in which a game is understood. This includes the assumption that even
a single-player game has the potential to become a shared experience. If this
shared experience does not take place when the player is engaging with the
game, they will often find ways to do it elsewhere.
Unlike many other studies on the subject, I focus primarily on gamers
working beyond the core text of the game. This includes designers, fans and
other creatives. These people often change the original text in some way, be
it through design, modification, narrative, roleplay or emergent play. Work
is shared, either as a spectacle or as a collaborative piece, in order that
players can develop the text further or to showcase how they have altered
it. I look at the behavior and responses to these groups, and examine how
gaming is starting to change as a result. Extensive support systems that exist
outside of the game are examined, as well as the people who are moving to
the forefront of gaming as core (re)producers of fan or derivative texts.
OVERVIEW
Chapter 1 traces some of the ways that group play has evolved in roleplaying
games. This locates the book, and its case studies, within a diverse cultural
sphere that extends beyond the virtual. I refute the stereotype of the gamer
as an isolated, antisocial loner and argue that his trope does not hold water
when compared to the current demographic of the gamer. Gaming has had a
collaborative, competitive element since its inception. The playful nature of
gaming has always allowed players to experiment and change games, even
if this does not always affect the core text. Structured roleplay such as that
experienced in games like D&D (Arneson and Gygax, 1974) has a much
greater role to play than is usually acknowledged, since many of the core
tropes of online roleplaying games derive from it. In addition, rediscovering
ways to express these tropes within games such as Minecraft is key to the
ways in which the later case studies construct their stories. Finally, a note
of caution acknowledges that although tabletop and live-action roleplaying
(LARP) games are hugely influential, many players do not approach them
as a primary text. D&D is approaching its 40th year and permeates many
roleplaying texts both on- and offline; however, it is the rediscovery of these
tropes and stories that is helping the boom in creative outputs within gaming
fan communities.
Chapter 2 summarizes the key terms and theoretical perspectives used
within this book. I examine different understandings of the term community
and discuss how these can be used. I also question the problematic nature
of defining communities online and highlight how a lack of quantifiable
identity is both a curse and a blessing to the researcher. In this chapter, I also
interrogate core terms such as online gaming and discuss the active nature of
the ‘playing gamer’. A brief literature review of current research methods is
included to contextualize how online communities are regarded and studied
by recent scholars.
Chapters 3 through 5 provide examples of gaming communities and
discuss how these are affecting the ways that games are understood and
consumed. I present four interlinked groups which range in size, scope and
ethos, and discuss how collectively, they exhibit some of the changing pat-
terns in gaming culture. Chapter 3 discusses the rise of pod- and webcasting
(collectively called ‘casting’), a popular method of transmitting discussion
and narrative about games. It also examines how casting allows players
to re-inscribe core texts and present new meanings to individual games,
through replacing their narratives or reinterpreting them in different ways.
The role of the caster as an informant and a spokesperson for the ‘average’
gamer is also discussed, alongside some of the contradictions and problems
that this entails.
Chapter 4 develops this idea further with a more in-depth examination of
the fan-producer and his or her relationship to the gaming text. By examin-
ing one of these groups in detail (The Yogscast), I examine how fan studies
Introduction 17
can be used to comprehend the new role of fan-producers and their relation-
ship to gamers. Through this, I also examine how gamers create celebrities
within their own cultures, a rather different process to that seen in other
media. The role of the everyman and of authenticity is discussed in relation
to online personas and the ways they represent community beliefs.
Chapters 5 and 6 problematize the stability of online gaming communi-
ties by examining the ‘Indie’ gaming scene and its relationship to gamers and
fan producers and by asking whether this is an illusory society. The Indie
(meaning ‘Independent’) gaming scene is championed by many players yet
used in very specific and different manners across gaming spheres. I exam-
ine the occurrence of the Indie moniker through various iterations includ-
ing its representation on Valve Corporation’s download platform Steam;
through the Humble Indie bundle, a charitable organization that donates
to real world charities as well as supporting Independent developers; and
through the Indie game Minecraft. Chapter 6 develops some of these con-
flicting issues by using the case study of the development of Minecraft and its
community, ending with an investigation into collisions between the public
and private aspects of Indie gaming at the Minecon 2011 convention, when
the cohesive nature of the community was called into question by real-world
interactions, causing huge destablilization.
Chapter 7 develops this idea of illusory or broken communities, by exam-
ining some of the more underhand techniques that designers use to restrict
community interaction and by investigating how the gaming community
tries to police itself in a moral sense. This includes some restrictions that are
felt to be necessary—for example the control over communication placed
on large, free-to-play MMORPGs aimed at children—and some which are
created to provide an ‘illusion’ of community which encourages players to
exist in spaces which semiotically endorse the metonyms of communal activ-
ity, yet do not bring players together. Instead, these games encourage false
or temporary networks to form which are entirely based around ideas of
reciprocal gifting and personal gain. I also investigate how the community
destabilizes itself through issues such as debates surrounding representation
and gender in gaming, which have met with mixed, and often disturbing
results from players themselves.
In this book, therefore, I look at a variety of different interpretations by
groups of players, as well as reflect on some of the inherent design which
allows these choices to be made. I take the popular idea of ‘alone together’
(Turkle, 2011) in which players are considered to be fundamentally self-
interested, regardless of input, and apply this separately to different types
of games—those which specifically promote the idea of community and
those from which communities appear to have grown spontaneously. Does
‘alone together’ work when applied to the current state of gaming communi-
ties? Which games exclude, and why do others embrace communities? Does
this self-imposed barrier hold up when games are scrutinized in the light of
community practice? What are these communities actually doing, and how
do they represent themselves? What contribution do fans and communities
have within this formation? How do communities decide on spokespeople
and heroes—and how do these heroes rise? How do familiar tropes and
ideas help these communities stay together, and what role do previous texts
play in this? In doing so, I hope to broaden the current understanding of
Game Studies to incorporate other aspects of New Media theory, including
recent work on Fan Studies and from within Game Studies itself. I hope to
suggest that while some aspects of gaming communities can be destructive,
self-interested and unstable, there is also considerable evidence to suggest
that gamers are working towards positive representations of themselves, as
well as becoming a vibrant, empowered force within game development and
cultural output.
Finally, this book is also, by its very nature, a period piece. From my origi-
nal roots in cultural history, it is difficult not to see the rapid changes taking
place within gaming culture over the time of writing as simply another stage
in the rich history of Gaming. Several major elements in this book had to be
revised because of changes that happened during its writing. The most nota-
ble was the rise and decline of Facebook gaming, but others have included my
relative luck in choosing The Yogscast as one of the four original case studies
and being allowed to track its members’ unprecedented success. I have lost
count of the times that Lewis Brindley has grumbled over the outdated sta-
tistics or that I have had to revise viewing figures for The Yogscast channel.
The internet is also a fickle mistress, with users emigrating very quickly from
one technology or platform to another. Online users; gamers especially, are
early adopters of new developments (Cheng et al., 2004). As the book was
written, genres rose and fell, as did the games du jour. The longtime darling of
MMORPGs, World of Warcraft, began to look tired, with the Mists of Pan-
daria expansion of 2012 a clear attempt to gather a younger crowd of players
as a diminishing pool of subscribers faded away. MOBAs began to take their
place, alongside a consistent improvement in solo gaming with titles such as
Mass Effect 3 (2012), The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) and The Last of
Us (2013), several of which were subsequently opened out for the modding
community to develop and experiment upon. Facebook games were replaced
by Android apps, boardgames suddenly experienced a huge rise in popular-
ity, webcasting became the stuff of student dissertations and YouTube under-
went so many changes in its Terms of Service that it is almost unrecognizable
from when I initially started work in 2010. I have no doubt that by the time
of publication, newer technologies, games and platforms will be jostling for
space, eclipsing some (or all) of those studied here. I hope, however, that this
proves a useful timepiece for the developments in online gaming, and helps
to suggest ways forward in the future. While online gaming has changed dra-
matically, it is still hard to imagine a point at which the player will not have
an increasingly important role in the development, production and validation
of gaming culture.
1 A Brief History of Online
Gaming—or Not
Companies come and go, games drop off the shelves every year—only
the hobby remains.
—Mackay (2001: XIV)
The growth of digital games has been well chronicled. These histories have
helped the fledgling arena of Game Studies assert itself by providing a solid
background to gaming as a medium in its own right and by giving the devel-
opment of games a historical, cultural, aesthetic and artistic backdrop. A
standard reading of this critical development might read something like the
following.
Histories of games are not in short supply, with notable mentions to
Poole (2000), Kent (2002), Choquet (2002), King and Borland (2003),
Newman (2004), Dovey and Kennedy (2006), Rutter and Bryce (2006)
and Donovan (2010). These books exist alongside a plethora of less pro-
fessional, but no less detailed, fan sites such as Classic Gaming; museums
(both present and virtual) which aim to collect or simply reproduce past sys-
tems including Video Game Museum (2000–present), TheGameConsole.
com, Bruce Damer’s Digibarn computer museum (1998–present), emula-
tors which reproduce older games and systems on modern machines such
as Classic Games Arcade, Emulator Zone and CoolRom; magazines such
as Retro Gamer; and podcasts such as Retro Gaming Roundup and Twitch
Asylum. Game Studies as an academic discipline, unsurprisingly, follows
the development of digital games closely; it gathered pace as computer
games and consoles rose to popularity in the 1990s and gradually became
a core part of many New Media and media-related departments. Intellec-
tual discussions about games moved research away from the moral panics
associated with game play or violent/antisocial content, and started to
look at them as systems or cultural artefacts. In the late 1990s, authors
including Sherry Turkle (1995), Espen Aarseth (1997), Marie-Laure Ryan
(1999) and Janet Murray (1998) helped develop a rich theoretical corpus
from which to ground this emerging discipline and to establish games as
a subject worthy of study in their own right. Game Studies as a discipline
began to evolve into a solid body of varying perspectives, with researchers
using previous theories such as Huizinga’s (1954) magic circle or Roger
Caillois’s (1961) definitions of game types, and was most notably influ-
enced by the publication of Rules of Play by Katie Salen and Eric Zim-
merman (2003) and founding critical events such as the establishment of
the Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA; 2003). Research also
borrowed from many different subjects, including those evolving from
emergent Internet and virtual studies as well as the more familiar disci-
plines of sociology, media studies, adaptation and computer sciences. This
research recognized the growing complexity of games at the same time as
game developers began to discover new audiences ready for richer gaming
experiences, as well as technological advances in consoles and machines
capable of providing richer texts. Academics began to challenge the early
theories and to expand their work beyond the rather binary debates of
narratology versus ludology, in order to accommodate the growing com-
plexity of games, gamers, development, play and game systems. At present,
gaming has entered an era whereby many players have been brought up
as gamers, and Game Studies is securing itself as a discipline in its own
right, more frequently in possession of scholars raised solely on its internal
theories and debates rather than those who have migrated into the field
from elsewhere. Game Studies is a complex and vibrant area of critical and
theoretical debate now able to express itself through the perspective of an
established scholarly mindset.
This is a useful model for Game Studies, since it acknowledges that the
discipline has developed significantly to the point where it is capable of being
relatively self-contained. However, it also takes the history of games and
gaming theory along very specific paths. Although this is not necessarily a
bad thing, it does mean that a traditional narrative of Game Studies, and by
default, the history and the theoretical perception of games, has emerged.
For early histories of games and gaming theory, one issue dominated: the
need to validate gaming as a cultural discourse worthy of study. As a result,
very specific modes of discussing the development of games occurred. These
included exhaustive histories of gaming, regardless of the context, that privi-
leged digital games over other mediums. As critical voices began contextual-
izing these modes, the histories were replaced with specific examples around
which theory and analysis would cluster. A sort of informal canon of gaming
texts evolved. Most notable amongst these are Tetris (1984), Tomb Raider’s
Lara Croft (1996), The Sims (2000) and World of Warcraft (2004). Apart
from Tetris, all these games express key points of tension in games: Tomb
Raider introduced female players and feminist writing to gaming, The Sims
was a non-aggressive lifestyle simulation which became an unprecedented
hit, and World of Warcraft was at the forefront of changing gaming into a
ubiquitous, social experience. Tetris, one of the most pervasive and influen-
tial puzzle games ever made, is frequently used as an example by scholars
and, as such, has become a sort of academic shorthand on which to ground
various ludic and procedural arguments. For reasons discussed later in this
A Brief History of Online Gaming 21
book, it is also likely that Minecraft will also join this list, an irony of which
the author is not wholly unaware.
As Game Studies has developed, so too has the range of texts falling
under its remit. At first this took the form of investigating different digital
genres. As gaming developed, clear strands in serious gaming and gaming
for health have evolved away from Game Studies, often circling back to
earlier discussions already in existence such as game theory, games for edu-
cation or business and management simulations. Game scholars have also
started to investigate comparable genres, including Live-Action Roleplaying
(LARP or LRP; Stenros and Montola, 2010), pervasive gaming (Montola,
Stenros and Waern, 2009; Waern, 2012), tabletop gaming (Bowman, 2010)
and machinima (Lowood and Nitsche, 2011), while other scholars are
drawing attention games or gaming genres that have hitherto received little
attention, sports games and e-sports (Conway 2010a; Taylor 2012), puzzle
games (Wirman, 2009) and kuso-ge (literally ‘shitty game’, and involving
the deliberate seeking out and recording of poor quality or buggy games;
Flynn-Jones, 2014). These studies recognize the growing diversity of games,
as well as the expanding canon of available play locations beyond digital
realms.
Player studies have also developed significantly. From early investiga-
tions (or refutations) of the player as an important part of the game itself,
player studies are now a commonplace element of Game Studies. Research
varies from autoethnographic to quantitative, encompassing a wide range of
debates and perspectives along the way. However, to exhaustively chronicle
all these developments, methods and studies would not only become a book
in itself but would merely express the chaotic development of Games, or
Games Studies, rather than being of direct relevance.
I want to argue within this chapter that the accepted mode of histor-
izing digital games and its concurrent scholarship needs to be contextual-
ized more fully within the broader remit of gaming cultures. In this respect,
my research echoes that of an earlier scholar. Samuel Hynes’s (1992) work
about the experience of soldiers in the First World War argues for a more
heteroglossic picture of warfare. Hynes argues that an inadvertent ‘myth of
the war’ has arisen, in which the perspectives of the few have unwittingly
obscured those of the many. In his case, the experience of World War I is
often contextualized solely through the war poets of Great Britain, who
served mainly in the trenches of Northern France and Belgium. He calls this
‘not a falsification of reality, but an imaginative version of it, the story of the
war that has evolved, and has come to be expected as true’ (Hynes, 1992: x).
Hynes argues, persuasively, that although these poets do speak a measure
of truth, it is also obscured by a very specific cultural placement, as well
as being presented in a stratified discourse (which Paul Fussell [1975] calls
‘High Diction’) that does not necessarily reflect the experiences of all men at
war. Poetry is not reality, and it is a mistake to simply regard one battlefront
as indicative of the whole war.
This chapter, rather than striving for a comprehensive history of a single
thread, therefore aims to identify how developments in various aspects of
gaming and gaming culture have influenced gamers. It specifically argues
two things. First, gaming and geek culture need to be considered as trans-
medial and synchronous. Many elements influence online players and the
games they play that are not necessarily derived from a chronological his-
tory, and when we do use that history, we need to be aware that there are
no definite stop and start points (specifically, core texts such as Dungeons &
Dragons do not presage the end of a genre’s consumption). Second, with
new generations of gamers entering the fray, we should not assume that
their understanding of games comes alongside a fully fledged historical per-
spective of the growth of gaming or that it follows the pathways dictated
by historicized texts of these events. Instead, gamers enter gaming through
a variety of non-traditional gateways, which may mean that their under-
standing of gaming is partially incomplete, or draws semiotically from later
texts rather than from the historically inscribed origin texts. In this respect,
histories of gaming can be misleading, because they often seem to assume
specific points of transition or that texts such as videogames are consumed
in isolation. This chapter therefore examines some of the influences that dif-
ferent types of games have had on online gaming, as well as arguing for an
imperfect understanding of this by their players.
NAME THE QUEST: THE INFLUENCE OF TABLETOP

AND ROLEPLAYING GAMES
The story of Dungeons & Dragons does not belong exclusively to its
creators, but to the vast network of enthusiasts . . . who received and
interpreted the work.
—Peterson (2012: xv)
One of the central behaviors analyzed in this book is the creation of nar-
ratives and stories by players. Although this is largely examined through
online gaming, many of the tropes used by players are drawn from a much
wider pool of reference. Ludically, many online and adventure games engage
with a set of motifs, procedures and terminology which are derived from
tabletop and roleplaying games, a genre which has permeated online gam-
ing. The core text within this is undoubtedly Dungeons & Dragons (D&D),
and, as the section-opening quotation from Peterson acknowledges, it also is
steeped in a tradition of alteration and development by players.
Although Dungeons & Dragons was by no means the first tabletop role-
playing game, it is universally recognized as the most influential. Designed
by Gary Gygax and David Arneson, and originally titled The Fantasy Game
(1973), D&D was developed from a miniatures wargaming title called
Chainmail (Gygax and Peren, 1970). D&D initially used the Chainmail
method of resolving combat, but as a supplemental element, it introduced
aspects such as character classes, experience points, level advancement,
armour class, and new, fantastic monsters (Arneson, 1979). In 1974, 2,000
copies of the game (which might today be called an expansion rather than
a game in its own right) were released. They sold out within the year. This
first edition of the game assumed that players already knew and understood
the mechanics of Chainmail, but it was popular enough to merit revision.
The game and its rules were cleaned up and published in a new, more com-
prehensible version in 1977 as the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set. Impor-
tantly, this version made the game more accessible to non-wargamers, as
well as being presented in a box that made it easy to retail in toy stores. In
1978, the Basic Set was revised again and became Advanced Dungeons &
Dragons (AD&D), once again bringing together revisions, new rules and
options within the game and expanding its potential for self-directed play
beyond the remit of the basic rule set. AD&D was supported by regular
updates; supplemental books detailing new rules, monsters and spells, as
well as ‘modules’ which provided players with short adventure scenarios
through which they could play.
The game was a huge hit, and has several things in common with the
growth of online gaming. It had a dedicated fanbase, willing to share infor-
mation through fanzines and gaming newsletters such as Owl and Weasel
(Jackson and Livingstone, 1975–7) and White Dwarf (Games Workshop,
1977–present). Ludically, the game also introduced core aspects of game-
play still seen today: statistical attributes based on personal traits such as
strength, stamina, charisma, intelligence, dexterity, wisdom and consti-
tution; a pool of points from which the player drew when casting spells;
hit points to determine how much health players had in combat; charac-
ter classes which determined what sort of career path a player had chosen
to take; and abilities or spells which the player could chose to accompany
these. The game also included restrictions, some classes could not perform
certain actions, their moral compass (or ‘alignment’) determined how they
might behave or respond others, and the clothes they wore were limited by
their profession. However, although the rules were complex, the scenarios
of AD&D were not set in stone, and the game encouraged players to move
beyond the confines of the text and to explore, create and tell stories about
their own worlds and characters.
D&D’s release structure also mirrors the way that many games are mar-
keted today, with the basic game followed by updates and additional con-
tent for players to buy separately. The game itself was open to revision;
often through suggestions by dedicated fans or friends of the authors, and
flexible enough that new elements or additions could be added, while old
ones could be modified or discarded. Supplements to the game allowed
players to follow prescribed storylines, encouraging them to spend fre-
quently and often, and to sustain their interest in the game beyond the ini-
tial play sessions. A mixed spread of authors for different modules ensured
that content remained interesting and contained a variety of playstyles,
from heavy dice rolling to more imaginative, character-based interactions.
This, by the variation that the game allowed, in turn encouraged players to
develop their own worlds.
Most game histories tend to stop here. AD&D is seen as a forerunner
to the digital revolution in gaming rather than a gaming system with a
huge subsequent history. D&D is seen as a pioneering text, but somewhat
surprisingly, there is little writing about the plethora of games that follow
in its wake. Neil Tringham covered the topic in The Encyclopaedia of Sci-
ence Fiction (Clute and Nicholls, 2011) and later developed this in his own
book, A First Survey: Science Fiction and Hobby Games (2013), the title of
which should serve to indicate just how rare these discussions have been.
Several books now trace the relationship between digital games and early
roleplaying games (RPG). Playing at the World (Peterson, 2012) provides
an extremely detailed discussion of how D&D evolved from various sources
and went on to become the lynchpin of tabletop gaming, David Ewalt’s Of
Dice and Men (2014) somewhat less so. Michael Tresca (2010) takes a
broader look at the evolution of various game dynamics in the RPG, but
again his discussion of tabletop RPGs veers towards LARP and Computer
Roleplaying Games (CRPGs) at the conclusion of his book. Matt Barton’s
Dungeons and Desktops tracks the development of the CRPG in the wake
of tabletop gaming, debating the changes that online games and CRPGs
have enabled. King and Borland’s (2003) Dungeons and Dreamers specifi-
cally links the success of D&D to the development of Richard Garriott’s
pioneering Ultima series and large-scale anthologies such as Debugging
Game History (Lowood and Gains, 2014), and Kerr et al. (2014) include
sections on the history of tabletop gaming, roleplaying and war games.
These more general texts are increasingly including sections detailing the
actions or historical lineage of roleplay in order to provide context for
gaming design and player behavior, recognizing the importance of regard-
ing tabletop games as predecessors to their virtual counterparts. However,
like D&D, many of these books find themselves bogged down with the
sheer breadth needed to simply chart one example and do not pick up on
the more collective understanding of tabletop gaming as comprising many
subsequent texts or chart the development of roleplaying alongside that of
online communities. Most of the books listed here are therefore delineated
by their tendency to abandon tabletop roleplaying games in favor of their
virtual counterparts, suggesting that tabletop games were abandoned, with
videogaming taking its place.
However, tabletop gaming has developed into a huge industry of its
own. In the years following the release of D&D, the popularity of these
games has fluctuated, but as the genre approaches its fifth decade, there have
been significant changes since the original versions. Games have expanded
to include new systems and topics, inventing their own rules and allow-
ing players to experiment with new ideas. Some closely aped D&D, for
example, the ‘grim and perilous world of adventure’ depicted in Warham-
mer Fantasy Roleplaying (1986), whereas others took the game into the
worlds of Lovecraftian Horror (Call of Cthuhlu, 1981), steampunk (Castle
Falkenstein, 1994), vampires and other mythical races (Vampire, the Mas-
querade, 1991), space opera (Trinity, 1997) and a thousand other worlds.
Others allowed the players to develop their own systems around generic or
basic roleplaying systems—GURPS (General Universal Roleplaying System;
1986), Basic Roleplaying (1980), Fudge (1992) and FATE (Fantastic Adven-
tures in Tabletop Experiences; 2003) are games which provide rules and
structures intended for the Games Master (GM) and players to experiment
with different settings and modes of play. Still others, including James Wal-
lis’s Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), Lady Blackbird (2009) and
The Dresden Files (2011), are small Indie titles in which players experiment
with a specific game dynamic or concept (telling outrageous fibs, courtly
love, novel dice systems such as Fudge or FATE). Finally, D&D itself has
continued to develop in the decades that have passed since its initial release.
New editions have changed the game, making it, in turn, both more and less
complex. Some elements, including the ‘Harlot’ random encounters table
(see Sturrock, 2014), overly sexualized art for female characters, and the
writerly assumption that the player is male and heterosexual, have been
removed in favor of a more balanced approach. Rules have changed and
new monsters, classes, dice rolls and modules continue to provide flavour
and excitement. Spin-offs such as the Pathfinder (2009) game have further
attempted to revisit the rules of the game and change them into more wieldy
systems, and of course, the game has been modified, curtailed, ignored,
exploited, argued over and re-imagined by thousands and thousands of
groups playing around the world.
All these games, including those bastardized versions played uniquely
by gaming groups, have had a huge influence on the subsequent develop-
ment of videogaming, as well as card, board and other fantasy/science-
fiction genres. The recent rise in new boardgames, for example, sees many
familiar tabletop or miniatures games adapted for different modes of play.
Fantasy Flight Games have revisited popular tabletop titles such as Call of
Cthuhlu (1981) and Blood Bowl (1987) through revised versions of the
games themselves, and boardgames using the same worldspheres. These
re-imaginings of each system blend turn-based gameplay with cards or
boards with colourful ‘flavour text’ which allows players to immerse them-
selves in the game. The Call of Cthuhlu titles include Arkham Horror
(2005), a sprawling cooperative boardgame in which players have to patrol
the streets of Lovecraft’s Arkham, shutting gates and collecting items; Man-
sions of Madness (2011), in which players and a GM use a large board
rather like a Cluedo set to pit their wits (and Deep Ones) against each other;
and Elder Sign (2011), a smaller game in which players collect tokens by
rolling dice and battling monsters inside the Miskatonic University. Fantasy
Flight also publish several older games which have remained stalwarts of
fantasy gaming; Talisman was first published in 1998 and remains popular,
again having seen a series of re-adjustments and updates to improve or
slightly alter play, and they have converted popular franchises such as The
Lord of the Rings, Star Wars and Game of Thrones into boardgames or
collectible card games.
HAVING AN LARP
OGRE: Aargh!
WIZARD #1: Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt! Lightning
Bolt! Lightning Bolt!
WIZARD #2: Sleep!
WIZARD #1: Lightning Bolt! Lightning Bolt!
WIZARD #2: Sleep!
WIZARD #1: Lightning Bolt!
OGRE: Death!
WIZARD: Death!
OGRE: Urghhh! (Dies).
—‘Lightning Bolt’ (Tidbot, 2003)
The best way to end the weird feeling we get about certain fandoms
and sub-cultures is to talk with people who love them. Try to under-
stand why they feel so passionately about dressing up like an animal, or
swinging around replicas of swords and shields.
In most cases these people enjoy their hobby for the same reason we
love ours, and it’s stupid to draw some line in the sand about how it’s
cool to be one fictional creature and lame to be another. It’s a rare board,
roleplaying, or video game that you can explain to someone with no
knowledge of the hobby without sounding very weird.
—Kuchera (2013)
LARP has been a neglected area of study because of the sheer difficulty of
doing so, both historically and sociologically. While studies of tabletop
players tend to be of small groups of friends, often known to the author
(e.g. Fine, 1983; Brown, 2013), dedicated clubs who play regularly together
(Holmes, 1981) or those observed at conventions (Mackay, 2001; Gilsdorf,
2009), there is no easy way to observe LARP without participating. This pro-
vides specific ethical and research challenges of which observer-participants
must be aware. In addition, LARPers are far more cautious about their
hobby, worried that their behavior ‘in the field’ might be misconstrued or
have a detrimental effect on their social lives and careers if others were to
become aware of it. While tabletop roleplay is seen as geeky, LARP is seen
(by participants and outsiders alike) as an extreme aspect of nerd play which
is typically derided by those not involved in it.
LARP has also had extremely negative coverage in the media and to an
extent, critical writing. To observers, LARP looks ridiculous (and I say this
as a player with more than twenty years of experience of taking part). It
consists of strangely phrased conversations peppered with insular or arcane
terminology, is carried out by people wearing unrealistic costumes and
sometimes masks or prosthetics and is punctuated by ‘fighting’ in which
players hit each other with latex weapons and shout damage ratings at each
other. The infamous ‘lightning bolt’ meme (see the section-opening quota-
tion) may be a decade old, and it is unfortunate that this 2003 video is how
many people first came to know LARP, but it would be incorrect to describe
it as a poor description of many U.S. systems during this period.
LARP is frequently ridiculed or regarded by the media as somehow devi-
ant and subversive. Articles such as ‘“Renaissance Fighter” Forced Daughter
to Fight for Hours’ (KOMO, 2011) and ‘Thousands of Computer Game
Enthusiasts Gather for Live Action Role Play’ (Smith, 2010) are typical
examples of sensationalism (although for the purposes of this book, the lat-
ter usefully supports the idea that fans came to LARP through videogaming
rather than other roleplaying games considered to have developed before-
hand, such as REN or tabletop games) but unusually, they are uninten-
tionally supported by the trepidation with which authors such as Gilsdorf
(2009), Barrowcliffe (2007) and Mazzanoble (2007) approach their inevi-
table forays into LARP. For example, Gilsdorf finds it almost impossible to
disconnect from his persona as journalist and critic at the event he attends:
It seemed to me that [Nick Perretta, the player being interviewed] had

a healthy attitude about his habit. Gaming let him express emotions, be
physical, be what he’d never be in real life. It also gave him the chance to
socialize. . . . So what if he looked like a polar bearskin rug? (2009: 98)
Gilsdorf’s discussion with Perretta, despite good intentions, contextual-

izes him as an Other, additionally connoting the core fears of socialization,
addiction (‘healthy’, ‘habit’) and low attainment in the real world.
‘Lightning Bolt’ may be an indicative video of magical combat in a fan-
tasy system, and LARP may be a very difficult hobby to observe, but this
representation is, of course, a fraction of the interactions that players expe-
rience at a typical event and a tiny thematic moment in a much broader
hobby. LARP varies hugely around the world (indeed, in some countries it
would simply not be culturally or politically possible in the forms it takes
elsewhere) and has developed accordingly, allowing a range of experiences
to evolve. Nordic LARP, for example, is well known for its immersive and
in-depth attitude, with its players often choosing to explore complex themes
and relationships. Inner-city LARP, restricted geographically to halls and
community centres, tends to revolve around urban gothic or post-apocalypse
scenarios including Wasteland (Wasteland-UK, 2009) and Spy (ibid., 2013),
whereas huge events such as Renewal (Curious Pastimes, 1996) and Empire
(Profound Decisions, 2013) attract thousands of players to ‘fest’ (festival)–
type events and play. Once again, LARP is a multifaceted hobby that has
benefitted from several decades of reinvention, experimentation and play. In
her book Leaving Mundania (2012), Lizzie Stark argues persuasively that
in the United States, as well as elsewhere, LARP is a growing medium with
huge potential.
Beginning as an offshoot of both D&D and various historical re-enactment
systems, LARP has several (disputed) origins. In the United Kingdom, it is
widely acknowledged to be the Treasure Trap system at Peckforton Castle
in 1982 which gave rise to a gaming society of the same name at Durham
University in 1983. As university members left or moved elsewhere in the
country, as well as the changing access to various sites, new systems such as
Labyrinthe (1985) (originally run by Treasure Trap founder member Pete
Garner), Fools and Heroes (1985) and The Gathering (1992) began to estab-
lish a hold and experiment with different types of play. In the United States,
the genealogy of LARP is similarly complex, beginning with Dagorhir in
1977, but is also accredited to a series of unconnected systems which began
in 1981 with the Society for Interactive Literature (SIL), The Assassin’s
Guild and the International Fantasy Gaming Society, all forming at roughly
the same time across the country. Dagorhir, SIL and The Assassin’s Guild all
began at Ivy League universities, and once again as members graduated, the
games spread outwards as players moved away and established their own
groups elsewhere. U.S. LARPing is also complicated by the existence of SCA
(The Society for Creative Anachronism) and thriving REN (Renaissance)
and re-enactment communities, which echo LARP but tend to have more
historical or purely social remits. While very detailed roleplaying may take
place at these events, they tend not to have the adventure quest storylines
or campaign arcs of LARPs. Different laws about the use of fantasy weap-
ons and props also affected the development of LARP in the United States,
meaning that systems are often more lax on costume requirements or have
a greater focus on group battles or interaction. While not hugely different,
Stark and Gilsdorf’s writing conveys a sense of culture shock when taking
part in events from the United Kingdom, demonstrating that the differences
are significant enough for quite separate modes of play to exist within the
same hobby.
LARP has also experimented with various ways of presenting roleplay
through rules and collective storytelling. Although this is not as popular in
the United Kingdom or the United States, Nordic LARP takes advantage
both of the huge areas of forestland available for free use and the more
intense interest in experimental play which has often been formally endorsed
by various funding and governmental bodies in Scandinavia. Nordic LARPs
frequently challenge emotional ideas or preconceptions, experiment with
ideas of bleed (Montola, 2010; Waern, 2011) or require participants to
become fully immersed in their situations. These differences appear to have
created a much more intense form of LARP in which multiple situations
can be played out in different ways. In Nordic Larp, Stenros and Montola
(2010: 20) argue that Nordic LARPs exhibit various tendencies towards
a more in-depth experience which often engages the participants in philo-
sophical debates about the nature of LARP and their actions within it.
At present, only a handful of critical texts seek to examine LARP in
greater detail. The Journal of Interactive Drama and International Jour-
nal of Role-Playing produce intermittent critical and experiential writing
about the topic, as well as reviewing events and presenting scenarios to
play. Knutepunkt/Solmukohta is a roleplaying convention which takes place
annually in various Nordic countries and has supporting yearly publications,
including Playground Worlds (Montola and Stenros, 2008) and Crossing
Theoretical Borders (Jacobsen Meland and Øverlie Svela, 2013). In Nordic
Larp, Stenros and Montola (2010) examine the critical implications of larp-
ing from a Scandinavian perspective, as well as reaching towards critical
definitions and finally, in Leaving Mundania, Lizzie Stark (2012) contrasts
this and different types of American LARP with a first-person perspective
that received an unusually positive reception. All these texts point to a more
measured response to LARP as Game Studies develop, but the field is still in
a relative state of infancy.
LARP transforms pen and paper (and videogaming) into real-life activity.
It is a good counterpoise to contemporary gaming because it makes role-
playing an actual, visceral activity. LARP forces people to interact directly
with each other and to make storytelling a collective experience. Elsewhere,
as well as within this volume, I argue that this is not always the case dur-
ing online games (MacCallum-Stewart, 2011a), but LARP would not work
without players directly responding to each other and acting out their char-
acters in a meaningful way. LARP also provides players with a feeling of
meaningful agency that allows them to feel as if they have direct control over
the playing out of the game world and its events.
Crucially, however, the structure of many LARPs is collective. From char-
acter design to tweaking the rules, LARPs have had input from thousands
of individuals who run their own events, change the scenarios, play memo-
rable characters or stage epic moments (both intentional and unintentional),
as well as having cross-pollinated their experiences by taking part in other
subsequent systems and games around the country. LARP has tremendous
possibility because of the way that players have such a direct effect on the
worlds they play within, and it reframes roleplaying within a very immediate
context, providing players with new ways of understanding the performa-
tive experience that they create. As Stenros and Montola argue,
Larp is created by the players for the players. This should be taken very
literally: Larp is not only performed, but created and experienced first
hand. The performance is not limited to the way any performance needs
to adjust to its audience, nor to participants making a few controlled
or curated contributions as is often the case in theatre Instead in larp
each participant, each player, has control over his own narrative and a
tangible possibility to influence not just her little corner of the story, but
often the general direction of the whole piece. (2010: 301)
Although it is undoubtedly a niche hobby, LARP has an important

role to play in the development of online communities. Stark points out
that ‘there is no single sanctioning body of larpers, no tally of how many
people participate in this hobby, but there are hundreds of groups across
the United States, with memberships ranging from a few people up to
hundreds. In addition, dozens of gaming conventions across the country
feature larps as part of the fun each year’ (2011: xi). Similarly, the United
Kingdom has no regulated central body for gaming but experiences an
almost identical muddle of fests, systems, one-off events, evenings at con-
ventions and weekends in the countryside. As a result, LARP permeates
gaming culture and has had a lasting effect on the ways that roleplay can
be experienced across mediums. Although not as popular as other geek
pastimes, LARP has still been experienced by many players and developers
and is recognized as a core part of gaming culture. Lewis Brindley of The
Yogscast, for example, relates a long anecdote about attending a LARP
event to Simon Lane in Episode 14 of the YoGPoD (Brindley and Lane,
2009a), most likely the UK’s Fools and Heroes system. His description
veers between his enjoyment of the event and its sheer ludicrousness to an
inexperienced player.
ACQUISITIONS INC. TABLETOP AND LARPING

IN ONLINE COMMUNITIES
The amalgamation of these complimentary activities is apparent throughout

the work of the fan producers (see Chapter 4) discussed later. By drawing
from these genres, the webcasters studied present their audiences with texts
using a range of well-known gaming tropes. These intertextual moments
are used to present a reframed narrative through which the older conceits of
tabletop, roleplaying and LARP are re-presented to an audience who might
not be aware of them. I discuss this in more detail later, with specific refer-
ence to the Shadow of Israphel series by the Yogscast. For the moment, a
quick example will serve to make this point.
Spectated tabletop gaming is becoming a common element of gaming
conventions. PAX, Worldcon and GenCon all run sessions in which celebri-
ties play tabletop games in front of live audiences, and the international ‘Iron
GM’ competition (www.irongm.com/) encourages other people to watch
and rate the performance of players and games masters during structured
gaming sessions. The Yogscast also play D&D and Pathfinder on several
occasions, culminating in a dedicated series of recorded Pathfinder sessions
called YogsQuest (Brindley and Lane, 2013). The performative aspect of this
is grounded in both the ludicrous nature of LARP and the self-consciousness
of geek culture as something which is often unintentionally demonstrative.
These shows, which are recorded for viewing on the Internet, have clear
reference points from LARP. Participants often dress up to represent their
characters, and the performed nature of what is usually a private experience
changes the ways in which players vocalize their experiences and interact
with each other. Most obviously, this takes the form of playing out the game
in a more extreme manner—engaging the audience in a shared fantasy that
must by nature become more explanative. I have written about this else-
where (MacCallum-Stewart, 2014); however, the most important aspect of
this is the way that these sessions re-inscribe the game within more familiar
gaming conventions. Tabletop, and to an extent, LARP, are presented as a
performative event to an audience who may or may not be familiar with the
conventions of the texts being used. The participants provide intertextual
references which give the audience familiar contexts and tropes through
which they can understand the game being played in front of them. For
example, at the beginning of the PAX 2011 D&D session ‘Acquisitions
Incorporated; the Last Will and Testament of Jim Darkblade I’, the play-
ers introduce themselves by recalling the previous game; bards Paul and
Strom provide additional sung commentary, warning the audience to ‘hold
ye shit together’ and to expect an evening of ‘merriment and smack talk’;
Wil Wheaton (as Aoefel ‘Al’ Elhromane) reminds everyone that in 2009, the
group ‘split the party’, causing his fae character to drown in a pool of acid;
Scott Kurtz cautions the audience not to heckle because ‘being funny is for
us’; and as stagehands bring on a large table and the group take large fold-
ers from its drawers Jerry Krahulik jokes with the audience, ‘Is this not how
it happens at your house?’ Similarly, during the opening narrative for the
YogsQuest, a voiceover by Simon Lane explains that the group consists of
‘level one Noobs’ (an online gaming term meaning an inexperienced player)
and that ‘perhaps the Dungeon Master will be able to guide them to their
glory; or maybe, he will be their undoing’ (Brindley and Lane, 2013). These
examples situate the older discourse of tabletop gaming within the newer
one of online play, as well as explaining how a basic game of tabletop play
might be expected to differ. Spectated tabletop play therefore provides a sort
of crib sheet for players who might have experienced online games but are
unfamiliar with older types of roleplay, but it also allows the genres to blend
and become more experimental.
ROLEPLAY, ROLEPLAYER
While I have identified the growing body of work about the role of LARP
and tabletop within gaming culture, unsurprisingly there is very little indeed
yet in print about crossover texts which take it into a virtual sphere. The dis-
joint previously described is a useful way to show the progression of gaming
from paper to screen, but it masks, and seems to slow, investigations of the
earlier genres. This is also true of studies investigating the roleplayer. Along-
side the early histories and discussions of RPGs, several books began prom-
ising discussions of roleplayers’ behavior, most notably Holmes (1981), Fine
(1983) and later, Mackay (2001). These studies investigated the ways in
which roleplayers created and maintained identities in tabletop games, as
well as reaching towards an understanding of roleplay as a collective expe-
rience. Mackay’s book, which conceptualizes roleplay as an act of framing
(after Goffman, 1974), is often treated as a core text for analyses of player
behavior in online games, and the author lays down detailed theoretical
precepts for understanding the ways that players form social relationships
and make sense of the worlds they create.
The preoccupation with justifying games as cultural artefacts of worth
surfaces clearly in these texts. It is unusual to see an early book about play-
ers that does not discuss the resultant moral panics around tabletop gaming,
including a mythologized story in which student James Dallas Egbert II was
suspected of killing himself in the utility tunnels of Michigan State Univer-
sity (Egbert had in fact gone missing for several days and sadly killed himself
in 1980, but this particular story was entirely fictitious), the publication of
Dark Dungeons by Jack Chick (1984) and William Schnoebelen’s (1989)
‘Straight Talk about Dungeons and Dragons’. Although Dark Dungeons
is rather campy, and Schnoebelen’s writing excessively hyperbolic, begin-
ning with the declamation ‘Dungeons and Dragons is a tragic and tangled
subject. It is essentially a feeding program for occultism and witchcraft’
(Schnoebelen 1989), it is frustrating to see how this type of sensationalism
often derails critical debate. The mythology surrounding Egbert’s disappear-
ance (allegedly during a live-action version of D&D), which partially served
as inspiration for the film Mazes and Monsters (1982) additionally goes
some way to explaining why these incidents had such a detrimental effect
on the perception of games.
Recently, however, and probably as a result in the broadening of Game
Studies beyond digital games, the theories developed by Fine and Mackay
have been re-examined. Studies are also starting to emerge that cross-
pollinate the experiences of the tabletop gamer and the online/CRPG gamer.
Tresca (2010), Grouling Cover (2010) and Bowman (2010) focus specifi-
cally on tabletop gaming groups, but, Thornham (2011) and Brown (2013),
and many of the essays in Harrigan and Wardrip Fruin (2007) take these
discussions into the world of online play, examining player groups in rela-
tion to their social and roleplayed experiences. All these writings develop the
ways in which players understand narrative and social interactions within
roleplay, and begin to expand ideas beyond a more general sense of tabletop
roleplay to more specific aspects such as the creation of narrative (Grouling
Cover) and erotic roleplay (Brown).
A recognition that play is important has also spread to investigations of
how the player behaves, and interestingly, studies are broader; perhaps a
player’s sense of self and avatar exists within several places at once—within
the game, exterior to it and in a liminal transition space someway between
the two. James Paul Gee’s (2003) investigation of this charts his relationship
with his Arcanum character Bead Bead, and subsequent studies, including
but not limited to those by Carr (2002), Crawford (2011), MacCallum-
Stewart and Parsler (2008), MacCallum-Stewart (2011a), Mortensen (2007,
2008) and Thornham (2011), have often tackled this issue in an attempt to
place the player either within, or apart from, their virtual self. Discussions
of Mackay and Fine in particular also permeate many of the texts in the next
chapter, struggling to define the online player in, for example, the work of
Crawford (2011), Pearce (2009) and Taylor (2008).
ROLEPLAYING THE WORLD
The contemporaneous development of other roleplaying forms is important

because it emphasizes the steady rise of imaginative gaming alongside that
of online gaming. This creates a far more convoluted pattern than histo-
ries of one medium suggest. Acknowledging the development of roleplaying
beyond the virtual sphere also suggests that players come to games with a
wide experience which may, or may not, recognize multiple forms of cultural
production. Their knowledge of the online gaming sphere is therefore con-
structed from a composite understanding of creative play drawn from other
sources and, additionally, comes with a plethora of cultural signifiers that
do not relate directly to online games, or which need clarification through
intertextual references.
Conversely, however, it is a huge mistake to assume that all online play-
ers are aware of this backstory. While developers may or may not have
experienced board-, card and tabletop games or TV series and films featur-
ing fantasy, science fiction and other imagined themes, or may or may not
have grown up surrounded by those who did, it is important to recognize
that D&D, alongside all its subsequent ancestors, is now entering its fourth
decade. We must, therefore, be equally cautious when assuming that players
have experience of such texts in their original form, and may instead have
entered the fray through digital games with no prior experience of tabletop
or other similar cultural forms. In fact, many of the texts case studied later
are based on this condition, with either their creators or their viewers ini-
tially experiencing online gaming or communities through derivative texts
such as World of Warcraft.
In the same vein, in this chapter, I have not offered a detailed history of
the CRPG or the online gaming genre. This has been amply covered, both
in the titles mentioned already and elsewhere in gaming histories (Kent,
2002; Mott, 2010; Levene and Anderson, 2012; ICHEG, 2013), as well as
in social gaming histories (Orsini, 2010; Chatfield, 2011). These authors
collectively provide excellent summaries in far more detail than can ever be
represented here. Additionally, although in this chapter I have striven to pro-
vide a background to the construction of gaming groups and how they cre-
atively draw from previous roleplaying texts, the later chapters concentrate
more on contemporary moments, rather than requiring a vast knowledge
of how they were reached (if this is even possible) through gaming itself.
Instead, I now focus on how players and communities are understood, as
well as the ways they regard themselves. The creativity of tabletop roleplay-
ing, and to an extent, the performative aspects of LARP permeate these
activities, but a blow-by-blow history of how and when players arrived at
this point would, as I have already argued, be rather reductive, especially as
many of the producers listed in later case studies have in-depth, but often
more recent introductions to online and CRPG gaming. The next chapter
therefore turns to theoretical perspectives of the player and the virtual com-
munity, in order to locate this work more thoroughly within a producer-led
context, and to understand the specific abilities of creating community and
fan-made outputs online.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I provided an overview of roleplaying games, LARP and the

critical work that has surrounded it, in order to contextualize online gaming
communities within a broader arena than simply videogames.
In doing so, I argued that a false timeline is often placed on the develop-
ment of games from paper to virtual spaces, which suggests that players
moved seamlessly from tabletop to CRPGs and online gaming as technology
advanced. Although this is a useful way to chart the history of roleplaying, it
is not really representative of how these genres actually developed, because
all of them now exist contiguously and have seen considerable development
since their first iterations.
Thus, more traditional writing tends to have regarded each genre having
a point of closure, whereby players transition from one medium to another.
This is not particularly useful when examining creative player communities,
since they are often embedded deeply within multiple geek cultures. Instead,
we should be aware that some tropes from tabletop and LARP, for example
hit points, core attributes, quest givers and experimental play, have formed
a common language within these genres.
When examining the player, and later the fan-producer in relation to
these histories, we need to understand that players are naturally transmedial
and may be drawing from many genres simultaneously, but it is important to
recognize that they may not have a strong historical awareness of why they
do so. Many players arrive at video games first, and despite often being ori-
gin texts, tabletop, boardgames and LARP are now approached as a result
of videogames, not prior to them.
One side effect of this is that often, webcasters and other fan-producers
will try to replicate earlier genres and, in doing so, often provide elements of
instruction or guidance during recordings of these. It is possible that the rise
of YouTube videos and podcasts about these texts are contributing to their
increased popularity in recent years.
To develop this idea of the player as an active, transmedial element within
gaming, in the next chapter, I examine the formation of online communities
and start investigating how players understand themselves as members of
the online sphere.
2 ‘Did He Just Run in There?’
Defining Gaming Communities
and Players
You can make anything you want to. You can make any game you want.
—Brindley (2011)
This book argues that players are essential to the reformation of the gaming
text and that the increasing mobilization of player communities is bringing
about a change in the ways that games are consumed. Taking their cues
from the flexibility of tabletop and LARP systems, in which thousands of
individuals collaborate to create the functional and imaginative aspects of
each game, online gaming communities have a proactive attitude towards
games, which means that they regard them as texts which they have the
power to change. In this chapter, I outline the critical development of online
communities, as well as provide some theoretical discussion of how this is
regarded within the rest of the book.
Each subsequent chapter examines how differing communities, ranging
in size and involvement, undertake action and play and how the players
within each group respond to each other, to the game and to the design
process implicit in this. However, this raises several issues. What does com-
munity mean within this context, and who does this community comprise?
Community is a nebulous word at the best of times, and it can be used in
emotive ways to generate a false sense of identity, to encourage cultural
belief or to enforce the status quo. Rather like Hynes’s myth of the war,
community has become an emotive term that is marketable rather than the-
oretical. Furthermore, locating these communities in the online world, in
which the player is invisible and the sign of presence is sometimes only sym-
bolized by a name, a static image or a number, means that groups become
even more difficult to quantify. Considerable research has been carried out
specific to the behavior of communities in virtual spaces, and it is a topic
frequently used to endorse the validity of gaming as a medium. This chapter
examines some of these theories and aims to position them in relation to
players who approach the game responsively, with a view to re-creating it
through their own actions.
Similarly, there have been many attempts to classify the player and to
understand their activities within games. This often involves creating specific
‘Did He Just Run in There?’ 37
classifications, based on perceived player behavior. A subtext surrounding
both of these acts (understanding community, understanding players’ behav-
ior) implies that once their behaviors are understood, or partitioned into
specific areas, designers can cater to specific groups, allowing the lucrative
production of games which contain elements aimed at one or more of these
demarcated users. Unfortunately, these cookie-cutter definitions, whereby
groups are partitioned into specific modes of play, occlude the more nuanced
ways in which players group together and enact play behaviors. A more
developed understanding of these groups is therefore required, even if it
acknowledges that trying to define a player and their behavior in relation
to the game text can only go some ways towards sketching player and com-
munity activity. This chapter therefore identifies the groups, and the theories
most relevant to this subject. It also attempts to distinguish these groups in
terms of activity and behavior, allowing their identification via production
carried out both in and around the game text itself.
I address this by identifying the main groups examined within this book
as entities, rather than as introducing them via concomitant theories or
positions. Player behavior fluctuates, and like many communities in a state
of flux, members alternate their behaviors according to circumstance; this
allows the groups to be introduced initially without being bracketed into
a specific mode of behavior. It is worth noting here the relativist usage of
terms such as community and player. These terms are used in a broad sense
which conforms with linguistic usage within each group, rather than pinning
these terms to theoretical meanings at this point. In this way, they confirm
Shawn Wilbur’s (2000) assertion that virtual terms have already become
blurred through common usage, and therefore become context specific. The
chapter therefore ends with a brief summary of each group studied later,
detailing their relationship to each other, as well as a short précis of their
activities online.
THEORIZING ONLINE COMMUNITIES
It is apparent even from a cursory look at the groups in this book—webcasters,

Indie gamers and developers, as well as the wider gaming community at
large—that they differ wildly in scope, ethos and content. Generalizing
about their social behaviors is difficult, although there are some common
factors such as a love for a game, genre, or group of people, which pro-
vide unifying factors. The groups studied in this book, specifically the larger
groups such as the Minecraft community or Reddit posters, highlight the
diasporic nature of gaming groups, whereby different cultural strata of peo-
ple are brought together by a more ambivalent text such as a specific game
or game type. Gamers most often meet online, and the circumstances of
these meetings, usually codified by the structure and nature of the game text,
mean that their interactions are extremely different from those offline. It is
additionally possible to have impassioned debates, offer personal advice or
simply share jokes without knowing the other people involved, or without
ever conversing with them again. This apparent isolation initially confused
critics who dismissed non-corporeal meetings as insignificant or false. These
waters were muddied further by media fears over Internet stalkers, paedo-
philes and predators, whereby the anonymous user became a dangerous,
unseen threat or a social misanthrope. While this exposure to heteroglossic
perspectives is often viewed in a positive light (Olaniran, 2008; Baym, 2010;
Kozinets, 2010), it also causes fears about social control and power relation-
ships; see for example, the state-enforced censorship in countries such as
China which restricts the perspectives that a user can access.
Online spaces, especially game spaces, are also predicated by circum-
stances which can be very temporal in nature—for example a team meet-
ing on XBLA (Xbox Live Arcade) to play Modern Warfare 3 (2009) may
only spend twenty minutes together before the game is over and the player
group is dissolved. Conversations on forums and other websites also
involve relatively anonymous groupings of contributors—including read-
ers who may never comment themselves—estimated by Baym (2010) at
about 80% of all participants, who do not share common traits beyond
the game. Kozinets argues that the reasons and motivations that online
communities form are slightly different from those which form in face-to-
face contact, since ‘an online community is one in which task-orientated
and goal-directed informational knowledge is developed in concert with
social and cultural knowledge and social relationships’ (2010: 27). In this
respect, gaming communities have much more in common with workplace
relationships, a factor which some celebrate (McGonigal, 2011) and oth-
ers regard with more caution (Küchlich 2005, 2010; Dyer-Witheford and
De Peuter, 2009).
Gamers come together from a vast array of cultural backgrounds which
may not be immediately apparent at first. Their core socialization point is
gaming, not the more obvious terrestrial unifiers of location, workplace or
religious, cultural or political beliefs. Although T. L. Taylor (2008) argues
that in MMORPGs, many guild groups are in part formed through pre-
existing familial and friendship groups, there is also a randomizing element
from people who have met and bonded online through play. In online games,
guilds are not always available to gamers, or the game in question leads to
a different type of social ordering. It also might be the case that communi-
ties form around a genre or game system; for example, the Indie community,
gamers who like the Sierra platform and who design games around it, or
gamers who cannot talk in-game to each other but still wish to discuss the
text. This lack of common ground, and broadness of scope, confuses the
definition of online communities.
These core points—in particular that location was not fixed and that per-
sonal identity could be fluid online—were initially used by those research-
ing online communities to claim that online spaces were not ‘real’ and
could not exist as fully functioning communities. These arguments came
from both those wishing to detract from online communities (Stoll, 1995;
Putnam, 1995; Lockard, 1997) and those theorizing new ways that sup-
ported them (Reingold, 1993; Kozinets, 1999; Baym, 2000; boyd, 2001).
Ultimately, however, these definitions were forced to advance as the Inter-
net increasingly became a centralized, busy location for all of the unifiers
described earlier. One of the most overused, yet still useful qualifiers for
validating virtual communities comes from Howard Reingold, whose The
Virtual Community: Homesteading on the Electronic Frontier (1993) com-
pares virtual spaces to those of American pioneers. His argument proposes
a definition of online community that provides it with sociality, longevity
and substance:
Virtual communities are social aggregations that emerge from the Net
when enough people carry on those public discussions long enough,
with sufficient human feeling, to form webs of personal relationships in
cyberspace. (Reingold, 1993: 6)
Ironically, moral panics which portray games in a negative context go

against many of these criteria. Games are often represented as alienating,
individual activities which remove players from such intricate spaces. They
are seen to destroy social ties, allowing instead a transient movement from
one space to the next. The Xbox Live and attempts by MoBA (Mobile
Battle Arena) companies to curtail ‘smack talk’ are a good example of this
fear, where rude response cries (Conway, 2010b) are seen as indicative of
a group who know that their social linkage, and thus, their need for ‘suf-
ficient human feeling’ is fleeting. Thus, games are often portrayed as the
dregs of virtual societies; vilified for their ability to endorse even the aspects
so optimistically identified by ‘homesteaders’ such as Reingold. It is my
contention, of course, that this is absolutely not the case but more that it
is the result of social cues viewed from outside the exoteric space in which
they belong.
Reingold’s (1993) book frequently drives the virtual community towards
parity with a non-virtual one (evidenced by the concreteness of his home-
stead example). In his discursive piece ‘An Archaeology of Cyberspaces’,
Shawn Wilbur contests this placement, as well as the usage of the phrase ‘vir-
tual community’. He argues that this is problematic because ‘[c]ommunity
seems to refer primarily to relations of commonality between persons and
objects, and only rather imprecisely to the site of such community’ (2000).
He argues that instead, ‘[i]n common usage, it can also refer to the location
within which a community is gathered . . . community becomes shorthand
for community-of-location, although we hardly presume anything like joint
ownership’ (Wilbur, 2000: 47). This argument places the community within
a location, rather than simply linking it to the people who gather at this loca-
tion, and thus posits that virtual spaces are very good for such gatherings.
Wilbur’s (2000) argument is interesting when applied to gaming com-
munities. Communities in games are absolutely linked to location; rather,
they are absolutely linked to the gaming text-as-location. In this book, these
locations revolve primarily around the game Minecraft; the corporeal and
auditory identities of the Yogscast, in which their YouTube channels and
podcasts come to represent a central hub from which other, fan-made out-
puts stem; and from the idea of the Indie gaming community, which is sus-
tained by locative sites such as Reddit, or outputs such as The Humble Indie
Bundle. These communities of location are typical, if varied, examples of
gaming communities online, and the places that they might form.
Wilbur proposes seven ways in which ‘virtual community’ can be clas-
sified, in order to demonstrate how, and why, the term should be prob-
lematized by those who use it. This includes variations as broad as everyone
who is watching a football match on television, to philosophical visions of
virtual landscapes as ‘the garden in the machine’ (Wilbur, 2000: 51). These
classifications help emphasize how the term can be misused or is used in too
general a manner to have meaning. However, Wilbur acknowledges that the
term virtual community is already used in a widespread manner and that
furthermore, it is a concept that is understood to have a variety of context
specific meanings. In a place as vast as the online world, it is perhaps under-
standable that the semantic meaning of one term has become uncontrolled.
Perhaps it is more productive, therefore, to identify the traits of online
spaces used in this book, and some of their characteristics, rather than try-
ing to apply a global definition which already has many disparate meanings.
At the same time, it is useful to acknowledge that the multifarious uses of
the term already available already apply to the groups discussed. As Wilbur
concludes, ‘precisely because of the richness of its mimetic lineage, ‘virtual
community’ will serve us remarkably well’ (2000: 51).
danah boyd identifies four main criteria that separate online spaces from
offline ones. These are persistence (information remains and the space contin-
ues to be active even when the user is not present), searchability (people and
artefacts can be located within this space), that they are replicable (content
can be copied elsewhere) and, finally, that they contain invisible audiences
(the reader, or in this case, the player of the game; boyd in Rettburg-Walker,
2008: 76–7). Using these criteria, it is possible assert the viability of online
communities, and examine them as real social environments. boyd’s work
usefully demonstrates some of the differences that online communities allow,
so for example while a game may not be persistent, its community of users
might be and may have created spaces which allow persistence to continue
when players are not active, for example forums or fan videos.
If we allow that online communities and spaces are real, and have valuable
contributions to make towards cultural production, and that the term virtual
community has already escaped specific definition, we must accept that these
places and people act differently from their non-virtual counterparts. Virtual
and real-world communities both exist and share many commonalities, but
they are not the same. Virtual communities, and to an extent, the representa-
tion of virtual personas, have their own specific characteristics and therefore
must be critiqued with this in mind. This means that although we can use the-
oretical perspectives from ‘real’ communities, they either need to be adapted
or repositioned with virtual communities in mind. There is also room for
research which specifically examines the behaviors of online communities,
and tries to determine patterns within this. Although broader sociological
theories can be used to outline the fundamental behavior of online groups,
for example those of Ludwig Fleck (see the next section), in this chapter, I
examine some of those which allow us to gain a closer appreciation of virtual
communities, specifically the linkage with player type and community action.
THOUGHT COLLECTIVES AND

COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE
Ludwik Fleck’s early theories about the formation and practice of commu-
nities are useful because they establish community as an artefact formed
through the exchange of ideas. In addition, the terminology Fleck employs
refers to very broad types of community formation which can later be exam-
ined in more detail.
Fleck defines a thought collective or community as ‘a community of
persons mutually exchanging ideas or maintaining intellectual interaction’
(1935/1979: 39). He expands this by explaining that these collectives sub-
divide into certain groups:
The general structure of a thought collective consists of both a small

esoteric circle and a large exoteric circle, each consisting of members
belonging to the thought collective and forming around any work of
the mind, such as a dogma of faith, a scientific idea, or an artistic mus-
ing. A thought collective consists of many such intersecting circles. Any
individual may belong to several exoteric circles, but probably only a
few, if any, esoteric circles. (1935/1979: 105)
Like many early thinkers of any academic field, Fleck’s ideas are simplistic
when compared to more recent theories. However, they also serve as a basis
for much subsequent critical work (e.g. Kuhn, 1962), and Fleck’s concepts
are often used within discussion of online communities by designers and the-
orists, by idea if not by name. In gaming communities, Fleck’s ‘work of the
mind’ is replaced by a more concrete object—the game itself—for example
communities that gather around Minecraft or a subReddit discussing the
merits of Starcraft 2 might be seen as such a work. This represents a funda-
mental change in the origin point of the thought collective (or community),
in which the game becomes the centralizing point rather than an ideology
or ‘thought’. There are some interesting philosophical debates associated
with this transition, including those linked to gaming lifestyle and the ways
in which the player approaches the text as an artistic, thought-provoking
artefact (e.g. see those presented by the yearly Philosophy of Computer
Games conference or writings by authors such as Sicart [2009] and Bate-
man [2011]). Gamers are also concerned with these issues as they lie close
to the surface of critical investigation into player behavior. In particular,
the philosophy and art of gaming are particularly well covered by bloggers
and games designers or critics who are able to provide thoughtful and var-
ied discussions. Tadgh Kelly’s (2011, 2012) ongoing discussions of gaming
terms in What Games Are, the Ludology subReddit and various debates by
journalists like those on Gamasutra or Extra Credits provide useful alterna-
tive perspectives to purely academic ones. Rather like the blurring of fan and
academic telefantasy communities in the 1990s (Johnson, 2005), this type
of writing demonstrates the growing maturity of the gaming audience and a
real desire to engage with the issues it raises.
Fleck’s use of esoteric and exoteric groups is particularly useful when con-
sidering the ways in which gamer communities self-organize into manage-
able groups or are placed within concentric social groups by game design.
The most obvious example of this comes from MMORPGS, in which
potentially millions of players need to be gradually partitioned into an orga-
nized structure that gives them social agency within the game and allows
effective group play. An example of this would be the exoteric group of
an entire server versus the esoteric group of a guild playing on that server.
Small esoteric groups encourage the player enter more social environments,
forming links which encourage longer retention. For subscription games
where players pay regularly to maintain their access, this is a vital part of
income generation. The MMORPG Star Wars: The Old Republic (2011) is
a good example of this. Players first choose a server, and then a side (Rebel
or Sith). They then not only self-organize into smaller esoteric groups such
as guilds, roleplaying societies and modding communities but also have the
option of forming less permanent groups such as those formed in instances,
player-versus-player (PvP) events or raids. Some of these elements (server,
allegiance, instance size, raid size) are determined by the ludic structure of
the game. Others (guilds, societies and other interpersonal groups) are facili-
tated by the game but are formed by individual players, allowing them to
feel as if the esoteric choices they have made; specifically, the ones involving
joining more long-term communities are individualistic decisions.
The example of the MMORPG presents another problem. While some
groups are clearly esoteric, and others exoteric, there is significant cross-
over within each groups’ intent, behavior and placement as regards the core
text. Some of these groups are clearly formed as part of the game’s design,
others exist entirely outside it in social or manufacturing clusters and still
more exist somewhere between. Most important, players can be part of
multiple exoteric and esoteric communities at once—a factor that Fleck
acknowledges, and which is furthermore a useful way of regarding players
as having multiple agenda during play experiences. However, this highlights
a second absolutely crucial part of virtual community formation—the intent
and the activities of the people within each group.
Alberto Melucci takes a rather different approach. Rather than seeing the
centralized point of a community as ‘a work of the mind’ (Fleck, 1935/1979:
105), it is instead formed more ephemerally around the behavior of people
within these ‘movements’:
Contemporary ‘movements’ assume the form of solidarity networks

entrusted with potent cultural meanings, and it is precisely these mean-
ings that distinguish them so sharply from political actors and the for-
mal organizations next to them. We have passed beyond the global
and metaphysical conception of collective actors. Movements are not
entities that move with the unity of goals attributed to them by ideo-
logues. Movements are systems of action, complex networks among
the different levels and meanings of social action. Collective identity
allowing them to become actors is not a datum or an essence; it is the
outcome of exchanges, negotiations, decisions, and conflicts among
actors. (Melucci, 1996: 4)
Melucci argues that prior research often locates the behavior of commu-
nities historically—that is by placing them solely within the situation around
them. It avoids discussing ‘how people actually manage acting together and
becoming a “we”’ (1996: 15), which in turn is problematic because it means
that the interactions described earlier are elided. Melucci sees communities
as primarily centred around their own self-identities:
A set of social practises (i) involving simultaneously a number of indi-

viduals or groups (ii) exhibiting similar morphological characteristics in
contiguity of time and space, (iii) implying a social field of relationship
and (iv) the capacity of the people involved to make sense of what they
are doing. (1996: 20)
Melucci argues that by deconstructing how and why social actions hap-
pen and regarding them as pluralistic, we can start to make sense of a com-
munity’s internal unity. His argument allows groups to change, as long as
the group is self-aware and understands these changes in some form. This
is a good way of defining the complex relationships, and apparently odd
behavior or speech (to an outsider) that gaming groups exhibit (e.g. smack
talk or trolling as accepted methods of communication). Melucci argues that
groups can form as entities in their own right, without needing social or
historical validation. This is useful when regarding online communities and
gaming groups, since it means that the emphasis on identifying that group
comes from within and that the cultural diversity which composes many
groups becomes far less of an issue as long as it is understood as a facet of
group formation. Melucci sees this in a relatively utopic format, one that
allows complexity rather than creating a uniform structure:
Only a society that is able to accommodate the thrust of the movements

by providing an unconstrained arena for the fundamental issues raised
by collective action, as well as democratic channels of representation
and decision making, can ensure that complexity is not ironed out, that
differences are not violated. Keeping open the space for difference is a
condition for inventing the present—for allowing society to address its
fundamental dilemmas and for installing in its present constitution a
manageable coexistence of its own tensions. (1996: 10)
Since this diversity is understood to be a part of the social ordering of

online societies, it allows gamers to recognize that each group may be com-
posed of many different perspectives. Melucci’s third criteria, which involves
the habitation of a shared space, can also be supported by virtual theories
such as those of Reingold and boyd, which recognize the validity of online
worlds and places. Last, the struggle to list these parts can be seen very
clearly in subsequent theories that try to categorize individual player behav-
iors within games and the social circles that surround them (see the next
section). Therefore, if communities are defined from within, how does this
affect individual members, what examinations exist within virtual studies
which help to identify them, and are these classifications a useful addendum
to understanding community behaviors?
THE MYTHOLOGY OF PLAYER TYPE
In Netnography, Kozinets outlines a system of classifying communities on

a sliding scale. Communities are partitioned into four groups, according to
their behaviors. Cruising communities are relational and recreational, an
example being chatrooms or certain virtual worlds. Bonding communities
are ‘[o]nline locations that are known to have and create very strong social
ties between members, resulting in deep and long-lasting relationships, but
whose members are not particularly focussed on a shared or unifying con-
sumptive behaviour’ (Kozinets, 2010: 35–6). Geeking communities, where
participants meet to share information and discuss specific issues, objects,
events or people, involve in-depth modes of consumption, production, or
both (Kozinets, 2010: 36) (Tapscott and Williams [2006] call this ‘prosump-
tion’). Because of the informative, discursive objective of these sites, Kozi-
nets argues that the relationships between cruising and geeking members are
superficial rather than intense. Finally, building communities offer a strong
sense of identity and community as well as information about a unifying
subject; Kozinets gives the example of the many open source software com-
munities that exist online. The model allows for slippage, and each section
of the box is presented with arrows suggesting a sliding scale, delineating
their intensity. However, the original image shows each group partitioned
into groups, with each group in windowed boxes—thus not even resting
directly against each other. This implies separation, while framing between
each of the groups emphasizes each group’s apartness and potential liminal-
ity when transitioning from place to place.
Kozinets’s model is important because it epitomizes a key strategy in
virtual community theory, the amalgamation of ‘community’ with its par-
ticipants. Very often, studies avoid defining the community as a whole and
instead concentrate on delineating the types and behavior of people taking
part in them. Classifications which direct themselves at gaming commu-
nities specifically suffer as a result of this, because they blend play type
with overall community behavior. This assumes that the player will interact
with a gaming community in the same way that they play within it. This
is largely because many communities are transient and formed within the
context of the game, so players interact primarily through playing the actual
game. However, this changes once more substantial communities form, or as
soon as communication takes place. While performing one action within the
game, a player may be talking to her community with an entirely different
mode of behavior. An example of this can be seen in e-sports or raid conver-
sations. Players are often calm and measured in their communication with
each other; an act that belies the rapid action within the game. Their com-
munication is mediated because it is commonplace and because they have
learned that emotive or pejorative conversations do not aid concentration.
Different versions of the player behavior/community models are rela-
tively common; Richard Bartle (1996) and Nick Yee (2002) have both
created well-known examples which follow a similar ‘box’ format to give
players specific play-type monikers, and Matt Richetti’s (2012) examina-
tion of social gaming players demonstrates a fairly typical reformation of
the sliding scale model. Richard Bartle’s (1996) ‘Hearts Clubs Diamonds
Spades: Players Who Suit MUDS’ paper is still used by game designers to
determine content, and the simplicity of the model allows for fast, under-
standable categorizations of play. Erwin Andreasen and Brandon Downey’s
(2012) ‘Bartle Test’, which allows players to assess their own actions, has
had more than 722,000 individual entries. The model is successful because
it is clearly explained and identifies basic player behaviors. Similarly, Yee’s
(2002) original ‘5 Motivation Factors for Why Players Play MMORPGs’
develops Bartle’s ideas in a more social manner, introducing a variety of
motivations that drive players: Immersion, Relationship, Grief, Achieve-
ment and Leadership.
The difficulty with all of these models is that while they are good
demarcations of types of activity, players are simply not that linear in
their behavior or motivation, and their playtype in one community is
not necessarily indicative how they behave in others. This is particularly
true of the fan producers studied later, who may not only play in one
way but also produce videos, spread information or act out in different
ways when regarding the game as an external text. Critical recognition
of this means that models are often presented with the caveat of a slid-
ing scale (as Kozinets’s does), thus preventing entirely linear depictions.
Using Bartle’s model as indicative of this, a player may be behaving like an
Explorer but actually carrying out the role of an Achiever (for example a
player who explores a world to get an achievement). With Kozinets, they
might be working in a geeking community to reinforce the infrastructure,
thus behaving like a builder. Nick Yee (2002) presents a similar argument
when critiquing Bartle’s original work:
One problem with such a just-so model is that the 4 types may over-
lap. For example, it may be the case that most Achievers are Explor-
ers, because to advance in levels quickly, one has to know about the
game mechanics. Another problem is that the types may not be well-
constructed, and may include unnecessary traits and exclude important
traits. For example, perhaps the Achiever scale should be based upon a
desire for power rather than points accumulation. Or perhaps, mapping
geography is not that important to most Explorers who are actually
much more interested in the game mechanics.
The problem of employing a just-so model is that it becomes self-
fulfilling. If a questionnaire is constructed such that a respondent has to
choose between being an Achiever or an Explorer, then the end result
will be a dichotomy where none may exist to begin with. It would be
like asking—Do you prefer pizza or ice-cream?
Nevertheless, Bartle’s preliminary model serves as a good starting
point, and gives us a foundation on which to understand underlying
motivations, as well as a model to test against empirical data.
Perhaps because of this tension, both scholars have altered their debate
over time. Richard Bartle (2004: 128–57) has developed his own theory to
include a more complex version of player behaviors in Designing Virtual
Worlds, and Yee (2005) has changed his dramatically, identifying ten fur-
ther motivating activities which then fall under the three main categories
of Social, Immersion and Achievement motivations. Both Yee and Bartle
appear to agree that while their basic models still suffice, they need to be
extrapolated as gaming develops in complexity. Given how fast gaming
develops and changes, this will always be a recurrent problem in gaming
research as the potential for more complex interactions increases.
Helen Thornham’s (2011) research supports this, arguing elsewhere that
players are often unaware of the motivations for their own behavior. This
suggests that they perform in a more unrestrained manner, and therefore
frequently cross the divides between player type, motivation and activity
in an unconscious manner. However, all of the structures mentioned earlier
appear to support Melucci’s underlying argument—that player communities
are most valuably studied when looking at their composite parts, rather than
regarding them as a complete entity.
As a result of this diversity, providing a cohesive picture of how players
approach and subsequently interpret a given text would be impossible. To
give an example, players of the game Puzzle Pirates (2003) might under-
stand the game variously:
A roleplaying game where one pretends to be a pirate and sails the seas
battling brigands, bandits, sea monsters and digging up treasure
A puzzle game where ‘Pirate achievement [is] based on actual Puzzling
Skill’ (from the Puzzle Pirates loading screen)
A game where players are solely responsible for managing the virtual
economy
A factioneering game where large collectives of players politic and war
together
All these interpretations are valid descriptions of the same game but give
an idea of how multiple readings can co-exist. Crucially, some descriptions
appear more narratological, whereas others concentrate on a ludic sense of
the game as a structured experience which is then classified further into types
of play experience (after Caillois, 1961). Here, the pre-existing attempts to
categorize play by theorists are mirrored by players who behave differently
within the game and interpret their play in different manners. Be it through
pathways via statistical gain, or their engagement with the world’s mytholo-
gies, online games prompt a diverse approach which cannot be ignored.
These multiple interpretations encourage players to create their own texts
around the game in an attempt to contextualize and explain their own
perspectives.
Once a player enters an online game, they will usually encounter other
players whose actions and chatter subsequently inform their own views.
Even if the player wants to be alone, the game usually provides visible chat
channels and sometimes suggests he or she meet other people. If the player
wants to be alone, he or she has to turn these functions off, but even so, it is
almost impossible to avoid seeing, playing or trading with others in order to
progress. There is a cyclical construction here whereby the initial ideologi-
cal construction, psychogeography and behavioral patterns of the game—
collectively known as its worldsphere (after Klastrup and Tosca, 2004)
often serves to underline some of the basic tenets of community behav-
ior. There is therefore a second conflation between the ethos of the game
(supported by the worldsphere), and the communities that exist within it.
This is especially true of narrative-based communities and narrative-based
games (e.g. a roleplaying guild on a MMORPG server), but it also has a
ripple effect for other groups. As a result, designers are careful to direct
players towards an understanding of what community means within the
framework of the game and what is expected of more engaged players.
Games want to project a certain ethos which helps to keep players in their
delineated play types and encourage an idea of community as encompass-
ing them. This latter aspect is used in the generic manner that Wilbur has
already suggested, reinforcing player behavior through an imagined com-
munity structure.
A good example if this is online worlds whose initial terminology encour-
ages types of play predicated on behavioral patterns. Games described as
‘cooperative’, ‘friendly’ or ‘devious’ denote criteria which may be encouraged
by a game’s design or representation but that nevertheless are entirely hypo-
thetical. Enacting these behaviors rests squarely on the players themselves.
A simple example comes from World of Warcraft, in which loading tips sug-
gest behaviors such as ‘If you enjoyed playing with someone, put them on
your friends list!’ and ‘It’s considered polite to talk to someone before invit-
ing them to a group, or opening a trade window!’ Neptune’s Pride (2010)
is a game in which players colonize planets. The player who colonizes a set
amount of planets first wins the game. To accomplish this, players develop
technologies, build space fleets and move them around the map. The game
could be relatively narrative free beyond this point, but instead players often
opt to roleplay their characters and engage in highly devious strategizing
in order to win the game. This is partially a result of the game’s descrip-
tion as ‘a hardcore, multiplayer online strategy game for the browser with
simple mechanics and a focus on player diplomacy’ (Neptune’s Pride, 2010),
which suggests that communication is an essential part of gameplay (it is
not). Neptune’s Pride is partly designed by Penny Sweetser, whose doctoral
thesis focused on emergent play as a design strategy. Emergent play evolves
from player activity, but the suggestion that the game is ‘hardcore’, strategic
and involves diplomacy subtly directs player expectation and behaviors.
The relationship between the ideology of the game and the player is crucial in
determining how this experience is played out. As a result, even when games
push players to behave in certain ways, a cohesive interpretation of player
behavior is difficult. Games designers are increasingly aware that players can
alter the intended experience of the game, and as the Xbox Live loading
screen warns us, ‘online play may not reflect game experience’.
Despite this type of design, play is primarily an internalized experience or
is subsumed into the overall narrative of the world. These latter narratives
often suggest specific directions for imaginative practice, and in turn, these
directions are often accompanied by ludic links between the imagination
and cultural production—for example through completing a quest chain or
wearing a certain item of clothing. Again, this shows an attempt to direct
play and delineate play criteria, but even so, it still does not entirely control
the player’s behavior. Players will still try to subvert these very straight-
forward patterns, and often it only takes a few people to notice a quirk or
an idiosyncrasy for this to be exploited. In World of Warcraft, one of the
first ‘elite’ monsters experienced by human alliance characters is a kobold
called Hogger. Players are given a simple quest to find and kill the kobold,
who is described as having ‘overpowered all attempts at his capture’. Given
the scale of the game, the player quickly surpassed the death of Hogger with
other accomplishments in the game, but for some reason, perhaps because
players became accustomed to asking for help in slaying Hogger on the
local chat channels, or perhaps because he was rather poorly balanced and.
indeed, rather hard to kill at the level the quest was given, the quest became
a popular meme. Players would ironically boast that they had killed him,
would try to ‘solo’ him while wearing no armour or with their bare hands,
or would assemble ridiculously large raids (at that point, up to forty people)
in order to slay him. Thus, a simple quest became a culturally rich site of
shared experience and amusement, neither of which were the original inten-
tion when the quest was designed. In this case, a linear quest which was
meant to award the player, give them a sense of self-importance and allow
them to experience the thrill of killing a difficult monster became instead a
site of gentle ridicule and shared experience, satirizing the game and the way
in which it tried to generate heroic discourses. It also emphasizes how one
type of play experience is altered by communities into another to promote
shared experiences and thwarted expected player behavior, although not in
an undesirable manner.
Alternative pathways—both narrative and ludic—within games are pop-
ular, from roleplaying events or the characterization of avatars, to attempts
to destabilize and hack the game itself. They are often also shared outside of
the game through posts, videos, art, downloads and fiction which retell these
events. They provide exterior evidence of a player’s ingenuity and ability to
‘beat’ the game in interesting and unexpected ways. These actions show that
players are able to deliberately resist the patternings that games suggest to
them and are evidence of the various play categorizations breaking down.
However, in a wider sense, the fact that they have little obvious impact on
the gameworld (in a ludic sense, they have none at all), often means that
they are easy to overlook. A roleplaying event in World of Warcraft does
not affect the quests, lore or expansions released, for example. Non-player
characters (NPCs) cannot respond dynamically to the players around them.
The world is persistent, but it is not flexible. In addition, the ways that play-
ers express themselves about games are not always original—a player who
makes a forum post about the latest patch is often simple reiterating count-
less other posts about the same subject. In this respect, it is easy to read all
players in a Marxist sense as simply endorsing or responding to the game
text (Schott and Yeatman, 2011).
As such, the activities that players carry out to resist categorization are
seen as interesting, although not always effective. Extensive studies exist on
these secondary activities (Baym, 2000; Whiteman, 2009), on machinima
(Lowood and Nitzsche, 2011), on modifications (Deuze and Martin, 2009)
and on cosplay and dress-up (Fron et al., 2007; Lamerichs, 2014). These
pieces all demonstrate that player activity is becoming an important part
of the gaming self and that communities are seen as a viable way to study
the gamer. However, they are often studied as entities in themselves, and
are not directly linked with the game, or they are seen as simply perme-
ating its message elsewhere. Nicolle Lamerichs (2012) notes that ‘[t]hese
activities are often framed as the result of gamers’ attachment to the text,
even if they are a vital component of the game play, such as in The Sims or
Minecraft’, indicating an attachment to community as a necessary element
of play. However, most of these papers do not see the link between game
development and player as being reciprocal. Instead, these papers echo early
fan studies, where the gamer is seen as a ‘powerless elite’ (Tulloch, 1995) in
the face of gaming development (especially AAA titles or large franchises).
In later chapters, I attempt to debunk this, showing fans and fan producers
as an active, influential part of gaming societies.
However, regardless of their influence, or how their behavior is tram-
melled along specific gameplay lines, players still conceptualize themselves
as a unique entity within the virtual worlds they enter, and this is encouraged
by game design. If this were not the case, everyone in Mass Effect would
simply play the same Shepard and would chose the same options. A false but
necessary perception of individuality is encouraged within games which ask
players to create avatars, select skin colour, tweak their statistical strengths,
arrange furniture in their houses or determine the tree placement on their
farms. Character construction of this nature may happen even if it has no
bearing whatsoever on gameplay. Allowing players to feel as if their activi-
ties are unique is frequently incorporated (or at least appreciated) to please
users and to allow them to feel as if they have agency within each world.
Minecraft’s success lies largely in this approach, whereby the players have
apparently helped to determine the ultimate direction of the game. Mojang
foster a developer–player relationship via social media (see Chapter 5), and
the game itself provides an open world. Finally, mods or adventure maps
can make the Minecraft experience entirely different from the vanilla (base)
format of the game.
The way that individuals understand games is a difficult area to study.
This is largely because as well as interpreting the game in multiple ways,
experiential activity takes place on an individual level which is largely
shielded from other players or observers. Outside of the game, however,
many players attempt to express their personal understanding of games by
taking part in a more engaged manner. Posts on forums, arguments, sugges-
tions, wiki entries, fan fictions, open source software, apps, modifications,
machinima and websites all build on the autonomy of the player and form a
far more composite sense of ‘being’ than that experienced within the games.
This appears to be a reaction to the relative anonymity of the exoteric struc-
tures within online games, whereby players have a need to stand out, as well
as to seek out platforms where they can form closer social bonds with oth-
ers. The need for acknowledgement also leads to the rise of celebrities—both
virtual and real. Gigi and Summergale (machinima song artists), Xephos and
Honeydew (webcasters, The Yogscast), Leeroy Jenkins (World of Warcraft
commentator and comedian) KaeyiDream (hardware reviewer and fashioni-
sta) and TotalBiscuit (videogame pundit, The Cynical Brit) all epitomize the
myriad of voices that emerge as a result of games. However, most players
do not have this standing, and are thus reduced in how they can express
themselves as active members of a gaming community. These formations are
explored in more detail later.
Gaming communities are immensely important, no matter what their
form. These communities shape the game into a hyper-diegetic narrative of
their own (after Hills, 2002). The contributions they make towards each
game provide a way of understanding the communities themselves (which is
how they have previously been studied), but they also have a more generic
influence on how players understand the game itself (which has been less
well documented). From this, a second, vital point emerges. Players do not
behave in the same way in-game as they do out of game. The theoretical per-
spectives previously examined conflate these activities, assuming that behav-
ioral patterns remain the same between play and production. This cannot
be true, especially because it seems to unconsciously suggest a return to the
fears that games directly influence behavior. If scholars reject the causality
of games, why are they assuming that it takes place in gaming communities?
While I am no closer to defining players or community types, assuming
that synchronous or out-of-game activity is carried out with the same ludic
patterns as player behavior is a mistake. Therefore, I wish to draw a line past
this section that acknowledges the diversity of gaming communities, sepa-
rates them from gameplay, endorses their ability to present hyper-diegetic
versions of the game text and, above all, escapes easy classification. I exam-
ine community behavior in a more individualized way, rather than attempt
to pigeonhole members into specific activity patterns.
One way to avoid this trap is to examine what players do produce, and
through this, the assumptions that they make about what other players
enjoy; this is important both within and outside the game text. The case
studies in this book focus on high-profile subjects with extensive modes of
production, several of whom have created communities around them (or
act as loci for community action) and who have a proven track record of
changing their core text according to player/community desires. Each group
specifically produces content for other gamers, as designer and fan. All of
them also appear to encourage reciprocity to sustain the community. One
of the phenomena investigated within this book, the ‘always in beta’ con-
struction, provides a way in which the player is made to feel as if they are
at the forefront of dynamic construction and design. Other groups such as
The Yogscast or TotalBiscuit aim to anticipate trends or provide content
that their communities want to see, asking for feedback and taking note
of the relative popularity of each product. If a game or playthrough proves
unpopular, they abandon it and move onto something new. Other reasons
also arise, such as an old game played with a new spin or appreciation of
the discussion that takes place during gameplay. Similarly, game designers
increasingly change or add content as a result of pressure from players and
enable access to locations which allow them to express their feelings about
the game in a shared environment. This type of development is examined
next in terms of emergent play.
GAMING COMMUNITIES AS EMERGENT PLAY/PLAYERS
Play can be viewed as a particular type of engine for emergence by

virtue of its feedback dynamics. Play is inherently spontaneous and
experimental, and therefore players will find themselves responding
to social feedback in a very different way than they might in other
contexts.
—Pearce (2009: 45–6)
Emergent play is increasingly seen as a vital part of gaming community

behavior. As the studies in the previous section show, emergent play, particu-
larly when it has clear outcomes, provides a tangible way in which gaming
communities can be studied from a critical perspective.
Emergent play theories have their origins in a slightly different discipline.
Science and Technology Studies (STS) frequently demonstrate the innova-
tive potential of virtual communities and argue that this type of community
action leads to innovation and discovery. While a rather unlikely location
for virtual community research, the emphasis placed by STS on development
and innovation means that many studies have concerned themselves with
how and where these arise. The early adopter nature of STS subjects to the
virtual sphere means that studies on communities are relatively common,
beginning with proponents such as Reingold (1993) and expanding out-
wards. While STS concerns a wider pattern of science and technology, rather
than simply concentrating on virtual realms, it provides a useful basis which
argues that technologically aware communities develop methods of experi-
mentation and development as part of their societal structure. Developing
Fleck’s ideas, STS and Innovation studies examine the role of the active user
as an important element of scientific development. Van Oost et al. (2009)
combine the two schools of thought when examining behavioral patterns
in wireless communities, concluding that ‘the notion of community innova-
tion can develop into a relevant conceptual tool that helps to increase our
understanding of current and future tendencies in an emerging civil society
in which ordinary citizens become more and more actively involved in shap-
ing their technical and social environment’ (2007: 20). Here, STS studies,
which have been generally discredited in more ‘serious’ technological envi-
ronments, are revisited in the context of the dynamic, play-oriented com-
munities that exist online.
In Game Studies, there is growing research into how productive practices
enrich gameplay. In Communities of Play, Celia Pearce (2009) theorizes
that the relationships between players can become as important as the core
text itself. These relationships are sustained even when this text is removed
whereby players migrate to games or worlds that provide them with best-fit
scenarios. This is supported by the author’s personal observation of guild
movement, and more fulsomely by Chien et al.’s (2008) research, which
shows that players migrate from one text to another after initial group for-
mation takes place.
Pearce’s (2009) autoethnographic studies of Myst (1993) and Uru (2003)
players who migrated collectively into other virtual worlds when the online
components of Uru were closed down show that the existing community
relationships (Uru was extremely atmospheric but had limited gameplay)
changed from being intensely social to incorporating more creative activi-
ties, reflecting the capabilities of the new virtual space. Unable to repro-
duce the play elements of the game to any great extent, the players focused
instead rebuilding the world of Uru around them with new tools provided
by the worlds of There.com (2003) and Second Life (2003). Pearce (2009:
42) describes these behaviors as symptomatic of gamer culture since its
inception.
Pearce’s study demonstrates that community activity, or emergent play,
is as, if not more, important as the text itself. The Uru players’ love of
Myst prompted their movement elsewhere, but ultimately their enjoyment of
re-creating the environment kept them together. The re-creation of Uru also
served as a tangible reminder of community as space; many of Pearce’s dis-
cussions are illustrated with screenshots depicting communal meetings and
images of spaces designed to be shared, and several years after the closure of
There.com, her profile picture remained of her avatar, an act which Pearce
describes as both a memorialization and a representation of her online self.
Pearce argues that the links between community, place and player are often
dismissed, whereas in fact ‘relationships between players, as well as the
players’ relationship to the environment of the virtual world, are central’
(2009: 45). Her argument concludes by empowering the player-as-creator:
Thus, man the player is also man the creator, who plays with, subverts
and reconfigures media, inscribing it with new goals and cultural mean-
ings. . . . Everyone who inhabits the global-village-as-playground is at
once performer and audience, merging the sense of play-as-performance
with gameplay. At the same time, as content creators they are empow-
ered to redesign the game to their own liking. (2009: 279)
Pearce believes that productivity is a key element of sustaining a gaming

community, as is the belief that the player can and should be ‘empowered
to redesign the game’. This latter issue is central to many activities wit-
nessed herein, where players act because they feel tied to a particular text,
producing related work in order to express this. This is also reflected by
gaming design in which the demonstration of false productivity is often
used as a means of player retention. Achievement systems, whereby players
are rewarded with a badge, points or other non-tangible asset for excessive
play, are a common aspect of online play which endorses this ‘illusory’
productivity. It is worth briefly noting here that achievement systems are
intended to directly demonstrate visible hierarchies within online commu-
nities, with high or coveted achievements frequently serving as a marker of
cultural production and social worth. Although the endorsement of such
productivity within player communities may not lead to tangible effects
(rather like the players’ faux interaction with NPCs), it is still an aspect of
gaming that designers like to enforce in order to produce a feeling of self-
worth in the player.
In Communities of Play, the emergent community is seen at the heart of
virtual life, and many of the case studies included later in the book endorse
this representation. Elsewhere, the emergent community is also known as
the ‘innovative’ community; once again tying it to productivity. Van Oost
et al., in investigation of a community that set up and maintained a wire-
less community in Leiden, discovered that once initiated, the community
developed the project by designing their own specific tools and artefacts.
This helped move the project simply beyond the set-up of wireless into some-
thing that encouraged socialization. They conclude that ‘we have reason to
expect that activities of innovation communities also involve collective work
aimed at creating and sustaining stable networks.’ (Van Oost et al., 2009: 7),
implying that the community’s production is tied into self-sustainment.
Eric von Hippel also argues that innovative communities encourage
social practices in order to share and develop ideas constructively. In 2005,
Democratizing Innovation introduced the concept of ‘innovation commu-
nity’ defined as an organized cooperation in the development, testing and
diffusion of user-initiated innovations. Users as well as manufacturers can be
members; the innovation community can be purely functional but may also
fulfil the role of a social (virtual) community providing sociability, support,
a sense of belonging and a social identity (von Hippel, 2005: 96). Innovative
communities are formed when users recognize that development is needed
and that collective action is an important way forwards. Innovators recog-
nize that sustaining these communities is useful, because shared experience
is a useful way to explore multiple innovative pathways at once, and to
discover a best-fit solution for large groups who will ultimately become pur-
chasers. Von Hippel’s discussion of innovative practices finds that
. . . user innovation begins when one or more users of some good recognize
a new set of design possibilities—a so-called “design space”—and begin
to explore it. In general, one or more communities of user-innovators
will soon coalesce and begin to exchange innovation-related informa-
tion. . . . Sometime after user innovation begins, the first user-purchasers
appear—these are users who want to buy the goods that embody the
lead user innovations rather than building them for themselves. Manu-
facturers emerge in response to this demand. . . . the first manufacturers
to enter the market are likely to be user-innovators who use the same
flexible, high-variable-cost, low-capital production technologies they use
to build their own prototypes. (Baldwin et al., 2006: 2)
Innovative or emergent communities are a useful way to examine online

groups, and there are a number of obvious correlations between productiv-
ity and normal group practice in online gaming; guild members working for
a common aim, players sharing a small server together, or modding groups
producing expansions for a game. Von Hippel’s secondary assertions—that
early manufacturers will also be user innovators, can be seen in the rise
of groups such as the webcasters investigated in Chapters 3 and 4, or the
Indie gaming communities in Chapters 5 and 6, whereby designers are also
often hardcore gaming fans themselves. However, a note of caution is very
important when overtly proselytizing the online community as one of uto-
pian innovation. Online gaming communities are as just as friable as other
communities—susceptible to ruction, breakdown and strife (see also Dyer-
Witheford and De Peuter, 2009)
This unequal representation of the player as exemplary member of society
or subversive monster intent on wrecking the status quo is equally true for
the levels of productivity within online communities. The value of fan pro-
duction is incredibly variable, and this value is often difficult to judge. There
are also other issues surrounding its visibility—for example some companies
actively work to shut down fan-made artefacts or to undervalue the opinions
of dissenting fans. In environments in which production is endorsed and is
seen as a valuable aspect of cultural capital, innovation and creation are
more likely to occur, unlike in locales where the player is disenfranchised.
Sometimes, when hitherto production-friendly communities are exposed or
become less amenable to their users, this can also cause tension and feelings
of betrayal and anger. The online world is also a place where consumers
feel that they ought to be valued and are extremely vocal when they feel
wronged. Ironically, this is partly because of their awareness that they are
less powerful than they would like to be (echoes of Tulloch’s [1995] ‘pow-
erless elite’ here again). It is therefore important that the producers within
online communities are examined but not extolled too far.
A final challenge comes from overestimating the social bonds of an online
community, and its ability, or inability to sustain change or ructions. When
the ethics or the behavior of these groups is challenged, it becomes clear that
these communities struggle to remain together. Because of their diffracted
nature, whereby social codes and structures are not visible to all, it is often
easier for them to collapse when exposed to moments of tension. Further-
more, this tension exposes their actual structures as lacking a central point
of ‘thought’ collectivity (Fleck, 1993). Whether this is essential for their
continued existence, or whether the gaps are simply plugged by new mem-
bers or social structures, is an aspect that has been under-researched. Stud-
ies have examined group tension, but tend not to examine its aftermath.
I therefore examine some of these events in Chapters 4 and 6, with an
emphasis on continuance as well as the breaking event itself.
OUTLINE OF CASE STUDIES AND

ONLINE COMMUNITIES
This section briefly outlines the communities discussed as case studies within
the next few chapters in order to give them some context to each other.
Gamers. This is a broad category meaning anyone who plays video-
games. Gamers using other methods of gameplay are described as such when
relevant—for example tabletop gamers, LARPers and boardgamers.
The Steam community. This term refers to gamers who use Valve Corpo-
ration’s ‘Steam’ digital distribution platform to download and organize PC
and Mac games. In October 2013, the average number of players online at
any one time was slightly more than 5 million, and the platform has more
than 75 million active accounts (Steam, 2013).
The Indie community. This community is discussed further in Chapter 5,
but usually the term refers to players and developers who engage with games
designed by Independent companies, or advertised as ‘Indie’ titles through
platforms such as Steam. However, it also includes groups and individuals
who make games as experimental devices or that explore certain themes.
Indie games are sometimes produced by developers who have no attachment
whatsoever to a production company and do not wish to do so. Because of
the disparate nature of Indie games, and the ways in which they are con-
sumed across multiple spectrum, it is not possible to measure its size. As I
argue, the Indie community deliberately problematizes the understanding of
gamers as a cohesive whole.
The Minecraft community. This term refers gamers who play the sand-
box adventure game Minecraft. The Minecraft community self-identifies as
such very clearly (several clones are available for the game which it rejects);
however, the nature of the game means that it covers a very broad demo-
graphic, from very young children to teachers and artists. The Minecraft
community is also well known for its use of third-party websites such as
MinecraftForums and the Yogscast.com to share information and for a high
level of intervention with the game itself through modding and the cre-
ation of adventure and challenge maps and seeds, which do not exist in the
‘vanilla’ (original) version of the Minecraft game. In November 2013, there
were 25 million subscribed Minecraft players (this statistic includes versions
of the game across PC, Xbox and Android platforms).
Podcasters. Podcasters create shows for broadcasting through aural vir-
tual media, primarily the Apple platform iTunes. Podcasts discuss a specific
topic, or are re-syndications of shows that have appeared on mainstream
radio stations around the world. Although several high-profile podcasts
exist by recognized celebrities or shows (e.g. Gardener’s Question Time
and The Ricky Gervais Show), the nature of iTunes enables more amateur
broadcasters to make their recordings available, and it is these groups that
this book studies.
Webcasters. Webcasters create audio-visual recordings and make them
available on videosharing sites such as YouTube and TwitchTV. Webcast-
ing is a favorite of gaming enthusiasts because it allows them to showcase
the game they are playing while placing a separate audio track over top
it. Shows include machinima, walkthroughs, ‘let’s play’ guides, live events,
tournaments, news bulletins and interviews. Various restrictions apply to
webcasts, which are discussed subsequently.
A note on these groups. In this book, I often use the term caster, instead
of podcaster or webcaster. The semantics of this is discussed in Chapter 3.
Both pod- and webcasters struggle to identify themselves cohesively within
these communities (e.g. see the ‘machinimists’ conversation in the Trine 2
livestream between the Yogscast and TotalBiscuit; Bain, Brindley, and Lane,
2011), because their output is diverse. Instead, they tend to self-organize
around friendship groups (met both online and off) and like-minded activity.
I argue that casters perform the function of spokespeople for many gamers.
They provide an aspirational reflection of gaming behavior in that they are
active manipulators of the game text and, in some cases, are elevated to the
role of celebrity. The dissemination of casting through online broadcasting
means that their popularity rests almost entirely on the shoulders of fans,
whose downloading, ‘liking’ and subscribing to their work spreads it virally
across the web. In this respect, casters epitomize the grass-roots nature of
online celebrity, since they are entirely created by fans, rather than more
traditional, commercially created celebrities who are often the result of more
artificially manufactured techniques.
The Yogscast and the Yogscast community. The Yogscast themselves were
originally a corpus of three webcasters (Simon Lane, Lewis Brindley and
Hannah Rutherford) who made pod- and webcasts from their respective
homes. In 2010 the three moved into a shared house in order to make record-
ing easier. By 2013, the Yogscast had expanded dramatically and largely relo-
cated en masse to Bristol in the United Kingdom, where the business now
employs approximately thirty people. The group comprises eleven separate
channels on YouTube and has connections to crowdfunding games, musi-
cians, machinima artists and other virtual performers. The company also
employs several editors, administration managers, artists and sound engi-
neers to work behind the scenes in order to keep content flowing.
The Yogscast community is rather more difficult to measure. In Octo-
ber 2013, the main Yogscast channel (Yogscast Lewis & Simon) had more
than 6 million subscribers, and the Yogscast forum had 342,000 members.
Four of the other channels have more than 1 million subscribers, although
obviously there is cross-over between viewers here, and subscription rates
on YouTube are merely an indication of the people who have signed up to
receive notifications of new videos, not of overall viewing figures. Minecraft
videos by the Yogscast usually gain approximately 1 million views within the
first week of transmission on YouTube, with most of their other programmes
getting between 700,000 to 900,000 views. The main Yogscast channel has
received nearly 2 billion individual views.
Redditors. This group includes contributors to the Reddit.com web-
site, a popular forum which combines discussion, humour and link shar-
ing. Although it is possible to see how many people are subscribed to a
given forum (called a subReddit) on the site, it is not possible to see how
many people in total browse the site. The /r/gaming subReddit has slightly
more than 1 million subscribers, and the /r/yogscast subReddit has 16,000
subscribers.
CONCLUSION
Virtual community is already a phrase in common parlance, and as a result,

it has a very broad meaning. One of the reasons for this is that different
groups who use it in a generic sense have adopted it without really consider-
ing the more detailed implications it entails.
However, this is useful, because gaming communities can be seen to share
this broadness of scope and are often relatively vague in their own social,
political and cultural structures. In fact, this broadness is one of the core
issues with virtual communities that prevents a concrete definition of them.
Gaming communities can be seen to congregate around core texts. These
texts vary in form and function. Most usually this space is the game itself,
but because games also vary in size, in scope and in the ways that they bring
groups together (or not), this space may alter, depending on the needs and
the ability of the text to sustain debate and discussion. Other locative spaces
include forums, social spaces created by gaming platforms and core groups
or individuals who encourage social activity, or to whom other players are
drawn.
Games are relatively temporal, and as a result, they sometimes encourage
temporary relationships. This includes games that do not have a very long
shelf life or playability, as well as games whose core design involves bringing
groups together very quickly (e.g. in an arena fight) before breaking them
up again. For this reason, the groups that form around these games can fall
apart or disseminate very quickly (e.g. when a new version of the same game
comes out, players will migrate to it). Elements of this are factored into all
gaming communities, whereby there is an understanding that the shared
text will eventually date and be replaced. Games in which players form
temporary communities often contain other modes through which gamers
can socialize.
No matter what type of game, there is a need for players to share their
experiences. Therefore, communities outside of the game such as forums
are common. Many games also rely on community interaction in order to
succeed, for example through reciprocal gifting (see Chapter 7), or raid/
group formation.
Rather like the classification of gaming communities, there have been
various attempts to determine player type and behavior. Several models have
emerged which are useful; however, it is important to remember that play-
ers act in diverse ways and that their behavior may not be consistent across
different communities.
Players interpret the meaning and function of a gaming text differently,
and behave in different ways towards the core text. This can lead to inter-
nal conflict. At the same time, it is one of the things that players appreciate
about their gaming experiences and the people with whom they interact.
Partly this is because of the gaming ethos of experimentation and play, but
partly it is also because of inevitable clashes between such culturally diverse
community members.
It is especially important not to confuse a player’s actions within a game
with those that occur outside or as a result of the game. Within a game,
players are provided with specific pathways to follow and are directed to
play in certain ways, both ludically and socially. Prior research tends to con-
flate these activities and assumes that a player who acts in one way during
the course of a game will also do so in a related gaming community. This is
not the case. I have already argued that gaming communities are playful by
nature, but this does not mean that they transfer in-game actions to social
relationships outside it.
STS studies argue that science and innovation will drive communities
forwards. This idea has been largely discredited, but it is useful when consid-
ering (as many games scholars already do) the emergent behavior of gamers.
Celia Pearce (2009) argues that gamers are also performers who develop the
text in emergent manners. While the majority of players do not contribute
to a wider community, those that do are useful to study because they display
an outward manifestation of how gaming is understood and is reformed as
a social activity.
Studying the output of gaming communities provides a useful insight into
their understandings of self and game text.
3 ‘Digging a Hole’
Reframing Game Narratives
through Webcasting
In this chapter and the next, I examine four groups of web- and podcasters
and their fans, in an attempt to define their place as active agents as regards a
game text. The chapters bring together Fan Studies that suggest their capac-
ity for cultural production is growing, with those portraying Web 2.0 and its
ancestors as a grass-roots community with a collective, creative power. The
two chapters also examine the need for spokespeople within this formation,
and the ways in which the elite fan (Hills, 2006) engages in creative practices
which subsequently help shape the communities that support them. Gaming
has only recently begun to create its own celebrities; thus, the discussion of
webcasters as fans, spokespeople, celebrities and ‘normal’ players is coun-
terpoised in the second chapter by an examination of the communities that
these groups have endorsed, and their relationship in turn with ‘fans of fans’.
Alongside authors Clay Shirky, Matt Hills, Henry Jenkins and David
Gauntlett, I argue that fandom is not only becoming an active procedure
(although this needs to be cautiously defined), but that pod- and webcasting
has enabled new forms of creative output which redefine existing narra-
tive patterns. In this chapter, I outline each group studied and map some
of their behavior as both fans and producers. Pod- and webcasting is dis-
cussed in terms of its structural and narratological impact. It also examines
the ways in which casters negotiate discourses within gaming and question
whether webcasting is cohesive enough to be seen as a media genre in its
own right.
The following chapter is a discussion of fan production in which Matt
Hills’s idea of the elite fan is used to understand how gaming fans are becom-
ing celebritized within an environment that has not hitherto provided a plat-
form for ‘real’ voices and personalities. There is also some discussion of the
tension between the elite fan and their own followers, a tension specifically
generated by the closeness of reader to text within social networks. Chap-
ter 4 also examines how the casting groups described here relate to their fans
and how they cope with them in an environment in which there may not be
enough separation between the two groups.
With a specific emphasis on The Yogscast, I examine the artefacts pro-
duced by fans and fan behavior, most notably the relationship between
‘Digging a Hole’ 61
casters and fans at the PAX Prime convention, 2011. This is used to dis-
cover how fans interpret celebrity, as well as discussing how they identify
themselves with both the group itself and the gameworlds they promote.
There is an emphasis here not only on transmedial production—something
which fans take for granted—but also on the uneasy relationships forged
between casters and the fanbase. The following chapter also strikes a note
of caution against the excessive evangelization of these actions—while fans
are very productive, what they create is not necessarily original, nor does it
add to a body of knowledge. It is also important that viewers or players of
games are not automatically classed as ‘active’ fans, although it is certainly
the case that they are encouraged far more than other media texts to become
involved.
PODCASTING—DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION
Podcasting is defined as ‘a digital audio or video file that is episodic; down-

loadable; programme driven, mainly with a host and/or a theme; and conve-
nient, usually via an automated feed with computer software’ (Gil de Zúñiga
et al., 2010: 48). In recent years, podcasting has spread from audio record-
ings to more visual media, most notably through YouTube (at which point
it is renamed webcasting). The podcasting movement began during the dot-
com boom in 1999–2000. Podcasts, then largely described as ‘audioblogs’,
were heralded as a natural successor to blogging, thus receiving immedi-
ate attention from developers who rapidly improved the software avail-
able for downloading audio recordings in small formats online. Between
2000 and 2004, podcasting technology underwent considerable grassroots
innovation to streamline the existing tools and allow them to become more
user-friendly. This was largely encouraged by various developers including
Dave Winer, a developer and software engineer of RSS Feeds who released
a series of audio interviews on his weblog created by former newscaster
Christopher Lydon and skybuilders.com’s Bob Doyle on their purpose-built
studio. These, alongside his weblog, contained a series of challenges to other
designers to expand upon the potential of edited audio broadcasting. This
was given further publicity at the first Bloggercon in 2003, where Winer,
Doyle and Lydon demonstrated their audioblogging technology and gen-
erated considerable interest in the development community. This interest
resulted in changes that allowed voice to be recorded and transmitted easily
online via files with good sound quality and minimal file size. Concurrent
with this development, live recording was gradually linked with that of RSS
feeds, ultimately allowing podcasts to be transmitted quickly and effectively
across the internet.
The word podcasting was first used by Ben Hammersley in February 2004
in the Guardian article ‘Audible Revolution’. The word is an amalgamation
of ‘broadcasting’ and ‘iPod’. Retrofitted marketing by Apple often defines
the ‘Pod’ section of iPod as ‘Portable on demand’, although this term is in
fact a backronym, coming into use some time after the device was released
and not described in Hammersley’s article. Hammersley describes the devel-
oping field of audible blogging as ‘the best of all worlds, and not just for
the listener’. He quotes Christopher Lydon as saying that ‘the ability to
broadcast out, and have the internet talk back to them, is very appealing to
journalists: professional hack and weblogger alike’. The article ends with a
clarion call from Lydon which typifies the appeal of the podcast as a resource
for politicized activism and blogging expression:
We will not go back to genuflecting to all these one-way top-down ways

of disseminating news,” We’ll make it ourselves, and listen to it when-
ever we like. (Lydon in Hammersley, 2004)
Hammersley describes podcasting as an ‘obvious’ step forwards from text

based blogs, and in the year that followed, a number of groups honed the
available technology, while web evangelists began to extol the rapidly devel-
oping medium, causing an exponential growth in interest. On September 28,
2004, blogger and technology columnist Doc Searls defined podcasting as
‘Personal Option Digital casting’ (Searls in Levy, 2006). He prophesied that
‘PODcasting will shift much of our time away from an old medium where
we wait for what we might want to hear to a new medium where we choose
what we want to hear, when we want to hear it, and how we want to give
everybody else the option to listen to it as well’ (italics and bold in origi-
nal). He found twenty-four hits on Google under the search term podcast.
‘A year from now’, he wrote, ‘it will pull up hundreds of thousands, or per-
haps even millions’. On September 28, 2005, Wikipedia reported more than
100,000,000 hits for the word.
The 2005 breakthrough in podcasting as a new site for convergence
technology was supported by the release of iTunes version 4.9. The update
included native support for podcasting in an attempt to cement iTunes as a
central location for downloadable audio content. Users could now down-
load podcasts to the iPod, and later the iPad and iPhone, in the same way
that iTunes users already accessed music, videos and other media, and
iTunes now accepted recordings by users who had created their own ama-
teur shows. Suddenly everybody was downloading, creating or listening to
podcasts about everything from Pilates workouts to shoe-buying guides.
Podcast was the word of the year in the 2005 New Oxford American Dic-
tionary. However, this attempt by iTunes to centralize the dissemination
of podcasts ultimately lead to their developing into other media. After the
initial surge of audio podcasts, broadcasters quickly realized that accompa-
nying sound with visual imagery was a far more viable way to spread their
message and that other platforms such as YouTube and their own sites were
just as good, if not better, at disseminating this. Organizational issues with
finding podcasts on iTunes also became problematic, with some consistently
rising to the top and obfuscating the rest. As Lewis Brindley (2011) com-
ments, gathering a solid base of listeners through podcasting alone is ‘virtu-
ally impossible’ when such a huge spectrum of possible options exist without
clear search terms or specific enough categories. In addition, searching for
a specialist webcast through YouTube is much easier since its search engine
allows searching through keywords, title, author and subject.
Although podcasting was seen as a natural development from blogging
(Blood, 2002; Rettburg-Walker, 2008), it is an underexamined critical area.
While the corpus of work around this is gradually growing, at present virtu-
ally no writing exists on webcasting aside from casual mentions of fans as
creators in articles about other texts (e.g. Sean Duncan’s [2011] exploration
of Minecraft). This is possibly because the area of netnography (Kozinets,
2011) is already vast. Discussions of podcasting tend to discuss its educa-
tional merit (Guy, 2009; Surry et al., 2011) and practical usages in such (Abt
and Barry, 2007; Salmon et al., 2008) rather than examining its creative
potential. It might also be that the potential of pod- and webcasting has not
yet been fully realized or that because the way that it forms and expresses
itself cannot be easily classified. Pod- and webcasts are created by one or two
individuals, with the subsequent community formed around it seeming to be
another, secondary community.
Despite this dearth of interest from scholarly circles, pod- and webcasts
are an excellent example of grass-roots innovation on the web. Like video-
games, they are a site of early adoption and technological innovation. Their
producers pursue best-fit solutions to the production of their work and their
autonomy as creators allows them to experiment and to adopt technology
as it becomes available. They gather audiences primarily through their own
self-promotion and subsequent dissemination of their work by fans. Their
success is also symptomatic of the self-made nature of the Internet (Shirky,
2008a), with some casters able to devote their careers and to finance their
lives by producing shows, most often as a result of increased notoriety and
respect within their chosen circle. This type of practice is not limited to
gaming groups; however, as an example, they provide a useful marker for
broader studies of podcasting and/or gaming community behaviors.
In the previous chapter I discussed issues with the terms podcaster and
webcaster, indicating that the members of these groups often used different
terms or had trouble identifying what name to give to the media they pro-
duced. Some specifically chose one mnemonic, while other move interchange-
ably between several. This was true of the interviews conducted for this
chapter. For example, although the titular ‘Yogscast’ refers to the YouTube
videos, and the ‘YoGPoD’ to the podcasts, the presenters slip between the
two during casts and did so in interviews. The Yogscast and Yogscast were
used interchangeably to describe the whole organization. Similarly, mem-
bers of GamerDork referred to all their work as ‘podcasting’, despite the
fact that they were also producing videos and blog entries. For the remain-
der of this chapter, and to ensure consistency, I use webcasting to refer to
visual material and podcasting or audio casting for purely audio material.
Cast refers to either medium in which both are being discussed. This term
is derived from TotalBiscuit’s cropping of the initial word and engages with
the more versatile semantic meaning of the word, which connotes the idea
of ‘spellcasting’ or throwing an object outwards towards its target. This
additionally links the word more closely to the audiences of these shows,
which tend to be those already engaged in geek culture and are thus familiar
with the ideas of both magical abilities (via gaming) and the dissemination
of information through such media. The words show and episode are used
interchangeably to mean any type of cast, usually in accordance with the
ways they were described by the casters themselves.
The gaming casts studied varied greatly in terms of time and regularity,
with Yogscast members (see Figure 3.1) filling content and subject. More
specific breakdowns of each series are detailed later; however, each set of
casts had some aspects in common. The casts are all supported by core
presenters who cement the programme’s identity and tone. All groups also
produced shows with guests from other casts, the gaming world in general
and e-sports. Other appearances from friends, guild members and partners
were also common. Content was also hugely variable, from compact dem-
onstrations of a particular thing—for example the explanation of how to
kill a boss—to chat-show-style conversational pieces; opinionated rants;
sections dedicated to answering fan questions; reviews; group discussion
of specific topics; episodic ‘seasons’, in which casters explored a game in
stages as a walkthrough; ‘how-to’; roleplay narrative or review; voiceovers;
and sometimes music, fan animations or songs. The casts varied in length,
from voiceovers lasting less than a minute, to two or three hours. Although
YouTube restricted the uploading of videos more than fifteen minutes in
length to users who did not have a partnership agreement, two groups had
obtained these, allowing them to download longer videos to their dedicated
Figure 3.1 The Yogscast, 2013

(Image by Teutron, used with permission from The Yogscast.)
channels. The average length of a webcast was about 20 to 25 minutes,
although some (most notably, TotalBiscuit’s ‘I Suck at Starcraft’ series),
lasted for up to 1 hour. Throughout June 2011, the top ten most-watched
videos on YouTube had, on average, five or six videos featuring games, with
at least three of these slots regularly filled by the established games webcast-
ers interviewed later. By 2013, eight or nine of these slots were taken by
gaming channels, with Yogscast members filling at least five of these on a
regular basis.
RESEARCH METHODS
A mixed-method approach was taken, including the following techniques:

Observational and textual analysis of archives and current releases by
each group.
Interviews with The Yogscast, GamerDork and The Most Popular Girls
on the Internet (TMPGOTI); TotalBiscuit initially agreed to be interviewed
but did not reply to subsequent mails—see the following discussion). All
interviews were recorded and remained the property of both interviewer
and subject. Several other interviews, which were ultimately not included
here, were taken from individual casters for contrast at PAX Prime 2011,
Eurogamer 2011 and during the course of the research. Follow-up inter-
views were conducted with all groups to verify facts and update the author
on any changes.
Autoethnographic observation of fan activities through forum activity,
Facebook pages, explorations into public servers run by each group and chat
channels. This involved some direct participation. The author was tagged in
Facebook and Twitter posts, mentioned on the GamerDork and TMPGOTI
podcasts, name-checked for a donation during a charity event, took part in
two livestream events (in one instance being recorded inadvertently for an
unrelated webcast by a Yogscast fan) and spoke to other players on servers,
in person and in shared community games.
Panel at PAX Prime 2011, showcasing The Yogscast during the question-
and-answer forum ‘Digging a Hole’, meeting fans and hosting a question-and-
answer session. This was attended by approximately 500 people. The panel
was subsequently released as a two-part webcast on the main Yogscast channel
(Brindley et al., 2011a, 2011b).
THE CASTERS
All the casters studied had a consistent level of output, producing at least
one item on a daily basis. None of the groups was affiliated with franchise or
official gaming sites with a pre-existing identity (e.g. Gamespot or IGN). All
the casters were from the United Kingdom, apart from TMPGOTI, which
was instead affiliated with a UK casting circle. All the groups had been active
for at least two years, meaning that they were established in terms of voice
and had a relatively consistent quality. One group consisted of a sole male
presenter, one was a growing group of male and female presenters with two
males and one female at the centre, one was of two males and one was all
female.
Two groups used webcasting as a primary method (the Yogscast, Total-
Biscuit), and one did so intermittently (GamerDork). All groups initially
started as podcasters (although in the case of The Yogscast, the transition to
webcasting was almost immediate), and archives of these were easily avail-
able. All had dedicated websites where fans could download and watch casts.
The Yogscast and TotalBiscuit were also YouTube partners, an arrangement
which not only allows users to subscribe to their channels but also places
advertisements on skyscraper sidebars and sometimes before each cast takes
place. TMPGOTI was the only group not to have a forum; however, they
made extensive use of Twitter to advertise themselves.
The Yogscast
HONEYDEW: ‘I’m eating a Jaffa Cake, Lewis’
XEPHOS: [not listening and concentrating instead on looting from a
chest] ‘We might need those’.
—The Yogscast (2010a)
Lewis Brindley (Xephos) and Simon Lane (Honeydew) are the two main con-
tributors to the UK webcast The Yogscast or Yogscast and the less frequent
podcast YoGPoD. Initially beginning with the two making podcasts and
occasional walkthroughs, they were signed up to the GameStation network
of gamers on YouTube in 2009 after recommendation from TotalBiscuit.
Over time, and as the casts increased in popularity, the two were able to
expand The Yogscast into a fully fledged business, with eleven channels
broadcasting a variety of content ranging from playthroughs to new reports
about gaming. The other casters in the group were originally sourced from
friends met through the SomethingAwful.com forum group ‘Ye Olde Goon
Squad’, and through the World of Warcraft Guild of the same name on
Venture Co. EU, although by 2013, the group was actively recruiting games
journalists and editors through more conventional means.
The Yogscast (or YoGPoD, in its audio format) began broadcasting in
2008. After meeting online and realizing that they clearly had chemistry,
Lewis Brindley recorded several conversations with Simon Lane and con-
vinced him to take part in an ongoing series of comedy shows featuring
games or related discussion. At first, the YoGPoD took the form of a social
media podcast, varying its topics between gaming (including tabletop gam-
ing), daily life and observational humour, and The Yogscast concentrated
almost solely on providing practical guides to raid instances and bosses in
World of Warcraft. As part of a high-end guild, the two had noticed that
demonstration videos on YouTube tended to lack description, and therefore
did not really provide players trying to emulate these guilds with the practi-
cal detail they needed. Their webcasts emulated more well-known channels
at the time such as Tankspot, with one crucial difference. Brindley and Lane
did not present themselves as high-end players demonstrating superior tech-
nique; rather, they are two everyman characters whose observational com-
mentary about each instance was irreverent, self-mocking or imperfect and
frequently deviated completely from the intended topic:
To us that was quite funny because when people go onto YouTube,

and they’re like ‘oh God, we’re never going to kill Mu’ru; I’ll go onto
YouTube and see if there are any good guides out there’. Then they go
on, and they find me talking about sausages on a stick, with absolutely
no help; nothing whatsoever! (laughs) There was some sort of delicious
sadistic joy about misleading them into thinking they were watching a
proper guide. (Lane, interview, 2011)
However, misleading or not, this type of commentary proved extremely

popular, particularly because it exposed the idiosyncrasies of the game to
players. For players, satirizing the core text places the two casters firmly on
‘their side’ as Xephos and Honeydew/Lewis and Simon expose moments
of inconsistency or ludicrousness. The casts collectively represent the two
as uniformly average players/people, and although their relationship with
fans is at first problematized (see Chapter 4), they appear to the viewer as
friendly, approachable people. Here, The Yogscast functions as a typical
fan text, relying on a shared discourse between broadcasters and listeners/
viewers. Knowledge of the core text forms the central means of cultural capi-
tal and elevates the status of The Yogscast producers amongst fan audiences
(H. Jenkins, 2006a). This is further supported by the irreverent attitude and
less-than-perfect gameplay.
By 2013, The Yogscast had created walkthroughs, serialized narratives,
animations of previous podcasts, playthrough reviews of games, ‘let’s play’
demonstrations, music and their own comic voiceovers for gaming adver-
tisements. As with all of the casters in this study, collaborations with other
casters were frequent; for example working with TotalBiscuit on a Magicka
walkthrough, being interviewed on other podcasts such as Nordrassil Radio
and ultimately rolling in several other groups (inTheLittlewood and Hat
Films) into their own company and channels. Yogscast webcasts usually
lasted between 20 and 30 minutes and were presented in an episodic format,
often ending with cliffhangers or hooks for the next show. The time commit-
ments (and greater audience figures) of webcasting meant that these rapidly
curtailed the frequency of audio casts.
At the time of the first interview in April 2011, The Yogscast was riding
high on a wave of popularity which had begun earlier in the year. Although
their World of Warcraft: Cataclysm videos were becoming increasingly used
as raid guides, The Yogscast’s break came from a slightly less traditional
source. Realizing that there was very little original content for them to cover
in World of Warcraft that had not been extensively done by other webcast-
ers with established reputations (Brindley, interview: 2011), the two started
a new series, Shadow of Israphel (SoI), filmed on a completely different
game which they had started playing to have a break from high-end raid
content. The game was Minecraft, already a sleeper hit with Indie gamers.
Just before Christmas 2010, the game became stable enough to allow multi-
player servers to function and thus allowed the two to record videos of them
both exploring the game on the same seed (the name given to the randomly
generated code for each world created by the game).
SoI initially begins as a guide to Minecraft, with the two explaining how
to build a house, how to make rudimentary tools and how to start explor-
ing the Minecraft world. The first series (which is simply called ‘Minecraft
Season 1’) has a trials-and-tribulations feeling to it, with both players mak-
ing errors such as accidentally burning down their own ‘Yogcave’ by setting
fire to the wooden floor or venturing out in the dark (when monsters spawn)
and being hit on the head by a zombie. However, in Episode 6, ‘The Mysteri-
ous Tree’ (2010b), the walkthrough nature of the videos begins to change.
On waking up/entering their private server, the two discover that some-
one appears to have been using it in their absence. Furthermore, this person
appears to be communicating with them in a bizarre and sinister manner.
A huge tree has been planted outside their (rebuilt) cave, and the furniture
in the Yogcave has been rearranged. Mysterious messages start to appear,
warnings to lock their door and further indications that someone has paid
them a visit. The Yogcave suffers a further injustice when Xephos steps on a
booby trap placed by the back door and blows the shelter to pieces.
Xephos and Honeydew puzzle over who the mysterious intruder might
be. ‘It couldn’t have been Hannah [Rutherford], because I don’t think she
would know how to do that; it’s someone with brains’, muses Lane (2011)
(actually it was Rutherford, who along with several other people helped
design and edit the series behind the scenes). As the two continue to specu-
late, and strange events continue to happen, the series gradually shifts gear.
The two characters narratively reconfigure their potential intruder from
thinking of him as a random player (or hacker), to a mysterious adversary
who has ‘leaked out of the portal’ (Brindley and Lane, 2010a) created in
an earlier episode. Slowly but surely, their adventure changes from one of
sandbox discovery to roleplay adventure. As the series continues, Xephos
and HoneydewHo discover a series of increasingly well-crafted buildings on
their land, a village in peril, two damsels to be saved, a sinister villain with
a legion of undead minions and corrupted followers to thwart their journey
and a host of supporting characters and events including a priest that sounds
like Elvis, a geriatric love interest for Honeydew and a sex scene during a
funeral. All of this is carried out with a tongue in cheek, often slapstick
narrative that gently satirizes typical roleplay plotlines, allowing the two
‘heroes’ to indulge in more humour than actual gameplay.
Lewis Brindley and Simon Lane both described SoI as an attempt to
inject a deus ex machina into Minecraft. Although the game provided
excellent sandbox play, the game has absolutely no underlying narrative
(see Chapter 6). The two based their villain Israphel on a previous hoax
within the game in which players had claimed to witness a character called
Herobrine, an incident which had made players question whether they were
being hacked, were experiencing a bug, or had intruders in their camp. The
two explained:
We’d been playing these custom maps, and the thing is that they don’t
have active NPCs, and there was no easy way to make that. (Brindley,
interview, 2011)
. . . things were getting a bit boring. With a Minecraft walkthrough it

starts off quite interesting because you’re in a race to get shelter and to
set yourself up, but then once that’s done, then you’re not really in an
awful lot of danger . . . things were in danger of getting a bit stale. (Lane,
interview, 2011)
The series attracted a huge following, with episodes often gaining more
than 1 million views on the first day of release. Regular, episodic releases
around ‘teatime’ (Brindley, interview, 2011) meant that casts were consis-
tently available over a period of high user browsing in the United Kingdom.
The hyper-diegetic nature of the series, with episodes transitioning between
an exploration of game, to an exploration of story/the narrative potential of
Minecraft itself, appealed to both hardcore fans of the game, who were inter-
ested in the potential ‘to mine, create, dig, and try not to explode!’ (a slogan
inscribed on a popular fan T-shirt), and viewers who were intrigued and
amused by the emergent story arc. The series bolstered the already popular
Yogscast webcasts by cementing their reputation as a show which appealed
to a wide variety of gamers, was presented in a light-hearted way, and which
consistently entertained from episode to episode.
At the time of writing, the SoI series had become so sprawling that it took
place over several different Yogscast channels and comprised multiple spin-
offs. After the initial three series, SoI itself became more sporadic and vari-
ous issues, including a member of staff leaving with several of the avatars
used in the game and the main map being destroyed by Minecraft updating
itself, meant that it was rarely produced. Instead, aspects of the narrative or
the exploration fed slowly into long running series such as Voltz, Jaffa Cake
Factory and Yoglabs. These episodes were also supplemented with explora-
tions of other ‘adventure maps’ or mods for the game that players and fans
had written (some quite clearly produced with the Yogscast in mind). The
Yogscast also looked at other games; playing them together, competitively
and alone, as well as spotlighting other aspects of gaming such as the grow-
ing convention scene, machinima, interviews with developers and previews
of titles still in beta or unreleased to the public. By October 2013, The
Yogscast had produced more than 3,000 webcasts on the main channel
alone. They released episodes from at least five of their main channels every
day, as well as employing a team of editors to help refine the quality of the
recordings. Subsequent members of the group had also risen to prominence,
with most having their own Yogscast channel and distinctive personalities;
Lomadia/Hannah Rutherford played expertly through various AAA titles;
Llana/LividCoffee/Duncan Jones was known for his laidback, yet detailed
approach, whereas Sips/Chris Lovacz aired sprawling playthroughs of older
games. In order to demonstrate their connection to their community and in
part to offset their huge success, every December was devoted to livestreams
for charity. To date, the Yogscast have raised more than $1.5 million through
online donations to various charities including Oxfam, Special Effect, War
Child and Little People.
THE CYNICAL BRIT
If you are offended, please feel free to unsub. I am not going to cen-
sor myself because a few people burst into tears over nothing on the
internet.
—TotalBiscuit (2011b)
The Cynical Brit, also known as TotalBiscuit, TotalHalibut, TB or John

Bain, is a full-time e-sports and gaming caster. He employs several staff,
including another editor and a researcher. Bain’s wife Jenna is also heavily
involved and manages technical aspects of webstreaming, updates fans on
TB’s activity when he is busy and occasionally posts her own casts. At 30,
Total Biscuit already has an illustrious history in podcasting. He has been
casting since 2000 and has taken part in several long-running shows, includ-
ing Nordrassil Radio and WoW.Radio. In 2008 he left WoW.Radio to start
producing solo shows and to develop his e-sports commentary. TotalBiscuit
is known for his exacting nature and uncompromising approach to games.
TotalBiscuit initially produced casts based on Blizzard Entertainment
games such as World of Warcraft and Starcraft II; however, his channel
became gradually more well known for his first-look show ‘WTF Is XXX’
(where ‘WTF Is’ is followed by the name of relevant game). He also does
professional e-sports commentary and playthroughs with other casters,
most notably Magicka with The Yogscast (2011), and Terraria (2011) with
Jesse Cox (2011, 2013). TotalBiscuit has a deliberately confrontational atti-
tude, although this is tempered by a strong personal code of honor. His
reviews and commentary are uncompromising and do not always placate
his listeners, but they are founded in a long-term knowledge of theorycraft
professional play and experience as a reviewer. It is this critical approach
which makes him popular. TotalBiscuit is highly articulate and uses all of
his casts to debate (usually with himself, but sometimes with others) from
within an intelligent rhetorical framework which he has attributed in several
casts to his prior training as a lawyer:
Every mistake, bug, and silly decision is brought up and torn to shreds,
with constructive criticism and ideas for fixing the problems also pre-
sented when possible. (WoWwiki, 2013)
TotalBiscuit also strives to be authentic—in voice and in his product,

which is best expressed through his mission statement on the Cynical Brit
website:
Presenting ideas to an audience without the comfort of a safety net and

multiple takes allows one to speak from the heart, in the most honest
way possible. The audience responds well to that and in turn, one can
feed off of their energy, allowing it to drive the performance to greater
heights, even if they’re half a world away. (Bain, 2011)
TotalBiscuit’s representation of self is therefore specifically not that of

the everyman; rather, it is of an elite expert. He is sharp and erudite, and
as his title suggests, he is highly cynical, bringing a level of incisive criti-
cism to gaming. This allows his webcasts to be extremely accessible to both
hardcore and casual gamers, since although they contain in-depth analyses
of various games and gaming activities, they are descriptive and contain a
level of linguistic clarity that makes them easy to comprehend. Webcasts do
discuss extremely precise aspects of games, but these are always explained
clearly, and jargon is either avoided or given context.
At the time of writing, The Cynical Brit show was well established. Total-
Biscuit was working full-time to produce casts which were released on a
daily basis, and had been doing so for nearly three years. He had abandoned
simply reporting on Blizzard products, again because of a lack of relevant
content, and produced first impression ‘WTF Is . . .’, e-sports and ‘Content
Patch’ shows (which reported on gaming news), interspersed with reviews,
personal vlogs, playthroughs of games that he liked and first-look previews,
especially from conventions and gaming events. Most videos gathered about
65,000 to 160,000 hits within the first week of release, with ‘WTF Is . . .’
gathering more hits over time depending on the popularity of a game. AAA
releases such as Saints Row IV (2013) gained more than 500,000 views, and
pre-releases such as the Blizzard CCG Hearthstone (2013) jumped in popu-
larity when the game was finally released, as well as benefitting from being
‘sneak peaks’ of games not available for play by the public.
TotalBiscuit initially agreed to be interviewed, but this was over a
period when he was suffering from exhaustion, and so the recording was
rescheduled. After his break, e-mails were not answered, although the author
suspects this was because of the high level of his mailbag than from a refusal
to be interviewed.
GamerDork
Both of us are quite disarming . . .
—Cox (interview, 2011)
GamerDork (2009–2011) was hosted by Neil Brooks (Xibxang) and Leon

Cox (RatsoAlbion), with contributions and interviews from other casters
and games journalists. GamerDork also operates a website which is written
by slightly more than twenty-five contributors. GamerDork was primar-
ily a weekly podcast by the two main presenters. This is supplemented by
reviews and some YouTube playthroughs, recorded mainly by contributors
to the blog, not the main presenters. Over time, GamerDork experimented
with transmission dates and frequency, but by March 2011, the cast was
fairly stable and producing shows of approximately 90 minutes to 3 hours
long. The show had about 1,700 listeners per episode. GamerDork’s sub-
scriptions and donations allowed it to cover hosting and recording fees, but
little more. Both members of the cast were employed elsewhere, and Brooks
also had a young daughter, thus having other commitments to his family.
While all groups had adult-rated content, the members of GamerDorks
prided themselves on shocking or faux offensive content, although this mel-
lows markedly as time passes. Their humour is deliberately tendentious, and
a trademark trait is using unpleasant or foul descriptions to describe the
response to a review or an action.
The original GamerDork podcast followed a standard pattern which is
also common to many other podcasts. The first section discusses what each
presenter has done socially or vocationally in the preceding week, followed
by commentary on the games they have played. This is then followed by
a ‘feature’—either games related chatter between the two or an interview/
joint presentation with other casters, news about the cast itself, queries from
readers and then a brief round-up to close the episode. The casts fall some-
where between the YoGPoD, in which editing is often clearly apparent,
and TotalBiscuit’s podcasts, which are usually strictly themed but virtually
always appear in an unedited format. Brooks described the editing process
as taking about four hours (the same amount of time cited by the Yogscast
in 2011 for a 20-minute webcast—although casts produced in 2013 could
take weeks, depending on the content). Like The Yogscast and TotalBiscuit,
the GamerDorks had a rigorously planned recording schedule, although
unlike the previous two, they also used cues for conversations and direction.
Before each cast, the two presenters used an online timetable to plot poten-
tial sections and discussion topics and then recorded with this in mind. This
gave each presenter an idea of where the conversation might flow or what
to research in more detail before the cast took place.
Despite its broad remit of reviews and chat about games, GamerDork
was aimed at ‘elite’ gamers with a high level of background knowledge or
long-term experience of playing. This is discussed repeatedly throughout the
casts, including debates about sociality, games as art, representations of the
gamer and attitudes towards gaming. As the casts develop and become more
sophisticated, the gamer is increasingly represented as a mainstream figure,
although distinctions are often made between, for example, how long a per-
son has played in their lifetime or the types of games/consoles they choose
to play. In this respect, the cast might be said to have a traditionalist attitude
to gaming, in which the player is problematized socially and semiotically.
GamerDork is not an exclusionary show, but it is highly conscious of many
of the stigmas that surround gaming and shows a much greater unease with
them than TotalBiscuit (who tends to dismiss or talk around these claims)
and the Yogscast (who ignores them). In this respect, the cast is uncon-
sciously embroiled in the discourses identified by Kowert (2013a, 2013b),
where gamers are complicit in sustaining negative stereotypes of themselves.
Finally, the GamerDorks also prioritize console gaming, although this is due
to the equipment that they own, rather than a deliberate choice, therefore
targeting a considerably smaller community.
GamerDork is associated with the Unified Gamers Network and fre-
quently features interviews or joint casts with the members of these shows.
In early July 2011, at the time of interview, the GamerDorks were busy
organizing their first meet-up, the Dorkapalooza. The event was a combina-
tion of social event, LAN party and fund-raiser, and the GamerDorks raised
more than £2,000 by attempting to break a world record for continuous
gameplay of Civilisation V. This event, which was frequently discussed dur-
ing the podcasts, revealed a very intimate relationship with a small fanbase,
many of whom the casters knew by name.
In July 2011, the two presenters parted ways. Neil Brooks continued
with a revised version of GamerDork, changing presenters several times
and handing over control of the cast to another caster, Leah Haydu, after
six months. GamerDork continued to run for slightly more than 100 epi-
sodes, but recordings became more and more sporadic, and in 2013 only
five aired, most of them in the earlier part of the year. Leon Cox started the
podcast Cane and Rinse with a former GamerDork contributor, Jay Taylor.
The show consists of complete playthroughs of games, and listeners are
encouraged to ‘play along’ with the hosts as they play a game to completion
(a relatively rare event in gaming), and the podcast involves in depth discus-
sion of each game in turn. Cane and Rinse publishes its schedule ahead of
time, with a list of the games the hosts will be playing. The show airs four
times a month with a shifting pool of casters including Cox as a lead pre-
senter and Taylor as editor in chief.
The Most Popular Girls on the Internet
Does it strike anyone else’s funny bone that Google is a company
whose motto used to be “Don’t be evil”? I can understand how mottos
and slogans could come back to bite you in the ass later. Ours used
to be “TMPGOTI: Always display sobriety, chastity and class whilst
speaking within the realm of the internet”, and was later replaced with,
“BOOBIEZ LOLZ.”
—Nelson (interview, 2011)
TMPGOTI (2008–present) are the only American members of the Uni-

fied Gamers Network. The cast comprises Cassandra ‘Sassy’ Lidgerding
(Sassygeek) and Tara Nelson (Tara_Byt3), although the presenters explic-
itly state that the show is not specifically a ‘girl gamer’ podcast. Instead,
TMPGOTI performs the same functions as TotalBiscuit, GamerDork and
Cane and Rinse as an in-depth review and discussion show. The cast has
a broader remit than the other three, however, and reviews films, technol-
ogy and other ‘geek’ culture. It also contains more extensive discussions
of the casters’ visits to various conventions across the United States and
the United Kingdom. TMPGOTI has an almost identical running order
to GamerDork, with discussion of the two presenters’ playing or viewing
habits during the week, followed by a feature section which often has a
specific theme or includes guest presenters (including fans). The show has
an emphasis on witty, sometime tendentious banter between the two cast-
ers and their guests; in this there is a more inevitable female perspective,
but again it specifically does not present the two casters as unique within
in the field of gaming. At 215 episodes, TMPGOTI had the most podcasts
of any group, something that the two attributed to their sharing of the
editing duties.
ANALYSIS AND ORGANIZATION
There’s always a bit of worry that we need to put out more content.
—Brindley (interview, 2011)
In 2011, all of the casters were struggling to find a balance between their
daily lives and the high volume of work required to produce each cast. Both
The Yogscast and TotalBiscuit had recruited in order to maintain both the
quality of their work, and offset the huge demands on their time. Lewis
Brindley and TB both confirmed that producing and editing a successful cast
of approximately 11 to 25 minutes usually took between 6 and 8 hours of
editing, recording and research, depending on the type of episode being pro-
duced. This included editing sound to make sure that voices did not overlap
or were not too loud, cutting footage to make it flow more effectively and
researching, by playing the game in advance, reading gaming news, research-
ing recent activity, networking and discussing games with other players.
Due to the huge popularity of The Yogscast, as well as the need to manage
multiple channels simultaneously, the group had mainly moved to Bristol,
where they worked in a series of custom-made studios. A significant percent-
age of the group worked behind the scenes or in various management roles,
and after 5 years, The Yogscast resembled a more traditional organizational
structure, albeit with several qualities that emulated large new media groups
such as Valve Corporation (2012; e.g. their attitudes towards collective work
practices and collaborations together). Despite this, Brindley and Lane still
frequently edited their own content and had not slackened their levels of
production (in fact, these increased dramatically from 2011 with the instiga-
tion of a daily download), also appearing on many of the other channels and
usually recording content up to three weeks in advance (Lane, 2013).
The strain on TotalBiscuit in particular was apparent as he juggled profes-
sional commitments such as commentating for live gaming events, produc-
ing several different types of podcasts and simply getting enough time to
sleep. As a regular part of all of his casts, TotalBiscuit often comments on
the time he is broadcasting, the work he still has to do and the expectations
he has of his own output within the timeframe available. His decision to take
a holiday in April 2011 was foreshadowed through several prior webcasts
in which he articulated a strong sense of regret that he had not been able
to produce as much as he wanted to in the last few weeks due to overwork
and burnout.
The GamerDorks and TMPGOTI had a regulated approach to man-
age their limited time due to other commitments. GamerDorks’ decision to
employ twenty-five volunteer writers for their weblog is indicative of this.
Each writer was encouraged to produce a few good-quality articles, with
a commitment to write 500 words every three months. This ensured that
the website could usually present a good-quality piece of writing on a daily
basis, rather than overwhelming the site with poor-quality articles, although
in practice, very few articles were submitted and eventually the addition of
articles to the main GamerDork site ceased. The GamerDorks also used
management tools such as the Google calendar not only to agree on when
to record but also to outline potential subjects and discussions within the
show. Similarly, TMPGOTI planned their recordings by virtue of sharing
editorial duties and meeting on the same evening each week with the express
purpose to record, editing the show over the next two days, then releasing
the webcast on the day after, pending a final check.
CREATION AND CONTENT
It’s inspired me to be more creative . . . hence the burp compilation.

—Nelson (interview, 2011)
All of the casts were extremely diverse in content. This was despite mutual
intentions to bring games to a wider audience, to help players make informed
choices about games, to discuss the finer points of game design and to
create a community of like-minded games players and enthusiasts. Differ-
ences included not only the content and presentation, but also tone, scale,
audience, narrative and construction. As a niche genre, the need to create
an original product which diversified casters from each other was appar-
ent. The YoGPoD appeals to multiple audiences by using its definition as
‘Comedy’ on iTunes, by deliberately targeting newly released games on The
Yogscast and by featuring many different presenters and approaches; the
GamerDorks catered specifically to hardcore gamers; TotalBiscuit focused
more exclusively on new and Indie releases in the ‘WTF Is . . .’ section, pro-
gamers in e-sport broadcasts such as StarCraft II, and gaming fans in the
playthrough or commentary shows; and TMPGOTI fell somewhere in the
middle of these criteria, being comedy, commentary and criticism. Although
casters usually chose to feature up to date news, commentary and reviews
(e.g. all four groups examined Portal 2 [2011] in detail when it was released
and beta-tested games such as Hearthstone usually gained higher views than
other readily available titles), the casting medium is shown to be a flexible,
hybrid genre, with a spread audience that desires all of these different prod-
ucts. Further examples of this diversity include dedicated game newscasts
(Gamespot, IGN), satirical reviews such as The Escapist’s Zero Punctua-
tion, personality-driven casts such as Dodger Leigh’s PressHeartToContinue
and speciality casts such as RetroGamingRoundup.
PODCAST VERSUS WEBCAST
Burgess and Green’s (2009: 43) study of YouTube categorizes downloaded

content into various types. Webcasts appear to fall into the category of
User Created, Scripted Material, which they identify as ‘sketch comedy,
animation and machinima’. Their study shows that these videos comprised
approximately 8% of the videos surveyed. In June 2011, fan-created casts
regularly comprised six of the ten ‘most watched’ spots, with The Yogscast
and TotalBiscuit usually filling at least three of these slots on the UK You-
Tube site. In 2013, and despite significant changes to the ways that YouTube
recorded hits to each site, gaming webcasts dominated these ratings, and it
was unusual to see a different type of recording in the top ten. As Burgess and
Green note, however, the representation of popular videos is displayed on
the front page of the site in several different ways, including most watched,
most favorited, most discussed, trending topics, all-time favorites and rec-
ommendations (2009: 51–9). Additionally, the site favors trending videos
over all time views. The high output of webcasters such as TotalBiscuit and
The Yogscast is created as a response to remain within these trending charts.
It also accounts for their decision to target new releases, thus attracting a
secondary gaming audience who might be using YouTube to seek current
topics. iTunes, on the other hand, shows only the most popular shows of
all time in its charts. Lewis Brindley and Leon Cox both pointed out during
their interviews that the iTunes method means that the podcasts are in direct
competition with established comedic voices such as Ricky Gervais, despite
the fact that his podcasts ended in 2005, and in a similar vein, the Gamer-
Dorks had a long-standing ratings ‘war’ with the Radio 4 Gardener’s Ques-
tion Time podcast (which, as the title suggests, was completely unrelated
in content, merely defining itself in the same category as ‘Entertainment’).
Here, iTunes proves an inappropriate match for casters, whereas YouTube
supports smaller producers, as long as they continue to achieve high ratings
on first release and continue to produce videos immediately afterwards.
There was a clear division between professional and part-time casters and
their attitudes to using pod- or webcasting for representing their views about
games. The professional casters far preferred webcasting, seeing it as more
popular simply because of the preference by viewers to see a moving image.
They also argued that creating webcasts was less restrictive than the podcast-
ing software and broadcasting rules required for iTunes podcasts and that
videos have a greater chance to snowball once they are released because of
the way that YouTube works. This is borne out by the viewing figures for the
four shows, in which podcasts that had been available for some time often had
fewer downloads than did recently released webcasts. The webcasters also
perceived their videos as more creative and practical; Lewis Brindley discussed
video as being a more viable means to produce coherent shows, citing the
ease of explaining tactics to walkthroughs when accompanied by the moving
image, the potential to create exciting narrative situations, the ability for vis-
ible experimentation and play, ‘the lack of a good aggregation system which
can be browsed [on iTunes]’, as well as the greater potential for a webcast to
reach wider audiences and generate more income (Brindley, interview, 2011).
However, the GamerDorks and TMPGOTI both saw the time required to
create a visual production as a negative. This was borne out by the editing
required for the webcasts—approximately 4 to 8 hours per 20 minutes (Brind-
ley), as opposed to 2 to 4 hours for a 2-hour podcast (Nelson, Cox).
TMPGOTI and the GamerDorks frequently encouraged their users to
undertake more traditional listening practices by downloading their audio
casts and then listening to them on the way to work, in the gym or at work
(Cox, interview, 2011; Lidgerding, interview, 2011; Nelson, interview,
2011). This was not usually mentioned by The Yogscast and TotalBiscuit,
since at the time of writing, watching a webcast on the Apple version of
YouTube was not accompanied by some of the advertising (notably, sky-
scraper advertising beside the video and sometimes the lead-in ‘sting’ video).
This meant that revenue gained from displaying these advertisements was
effectively lost for tablet viewers. Despite this, both groups saw their casts as
a means for players to engage with games on an extra level and speculated
that one way of listening might be to play games and listen at the same time,
engaging indirectly with theories users and ‘four screen’ viewing practices
(Davis, 2011).
THEORIZING THE NARRATIVES OF CASTING: HUMOUR
There is a distinct pattern among casters who use tendentious humour,

those whose broadcasts are more innocent and playful and those for whom
humour is part of, but not necessarily the sum of the show. For example the
members of GamerDork begin their series by priding themselves in ‘saying
the unsayable’ and including adult-rated content. Over time, however, this
attitude mellowed, with the show becoming far more conversational and
less shocking. The GamerDork casters target a more narrow demographic
of players and therefore tend to be more defensive in their representation
of the gamer as a minority. As a result, they frequently, yet unintention-
ally, articulate ideas of separatism and inclusiveness. This is sometimes also
masked through the establishment of supposed cultural norms within the
gaming sphere; for example the perception of the gamer as the same or simi-
lar to the casters themselves (in this case, white, middle class and heterosex-
ual). The heterosexual element is an important one, since the casters often
affirm sexual norms in their conversation in a playful manner. Although
neither are homophobic and specifically avoid homophobic remarks, they
often use crude sexual imagery when either describing a game or its effect.
This shows a typical example of containment. The GamerDorks and
TMPGOTI revel in their podcasts as a place of carnival where the unsay-
able becomes possible and anything can happen, but they are also keen to
restrict the humour to within this sphere. This is in stark contrast to the
pejorative language frequently used by players taking part in PvP games and
within many other online communities, something which all of the casters
are aware of and often stridently disagree with. In addition, they frequently
chastise each other or make clear signals when they perceive themselves
to be too excessive or offensive (particularly concerning issues of race and
homophobia). All groups interviewed were extremely sensitive to the fact
that gaming can be a location for discrimination, including racism, sexism
and homophobia, and clearly position themselves away from these negative
attitudes. However, their use of carnivalesque humour often self-consciously
oversteps these self-imposed boundaries, and the content of podcasts in par-
ticular assumes—and specifically argues that—the listener recognizes this
dialogue for Billingsgate humour (Bakhtin, 1984), revelling in its offensive
or subversive potential but clearly regarding the text as potentially dubious.
As Lidgerding argues,
We’re pretty raunchy, but . . . we’re just naughty enough . . .—one of the
things about having such a big UK audience is that I can be flirty and
raunchy and out there, but it’s a lot less scary [for them]. (Lidgerding,
interview, 2011)
The YoGPoD audio casts also begin in this way, although the webcasts
are more light-hearted in tone, often using surreal or slapstick humour
instead. This is because, initially, comedy takes second place to explanation
in ‘how to’ guides in which the language and the text are precisely edited to
provide a clear narrative. Brindley and Lane consistently use a more inno-
cent frame of humour—typifying themselves as explorers in new worlds
and thus adopting the stereotypical role of innocents abroad. They use very
classic elements of comedy, both structurally and through the roles they
adopt within the texts. Humour frequently arises from visual jokes and slap-
stick, incidents that are made all the more pleasurable because they are often
accidental; the discovery that Honeydew’s craning his head upwards looks
bizarre, frequent interludes when ‘Creepers’ (monsters which spawn natu-
rally in the game and have nothing to do with the ongoing narrative) blow
one of the two to smithereens, Simon’s obvious, high-pitched panic when
things go wrong, and travelogue style observations by the two as they con-
tinue on their journey. In-game, Xephos often plays the role of instructor/
straight man, while Honeydew asks questions, makes silly interjections and
disrupts the narrative flow with observations about the text which usually
have nothing to do with the practicalities of the guide. There is, however, a
high degree of tendentious swearing in the casts, often as response cries to
particularly ridiculous scenarios or surprising events.
TotalBiscuit’s casts are primarily informative. In his case, humour usu-
ally arises from his own observations of the ludicrous rather than a direct
attempt to make people laugh. As one of his names suggests, the Cynical Brit
cast takes an acerbic look at gaming, and therefore the viewer derives more
pleasure from the critical angle that he adopts. TotalBiscuit’s interrogatory
style originates from more than ten years casting to various different audi-
ences and his humour, and any amusement in the casts is a by-product rather
than a direct intention. Indeed, in the Magicka podcasts, TotalBiscuit spends
several episodes relaxing into the style of the Yogscast, initially providing a
rather jarring element to the series but ultimately finding a strong counter-
poise to the other two presenters as frustrated straight man to their more
erratic antics.
NARRATIZATION: THE DEATH OF THE AUTHOR?
WHEATLEY: (an NPC voiced by Stephen Marchant in Portal 2, has told

player avatar Chell, played by TotalBiscuit, to leave her
cell) Alright, off you go.
TB: No—I don’t want to leave, actually. I think I’m just going
to stay here. You’ve taken me outside of my natural habitat,
you see.
WHEATLEY: Go on. Just . . . march on through that hole.
TB: I . . . don’t want to. I have no real interest in following your
orders. No.
WHEATLEY: Yeah it’s alright, go ahead.
TB: No-o. You’re unreasonable. Also you’re a robot. You don’t
actually care. [the conversation continues in this vein,
with TB allowing Wheatley to speak and then replying in
kind] . . . NO! Damn you, linear game!
—Bain (2011b)
A vital structural facet of casting for theorists is the position that the casters
occupy within the text. The most common form of webcasting sees casters
recording themselves talking and playing the game at the same time. Alter-
natives to this are a pre-recorded series of clips over which the casters com-
mentate, livecasting in which the caster responds to events as they happen
or commentary which is recorded alongside the caster playing the game in a
downtime capacity (e.g. flying around, sitting in a tavern, or grinding). All
these variations mean that reviews are presented as an ongoing narrative in
which the viewer watches the caster play and discuss the game at the same
time. Verbal and physical responses, mistakes and deviations overlay the
central game text and are as interesting to the viewer as is the direction of
the game itself.
This imposes a secondary narrative, whereby the caster’s impressions
dominate the representation of the game. This can significantly change
the viewer’s understanding of the game. For example casters often ascribe
anthropomorphic or emotive characteristics to elements of play which may
be entirely absent in the core text. In the case of SoI, this allowed for a more
interesting and amusing narrative to unfold and resulted in both increased
sales of Minecraft and fame for the Yogscast (N. Brown, 2011a). Spontane-
ous response cries from the casters encourage the viewer to empathize with
them during moments of tension, danger or drama within the game, and, as
I discuss later, the conversation of the casters provides a viewpoint on the
nature of the game as well as engendering a shared sense of belonging from
the viewer.
Through these interjections, webcasters rewrite the intended text. This is
very clearly seen in the various responses to Portal 2 by each group. Total-
Biscuit allows the viewer time to hear GLaDOS and Wheatley’s dialogue,
although he also inserts himself into the text as Chell, railing at Wheatley for
being a ‘pushy pushy pushy’ ‘Southerner’ (Bain, 2011b); Brindley and Lane
talk over it throughout their playthrough and only take occasional notice
of the ongoing interactions between characters during breaks during their
own conversations, the GamerDorks describe the story in detail in a large
spoilers section, extensively describing the narrative, the voice acting and
the aesthetic of the game itself, and TMPGOTI discuss their responses and
enjoyment of playing. TotalBiscuit’s refusal to do what Wheatley tells him
to do has a clear function; demonstrating to the viewer the absolutely fixed
nature of the plot, thus allowing Bain to articulate his frustration with the
illusory agency contained within the game’s ludic construction, but it also
inserts him into the text as a more active participant. There is something
about this re-inscription that superficially appears to validate the claims of
core ludologists: that games ultimately lack any dominant narrative (Aars-
eth, 1997); thus, players are compensating by adding their own. However,
it is perhaps more fruitful to regard these actions as an exteriorization of
gameplay where spoken words by the players, including response cries and
the informal ‘Buddylect’ language that develops between players who game
together repeatedly (Ensslin, 2012) becomes an essential part of the gaming
experience.
Steven Conway (2010b) argues that response cries are used to articulate
a sense of togetherness within gaming. They affirm the engaged presence of
the gamer when players might not be physically together or are present but
are not directly looking at each other (because they are instead looking at the
game screen). ‘Spill cries’ disabuse the player of responsibility; ‘Oh God Oh
God she’s gone mad . . . I’m sorry!’ (Brindley and Lane, 2011c), the ‘threat
startle’ allows for an expression of worry or fear, which is then contained
within the context of the game; ‘Flipping ‘eck, I’m panicking here Simon!’
(ibid.) and revulsion sounds; ‘AHH! That’s disgusting! What happened!?’
(Brindley and Lane, 2011d) allow the voice to react while the body cannot,
additionally allowing the player to disassociate themselves from something
objectionable. Both Brindley and Lane do this repeatedly, to great comic
effect, and this repetition builds an atmosphere where the viewer is as ‘genu-
inely terrified’ (Brindley and Lane, 2011c) as the two casters.
In the SoI casts, the overspill between game and caster narration can
reach anarchic proportions. Once the initial remit of the game is circum-
vented by changing it from sandbox to freeform narrative, the two present-
ers proceed to disrupt the narrative even further during their exploits. Simon
Lane initially ascribes anthropomorphic qualities to many of the creatures
that inhabit Minecraft—for example he declares that spiders and pigs (re-
christened ‘piggus’) are his personal friends and gives the Creepers a surreal
alter ego (that of 1980s’ pop singer Rick Astley), as well as their own catch-
phrase: ‘That’s a very nice [object] you have there . . . be a shame if some-
thing happened to it’. This becomes even more diffracted when NPCs—who
are played silently by other members of the Yogscast—are also voiced by
the two presenters. Frequently, the two misread, freeform or simply ignore
the typed speech that these players laboriously create in order to further the
plot of each narrative. Thus, the roleplay imposed on the text by the Yog-
scast is subverted even further by the fact that the two often simply ignore
what is clearly a painstaking behind-the-scenes process. Of course, the car-
nivalesque outcome of this is exactly what the viewer wants to see as the
text fractures and fractures again as the adventure/narrative/cast progresses.
The overlaid narratives of casters reframe the game text. The game is no
longer the focus of attention; instead, it becomes the people playing them. In
order to remain dominant within the narrative, presenters need to negate the
original text, making it clear to the viewer that it is not the primary object
of focus and thus actively working to destroy its meaning. As Newman
argues, the walkthrough functions ‘as a form of reverse-engineering that
renegotiates the player-designer relationship and encourages (perhaps even
demands) deliberately investigative, resistant and deviant strategies of game-
play’ (Newman and Ashton, 2010). When added to Barthian arguments
concerning the Death of the Author within any given text (Barthes, 1967)
and those of intentional fallacy, in which the original text is essentially
stripped of any meaning, webcasts suddenly become a potent reworking of
the game text that deliberately provides alternative readings. In addition,
this behavior starts to explain why podcasters are becoming a powerful
force within gaming communities, and why it is they, rather than the game
itself, that become the celebritized object of desire.
IMPACT
Podcasting has to be a Passion.

—Lidgerding (interview, 2011)
Casting is a useful example of the increasingly sophisticated discourses

being created within gaming communities. Podcasts are hybrid texts which
take elements of fan production, as well as established tropes from more
traditional forms of broadcasting, and amalgamate them. They exemplify
Matt Hills’s (2002) idea of the hyper-digetic text—a fan text produced for
fans, yet reliant on a primary source, and Catherine Johnson’s (2005) defi-
nition of telefantasy, which she describes as comprising core elements of
exclusivity, niche appeal and visual identifiers. The core subject, the game,
is overlaid by the personalities of the casters themselves, who rewrite
the narrative as it happens. Good casters enjoy high social currency and
are seen as sources of information and entertainment in their own right.
Their initial position as fan is blurring into that of the celebrity, as well
as destroying the original meaning of the text in order to promote new,
fannish discourses.
As a result of this, webcasts have the potential to develop in several ways.
Some casts already receive more viewers than popular television programmes;
for example the amount of views that each Yogscast episode receives is com-
parable to viewing figures on the BBC (Broadcasters’ Audience Research
Board [BARB], 2013). Casters have dedicated audiences who will watch/
listen to casts irrespective of the topic and thus cross gaming genres as they
do so. Games companies are seizing the commercial opportunities of this by
allowing casters beta keys and early access to their games, using casters to
give ‘tasters’ of their games. This can sometimes backfire: during the play-
through of Fable III (2011), Simon Lane’s avatar became stuck in a tree due
to a bug, so he spent the entire episode ranting about the faults of the game
(Brindley and Lane, 2011e), however there are also success stories. When
TotalBiscuit reviewed Indie title Amnesia: The Dark Descent (2010; Bain,
2010), it sold 10,000 copies, rescuing the development company Frictional
Games from bankruptcy.
Critical discussions of walkthroughs problematize them as texts which
provide viewers with an advantage (Consalvo, 2007); however, pod- and
webcasts move beyond simple how-tos and develop the medium signifi-
cantly. Their shows have more fluid content which usually relates more to
the discussion between presenters (or demonstration of play by a single pre-
senter, whose monologue is directed towards the viewer) rather than the
gaining of ludic advantage. Increasingly, fans are watching the text for this
personality-led content, rather than for an understanding of the game itself.
As a fannish activity which supports the dominant text by being at once
humorous, critical and incisive (as well as of course, complaining, deroga-
tory and poorly structured), casting also brings to light another social ele-
ment of gaming—the need for visible spokespeople and celebrities.
Gaming lacks these figures for a number of reasons. While distinctive, the
avatars that players see in-game are virtual—Chell, Lara, Mario and Link
et al. are recognizable icons, but they are, of course, not real people. For
example it is rare for gamers to follow the actors and actresses who voice these
avatars, although this is changing. British actress Keeley Hawes’s decision to
voice Lara Croft (2006–2010) and the row over the use of Ellen Page’s like-
ness in The Last of Us (2013) both demonstrate that more visible stars are also
becoming interested in appearing—or not; Page was angry that Naughty Dog
continued to use her likeness when she was contracted to produce Beyond:
Two Souls (2013) with Quantic Dream—within games. However, it is prob-
ably fair to say that unlike other media, the actors behind these characters are
either well established already or do not have to (and, in many cases, could not
possibly) look like their counterparts. In the recent iteration of Tomb Raider,
for example, Lara Croft’s head was played by Megan Farquhar, while her
motion captured body and voice were that of Camilla Luddington.
Pod and webcasts highlight the fact that the critical voice for gaming is
decentralized. Gaming magazines are rapidly falling in popularity because
they are usually dated by the time they hit the shelves and do not provide
the extensive level of information available to browsers on the web. Televi-
sion shows about games are rare, despite the wealth of different ways in
which they can be represented or discussed. E-sports personalities are usu-
ally watched via gameplay, and although they have cult followings within
this group, they are still niche figures. Finally, reviews of games do appear
in broadsheets and elsewhere, but the focus is placed on the game itself.
Gaming, and discussion of it, remains a largely amateur endeavour online,
where it is prolific. Fame, for gaming celebrities, relies entirely on word of
mouth or a successful meme. The casters have started to fill this gap. They
are not only spokespeople for the gaming community at large, but they are
also a powerful force in both spreading information and advertising various
aspects of games and gaming. It is this aspect of the podcaster as celebrity
fan, and the tensions that this creates, which is examined next.
CONCLUSION
In this chapter, I examined four disparate groups of pod and webcasters

and discussed some of their core features and the ways they work to pro-
duce a text.
Podcasting and webcasting are slightly different aspects of online broad-
casting, but they are extremely popular modes of consumption amongst
gamers. Their importance as a means of transmission for gaming commen-
tary and knowledge needs to be examined further. Very little research of this
nature exists.
The four groups examined here demonstrate the huge diversity of the
casting medium and the potential within it. While most casters are amateurs
who record shows from their homes, some casters have been able to take
this further and engage with webcasting on a professional basis. As such,
webcasting in particular should to be seriously considered as a new means
of media broadcasting.
Casters use various strategies within their casts, but like any other media,
the need to produce a unique and charismatic product is paramount.
Both web- and podcasting suggest interesting changes in the ways that
narrative is consumed within games, since the dialogue that casters overlay
on each game significantly changes the ways in which the internal narrative
is understood.
The reframing of the game narrative from a different point of view can
also be regarded as a useful commentary on the ways in which media are
understood as flexible, experimental texts by gamers.
Web- and podcasters are visible elements of gaming culture, and some
have become very visible as a result. The popularity of these spokespeople
needs further investigation.
4 ‘Someone a Fan Made’
Gaming Fan Communities
and Creative Practice
Whilst it is true that the majority of visitors to YouTube are viewing,

not producing and participating, there are still literally millions of users
who engage with this creative platform every day, and whose relation-
ship with professional media has been fundamentally shifted because
of the knowledge that they can be the creators, and not just receivers,
of inventive media
—Gauntlett (2011: 95)
This chapter develops the idea that fans are a creative force within gaming. It
argues that gamers approach texts with a different perspective to other fans,
enabling them to expect—and to produce, more active texts. Whereas Chap-
ter 3 looked at the outputs of several individuals who have become what
Matt Hills (2006: 104) terms ‘elite fans’, or ‘Big Name Fans’ (BNFs), in this
chapter I investigate the active fan practices surrounding them. It also exam-
ines the response by the casters (namely TotalBiscuit and The Yogscast)—all
relatively new to the position of elite fan—to their celebritization. The desire
for celebrities within gaming communities leads gamers to elevate members
of their communities into this position, and the transitioning process that
takes place when casters suddenly find themselves becoming popular demon-
strates an interesting refiguration of the celebrity/fan relationship. Addition-
ally, the transmedial way in which these BNFs operate provides an arena
in which community generated content is quick and easy to produce. This
takes place on both ‘sides’ (if these sides still exist), with fans acting com-
parably to support prolific creators and BNFs responding directly to fan
input. Not all fan-produced work is either useful or original, but its volume
means that it provides an extensive pool of source material, largely created
through voluntary playbour (Küchlich, 2005, 2010), from which the casters
draw. In turn, their work is largely predicated by what fans demand, most
obviously through page views and requests for new content. In this way,
a reciprocal relationship develops whereby elite fans are ‘someone a fan
made’ (see the following discussion), rather than subject to the more com-
mercial demands of traditional celebritization. In this chapter, I examine the
relationship between these groups and ask whether the performative nature
of gaming fan activity is extending the understanding of what Robert Jones
(2006) calls ‘transformative play’. I also discuss how fan practices appear to
be becoming more reciprocal in gaming communities.
REPOSITIONING THE PLAYER-FAN:

MAKING IS CONNECTING
As with the prior discussions of theoretical concepts that stretch beyond the
remit of this study, it would be unwise to provide a comprehensive overview
of Fan Studies in order to contextualize the debate below, simply because
it has become such a large and diverse topic. Instead, the first section of
the chapter summarizes relevant developments. Useful introductions also
exist in Hellekson and Busse’s (2006: 17–26) Fan Fiction and Fan Com-
munities in the Age of the Internet; Gray, Harrington and Sandvoss’s (2007:
1–16) Fandom: Identities and Communities in a Mediated World, and Matt
Hills’s (2002: 1–21) Fan Cultures. These authors reframe fan scholarship
within New Media discourses, with Hills’s writing reforming the relation-
ship between celebrity and fan identities in a more dynamic manner. This
latter idea is core to the evolution of fandom in a more media-sensitive era.
Situating the fan within transmedial texts, as all three books begin to do, is
also critical to this chapter. As Hellekson and Busse comment, ‘despite the
proliferation of online fan activity, the movement of fandom from a physical
space to a virtual one has not adequately been addressed in the academic
literature’ (2006: 17). Finally, the growth of fan as producer is something
that is discussed increasingly within Game Studies, although prior to this has
looked more at output than activity (see the later discussion).
Throughout its evolution, Fan Studies has tried to situate the fan in rela-
tion to popular culture and media; variously as representative, subversive or
cultural consumer. In the past the fan has been positioned and repositioned
as both antagonistic and conformist, and it is only recently that they have
not been regarded as Other. In Lewis’s edited volume The Adoring Audi-
ence, Joli Jensen (1992: 11) notes how early writing presents the fan as
a passive, pathologized outsider, collectively determining them either as a
‘hysterical crowd’ or an ‘obsessed loner’. Jensen comments that there is little
discussion of ‘fandom as a normal, everyday cultural or social phenomenon.
Instead the fan is characterized as (at least potentially) an obsessed loner,
suffering from a disease of isolation, or a frenzied crowd member, suffering
from a disease of contagion’ (1992: 13). The fan becomes a person who
exists apart from others and who often constructs a personal (unhealthy)
sense of identity through the object of his or her desire. Players’ position
within the ‘hysterical crowd’ absolves them of social responsibility, and their
actions as ‘obsessed loners’ transcend social norms as the fan construes a
false relationship with the object of fandom. These groups are best typi-
fied by the archetypal character of Annie Wilkes in the Stephen King 1997
novel (and 1990 film) Misery or through examples of football violence in the
‘Someone a Fan Made’ 87
United Kingdom. Despite subsequent studies, these two tropes are frequently
invoked by the media when discussing extremism and fandom, especially in
regards to geek fandom (an area frequently chosen as a topic in Fan Studies).
This representation has much in common with media related stereotypes of
the gamer as social outcast and degenerate; in fact, there is often blurring
between the two.
However, despite her identification of these tropes, Jensen cautions
against pigeonholing the fan as a social deviant, arguing that it is far too
linear a perspective. The essays in The Adoring Audience marked a major
change in the ways fans were studied both by academia and from within
by themselves. The book argues for a more nuanced approach to fandom,
emphasizing how fans should be seen as representative of changes in the
media, rather than ostracized outsiders. At the same time, the autoethno-
graphic practices of researchers within communities of fans encouraged an
already nascent trend in which fans found outlets to become more critically
engaged, typically demonstrated through aca-fan websites such as Whoosh!
or Slayage. These sites function with an awareness of the symbiosis possible
between fan and critic and encourage authors from both groups to write
alongside each other as experts in their chosen field.
A useful jumping on point for Fan Studies is 1992, since it marks the
publication of several core texts which had a huge influence on the emer-
gent field, and also triggered much subsequent writing. Matt Hills in Fan
Cultures cites his own personal and theoretical journey beginning with his
reading of Henry Jenkins’s Textual Poachers:
The book provided a sense of recognition—my own experiences as a

media fan seemed to be captured in its pages—and also a glimmer of
dissatisfaction; the fans that Jenkins wrote about differed from my expe-
riences of fandom, seeming to lack a sense of fandom’s competitive,
argumentative and factional possibilities’. (2002: 1)
Henry Jenkins’s fascination with fans and later, with their relationship
with new forms of media has lasted throughout his academic career. In
1992, Jenkins saw fans as ‘active’ users and coined the term ‘Textual Poach-
ers’ (after de Certeau, 1984), to describe the ways that they appropriate the
core text for their own ends. Active fans were initially seen as prolific yet
ultimately emasculated by their inability to have influence outside their own
fannish domains. Their output was not necessarily seen as productive—de
Certeau’s initial description of the textual poacher is distinctly unfavorable:
Readers are travellers; they move across lands belonging to someone

else, like nomads poaching their way across fields they did not write,
despoiling the wealth of Egypt to enjoy it for themselves. (1984: 174)
Thus, the textual poacher was regarded in a cautionary light, an attitude

developed further by Jenkins’s writing with John Tulloch in 1995 on Star
Trek and Doctor Who audiences. In ‘We’re Only a Speck in the Ocean, the
Fans as Powerless Elite’, Tulloch argues that fans have greater knowledge
and cultural capital than producers, yet are powerless to affect the text
since they lack positions of power—for example as writers or directors of
the show itself—and are in addition largely dismissed by these groups as
unimportant or irrelevant.
The ‘powerless elite’ were subsequently adopted as a contentious, but
useful description of fan practices. Fans were studied within specific fields
such as fan fiction, slash fiction, or convention attendance, allowing wide
ranging discussions about the reasons for fan production, but constraining
the topic to certain areas. Two core strands emerged. The first followed
the ideas of Pierre Bourdieu’s cultural capital (Bourdieu, 1973), whereby
fans were seen as subsumed by capitalist processes (Abercrombie and
Longhurst, 1998; Dell, 1998; Harris, 1998; Jancovich, 2002). Restricted
by the nature of the text, the fan was seen as only able to express dis-
courses contained within it and was therefore locked in a continual pro-
cess of endorsement regardless of output. The second major strand took
close readings of fan texts and highlighted their potential expressions of
dissidence within a subcultural context, for example through discussions
of gender and queerness within fan writing (Bacon-Smith, 1991; Penley,
1992). In both cases, fans were seen as prolific, but only within their own
communities, with some studies developing this further to suggest that
fans formed exclusory communities (Lancaster, 2001). Later work recog-
nizes that these early studies were of small, very specific communities and
that these studies placed an emphasis on identifying oppositional traits
such as difference/subcultural conformity, rather than the behavior of
the fan. As Gray et al. (2007: 7) point out in their introduction to Fan-
dom, ‘as much as popular representations of fans have failed to ask why
audiences become fans and why “fans act as they do” (Harrington and
Bielby, 1995: 3), the academic analysis of fandom was now in danger of
committing the same omissions’.
Revisionist arguments have sought to disabuse the restrictive nature of
early studies. Hellekson and Busse argue that prior approaches can be reduc-
tive to new developments in fan practices since ‘critics’ source texts were
mostly limited to the fandoms they engaged in personally or through their
fan networks and were mostly restricted to pre-Internet culture’ (2006: 19).
Early work largely avoided online works and looked at more traditional
sources such as fan fiction and conventions. Constance Penley’s writing is
symptomatic of this. Even as it started to emerge as a major force within
fan practices she describes fans as ‘enthusiastic but thoughtfully cautious
about the new internet culture’ (Penley in Busse and Hellekson, ibid). Nei-
ther Henry Jenkins, the authors in The Adoring Audience or Camille Bacon-
Smith discuss the Internet in their initial publications, although in later
writing Jenkins (2006a, 2006b) established this as a vital field for fans in his
discussions of bloggers and other internet communities.
However, authors such as Jenkins, Hills and Sandvoss did ultimately start
to revise these views, and fans came to be simultaneously regarded as more
performative and less exclusionary. The fan was seen as acting out their
desire in a Lacanian sense, rather than concealing it within a minority space.
Cornell Sandvoss’s (2005: 48) Fans shifts the argument from fandom as a
site of cultural resistance, to fandom as a representation of self:
Conceptualising fans as performers, rather than recipients of media texts

thus offers an alternative explanation of the intense emotional plea-
sures and rewards of fandom. As the fabric of our lives is constituted
through constant and staged performances (Goffman: 1959/1990), the
self becomes a performed, and hence symbolic, object. In this sense fan-
dom is not an articulation of inner needs or drives, but is itself constitu-
tive of the self. Being a fan in this sense reflects and constructs the self.
(italics in original)
Sandvoss’s argument is useful because it positions fans as performers who

form an identity through the text. This implies a subtle manipulation by the
fan, who becomes more self-aware and more engaged with reiterating core
tenets of the text through their own practices. Gaming fans fit well into this
construction since through play, they are already used to understanding the
game as a performed text and have a keen appreciation of their self also
existing as player/avatar. The gaming fan exists in a liminal space in which
they are self-aware of this positioning and able to respond creatively to it
(MacCallum-Stewart, 2011b). Schott and Yeatman echo Sandvoss when
they describe machinima ‘as a reflection of a process of performance that is
shaped not only by actions in various spaces but also by other dimensions of
experience stemming from the culture of gaming’ (in Lowood and Nitsche,
2011: 308). Thus, texts such as webcasts or machinima (which are often
interlinked) are useful because they are reflective of the gamer and of a wider
culture that exists around them.
Henry Jenkins’s work has developed to focus more critically on online
practices, including concurrent writing in Fans, Bloggers and Gamers: Par-
ticipatory Culture (2006a), Convergence Culture (2006b) and through his
own blog Confessions of an Aca-Fan (2006–present). In 2005 Jenkins intro-
duced the idea of ‘participatory culture’:
A participatory culture is a culture with relatively low barriers to artis-

tic expression and civic engagement, strong support for creating and
sharing one’s creations, and some type of informal mentorship whereby
what is known by the most experienced is passed along to novices. A
participatory culture is also one in which members believe their con-
tributions matter and feel some degree of cultural connection with one
another (at the least they care what other people think about what they
have created). (2006: 3)
The paper outlines four types of participatory culture: ‘Affiliations—
memberships, formal and informal, in online communities centred around
various forms of media’, ‘Expressions—producing new creative forms’,
‘Collaborative Problem-solving—working together in teams, formal and
informal, to complete tasks and develop new knowledge’, and ‘Circulations—
shaping the flow of media’ (ibid). Podcasting is specifically defined as a Cir-
culation within this context, although the findings of the previous chapter
would suggest that these definitions are too linear, with bleed from all cat-
egories affecting many aspects of participatory culture and casting itself.
Jenkins sees fans as proponents of participatory cultures. As early, natural
adopters of virtual technologies, they quickly saw its potential to store and
disseminate niche material. Their work on early websites and blogs quickly
became a useful information sharing resource, shaping the texture of the
internet with sites that provided high levels of detail, news and discussion,
critical writing, archives and examples. They were also specifically designed
to allow multiple people to create, comment on, discuss, update and co-
author works together. Fans from this point on are increasingly seen by
Jenkins as a more generic category of active users and are often semantically
interchanged with words such as online communities, users and players in
this and other studies. Jenkins (2006b: 20) argues that this has occurred
because ‘relations between producers and consumers are breaking down
as consumers seek to act upon the invitation to participate in the life of the
franchises’, thus making all consumers more proactive in the endorsement of
texts. A significant result of both Convergence Culture and the subsequent
discussions held on Confessions of an Aca-Fan is that Jenkins’s attitude
towards the fan changes significantly, especially in terms of their relative
agency and semantic depiction. From 2006, Jenkins’s work draws more from
the work of Pierre Lévy (1994), whose concept of collective intelligence is
employed as a way of describing how and why online communities collec-
tively act to pool resources and add individual work to a greater whole. His
discussion of transmedial activity (see the following discussion) stresses that
‘bottom-up’ nature of participatory activities by fans and users (Jenkins,
2006a, 2006b, 2006–present) is gaining increasing currency, whereby active
fans not only have greater autonomy but are also defined in a far broader
context as producers and players.
Despite this more positive view of the fan as someone who is active in
a far greater capacity, there is a danger that universalism can confuse the
borders between ‘fan’ and ‘user’ or ‘player’. This is worth briefly outlining
here. Some critics argue that all players are naturally active, for example
James Newman in his discussion of players in Videogames (2004). This then
immediately places game players within the category of fan. However, Garry
Crawford identifies two issues with this. The first is an overgeneralization,
since ‘[f]ans are thus always seen as active, and the wider population as
invariably passive, but such over-generalisations rarely hold true for all fans,
or wider audiences, all of the time’ (Crawford, 2011: 103). Second, assum-
ing the player must be an active fan is also problematic, ‘[w]hile it might
seem applicable to refer to an individual who produces and maintains a
website dedicated to the Final Fantasy video games series (of which there are
many), as a fan, can we say the same for every player of a video game, even
the most uninterested and unimpressed?’ (Crawford, 2011: 104). Crawford
argues that although players usually take an active role in gaming, this is
not necessarily the same as being an active participant in a gaming commu-
nity. Furthermore, he argues it is a mistake to depict all players as unilater-
ally active because of the nature of games. This is a good point—being a
player does not necessarily engender active fan practices, but the corollary
to that is that games support active behavior, and some (as we have already
seen) gain huge support from their surrounding communities. Games such
as Minecraft and Little Big Planet (2008) deliberately cultivate active posi-
tioning, whereby communities are centred on ‘show and tell’ environments,
development and crafting. Chapter 6 extends this issue further by examining
the ways in which the Indie games movement is reforming player activity,
suggesting that, like the casters, a dynamic relationship is endorsed whereby
boundaries between developer and player are relaxed, and an appreciation
of player input often helps the growth of financially limited game develop-
ment companies.
However, despite this tension in the role of the gamer, these changes,
whereby the fan becomes a more universal figure, mark a core development
in Fan Studies. The fan is now positioned as someone who is more assimilated
with ‘normal’ cultural practices, rather than being positioned as Other, and
has control over their self-representation. Garry Crawford (2011: 97–117)
usefully discusses various critical responses to the fan/player, concluding that
previous definitions such as ‘subculture’, ‘scene’ and ‘knowledge commu-
nity’ pigeonhole the player within a specific locale, rather than acknowl-
edging the broader cultural capital that they wield. It is not constructive
to constantly invent new terms for gaming communities that may in fact
marginalize them. As Helen Thornham argues, gamers should be placed in
a broad social context which acknowledges their social and domestic role:
Games are embedded in cultures of domestic technologies and the power

dynamics of households, and that to approach gaming as a text in and
of itself underplays the sedimented and nuanced meanings of games as
signifiers of gender, identity and power. Games are not played or expe-
rienced in a vacuum, but are contingent upon other relations, and other
gaming experiences, which frame and produce the practise and meaning
of gaming. (2011: 8)
Matt Hills’s 2004 and 2006 work on fandom also argues for a more pro-
active assessment of fan practices, as well as assessing their newfound ability
to move into a position of authorial autonomy. He dubs these ‘Big Name
Fans’ (BNFs) or ‘elite fans’:
Big Name Fans is one of the fan-cultural or subcultural terms for fans
who have attained a wide degree of recognition in the community, and
so who are known to others via subcultural mediation without person-
ally knowing all those other subcultural participants. (2006: 9)
Hills (2006: 111) studies the growth of ‘producer-fans’ through this

lens, seeing them as fans who have grown up as fans of a text and have then
taken control of it as producers, writers and creatives. Hills’s core example
is Russell T. Davies, the producer and writer who re-imagined the BBC series
Doctor Who to great critical and audience success. Davies’s history is predi-
cated on his position as a lifelong fan of the series, meaning that when he
became the series producer and writer, he was also establishing new dis-
courses with a fannish appreciation of those who had gone before. Hills
sees the potential for fans to grow from a position of weakness to one of
strength, arguing that that ‘[b]y displaying textual productivity at different
levels . . . fans can succeed in niche-mediating their names and iconic like-
nesses, acquiring restricted celebrity status’ (2006: 115).
Hills’s reforms the connection between celebrity, celebrity-fan and fan.
He negates previous discussions which place fans as oppositional to the
celebrity, instead acknowledging the rise of performer-fan-producer. He
calls this a move from textual poacher to ‘textual gamekeeper’ (2006: 114),
whereby the fan becomes responsible for the mediation of the text. Thus,
there is a blurring between fans, producers and celebrities created through
these processes, as well as recognition that the groups are not necessarily
conflicting. Hills sees this as a relatively uncommon formation, however,
and is at pains to stress the relative infrequency of this progression.
The fan as a cultural object has therefore moved from destructive (obses-
sive loner, hysterical crowd), to constructive and influential (BNF, textual
gamekeeper). A closer emphasis is now placed on the dualistic relationship
between fan and media, as well as examining the means of cultural pro-
duction at their disposal. Overall this leads to investigations of how fans
behave rather than of why they act as they do. There is also a great deal of
bleed within recent Fan Studies from other subjects such as the growth of
social networking and participatory culture, namely because fan produc-
tion is so frequently transmitted through transmedial methods. In Fan Fic-
tion and Fan Communities in the Age of the Internet, the editors argue that
‘[d]espite the proliferation of online fan activity, the movement of fandom
from a physical space to a virtual one has not adequately been addressed in
the academic literature’ (Hellekson and Busse, 2006: 16–17). Books such
as The Machinima Reader (Lowood and Nitsche, 2011), Video Gamers
(Crawford, 2011) and Online Gaming in Context (Crawford et al., 2011)
have started to address this, yet all of them present themselves as a gateway
for further discussion. Crawford also usefully argues that terminology is
confused and not always a best fit for Game Studies—this is clearly appar-
ent in the preceding argument where fan, producer and player have become
blurred terms.
With all of these arguments in mind, the fan is here defined using Sand-
voss’s definition: as a person with ‘regular, emotionally involved consump-
tion of a given popular narrative or text’ (2005: 8). Furthermore, the fan
is also seen as someone who has articulated their identity in a visible way,
from writing a post on a forum or on Facebook to making art or participat-
ing in a live event. Gaming fans are considered those who interact on some
level with games beyond the text. It is not enough, therefore, to simply
play; although it is arguable that the gamer is active when they perform this
process, fans are not acknowledged until they reassess this playfulness in a
proactive, noted manner. Therefore, it is players’ activities away from the
text that makes them fan-producers (unlike Hills, I see the fan remaining as a
dominant aspect over the producer, thus the reversal of his term), although,
of course, they may manipulate the core text in some way in order to do this.
This definition also seemingly contradicts the ‘quiet’ articulation of self
that fans carry out and which was discussed previously and elsewhere
(MacCallum-Stewart, 2011a), although does not negate it. ‘Quiet roleplay’
may still form a very immediate part of a fans’ identity, and may be enacted
more frequently than actual contributions to production, but this cannot
be easily observed. Fan production however, is a visibly/audibly articulated
response to a text. In this chapter, therefore, I define a fan-producer as a
more meaningful description of someone who has contributed to the pri-
mary text in a way that can be observed, consumed or heard by others. This
chapter now asks how fan production takes place in gaming communities,
before refocusing on the casters as a site of tension and representation for
transmedial storytelling/transformative play.
HERE COMES EVERYBODY?
This next section examines the ways in which gamers produce texts and
how they do so in a transformative way. My argument here is that cul-
tural production by gamers is more easily facilitated than in other media,
because of the playful nature of gaming itself. The experimental, playful
and often incomplete ethos of gamer culture is less apparent than in other
media, which rely on a ‘complete’ output such as a television episode, and
which resists fans’ attempts to manipulate it. As with other media, cultural
production by gamers mainly focuses on reassessing or re-presenting the
core text, with the core difference being that the narrative is represented
through simulation (Frasca, 2003) and is thus far more flexible. However,
some texts and groups encourage this in ways which allow fan-producers
to be original and creative. In addition, gaming communities and some
companies have created an ethos or worldsphere in which these actions are
rewarded, and in which fans are made to feel like valuable additions to the
creative community. This is often because the hierarchical structures of fan/
celebrity/producer are blurred or deliberately overwritten by less formal
relationships.
In order to ground production in gaming fan communities, this section
examines recent research into online communities by Henry Jenkins, Clay
Shirky and David Gauntlett, and applies it to the casting groups described
in Chapter 4, most specifically the Yogscast. The reason for this is that the
success of each group relies almost entirely on a reciprocal relationship with
fans who function, in turn, as producers. While the casters reform the text in
order to make it more approachable for other players, their actions are then
predicated almost entirely on how fans respond, since fans support the casts
in a creative and sometimes financial manner. In the case of the Yogscast, this
relationship has become extremely sophisticated.
Pod- and webcasts are also excellent examples of transmedial storytell-
ing, because they consciously use one medium to narratize another. Trans-
media storytelling is initially defined in Convergence Culture, and then more
clearly expressed on Confessions of an Aca-Fan as
Transmedia storytelling represents a process where integral elements of

a fiction get dispersed systematically across multiple delivery channels
for the purpose of creating a unified and coordinated entertainment
experience. Ideally, each medium makes it[s] own unique contribution
to the unfolding of the story. (Jenkins, 2007)
It is rapidly becoming apparent, even to Jenkins, that this term is too

fluid to function well. As media texts have developed, so the definition
has become more encompassing, not always to positive effect. Geoff Long
(2011), for example, argues that it is already an outdated term. In addition,
the ‘storytelling’ aspect of Jenkins’s definition has often been reduced into
a more simplistic definition which indicates how texts can be used ‘across
mediums’ as lucrative marketing tools.
In 2011 Henry Jenkins addressed this by re-defining the term on his blog
page and arguing that the body of work now associated with transmedia
storytelling needs to be recognized/considered carefully in terms of its moti-
vation. On the surface therefore,
Most transmedia content serves one or more of the following functions:
Offers backstory
Maps the world
Offers us another character’s perspective on the action
Deepens audience engagement
Jenkins (2011) also cautions against the exploitation of transmedia as a
monetary buzzword:
I have been troubled by writers who want to reduce transmedia to the

idea of multiple media platforms without digging more deeply into the
logical relations between those extensions. So, if you were a guild, it
matters deeply that you have a definition which determines how many
media are deployed, but for me, as a scholar, that is not the key issue
that concerns me, As we think about defining transmedia, then, we need
to come back to the relations between media and not simply count the
number of the media platforms.
Finally, transmedia does not need to be an exclusive term but needs to be

firmly situated when it is discussed:
We might also think about transmedia branding, transmedia perfor-

mance, transmedia ritual, transmedia play, transmedia activism, and
transmedia spectacle, as other logics, The same text might fit within
multiple logics. So for example, we could imagine Glee as a transme-
dia narrative in which we follow the characters and situations across
media, but more often, Glee’s transmedia strategies emphasize trans-
media performance, with the songs moving through YouTube, iTunes,
live performances, etc., which we read against each other to make sense
of the larger Glee phenomenon. (Jenkins, 2011, bold in original)
So, for example the Yogscast record machinima in Minecraft and dis-
seminate them on their YouTube channel, as well as linking to it via their
forums, Twitter accounts and Facebook pages, reflecting the narrative ethos
of the series and/or the personas of the presenters and/or Minecraft itself
(Figure 4.1).The experience created here moves beyond a webcast or the
game (and machinima as a catch-all for webcasting has already been dis-
abused), and becomes a much broader artefact. It is also not necessarily situ-
ated within one subject (‘game walkthrough’), since fans may be watching
either to observe the game or the presenters or the narrative. Responding
to the initial webcast, texts such as fan art, forum posts or mods for Mine-
craft are produced which reflect the narrative ethos of the series and/or the
personas of the presenters and/or Minecraft itself. Sometimes these are then
reappropriated again (or in some cases deliberately solicited) by the Yogscast
through calls for fan art, feedback, future suggestions etc. This reciprocal
productivity typifies transmedial storytelling, since cross-media transactions
take place which enforce the narrative/ludic intentionality of each text, and
the text itself has both multiple meanings and uses.
Recently, the implications of creative practice online have been explored
further by David Gauntlett (2011) and Clay Shirky (2008a, 2008b, 2010). I
Figure 4.1 Fan art of The Yogscast. Brindley and Lane’s avatars are placed next to
those of the artist.
(Image by Kyle Sturrock, used with permission.)
have avoided the phrase ‘Web 2.0.’, since this is now rather dated, but this
term was popularized at the time by both authors as signifying a new wave
of online production. Clay Shirky (2008b) argues that Web 2.0 is gradually
drawing ‘everybody’ away from the ‘gin and sitcoms’ mentality caused by
traditional, passive watching practices. He sees Web 2.0 as by nature more
active and as presenting numerous opportunities for engagement, some of
which are compulsory. Communities and individuals find themselves in pos-
session of a ‘cognitive surplus’ (Shirky, 2010), whereby the time they have
previously spent passively watching is suddenly galvanized by the creative,
communal potential of Web 2.0. This is aided by the abundance of collab-
orative tools available to users, and a prevailing attitude online that anyone
can, and should contribute. In turn, the shared desire to create motivates
viewers to become more dynamic. As users migrate from passive media such
as television to active media such as those available through Web 2.0, they
instinctively begin to create their own texts. In 2008, Here Comes Every-
body described this as an inevitable future development of Web 2.0. By the
time of writing in 2013, the Internet was already heavily supported by these
actions, and although Shirky’s writing does appear overly optimistic about
the levels to which users will contribute, he is correct in the assumption that
Web 2.0 technologies provided an easier platform on which to take part
than many other media, in which entry-level requirements are much higher
and rely on technology which may not be easily accessible.
Shirky expands this debate by discussing how behavior in virtual commu-
nities will ultimately affect all communities. He sees the collective behavior
of online sites and groups replacing the need for management with sponta-
neous collaboration and information provision shifting from a central core
into a more diffused series of people. He argues that ‘[g]roup action gives
human society its particular character, and anything that changes the way
groups get things done will affect society as a whole’ (2008a: 23). Online
communities source, action and organize themselves differently, changing
on a regular basis and exhibiting a flexibility that other more established
communities cannot. So, for example while The Yogscast began with osten-
sibly two people making machinima webcasts (Brindley and Lane), the rest
of the supporting community was comprised of volunteers and friends who
provided elements which the main players could not do or did not have time
for, including community support, map creation and NPC characterization.
Some of these fans became Yogscast members over time, but other fans still
contribute links to useful maps (or maps they have designed themselves),
technical support, fast access to breaking news (e.g. the ‘leaked’ release of
patch 1.8 in Minecraft, which was only published on Twitter) and numerous
other comments, images, discussions and ideas on the yogcast.com website
and subReddit. The development of The Yogscast as a larger organization is
entirely due to this reciprocity.
David Gauntlett is also evangelical about the active potential of Web 2.0
technologies. In Making is Connecting (2011), he compares Web 2.0 to the
aspirational nature of the Victorian and post–World War I craft movements.
By recovering the discourses of John Ruskin and William Morris on creativ-
ity and practice, he argues that the definition of ‘Craft’ as something weaker
and more inferior than ‘Art’ is a false one. Creative expressions which take
place through crafting, such as the knitting of a shawl or the baking of a
cake are devalued, since they are not witnessed by large groups and are
deemed unoriginal in content. Despite the fact that these actions are clearly
creative for the individuals involved, they are not valued as Art because
they are performed by numerous people and do not develop the medium in
meaningful ways. These acts are seen as lowbrow and are ignored by the
Institution. As a result, crafting is not ascribed much creative merit, with
‘Creativity’ becoming a concept that is seen as exclusive to high-end artistic
practice.
Making is Connecting therefore also challenges the understanding of cre-
ativity by Mihal Csikszentmihalyi (2002) in Flow, in which the creative
process must be supported through the joint endeavours of a culture that
contains symbolic rules, a person who brings novelty into the symbolic
domain, and a field of experts who recognize and validate the innovation.
For Csikszentmihalyi, creativity is achieved over time, must be original in
nature and conforms to a series of symbolic rules which allow it to be rec-
ognized. Furthermore, without a group already considered pre-eminent to
endorse it, creativity is lost and therefore may as well have never happened.
Gauntlett (2011) argues against this formation, which he sees as perpetrat-
ing elitist ideas around the concept of creativity itself. Instead, he argues
that Web 2.0 allows individual creativity to be celebrated as a communal
practice and that, transversely, the ubiquitous nature of the Internet allows
sites where Craft, the work of individuals and work made by amateurs
is celebrated because it shows individual effort. Gauntlett discusses the
development of self-created artefacts in Web 2.0, using YouTube as a prime
manifestation. YouTube therefore exemplifies a framework for participation
(a platform which allows people to contribute), agnostic content (anyone
can contribute almost anything) and the ability for fostering community
(Gauntlett, 2011: 89–95). He argues that this is merely a visible and popular
example and that these types of creativity can additionally be seen elsewhere
in numerous places across the internet. In fact YouTube is not a very good
example of his three facets—particularly the third, in which ‘white noise’,
spam and irrelevant comments prevail over sustained conversation or com-
munity building.
Gauntlett’s argument is useful when looking at the internet and its envi-
rons as providing a ‘show and tell’ environment for creatives. Dedicated
sites such as Ravelry or Pinterest specifically invite sharing or comparison
of the same objects. Indeed, on these sites, crafted objects are fetishized—
the knitting and crochet site Ravelry, for example, functions as a library,
a display ground and a social hub, gathering the plethora of blogs already
in existence and encouraging less proactive users to upload images, discuss
work in progress or purchase from each other. Ravelry emphasizes imagery
at every stage of the creative process, allowing extensive comparison of the
same object. Each item is presented collectively in visual libraries which are
grouped in multiple ways (yarn type, pattern, individual, colour) and avail-
able as testimony to each individuals’ progress. Dialogue between designer
and crafter is common; the designer often engages beta testers and publishes
an addendum for their pattern as a result of this interaction. Finally, the
site allows fans to promote certain designers and writers into positions of
authority by following or reproducing their work. The dualistic relationship
between producer and creator is clearly expressed; not only are the partici-
pants engaging in what they consider a very rewarding version of playbour,
but producer/fans also regard their input as a valid way of supporting a
talented individual.
Although all three scholars are useful when investigating games commu-
nities, all make the mistake of seeing fan-producers as motivated by a uni-
lateral desire to create and be universally productive. Shirky (2010) regards
the online process of communal action as something that will inevitably
transform all communities. Although Gauntlett strikes a note of caution
later in his book, Making Is Connecting, he also proselytizes the wider value
of online communities as new proponents in the Creativity Movement. It is
tempting here to include some very poor quality art of by Yogscast fans, or to
reprint spam comments made on the YouTube channels, or to simply point
to the thousands of Minecraft mods that contribute identical and impracti-
cal alterations to the game; however, this in itself falls into Gauntlett’s very
good point that judgemental assessments of creativity have disenfranchised
these communities. It is also worth striking a note against universally con-
demning each writer; while these authors’ arguments are excessive, to some
extent this is in order to make the point in response to a community who are
usually vilified, dismissed or simply ignored. In this respect, all three authors
are vital in understanding the changing practices of fan-producers and in
spreading their work in a more positive context. All these issues need to be
treated carefully, especially as it is the active nature of games communities
themselves which prompts more dynamic behavior, regardless of quality, and
that gaming communities are not universally creative, having other more
dominant remits (such as actually playing the game). Before this is discussed,
however, transformative play needs to be examined in greater detail.
TRANSFORMATIVE PLAY: FAN-PRODUCERS

AND CELEBRITIES
The free movement of play alters the more rigid structure in which it
takes shape. The play doesn’t just occupy the interstices of the system,
but actually transforms the space as a whole.
—Salen (2002)
If creativity and collective activity are central elements of Web 2.0 and online
communities, how does the gaming player fit into this construction? And
why are the celebrities that they create so important? In this chapter, I sug-
gest that the expectation of play can also be linked with that of productivity.
For gamers, play is a default activity—it is hardwired into the act of play-
ing or engaging with a game. In the last chapter, I examined one way in
which this happens outside of the game—through casters who take their play
activities to a more transmedial level by producing entertainment for other
players. On a more fundamental level, players are encouraged within most
games to feel that their choices matter and have influence within the game-
world, from actions as simple as customizing an avatar or choosing a team to
the release of games in beta, whereby players are used by developers as unof-
ficial testers. The playful nature of games also means that gamers experiment
within the gaming sphere (Castronova, 2005) and enjoy discovery on many
levels, including ludic, simulation, mechanic, design and social activities. In
games, the user is often led to believe that their playbour has influence on
game development, and research has shown that even if this perception is not
entirely accurate or is disconfirmed, the player still subscribes to the idea of
self as meaningful agent (Kücklich, 2005). Of course, all these expectations
may be entirely false, but the fundamental point remains that players expect
to be able to perform at least some playful activities within the context of
a game. This expectation is self-perpetuating; it allows game players to for-
mulate a proactive response to the text, and it is particularly true of active
fan communities where support may come from peers or other players who
are actively pursuing, and discussing, the same tasks. Thousands of artefacts
are produced and displayed, often with the expressed intention that they are
‘“to-be-looked-at”, as well as “to-be-played-with”’ (King and Krzywinska,
2006: 100). They are therefore seen as partial or incomplete objects which
others can proactively change, suggest improvements to or appropriate for
their own ends. Gauntlett suggests that individual actions matter, even if they
are not unique. Shirky (2010) argues that the collective nature of Web 2.0
communities creates new social patterns and allows self-organization within
groups to prevail. Matt Hills (2002) typifies this through the growth of fans
as producers and/or celebrity figures. Collectively then, the growth of Web 2.0
should allow a more complex reading of player communities as active par-
ticipants in transformative play.
For gaming fans, play and fan-producer activities are not only exclusive
to the gameworld, but also take place within a number of transmedial activi-
ties surrounding it. Robert Jones (2006) describes this type of behavior as
‘transformative play’ (2006). His work investigates fan practices such as
modding and machinima, with a focus on early work within the id Software
game DOOM (1993). His writing reformulates the position of player as
producer in a manner similar to that of Hills, but on a more mundane level:
Within video games, the means of production are placed within the
hands of the consumer because as software, video games function as
both tool and product. So when players create mods for DOOM, they
do not just alter their own experience of the medium; they also poten-
tially alter the experience of others . . . Armed with the actual means of
production—in the case of DOOM, the source code that created it—
players become producers in a way that is arguably far more empower-
ing than that of fanfic writers or fan film producers. (Jones, 2006: 268)
As well as reconceptualizing the player as an active agent within the text,

Jones argues that transformative play avoids the static power relationship
of consumer versus producer:
Because transformative play insists that cultural production is an ongo-

ing organic process that ebbs and flows between producers and consum-
ers, it presents a new theoretical approach to fans that requires further
exploration. (2006: 278)
Jones and the other authors of The Machinima Reader move away from
reading machinima as reinforcing the commercial nature of the core text.
This construction is borrowed from the early fan-based theories described
earlier, which see the fan merely as a tool for capitalist gain (after Bourdieu).
Here, the output that is produced can only echo and therefore endorse the
core text. As with early studies of games that place them on either one or
the other side of the ludology/narratology debate, this idea is far too sim-
plistic for current work in gaming and machinima/webcasting communities.
If transformative play is also seen as a form of transmedia storytelling, then
it is capable of moving beyond a singular text, so a webcast about one game
may become so popular that it spawns a fan-related community around it,
producing texts that emulate the ethos of the show and its presenters in dif-
ferent ways.
Transformative play in gaming communities has already been discussed
within Game Studies research. The following references barely scratch the
surface of this area but are instead intended to give an idea of the breadth
of research here. Critics have variously looked at topics such as cheating
and goldfarming (Consalvo, 2007; Taylor, 2008), machinima (Lowood and
Nitsche, 2011), modding (Kücklich, 2005), e-sports groups (Taylor, 2012),
theorycrafting (Karlsen, 2011), forums and ethics (Whiteman, 2009) and
erotic play (Brown, 2011, 2013). Emphasis on the productive capacity of
texts such as The Sims (Wirman, 2012), Little Big Planet (Kirkland, 2011)
or Portal 2 (Rutter, 2011) demonstrate players’ ability to create subver-
sive or secondary texts when gaming. However, these studies do not usually
locate the player as a fan (although they do sometimes position the author as
one; cf. Taylor, 2008; Bogost, 2010a), and they often examine the results of
production, rather than the producers themselves. As previously discussed,
there is a clear struggle against arguments which codify the produced text
as a proselytized object of consumption. Rather, the fan-producer is seen as
articulate and multifaceted, and the object produced is also seen for its own
merits (Taylor, 2012).
From this discussion, we can surmise that the fan-producer takes an
active, visible part in gaming communities. Modes of production are diverse
enough that fan production is not necessary homogenous, although, of course.
there is often crossover; fan art of Halo 2 has very little to do with cosplay-
ing, for example, although cosplaying the Master Chiefs is popular at game
conventions, and machinima is not created or enjoyed by all fans, although
one of the largest YouTube subscription sites belongs to Machinima.com.
There is also a growing understanding by developers that this is a useful part
of gaming—again something that is often discussed in terms of the active
fan as endorser of the text, but is not necessarily the case—fans can, and
will, subvert the text to their own ends. Fans are allowed access to source
material, or to produce machinima without fears of copyright infringement,
or to cosplay as their favorite characters, because this perpetrates the text,
the so-called unpaid sales army so beloved of advertising agencies. However,
with these concerns aside, fan-producers enrich the worldsphere through
transformative play since they often develop, correct or comment usefully
on the original game, spreading it across transmedial spaces. Fan-produced
texts can develop the game in meaningful ways, as well as becoming an
expression of community activity in and of themselves. Finally, transforma-
tive play is an indication of the active, reciprocal nature of gaming communi-
ties by which the player expects to be able to contribute to the original text
and for this to receive endorsement from a wider spectrum of fan-player-
producers who communicate outside the remits of the game itself. The more
visible fan-producers within this formation play an important part in the
development of active communities and are gradually starting to affect the
perception of the text itself.
BIG NAME FANS AND CELEBRITIZATION
Matt Hills (2002: 44) describes the fan as existing ‘inside and outside the
processes of commodification’, self-aware not only of the impact that they
are making on the text but also in control of the way in which it is dis-
seminated. Key examples of elite fans include Russell T. Davies (Doctor
Who), Ron Moore (Battlestar Galactica), Felicia Day (The Guild, Geek
and Sundry) and Wil Wheaton (Star Trek, Wilwheaton.net and Tabletop),
all of whom now produce fannish versions of the text of which they were
once fans. However, Hills’s discussion still places the elite fan as a relatively
unusual occurrence, and it does not fully track the process by which this
happens. His argument falls down with gaming fans because unlike Day
and Wheaton, who were both actors, or Moore and Moffat, who had previ-
ous directorial and writing credits, gaming BNFs/fan-producers are often no
more than ‘average’ players who have become visible through pod- or web-
casting. Additionally, whereas Hills’s discussion of the BNF suggests that
there is a gateway through which fans transition in order to become pro-
ducers (and therefore become celebrities), the ubiquitous nature of online
culture means that this action is commonplace for gamer fans, who are
playing with the text from the moment they enter a game and thus have a
more dynamic attitude to it from the start.
When examining the casting community as BNFs, several things became
clear. First, there is a clear hierarchy, but it is entirely dependent on the sup-
port of fans. The Yogscast’s means of self-promotion is relatively simple;
high content and regular identification with one main text; initially World
of Warcraft, then Minecraft, then games predicted to attract attention on
release. Their celebritization, however, is entirely dependent on fans—lacking
the initial support of other media or sponsorship, their work relies entirely
on merit, word of mouth and donations by other players—both financially
(this changed from actual donations to those obtained by YouTube mediated
advertising displayed alongside their channels) and constructively. In turn,
the community is extremely prolific, an aspect encouraged from very early
in the original podcasts. This reciprocity would not have been possible in
a traditionally presented series of media and shows a very clever, although
naturalized, manipulation of gaming communities and the act of transfor-
mative play. Through this unconscious practice, Lewis Brindley and Simon
Lane engineered a dualistic and ultimately positive relationship with their
fans, best epitomized by the following scene in an early podcast in which
Lewis Brindley is discussing the new YoGPoD theme tune with Dutch guest
presenter and fellow guild member Yohimitsu (Brindley and Lane 2009b):
BRINDLEY: What I will do; is on the YoGPoD, I will just play that
audio so everyone can listen. So; this is the new Yogs theme:
YOHIMITSU: I’m downloading it, just hang on. So you’re seriously using
someone a fan made?
B: (correcting him) A Fan Mail. Yeah! (laughs)
Y: ‘cos like, real artists will never use something a fan says to
do.
B: I know, I know. Cos most fans are like totally completely
nuts and VERY weird, like most of our fan base . . .
Y: (laughs)
Play music.
There are several things happening in this scene. It appears, as with

many of the episodes, that fans are being deliberately Othered, represented
as strange and ultimately difficult individuals. The implication that ‘fans
are like totally completely nuts and VERY weird’ suggests that there is
something wrong with listeners and draws immediate parallels to the tra-
ditional ‘obsessed loner’ positioning, yet this statement is contained by
four other actions. First, the two are playing a piece of music made for
them by a fan; which they then go on to excessively praise and which
became the main theme tune for the podcasts. Second, Yohimitsu not only
implies that the Yogscast are amateurs—‘real artists will never . . .’—but,
by doing so, places them within a liminal space between fan and ‘real’
celebrity/presenter. This also suggests that the two are more accessible to
the listener than are ‘real’ celebrities. Third, Brindley both rejects other fans
and simultaneously accepts the Yogscast fans (later renamed Yognaughts—
or Yognauts, depending which presenter the fan favors). If most fans are
‘totally completely nuts and VERY weird’, so are the Yognaughts, and
that, it is implied, is acceptable because they are with like minds. Last,
the entire scene shows an appropriative nature to the fan text supplied—
Yohimitsu has not heard the music previously, and the scene plays out
as he finds the right forum post, then downloads and listens to the tune
alongside the audience. The listener is therefore placed with Yohimitsu as
‘friend-of-Yogscast’, rather than ‘most of our fan base’, as confidante and
explorer. Authenticity and reciprocity are underscored in the conversation,
validating the position of caster and fan within a shared transmedial space.
This is reflected later in numerous conversations on the Yogscast forum,
through YouTube comments and in fan support elsewhere such as con-
ventions. Yognaughts passionately support the celebrities and frequently
vocalized this idea of shared elevation:
J: Warms my troll heart seeing how much these guys have grown so
much. Not only the lads and Hannah, but everyone who works on the
forums and such. Subbed [subscribed to the YouTube channel] at there
[sic] Eradar Twins video. I regret nothing  (J., Yogiverse, 2011)
Ultimately, the relationship established between fan and elite fan ensures
that the Yogscast presenters, and others like them, are perceived by their
audience as ‘someone a fan made’, rather than as pre-engineered celebrities
with little contact with their fanbase.
The relationship between casting fan and BNF/elite fan is very impor-
tant, since it is a good indication of both how merit is designated by fans and
how elite fans cope with the rise from fan to celebrity. All of the casters inter-
viewed located themselves collectively as fans, and as wanting to express
their relationship with games in a visible manner. Leon Cox (interview, 2011)
described part of his need to cast as ‘a total and utter love of gaming, and
an absolute joy in being able to use podcasting in order to talk about it as
much as possible to likeminded people’. This seems to reprieve Fiske’s defini-
tion of fan as ‘an excessive reader . . . differing from the ordinary consumer
in degree’ (1989: 146), although in a more self-aware context. Extremely
notable is that none of the casters expressed a desire to become famous, rich,
or even celebrities. In fact, several actively resisted this positioning. Instead,
their objectives are to talk to, and meet ‘likeminded people’. In this instance,
casting might be seen as having been motivated by social goals rather than
hierarchical ones—the casters did not want to become famous; instead, they
wanted to be heard. Celebrity is often regarded as a rather surprising by-
product of this:
Everyone wants to talk to you; it’s odd. You go on Skype and suddenly
everyone is asking what you are playing, and what you think of it; even
people you know. (Cox, interview, 2011)
I’m at 4800 people, and I’ve got about 120 requests [for friends on Face-
book], and I’m not sure how to deal with it. It’s a good way to contact
people and let them know about stuff, but . . . it’s really weird. (Lane,
interview, 2011)
The casters’ reconstruction of their audiences shows an inherent tension

in the ways that fandom/celebritization is played out. This was supported
by the interviews, in which the casters were positive about, but also were
rather unnerved with the responses that they had had to their successes. This
expression took two forms. The first was the attempted estrangement from
the fanbase by positioning them as ‘weird’ and Other, although it became
clear that this was mainly a result of self-consciousness. Because the casters
primarily identified themselves as fans, there was also a sense of solidarity
and sometimes pleasure in fannish practices that resulted from the casts
themselves.
This usually lead to the adoption of the fanbase as equal and included
levelling activities facilitated through social networking or through the cast-
ers’ articulation of Self and Other. In some instances, this was also done by
dismissal; for example TotalBiscuit had no qualms about identifying ques-
tions or responses to his work that he felt were ridiculous, and the Yogscast
revelled in the othering-as-inclusive practices seen earlier, deliberately using
representations of estranged behavior to provide a forum for comedy:
Lewis had this idea that we would just read out letters from listeners and
answer them [on the podcasts] they’re creating content for us, that we
can use. That’s brilliant! (Lane, interview, 2011)
Subsequently, several of the podcasts revolve around satirizing fan mail,

questioning its authenticity and worrying about its content. ‘Letters from
the Yognaughts’ avoids more traditional questions about games or day-to-
day activity and instead highlights bizarre, poorly written, rude or sexually
inappropriate fan mail. The fan is generally portrayed as a younger, more
naive male or as a sexual deviant. In early episodes, this is clearly done
because the presenters are insecure about their growing position as BNFs;
questioning their own validity and objectifying the Othered fan to support
this. However, as time goes on, Brindley and Lane’s fear about their status
diminishes. Conversation in the Shadow of Israphel (SoI) series occasion-
ally mentions uncertainties about fan behavior, but it is usually absent. It
is also very notable that as the casters become more comfortable with their
positions, they invert the previous construction of fan as perverse other,
by starting instead to present Lane/Honeydew as the sexually deviant male
(e.g. through licentious roleplay towards every single female avatar in SoI,
through surrealist sexual innuendo and via faux naïve shock), to whom the
viewer now plays a complicit role.
Hills’s (2006) discusses this development in elite fans during his study
of Russell T. Davies. As fans rise to the position of celebrities, a process
of estrangement from their original position takes place. Russell T. Davies
is seen as initially ‘one of us’, but as his popularity develops, he begins to
distance himself, largely by minimizing his fan identity and emphasizing his
professional identity as writer and producer (2006: 113). This process does
not seem to happen with gaming fans. Despite a seeming unease with their
position—perhaps because of it, the casters have a much closer relationship
with their viewers than a traditional celebrity might. This appears to be
because of the basic identification of self-as-fan—there did not seem to be
a transition upwards, whereby the caster at any point needed to leave the
fan behind—in fact, the opposite was true. All the groups interviewed delib-
erately fostered close relationships with fans and continually self-identified
within this group. All the casters took their role as spokespeople for ‘normal’
players very seriously, for example, and tried to take as active a part as pos-
sible in the communities that surrounded them. The Yogscast, TotalBiscuit
and GamerDork all ran websites with extensive forums which served as
a meeting place and as repositories for comments, feedback and potential
future material. The Yogscast initially hosted several public Minecraft serv-
ers and a public Teamspeak chat server, although as their popularity grew,
these were shut down. Instead, most of The Yogscast had an active pres-
ence on their Reddit subforum and periodically invited people to join online
guilds in various MMORPGs. The Cynical Brit site initially hosted a chat
server. TMPGOTI socialized through Twitter, held meet-ups online (includ-
ing some memorable parties) and made fans feel included in a friendly,
accessible community. The GamerDork site employed its fans as writers
and organized regular meetings on the Xbox Live and PS3 networks to play
cooperative or competitive games. All of the casters spent large amounts of
time discussing questions sent in by fans whereby the presenters articulate
a sense of pleasure with correspondence, often thanking their listeners or
encouraging them to ask more questions.
This attitude is key to fan-producer practices. After two years of broad-
casting and editing their own work, the core members of the Yogscast had
surrounded themselves with a group of secondary producers performing
various roles such as design, community management, world building and
soundtrack composition. This enabled them to become a more profes-
sional organization in line with their growing popularity. However, the
Yogscast were also using and soliciting content from fans who did not
comprise this inner circle. An example of this can be seen in the PAX
Prime panel, (Brindley et al., 2011a, 2011b). The two episodes showcase
a discussion between the author and Brindley and Lane via Skype. They
are accompanied by a backdrop of a pre-recorded session in Minecraft
which was also shown to the audience at PAX. In order to contextualize
the recording, specifically to highlight the ‘liveness’ of the broadcast, the
first 3 minutes of the YouTube video are part of a fan made video that
was recorded illicitly during the show. This demonstrates a subtlety of
approach to textual poaching, whereby a product which would perhaps
have been removed by more traditional media was instead appropriated and
recycled within a more formal context.
The need to retain authenticity is also a core element of fan/fan-producer
relationship. This was repeatedly expressed in the interviews as a need to
retain a ‘natural’, ‘authentic’ or ‘real’ voice. Casters often deliberately retained
background noises that emphasized the domestic setting of each cast.
Xibxang and TMPGOTI both specifically included noises such as drinks
being poured, for example, despite Tara Nelson’s assertion that other sounds
were rigorously removed or avoided. Similarly, sounds of eating or back-
ground noises often remained in the text to give a sense of place focussed
around the home and domesticity (e.g. washing machines, children interrupt-
ing or shouting outside, interjections from other members of the household
or bodily actions such as scratching or sneezing). Overall, however, these
techniques appeared to be a way of resisting more traditional media where
the body is homogenized and surplus noise is removed since it detracts from
narrative flow by breaking the fourth wall. Casters were not only trying to
establish a sense of place with these acts but also to normalize this environ-
ment as a typical gaming location. Lewis Brindley epitomizes this in a dis-
cussion about recording methods which segues almost seamlessly into one
about identification with the audience: ‘It is like we are in a Vent[rilo] chat
with them [listeners]. We’re not in a studio, we’re not in London. We’re play-
ing the games with them. We’ve just got our own opinions; it’s very natural’
(Brindley, interview, 2011). Play is therefore established as authentic specifi-
cally because it is situated within normal domestic practices and because this
enforces the close identification of the casters with their listeners.
The role of the elite fan is therefore constructed not only as something
appreciated and valued but also as an echo of less visible fans’ activities. All
the casters relied on their fans for input and direction and appreciated them
as a supporting community (rather than, say, a group to be exploited or used
for commercial purposes). The need to be authentic/‘natural’ was also linked
to a reciprocal sense of duty. As everymen and spokespeople, the casters saw
themselves as having a duty to the people who they represented. As cast-
ers became more sophisticated, this became more abstract, partly because
the ability to reply to absolutely every demand was impossible. Despite the
growth in popularity of some groups, however, all the casters made sure
that they were constantly engaging in dialogues with fans which encour-
aged their input and support, however illusory this might be. For example,
before Gamescom 2011, TotalBiscuit spent several days asking his fans
which games they would like to see previewed. Although behind the scenes
he had clearly already arranged certain interviews, on 19 August 2011, his
Twitter stream presented the games as if the fans were responsible for the
content being released: ‘we have an appointment with End of Nations heard
you guys kinda wanted to see that’ and ‘we will give you two videos now
plus 15 when we reach Alderaan. Okay you can have 3’. Fans were often
asked their opinion about videos; if the response was predominantly nega-
tive or absent, the casters would quickly cease that particular activity and
move onto another. Similarly, the Yogscast replaced their podcasts with a
weekly update (YogNews) and used social media to answer questions and
respond to some queries.
Fans are aware that they are the medium of transmission; it is largely
through word of mouth that casters have become popular. Although the
choosing of core texts by the casters plays a significant role in this, fans
tend to ignore the process by which the podcasters might actually be ‘get-
ting themselves out there’ and see themselves as the arbitrators of the casts’
popularity. Therefore, they see themselves as important, with an investment
in the success of a chosen subject:
I watch them for them. I find their humour very real and freaking hilari-
ous. Whatever they play, or release (like their Yogpods) I enjoy. It’s
annoying when people whine again and again for more SOI even though
the Yogscast release a goddam large amount of stuff on a weekly and
daily basis. A lot of people take it for granted, and show no or little
patience and respect for these entertainers. (C., Yogscast Community
Forums, 2011)
Finally, the reciprocal fan-producer/fan relationship can be demonstrated

by many fans’ sometimes aggressive perspective that the casters ‘owed’ them
something. Numerous posts on Facebook and YouTube demanded more
or specific types of content; for example any lapse in the SoI series would
always be accompanied by demands for the episodes to be resumed, and
TotalBiscuit was frequently flamed for making what were judged incorrect
assessments of tourney matches or game reviews. This is a familiar char-
acteristic of online communities when addressing corporations responsible
for games; ‘WTF Blizz?’ (‘What the Fuck [are you doing] Blizzard?’) is a
meme commonly used either by players directly addressing the company for
perceived faults or by those who conversely feel that this sentiment is ridicu-
lous and overly demanding. The gradually changing response to the more
well-known casters suggests that as their popularity increased, they were
regarded as more omnipotent and distant. However, social engagement
still remained and this demanding behavior was criticized by supportive
fans; the ‘Waiting patiently for Shadow of Israphel because your not a dick’
Facebook group and many of the commenters on the Yogscast subReddit
being good examples of this.
The complexity of this relationship exhibits some very typical forms of
fan behavior, with fans acting to support the casters but becoming upset
when they do not act as they wish them to. However, the more symbiotic
relationship of fan and fan-producer definitely demonstrates a new itera-
tion of fan practices. These transmedial practices may be specific to games
and demonstrate the need for the community to create self-made icons.
It may also be indicative of the extremely low attention given to most
casters by marketing companies—the casters are entirely self-made, and
sponsorship is unusual. Instead, revenue (for some) is earned by advertis-
ing on each page which is chosen by YouTube. Without more commercial
representation, the casters are free to engineer their own relationships with
fans and do so through commonality rather than estrangement. Their com-
mitment to authenticity also helped to establish them within, rather than
apart from the gaming community, a factor which I examine in the next
chapter in an investigation of more commercial practices within Indie gam-
ing companies.
The development of the fan as producer alters how gaming fans under-
stand themselves and negotiate their relationships with other players. The
blurring of the boundaries between these two has been largely effected by
changes in the ease of content creation and dissemination online, but it is
also endemic to game players’ mentalities in which they see the game itself
as a site of exploration and experimentation. At the same time, however,
we should be cautious not to ascribe value to every single output created
because of widening participation. The rise of celebrities—talented individu-
als who are able to act as representative everymen, is symptomatic of this;
despite their use of casting and online media as a forum for transmedial sto-
rytelling, there is also a level of discernment in action by which the fan picks
and then endorses a celebrity figure. Coupled with this is a more unspoken
understanding by gamers that while they enjoy creativity, they appreciate
its value. Informal conversations with Minecraft players revealed that while
they often produced and designed their own work, only a small minority
shared it with others, since they understood it lacked the quality visible else-
where. This did not, however, stop them from behaving as active members
of communities, commenting and downloading other work or supporting
elite fans by ‘liking’ their work, watching their casts or even contributing
financially to their upkeep.
Fan/fan-producer relationships are reciprocal—predicated by a sense of
duty on both sides which allows the elite fan to appropriate output from the
fans and the fans to feel as if they are truly valued within a knowledge com-
munity. The casters exist in a cyclical relationship with fans who support,
promote and sometimes create content for the casts themselves. In turn,
casters rely on their audiences for feedback and for information and advice
and feel responsible towards them in terms of content, output and repre-
sentation, most specifically in retaining ‘natural’ or ‘authentic’ responses to
games and players. In this sense gaming fandom is unusual; such dualistic
behavior does not happen in more traditional media where the celebrity is
often seen as an object to be shielded or distanced from a fan base. Over
the summer of 2011, and despite The Yogscast becoming one of the most
subscribed channels on YouTube, this process of estrangement did not hap-
pen, with Brindley and Lane maintaining similar levels of sociality despite
the huge increase in their fanbase. Other successful casts also showed that
this behavior was not unique—rather, it was symptomatic of game player/
elite fan relationships.
This development upsets more traditional views of the fan, as an excessive
reader, as tied to capitalist modes of production and representation and as a
‘powerless elite’. Instead, Elite Fans often situate their work within a domes-
tic context, reinforcing the arguments of Garry Crawford (2011) and Helen
Thornham (2011) that gaming is increasingly expressed through everyday
and domestic spheres. Casters in particular also have high social currency
and are able to effect change, for example through increased (or decreased)
sales, or through the endorsement of types of behavior online. Children
who took part in the ‘Well Played’ panel at DiGRA 2011 told the audience
that The Yogscast had taught them ‘how to be polite when meeting people’,
for example, as well as becoming fluent with modifications and add-ons
to their game through a modding pack called the YogBox. This discussion
with fans of The Yogscast also produced another interesting nuance when
considering the role of BNFs—the multiple and complex ways in which they
are viewed. While the children saw the SoI series as a useful resource, they
also appreciated it as an adventure story, disregarding (or being unaware of)
the personalities of the casters almost entirely. Their father had a different
view, citing the presenters as ‘the unsung heroes of Minecraft’ not only for
their work on the forums to spread information but also for their clarity of
presentation and, therefore, good as a language learning tool. It was clear
that the casts were being consumed on different levels by fans with very
different agendas indeed. These multiple modes of consumption are indica-
tive of the ‘Here Comes Everybody’ mentality of Clay Shirky and the idea
that ‘Making is Connecting’ from David Gauntlett. The consumption of the
Yogscast broadcasts was not only transmedial, but it are indicative of how
multiple fans are consuming multiple texts in different ways, poaching what
they require and re-appropriating it in new ways. They also represent a new
attitude towards celebrities—‘unsung’ being a rather disingenuous way to
describe a group who in fact were becoming some of the most important
names within gaming cultures.
CONCLUSION
A number of useful theories drawn from Fan Studies help to demonstrate the
ways in which casters are elite fans who have become popular, sometimes
becoming celebrities because of social elevation by the gaming community.
Gaming communities lack tangible media spokespeople and elevate elite
fans into this position.
In addition, fans support these people by providing source material for
elite fans to use and by spreading awareness of them through social media.
This type of fan can also be called a ‘fan-producer’, because although
many fans make content for the celebrity, it is the celebrity ‘elite fan’ who
uses this content in turn to produce a visible, transmedial output in the form
of the webcast.
There is an unusual amount of reciprocality in this relationship, which
fan-producers encourage since they rely on the goodwill of their fans finan-
cially (YouTube revenue is generated by the amount of visits to each page)
and for content such as recommendations and artefacts made within games
that they can showcase.
Fan-producers engineer specific relationships with their fans which rein-
force their own authenticity as members of the gaming community. This
relationship becomes more socially distant as the fan-producers become
more popular, but does not entirely disappear and is seen as an important
element for both groups.
In the case of the Yogscast, this allowed the company to grow as fans were
gradually assimilated into the group in order to produce their own content.
The construction of casts is transmedial in nature and is enabled by the
experimental nature of fan-producers. Gaming environments allow them to
feel that producing content which is imperfect, may fail, or is meant to lead
to further texts in term is a valid and useful way to express themselves (and
allow others to build on their texts in turn).
5 One More Block
The Essentials of Indie Gaming
A game that is both (a) developed to completion without any publisher

or licensor interference, and (b) created by a single developer or a small
team.
—Stern (2012)
Too often do we spend our time defending games, simply talking about
‘why games aren’t bad’, when what we should be discussing is ‘what
good games can do’.
—Portnow (2013)
This chapter investigates a more ephemeral type of gaming group: the Indie
Games community. ‘Indie’ appears to have more than one meaning in the
context of games development and consumption. In this chapter, I detail
the different ways in which the word is currently used and why this means
that Indie gaming is helping to change gaming culture as a whole. Drawing
from von Hippel’s (2005) work on the democratizing nature of online com-
munities, and using Van Oost et al.’s (2009) configuration of the innovation
community, in this chapter, I suggest ways that online gaming community
behaves as a solidarity network which, nevertheless, collapses sharply when
faced with the ‘first world’ behavior of its members. Here, the online sphere
is also representative of Alberto Melucci’s theories, whereby community
becomes more of an ethos than an actuality, and although I still adhere to the
useful construction of esoteric and exoteric community formations, I refute
Ludwig Fleck’s assertion that a community needs ‘a work of the mind’ as a
centralizing point. Instead, I argue that Indie, as a moniker of genre, ethos
and community, is symptomatic of gaming cultures as a whole, in that it is
becoming too large and unwieldy to function as a unified definition for one
genre or aspect of gaming.
This chapter calls into question the nature of Indie gaming by examin-
ing both its users and the semantic usage of the word by various different
groups, which dissolves its meaning. This can be epitomized by the conflict-
ing, though idealistic definitions of ‘Indie’ by developers, journalists and
critics which permeate this chapter. Groups with investment in the idealism
and ethos of the Indie movement have been proactive in its development as
One More Block 113
a form of social currency (after Bourdieu, 1973) and as cultural category
(after Mittell, 2004). However, this means that Indie has become more than
an actual cluster of games developers or designs. Indie is a word that has
spread into more mainstream spaces and can mean singularly themed or
cheaply made games, rather than those made by Independent groups or with
artistic purposes in mind. As Mittell argues, ‘genres are commonly sites of
cultural struggles and dissent rather than clearly established consensus and
regularity’ (2004: 46).
In the chapter, I also make an attempt to classify Indie within different
frameworks: as an artistic movement, as an ideology, as a social grouping
and as a marketing strategy. Through these criteria, Indie is recognize as hav-
ing various functions and meanings within gaming that once again usually
exist beyond the gaming text. Indie is becoming a popular typology within
gaming, with an audience who are keen to get involved and sometimes even
invest in its potential. In turn, the mobilization of communities around the
Indie games scene is seen by many as reflexive of changes in gaming, with
proactive users, fan-producers and designers working in an integrated man-
ner. Although I sound a note of caution here (one which is further examined
in Chapters 6 and 7), the mobilization of Indie communities, and the ways
Indie can be reinterpreted in various ways, is an important marker of the
developing sophistication of gaming communities as a whole.
INDIE MATTERS
Independent video games are video games created by individuals or

small teams without video game publisher financial support. Indie
games often focus on innovation and rely on digital distribution. Indie
gaming has seen a rise in the last few years, primarily due to new online
distribution methods and development tools.
—Indie Game, Wikipedia (2012)
In the iPhone app Game Dev Story (2010), the player has to produce and
market successful games by running a small development company. The game
is a simple management simulation where the player needs to hire members
of staff, allocate them work, choose what genre, game type and console to
use, negotiate contracts and release the game in a timely, unbugged fashion.
The simulation lasts for 20 years, over which time the objective is to take
the company from ‘humble Indie beginnings right through to making AAA
hits’ (McAllister 2011). As the player becomes more financially successful,
their games improve and gain higher critical ratings. A game that enters the
‘Hall of Fame’ can be made into a sequel, and thus, it is possible to finish
Game Dev Story having made nothing more than a series of identical titles
over the last few years of the simulation. This patterning suggest that Indie
games are not only ‘humble’ (a word that will crop up repeatedly in this
chapter) but also non-lucrative and that games developers instinctively want
to move up the ladder towards more mainstream titles, aiming for a more
pseudo-individual style of production rather than retaining the creativity
that making different game titles implies.
In 2011, Indie gaming, and the relationship of the Gaming Industry
towards low budget titles or games produced by independent developers
was changing. Supergiant’s RPG title Bastion topped the Xbox sales charts
a week after release, where it was actively promoted as part of the ‘Summer
of Arcade’ promotion. Players received a free Kinect game if they bought
all three of the featured titles, all of which were made by Indie companies.
Bastion won numerous awards in 2011 and was heralded as a worthy suc-
cessor to Limbo and Braid, both of which played with traditional notions
of storytelling and genre to tell interesting, often thought-provoking narra-
tives through apparently simple adventure games. Sales of Indie games on
the downloadable gaming platform Steam were actively promoted in at least
one of the six slots allocated to advertising titles each week, offering players
a cheaply priced game alongside more expensive titles. Mojang announced
that Minecraft had sold 4 million copies in November, and the game was
finally released from its beta phase later in the same month. Five thousand
people attended the sold-out convention Minecon in Las Vegas, celebrat-
ing the game’s success. Finally, in Ancient Egypt, 1,700 players entered the
fifth ‘Telling’ of Andrew Tepper’s A Tale in the Desert, having collectively
weathered over 8 years of controversy, bad tempers and building aqueducts
for each other. As usual, hundreds of players logged on during the first ‘eve-
ning’ (the single server is international) to enjoy a firework party, to form
allegiances and to scramble to claim the same spots for their houses which
they had inhabited during the four prior Tellings.
By 2012, the high-profile events of the preceding year had enabled Indie
Gaming to become an even more powerful force. This was often backed
by the support of players who were becoming increasingly willing to take
chances—even by investing their own money into the genre. Johan Sebastian
Joust (2011) won the innovation award at GDC, Marcus Persson scooped
a special award for his contribution to change in gaming at the videogame
BAFTAs (Minecraft having now sold 10 million copies, far exceeding the sales
of most AAA titles), and a new fan-producer power was rising in the form
of the Kickstarter website. Kickstarter allows users to pledge money towards
development projects, ranging from films about steampunk beach bathers to
people making eccentric children’s books about mice. It has a thriving games
development section; in 2009, scholar Eric Zimmerman used Kickstarter to
create Metagame, in which players use cards to argue the merits of various
digital games, and in 2011, Six to Start and Naomi Alderton used the site to
raise $72,000 for the pervasive app game Zombies, Run! In 2012, however,
two projects pitched at the start of the year highlighted the relative power of
the fan to endorse a project and the faith that Indie developers were inspiring.
inExile Entertainment raised more than 1 million dollars (the highest amount
ever asked for on Kickstarter) to make Wasteland 2. It took them two days
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to exceed this total. Double Fine Productions had an even more nebulous
agenda: asking for the funding so that they could design ‘a classic point-and-
click adventure’ under the auspices of Tim Schafer, whose previous work
included the games Day of the Tentacle (1993) and Grim Fandango (1998).
The project raised 3 million dollars in less than a week. Last, gaming giant
Peter Molyneux parted company with AAA development house Lionhead/
Microsoft, in order to set up his own company, 22Cans, with the express
agenda of creating Indie titles. The lines between inexperienced, small devel-
oper and industry mavericks seemed to be blurring.
At the time of writing, this type of activity had become standard, and Indie
games were a core part of much of gaming culture. Kickstarter was still a
popular means of raising money to develop games through crowdfunding
and was supported by sites such as the Humble Bundle (discussed later) and
Steam Greenlight, which asked members to vote on existing Indie games for
conversion to the downloadable platform. Minecraft had sold 24 million cop-
ies across various platforms, and games such as Dear Esther (2012), To The
Moon (2012), Redshirt (2013) and Papers Please! (2013) were beginning a
solid canon of Indie titles which explored new ideas or concepts within gam-
ing, including the idea of variant narrative techniques or styles. Although they
by no means eclipsed the AAA element of the industry, it was widely accepted
that Indie games had a valid part to play in the development of gaming as a
whole and that they were often capable of challenging accepted modes of play
or behavior, as well as producing cheap, interesting titles for players.
All of these actions demonstrate how Indie Gaming is becoming a popu-
lar moniker for development, but does not really help to identify the move-
ment as a cohesive whole. Some games owe their success to inquisitiveness
and a willingness to experiment with new or imperfect concepts. Some are
innovative or attempt to challenge the nature of videogaming. Others, such
as A Tale in the Desert, are part of long-standing, loyal communities who
have decided to ‘opt out’ of mainstream gaming. Kickstarter initiatives seem
to suggest that fans will support companies wishing to revive or produce
games that are unpopular with mainstream developers and that fans trust
small development teams who are passionate about their work, but there is
such huge variance within these titles that specific patterns in development
cannot be identified. Collectively, however, all of these aspects indicate that
the genre and user base are extremely diverse, and like the communities and
players identified previously, the free usage of the term Indie has started to
confuse its meaning.
UNDERSTANDING INDEPENDENT GAMES
The higher echelons of the games industry comprise several powerhouse

groups who commission and endorse in-house development from recog-
nized brands. Microsoft, Sony, Nintendo and arguably, Valve, own a series
of third-party companies and game franchises which receive high-profile
attention when titles are launched, as well as endorsing their own gaming
platforms. At the top end of the industry, stand-alone companies such as
Electronic Arts (EA) hold virtual monopolies on certain genres (in EA’s case,
sports games), as well as owning subsidiary titles such as casual gaming
title PopCap and RPG/MMO juggernaut Bioware. This has created a long-
standing disparity within the industry. AAA companies develop multiple
titles at once; all with substantial budgets, the ability to outsource talent, and
supported by well-crafted marketing campaigns. At the bottom of the scale,
smaller companies may only be able to work contractually, in which case
their work goes largely unrecognized, or they may be without the resources
to produce work quickly and plentifully. Advertising for these titles is mini-
mal because of a lack of funds before launch. In addition, smaller companies
often lack the licensing agreements to make games for consoles, shutting
them out of a sizeable percentage of the market, and finally small compa-
nies are bought out (or simply plagiarized) by large companies in order to
assimilate them into the whole and prevent the revenue from alternative
games being diverted elsewhere. As an example of this, in March 2012, the
small company OMGPOP was bought out within days by Zynga after its
app Draw Something threatened to topple Zynga’s monopoly (N. Brown,
2012a; Ivan, 2012). Earlier in the year, the company had been accusing of
cloning the game Tiny Tower (2011), with an almost identical game called
Dream Heights (2012).
There is very little in this model to distinguish the gaming industry from
any other—large titles dominate the market, with occasional breakthroughs
by innovative or simply fortuitous titles which are often then amalgamated
into the larger companies in order to contain their revenue streams. Brand
loyalty and advertising sustain top-end titles. High-quality designers and
game developers migrate upwards or are recruited into the top of the pile.
Or do they? Increasingly, the games scene has witnessed dissatisfaction in
simply consuming and producing AAA titles. Developers work for AAA
companies but attend games jams in their spare time to produce and exper-
iment with small Indie titles. Indie companies are launching mainstream
games, and mainstream titles are incorporating elements of Indie games in
their top titles. Finally, players are demonstrating a broadening interest in
the Indie games scene and its potential to provide innovative, quirky game
dynamics which challenge more traditional gaming genres.
Simon Carless, in his 2009 address to GDC China, described Indie gam-
ing as ‘showcasing unique mechanics that develop a following of their own’,
having titles that are developed by three to five people and resisting platforms
that work exclusively towards mass markets such as Facebook (although
this last point was implied rather than spoken). However, this definition
ignores some of the more mainstream ways in which the Indie moniker is
used to describe games within platforms such as Steam and XBLA. Here,
‘Indie’ is used to describe slightly alternative titles which may not be AAA
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titles and will not attract such large audiences. Their reliance on one or two
core mechanics, rather than on the composite genres used in AAA titles,
means they tend to be sold in a cheaper price bracket. Both Steam and
XBLA use Indie to define a category of games. Despite this, their presence
on such sites is often supported by heavy advertising and promotion. In
addition, these games have slicker production values than art-house Indie
games and more closely match existing preconceptions of gaming genres, so
while Orcs Must Die! (2011) is produced by Robot Entertainment and Bas-
tion (2011) by Supergiant, both conform to pre-existing ideas of the tower
defence and scrolling platformer game, respectively, albeit with some inven-
tive twists. They are considered Indie titles as the companies producing them
are small—unable to focus on more than one or two titles at a time—but
they are still significantly larger than Carless’s estimation of three to five peo-
ple. This categorizing is a tiny element of the internal debates over the word
Indie, which is variously claimed (and disclaimed) by various groups. In the
next two sections, I break down these definitions more clearly by comparing
the Indie ‘scene’ of independent mavericks, inventors and experiments with
the titles that appear in more mainstream avenues, and examining why the
two are starting to draw together via community intervention.
INDIE AS ART
Countless Indie game success stories have sprung from developers that
were curious about what they could create if they deprived themselves
of obvious or well-trod communication methods, . . . ideas of con-
straint, subversion and experimentation aren’t limited to the design
environment: they’re increasingly being transferred to the hardware
and tech itself, and in this movement to embrace more primitive cre-
ative platforms and a more timeless, handmade folk aesthetic, we can
see game design as a form of creative art more than ever.
—Alexander (2012)
It should be about wanting to bring something from within, whether

it’s one person or a team. The vision is about communicating between
the developer and the player, it’s not about a feature set or what kind of
value you can extract from the customer, or whether the idea is emerg-
ing from a ‘hot sector’! That kind of language isn’t true to the spirit of
creating anything.
—Hunicke (2012)
As with every other media industry, the games industry has spawned groups
of developers who do not consider themselves part of the mainstream, or are
financially unable to compete with the larger, more established companies
already in existence. Carless’s definition of Independent, or Indie, titles are
those typically produced by a game house or a developer lacking association
with larger companies. However, earlier understandings in the games and
academic community at large recognize Indie gaming as more nuanced, and
as belonging to a more artistic movement which often attempts to challenge
the meaning of games. Mike Gnade’s (2010) article ‘What Makes an Indie
Game . . . Indie?’ is not uncommon in its discussing what an Indie title is not,
rather than what it is. Gnade acknowledges that
It’s a slippery slope trying to define Indie gaming since there is a lot of
discord in the game-making community. Some developers think that to
be truly independent, you have to be creating artistic experiments with
mechanics that have never been experienced before. Others think it’s a
mindset where you’re not letting money, marketing, and big business
cloud the vision for your game.
This section examines this latter element of Indie development, which

has previously been read as the less successful or more eclectic elements of
the movement, but is increasingly becoming a conscious choice by some
developers.
The Indie games movement is semantically parallel to the definition
adopted by the Indie music scene of the 1990s, in which low-quality sound
or production techniques were an accepted part of the finished product.
Now, many Indie games are created by appropriating existing hardware or
by using existing software such as RPGMaker and Multimedia Fusion. For
many, Indie games are about exploration and challenging boundaries. Play-
ers may find themselves placed within difficult situations or made to assess
their behavior in different ways. Some games within this realm have very
basic structures or fall under the remit of artistic practice; play is either
complex or avoided (thus meaning that many Indie games of this nature
are not, in fact, games at all). An example of this is Dear Esther (2012),
which encourages players to complete the first narrative stages in whatever
order they want to and provides random snatches of speech as they traverse
an eerie island landscape. Rather than being made by studios, these games
are often made by individuals or small groups (in this case, developer Dan
Pinchbeck of the Chinese Room, who originally made the game as a Half
Life 2 mod) that are passionate about gaming but want to remain within
this experimental field to explore its possibility. It is probably fair to say that
these games are often produced by those with a specific remit to do so. Art-
house Indie games deliberately challenge the modalities of games themselves,
or may be designed for less ludic purposes—such as artistic statements or
philosophical position pieces (e.g. see Journey, 2012). It is noticeable here
that Indie art-house titles are often known for their authors as well as their
titles, whereas Indie mainstream titles are known for their company names.
The open-source nature of much Indie software allows content to be
shared and sometimes improved on at a later date. Developers converge to
discuss and refine each other’s work or to collaborate on specific projects.
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Since Indie developers are often individuals as well as independent, they
often specialize in one specific area and outsource their work to others as
required. This model echoes the increasing complexity of the Games Indus-
try as a whole, with developers working as contractors on various projects,
or fulfilling specialist niches. As a result, developers wishing to make their
mark in the industry often work for free within the Indie scene, aiming to
develop their work profiles and gain contemporary skills.
The potential of the Indie scene as a locus for new talent, specialist
employees and people trying to break into the gaming industry means it is
very social. Indie games events and collectives lie at the core of the move-
ment with events such as Indiecade and SIGGRAPH, and through groups
such as The Copenhagen Game Collective. Game jams and competitions
are popular; the Global Games Jam (GGJ) runs concurrently for 3 days
around the world. Small teams have to build a prototype game over the long
weekend. In 2012, 242 institutions, universities and other groups took part,
nearly 11,000 people were involved and 2,209 game projects were created in
47 different countries. The jam is themed; the theme for 2012 was an image
of the Ouroboros, and the 2013 event focused on issues of accessibility. The
GGJ, which is organized locally and by IGDA (the International Games
Developers Association) has spawned other events such as Ludum Dare and
What Would Molydeux, where developers attempt to make a game based
on the tweets of satirist @petermolydeux: ‘What if sound effects were people
that travelled the world searching for the right song to fall into? What if
that song changed someone?’, ‘Try to imagine a game in which you have an
imaginary friend who doesn’t believe you are real, you must convince them
that you are’. At the Dare to Be Digital event, run by the University of Aber-
tay, the winning teams are nominated for the ‘one to watch’ BAFTA award.
Beneath the light-hearted tone of these experiments and competitions lies
a more serious core. Indie developers are passionate about making games
but want to make different games. @petermolydeux’s tweets are a stab at
the often ludicrous ideas spouted by the ‘real’ Peter Molyneux, who, until
2012, was considered a leading figure in the AAA industry (which he then
left to form 22Cans); however, they are a call to arms. @petermolydeux
consistently demands originality and a questioning approach, in order to ‘to
save the industry’ from placid, mainstream development. The writer shares a
belief with many Indie gamers that the AAA industry often simply replicates
tried and tested ideas and that its attempted monopolization of the industry
is capable of stymieing original or innovative designs. This is a very differ-
ent scenario to that of the Game Dev Story ‘rags to riches’ narrative, where
Indie equates to poor quality and producing sequels is a laudable way to win
the game. Harry Lee, who won the Ludum Dare jam in 2012, argues that
Indie gaming has a vital role to play:
At the seed of this is something really important about the future of

games—as an industry, as a medium, as a creative mode of expression.
It’s vitally important, even paramount, to how humans engage with
each other, express themselves, and choose to spend their time. To me,
that’s incredible. We are at this renaissance moment; we can change
meaning. (Lee in Williams, 2012)
What is interesting about this statement, and those at the start of this
section, is their emphasis on communication between developer and player,
and on games as ‘a creative mode of expression’. Originality, and the pas-
sion to develop, goes side by side with the potential to create and engage
with others.
A good example of Indie Gaming acting within this capacity is the work
of Douglas Wilson, whose games B.U.T.T.O.N (2010) and Johan Sebastian
Joust (2011) intentionally exploit the idea of kinaesthetic movement and
the psychology of control in response to game controllers and other people.
Wilson’s games are intended to raise questions about the nature of games,
rather than to generate income or compete with pre-existing titles, but they
are also about interpretation and getting other people involved. In J. S. Joust,
players use the Playstation Move controller to play a physical version of the
8-bit game Joust to Bach’s music. In B.U.T.T.O.N. (Brutally Unfair Tactics
Totally OK Now), they fight to reach the controller itself. Wilson’s games
typify the subversive nature of the Indie games movement as an artistic site
for development and study, but they are also about people and about how
they use emergence as a core part of their play.
INDIE STEAM—INDIE AS MONIKER
In terms of our future prospects, things are looking up! Thanks to

word-of-mouth from our fans, the Steam sale, and our PAX 10 nomi-
nation, the question has gone from ‘can we afford to do anything after
this’; to ‘how much can we afford to do after this!’
—Ambrogi (in Kuchera, 2011)
The idealism of the Indie games movement, and the contribution made
by developers in more well-known companies who ‘moonlight’ over their
weekends and spare time in order to contribute to non-profit development
events such as games jams, has led to a closer relationship between main-
stream and Indie titles. However, a second definition of Indie is emerging,
one concerned more by the changes in gaming consumption and by the
disparities between larger AAA companies and smaller development teams
than with an artistic group attempting to challenge the meaning of games
itself. This has blurred the meaning of Indie but, as a result, has made it
available to a wider audience.
Key to this is a change in gaming platforms and monetization patterns,
discussed in the last chapter. While the fluctuating demographics of players
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are notoriously difficult to prove, the rise of the smartphone has caused a
huge leap in players who consume games via devices such as the iPhone, the
iPad and the Android. Social networks such as Facebook have been targeted
by gaming titles or have become focal points for development companies.
The player is engaged via tools produced specifically for sociality (the mobile
phone, the social network), not for gaming. Design patterns changed fun-
damentally as a result. Designers had a limited platform upon which to
develop, restricting their ability to create large, memory intensive games.
The demographic of players was broader and less used to gaming tropes.
The nature of social networks, in which users accessed devices quickly and,
often, keyed games to different patterns of usage, since players were not
always ‘present’ and did not regard gaming as a primary agenda during
usage. This meant that games had to be engaging but not necessarily fully
immersive over extended periods and to be limited by the memory capacity
in terms of graphics, variation and variety. The results were quick games
intended for players to dip in and out of, so that they could play while
socializing. These games often tended to be simple in form and were some-
times experimental in content as developers tested new ideas on a relatively
untried platform.
As a result, the games produced for social or smartphone platforms were
often cheap or free to play. This monetization model was extremely success-
ful and changed attitudes towards gaming purchases. The low cost of games
encouraged an ‘app mentality’, whereby consumers compared the price of
the game to its relative value, longevity and potential quality. The knock-on
effect of this was that players became more willing to spend small amounts
of money on games that they knew would potentially be low budget in con-
tent and execution and to experiment with games that appeared to exclude
or challenge elements of gaming. Although the majority of this took place
through micro-transactioned payments in games made by established com-
panies, buyers were also willing to risk spending small amounts of money on
new titles. Without realizing, these consumers began to play and appreciate
Indie titles.
At the same time, AAA games were producing more Downloadable Con-
tent (DLC) for their titles after initial release. This was partly a result of
subscription games, whereby regular updates encouraged player retention,
and allowed companies to release games with the promise of more to come.
The DLC model had a similar effect as app mentality; players became used
to additional content being added a later stage and to paying small amounts
of money to ‘unlock’ this privilege. For Indie developers, this meant that a
basic version of a game could be released with subsequent updates honing
rough edges or expanding on existing gameplay, for example by providing
more levels. This also meant that, potentially, a first release could have lower
production costs, with the company gambling on sales to secure the revenue
needed to improve and expand it at a later date. I will return to some of the
issues with this formulation later.
As demand for cheap titles grew, Steam, Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA),
Gamers Gate and Play (PS3) started to include more Indie games on their
download listings. A separation grew between AAA games with vast, sweep-
ing worldspheres; intense graphics and extensive narratives; and cheaper
games which relied on one or more concepts executed in a more cut-down
manner. Alongside this came an appreciation by the player of the ‘good
concept, executed well’, even if this idea was expressed in a minimalist or a
stripped-down manner. Finally, gaming sites started to include a high level
of sociality within their design which mimicked that of a social network and
allowed players to interact more fully.
A good example of how Indie gaming has entered mainstream sales are-
nas is the Steam platform, run by the Valve Corporation. Steam deliberately
includes a mixture of titles in order to encourage player spending at both
the top and bottom ends of gaming. Although the site itself is not seen as
a marker of quality, the games that it allows tend to be either by popular
design teams (or part of a franchise) or of relatively high quality. Steam is
not saturated by games in the way that iTunes is, carrying approximately
3,000 titles in October 2013 as opposed 172,410 active titles on iTunes
(148Apps.biz, 2013), and the titles it carries are seen as representative of the
Steam/Valve brand, even if they are not directly associated with the brand.
Valve varies their content and avoids clones of existing popular titles. A
good example of this is that Steam allowed two games derived from Mine-
craft with significant differences; Terraria (2011; a 2D Adventure game)
and Blocks that Matter (2011; a puzzle game using a 2D cube that gently
satirized Person), but no others. Steam Greenlight, which was introduced
in August 2012, allowed developers to solicit games for publication on the
platform, subject to player votes. The system was another example of Valve
giving power to their players and engaging with their desires, but was still
carefully regulated in terms of content and quality. Here, the potential for
Indie games to go big is apparent; however, the onus is placed on a reciprocal
relationship between the player and developer, as well as on the understand-
ing that Indie titles need community involvement to succeed.
Less favorably received were the more indifferent attitudes to Indie
releases by XBLA and Play. XBLA came under considerable criticism after
their top ten Indie titles for 2011 contained four very direct Minecraft clones,
demonstrating their lack of selectiveness, as well as a game that had been
‘misfiled’ and was in fact a AAA title. Developers see Valve’s contractual
obligations and quality control as less intrusive than are XBLA’s criteria,
which have to abide to external rulings from Microsoft (Wiltshire, 2011;
Zacny, 2011). Titles are specifically allocated this category by the gaming
platform, and so it is likely that the category will contain games produced
by small production companies who live under the mantle of larger ones
(and therefore are arguably not ‘independent’ at all), or titles which are
simply cheaper in cost. XBLA gradually marginalized their publication of
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this aspect of the platform, eventually sidelining it considerably. In 2013, the
Xbox Marketplace website described the Indie category as ‘user-created and
not reviewed by ratings boards’, meaning that although innovative, qual-
ity titles do exist on it, the site also contains clones and low-quality titles
such as Sexy Island Adventure (2013). In doing this, XBLA made ‘Indie’ a
moniker for low-cost games of dubious quality, rather than representative
of a movement.
A third challenge is one touched on before—the role of outsourcing. If we
return briefly to Game Dev Story, one of the early activities that the fictional
company must do to survive is outsource their talents to produce third-
party titles. Smaller companies frequently take on this role yet may deal with
huge franchises—for example the London-based company Mediatonic pro-
duces uncredited titles for Disney and Moshi Moshi and created the Indie
title Robot Unicorn Attack: Evolution (2012) for the company AdultSwim.
Deuze et al. identify this as a core issue when defining Indie since ‘more
often than not [these companies] are the very “Indies” operating outside
the corporate system’ (Deuze and Martin, 2009: 277). This, they argue,
provides ‘a context forcing us to rethink assumptions about independence
and autonomy in creative labor, about the communicative practices between
media companies across the entire business spectrum of the global media
industry and about diversity or homogeneity in the production of culture’
(Deuze and Martin, 2009: 277).
Differentiating Indie by location (games jams and out of work activity vs.
Indie clusters on download platforms) belies the fact that some games either
transcend these boundaries or simply do not fit within such neat categoriza-
tion. Krystian Majewski’s Trauma (2011) explores the dreams of a woman
involved in a car crash and on the brink of death, yet is available on Steam.
Games such as Sequence (2011) and Fallen London (2009) are created by
designers who are very engaged the Indie designer community, yet these are
commercially successful titles. Titles become popular through merit, luck or
community endorsement, such as those funded through Kickstarter. Limbo
(2010), Braid (2009) and Bastion (2011) all experiment with the roleplay-
ing game (RPG) format—but ultimately contain enough familiar design ele-
ments to appeal to a broad spectrum of gamers. Like Orcs Must Die (2011),
they engage a less experimental player, and although they are original, this is
more in the form of their novum (Roberts, 2005) than their being genuinely
experimental game formats. Does this leaning towards mainstream techniques
somehow ‘ban’ them from the Indie moniker? Surely not—all these games
are produced in a way that encompasses the ideas of the Indie scene or that
involves small-scale design teams outside the remit of the big companies. It is
very unfair to claim that an Indie title that becomes popular—for example the
conversion of Dear Esther into a version that sold 60,000 copies on Steam,
or the numerous awards won by Journey—somehow invalidate the title from
calling itself an Indie title. Financial success does not remove authenticity.
All the games mentioned are not only successful, but court their audi-
ence in a very specific way. Increasingly, the player is gaining huge power
in the directions games are developed, and this is partly because of the
relationship fostered among Indie players, social platforms and developers.
Most of the articles cited here emphasize reciprocal or community engage-
ment, and this is echoed by those involved in making games or events.
Next I discuss why this relationship is so important to the development of
independent games.
HUMBLE INDIE AND INDIE ON REDDIT—INDIE AS ETHOS
The Humble Indie Bundle is a really inspiring thing to see happen right
now; it shows that there’s a lot of gamers out there who are really inter-
ested in playing Indie games on multiple systems and that gamers want
to support Indie devs, and organizations like Child’s Play and EFF.
—Rosen (in A. Duncan, 2011)
In 2010, Jeff Rosen of Wolfire Games created the Humble Bundle. This was
based on a similar marketing strategy on Steam, whereby popular games or
franchises were ‘bundled’ in discount packages. Rosen noticed that the viral
impact of these promotions was huge, with gamers spreading the news of
each bundle along related sites such as Reddit (Rosen in Kietzmann, 2011).
Rosen decided to deploy the same technique in order to support Indie devel-
opers, grouping a number of titles from different development houses into
one package. The core title would be a recently popular or successful Indie
title and would be packaged alongside several others. When Rosen noticed
the high volume of interest from less well-served gaming platforms such as
Linux and Mac, he expanded the content so that it could be played beyond
PC gaming. Finally, Rosen introduced a system whereby the player could
pay what they wanted for the bundle, with the price starting at 1 cent, and
then chose how much of this payment to allocate to either charity, the devel-
opers, or both.
Although it is estimated that over one quarter of the first two bundles
were pirated for free through sites such as BitTorrent (Orland, 2011), the
Humble Bundles were a huge success and generated more than 3 million
dollars in sales. Subsequent bundles added new twists; if the purchaser paid
more than the average rate, they would receive more ‘free’ games as bonuses,
standalone soundtracks to each game and the Steam unlock code so that
players could homogenize their games in one place. Humble Bundle 4 raised
$2,372,194.47 and sold 435,236 copies (Humblebundle.com, 28 December
2011), with a mean average payment of $5.45, and the Yogscast Christ-
mas Livestream, which also used Humble Bundle to incentivize people into
donating for their annual charity drive, raised more than 1 million dollars
during December 2013.
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Humble Bundle is a good example of how the Indie community cur-
rently functions. Although only a fraction of gamers purchased Humble
Bundles, awareness of the product was disseminated widely across gaming
communities. With it came an ethos suggesting that ‘Indie’ connoted an
altruistic and generous community, that ‘humble’ origins (i.e. the player, the
Indie developer) could produce great things. Despite the low budget of each
development house, the charitable option demonstrated that Indie groups
put contributions to society before themselves. Subtextually, there is link-
age between the Indie developer and charity itself, suggesting that both are
deserving of support. The organization of groups that then contributed to
the bundles as collectives or individuals, such as Notch of Mojang and the
HumbleBrony group, indicates the importance that players ascribe to them-
selves as participants. Overall, the Humble Bundle disseminates an idealistic
image of a large community which is able to support itself while helping
others. The ‘Humble’ title therefore seems both ironic and fitting: ironic
since the volume of sales and charitable donations are hardly humble at all
and fitting because they still perpetuate the idea of the Indie community as
one that exists on less well supported roots than its AAA counterparts. The
self-effacing nature of the Humble Bundle presents the Indie community as
united, self-effacing and a marker of good quality. It is an extremely good
way to promote Indie development by supporting an ethos, and encourag-
ing the community to play an appreciative, valued role in their sustainment.
This type of self-organization and promotion is typical of the ways in which
gaming communities function. Without a pre-existing understanding that
games are supported by pro-active players, the Humble Bundle would not have
been a success. The bundle taps into core elements of utilitarianism—allowing
players to pay what they wish, be included even if they are unable to afford
the ‘full’ price and using peer pressure and rewards for those able to afford a
higher-than-average payment. The implication is that the player is helping both
his or her own gaming community and others. A key gripe amongst many gam-
ers is that they are unable to buy AAA titles or subscription MMOs because of
their high costs. The Humble Bundle recognizes this, as well as providing titles
which to the purchaser, do not feel like a false economy.
In a study conducted in 2007, Ames and Naaman used social psychol-
ogy to investigate the contribution of users to online spaces via tagging.
They discovered that encouraging the user to add reviews by pointing to
the uniqueness and value of their contribution lead to a higher volume of
submitted entries. Creating an environment in which the player feels needed
is therefore an important community-building tool. This is difficult in many
games, where play is solo, although it does help to explain player creativ-
ity elsewhere. Wishing to demonstrate prowess or other skills (such as the
observation of idiosyncrasies, manipulation of the game in some way or
even amusing failures) must take place in a different, more shared space.
Sites such as Reddit, Slashdot.org and 4chan act as loci for this, allow-
ing expressions of both individuality and supportive consensus (Lampe and
Johnston, 2005). Reddit (www.Reddit.com) advertises itself as ‘The front
page of the internet’ and acts as a depository (although sometimes it is more
suppository) for information and discussion. Anyone with an account can
post threads. Every thread can be commented on, and users ‘up’ or ‘down’
vote entries according to preference. As a result of this system, popular top-
ics rise to the top of each page, then drift backwards as interest wanes.
The site is split into numerous sub-forums (subReddits) thematically fun-
nelling readers into esoteric communities. Reddit is known as a site where
commenters often express their frustration with, or self-awareness of online
society, frequently doing so with subversive tools that both satirize their own
behavior and mock others. The community is densely formed and relies on
in-jokes and internal codes in order to promote a feeling of unification. A
good example of Redditing is the ‘first world problems’ meme, in which
users use the same picture with different font to satirize their own frustra-
tions (not being able to get decent coffee in the morning, experiencing a
particular bug in a game, anger or boredom with other trolls) as utterly
trivial when compared with ‘third world problems’ such as lack of political
freedom, poverty, starvation and so on. Thousands of individual versions of
this image and associated problems exist on a subReddit devoted entirely to
the meme itself. The suggestion that Reddit is tabloid in nature, ‘the front
page of the internet’ implying that content may not necessarily be truthful
or useful, allows participants to retain their playfulness and to absolve them-
selves of culpability should they be caught flatfooted.
The sharing of information about games—discussions, jokes, screen-
shots, questions about playstyle and reviews—plays a huge part of Reddit.
The Games and Gaming subReddits are two of the busiest sections on the
site, and new users automatically find the Gaming subReddit listed on their
front-page menus (other default topics are much more generic and include
‘funny’ ‘wtf’, ‘askreddit’ and ‘pics’). The front page of Reddit additionally
displays the top up-voted threads of the moment, many of which are often
from the Gaming subReddit, demonstrating that Reddit is a community
whose users are actively interested in games and related topics. Users dis-
cuss issues, methods of play, rules and group behavior, publish images and
discuss games in a critical sense—for example in the subReddits /r/ludology
and /r/Indiegaming—as well as boasting about their scores and abilities.
The former categories, which provide more of an opportunity for discus-
sion, are more frequently up-voted than the latter. The subReddits in gaming
therefore automatically assume that active engagement in game culture is
discursive as well as playable.
Reddit helps to direct the gaming community and promotes the idea of
the gamer as part of a collective whole. Upvoting helps permeate a collec-
tive consensus through the popularity of certain thoughts and trends. Rather
like the webcasts discussed in earlier chapters, the site is a conduit. Users
often act on what they read or comment on the posts. Reddit is also a haven
for viral advertising and the unpaid sales army—promotion by players of
One More Block 127
popular games or links being a common event. Developers and companies
monitor, and sometimes participate in, the site in order to track the success
of their games and target issues or future developments.
Indie gaming within the context of Reddit is much more of an ethos than
a physical artefact. Various subReddits for Indie gaming support design,
troubleshooting and facilitation, but they are primarily a place for players
to express support for games. The Kickstarter projects mentioned previ-
ously are often disseminated through these channels, allowing players to
feel that their monetary contribution has a real impact in the development
of Indie titles. There are significant demonstrations of cultural capital, both
in the demonstration of existing projects and discussion of them through the
upvoting system. Implicit within this is the promotion of ‘Indie’ as small, in-
house and amenable (people in a select ‘in the know’ group are helping their
‘friends’ make games). Within this context, support for Indie gaming brings
individuals to the forefront, be they designers or fans.
Many game developers involved in Indie development deliberately fos-
ter this close relationship with players in order to pursue agile methods
of development, to encourage peer sharing and to lower costs. Indie game
development teams are seen as more authentic, approachable and amenable
towards players, although whether this is actually the case is less apparent.
The resultant effect can be that player engagement with an Indie title pro-
motes and sustains it, as well as allowing significant leeway when things go
wrong or require testing; fostering a close, loyal group of supporters; and
encouraging further promotion of other titles or companies associated with
the Indie ethos.
The development of the gaming community beyond gaming itself through
sites such as Reddit shows a self-aware focus by the player and signals the
existence of a large exoteric group surrounding the moniker of ‘Indie’ titles.
This group is embedded within online gaming communities, in some cases
actively helping to further it through their collective endorsement of products
or ideas. When this community moves collectively, they have a huge amount
of power, engendered by their self-perception as involved, vocal proponents
of the games they play. Gaming communities are accustomed to playing in a
transmedial manner and act to facilitate this by providing their own external
resources with which to share information and behave as a group. These
external sources are important for another reason, however, since they seek
to overcome the ‘together-alone’ idea of many players existing in cohesion,
yet being largely unnoticed (Turkle, 2011). Gaming and information sites
outside of the game allow the possibility for the player to build a gaming
identity which refigures them as an expressive individual and to create a
sense of self which positions him or her as active player. This formation
allows them to transfer solitary moments of play into a collective environ-
ment where the game becomes a shared experience. This supports Melucci’s
(1996) idea of the solidarity network—in these cases, players express this
solidarity through financial and viral support—giving money to the cause
as well as extolling it through word of mouth. The idea of Indie as an ethos
works because it is generic enough to support the ‘humble’ Indie titles at the
bottom of the financial spectrum, as well as purchasing some of the larger,
more commercial ventures. As Melucci argues, solidarity networks deliber-
ately keep these conflicts open, therefore allowing multiple meanings to exist
at once and for actors to be aware of, rather than reconcile these differences.
CYNICAL INDIE—INDIE AS MARKETING TECHNIQUE
Midweek Madness—From Holland with Love! This pack includes

seven great Indie games for one low price. Plus, if you already own one
of the games, you’ll receive an extra copy of it to give to a friend. Offer
ends Thursday at 4pm Pacific Time.
—Steam front page (11 April 2012)
A final consideration is the less ethical policy of associating titles with the
word Indie to garner increased attention. Comments on the Indie and Indie-
dev subReddits epitomize some of the expectations of an Indie game, with
words such as ‘lacking polish’, ‘experimental’, ‘trial version’ and ‘prototype’
being common descriptions by wannabe designers wanting advice and tips
regarding their games. If these are the signifiers of an Indie game, it is a short
jump to see why larger companies might want to use the Indie scene to test
ideas or to release games that they know are low in quality to an audience
predisposed to tolerance.
As already argued, Indie has come to be seen as a marker of cheap
games. Although these strive for quality, they may lack elements such as
complexity, high-level graphics, replayability or multiple playstyles. A sig-
nificant percentage of Indie titles replicate older gaming ideas or revive old
franchises. Frozen Synapse (2011) is a turn-based game which is highly
derivative of Syndicate (1993) and UFO—Enemy Unknown (1994).
Dungeons of Dredmor (2011) and The Binding of Isaac are procedur-
ally generated dungeon games based on the Rogue-like genre, a style of
games that has existed since Adventure (1975). Likewise, Cthulhu Saves
the World (2010) is a witty take on the turn-based RPG, and other titles
are souped-up remakes—in 2012 Overhaul Games announced that RPG
classic Baldur’s Gate was to be revived in an ‘enhanced’ version, which
quickly transpired to be a port of the old game with better graphics onto
more modern machines.
All these games are considered good Indie titles. They are not particu-
larly original in content, nor are they broad in scope. Collectively, however,
they demonstrate some of the shortcomings of Indie gaming; none of them
were considered complex enough to become elevated to AAA titles, and as a
result, they had to be developed independently on limited financial budgets.
For large companies looking to make a small amount of money from a game
proposed in-house that fulfils these criteria or looking to release a game
One More Block 129
whose budget has been exhausted, or is simply not very good, the potential
for exploiting the Indie genre is obvious.
In 2012 the development company Hitbox Team did exactly this with
Dustforce, a platform game about cleaning up the world which was released
without any bosses in it. Favorable reviews allowed the company to expand
and planned DLC includes end-game monsters, but this is typical of a growing
mentality in which ‘not quite finished’ is seen as sufficient. This aspect of gam-
ing reflects the ‘always in beta’ mentality, however, with a much more avari-
cious goal. Companies instigating crowdfunding on Kickstarter are also open
to financial abuses, or at least to not fulfilling their promises. Although funded
projects may be an indication of desire, there is absolutely no guarantee of
quality in the resultant projects. Notable success stories have so far been heav-
ily reliant on the inclusion of established designers to use Kickstarter in order
to break from larger companies (Tim Schaefer, Jeb Weisman and Peter Moly-
neux being prime examples). If a project does not receive its target monies, all
contributors are refunded; however if the project does succeed, donators have
effectively given designers carte blanche to use their money in whatever way
they see fit. Clearly, there will be some casualties on the way, especially if the
project does not live up to the expectations of the donor.
This technique and its impact on communities are discussed in the next
two chapters, but here it is worth pointing out that the ethos of Indie gam-
ing is open to exploitation. Promoting an idealized atmosphere of goodwill
and ‘humbleness’ belies the fact that many Indie games are still made by
companies who want to make a profit and potentially become big names in
their own right. It would be naïve to expect these groups to behave altruisti-
cally at every possible moment; instead, it is more likely that at least some
of these groups will capitalize on opportunities to market and advertise their
products. The potential for marketing low-quality products within the Indie
bracket is also an issue—for example clones, poorly developed titles and
those which are simply broken or lacking in quality.
Although ‘Indie’ is seen to be another blurred definition, encapsulating
ethos, mainstream, art-house and sometimes more devious aspects, it is one
that appears to be fundamentally reliant on community. Melucci suggests
that at best, this community is aware of its own contradictions and works
within their possibilities since ‘keeping open the space for difference is a
condition for inventing the present’ (1996: 10). All the definitions of Indie
can exist together (although, not necessarily in harmony), and from here it is
easy to see why the uneasy crossover between some elements in other genres
has led to claims of inauthenticity and deceit.
CONCLUSION
Indie gaming encompasses two rather different strands of game production—

experimental, sometime ‘art-house’ games and games which slot into a more
mainstream ethos but are still designed by small, independent companies.
As Mike Gnade (2010) argues, this is confused by the commercial success of
some Indie games which transcend their roots and become extremely well
known. Therefore, the definition of ‘Indie’ tends to be contextual rather
than cohesive.
Some games are produced with a mainstream audience in mind but by
Independent publishing houses. These games may have some elements of
originality in them but do not usually challenge the gamer’s preconceptions.
This confuses the definition of Indie gaming, since while the company is
independent, its remit is not experimental. Examples of this include Orcs
Must Die, Wasteland 2, Bastion and the remake of Baldur’s Gate.
Experimental gaming, and therefore Indie gaming, has been given a boost
by changes in gaming consumption which inadvertently encourage players
to take more purchasing risks. By companies introducing low price points
for games such as iPhone apps, players are willing to forgo elements of play
which may coincide with experimental techniques being used by Indie gam-
ers. Games such as Braid, Dear Esther, Swords and Sworcery (2011) and
Journey are good examples of this.
Aggressive business practices in the larger domain of AAA companies
often make companies appear more ‘independent’ than they actually are or
act to contain successful Indie ventures. At the same time, many independent
development companies operate by outsourcing their work to larger firms,
and developers themselves see jamming and working on Indie projects as
important parts of their lives, both professionally and socially.
Fluctuating price points are useful for distribution platforms such as
Steam, which can capitalize on a high volume of low-cost purchases. There-
fore, Indie games are currently receiving a much higher profile than they
might otherwise, since they are sold cheaply and with an expectation that
they will have less polish and content than will AAA titles.
Developer-led activities such as the Humble Bundle help to publicize Indie
games as well as make the Indie community feel more altruistic. They also
allow games to be publicized more broadly within this remit.
Player communities are supportive of the Indie movement for a number
of reasons. They are drawn to its experimental nature, and like to see them-
selves as flaneurs (after Barthes), but more importantly, they often see Indie
gaming as a more esoteric community, in which the individual plays a strong
role. This includes through charitable ventures such as the Humble Indie
bundle or through support for titles via financial contribution on crowd-
funding sites such as Kickstarter.
Indie developers often encourage feedback and interpersonal communica-
tion with the player. This is sometimes illusory, and as the company becomes
larger, it is by necessity curtailed.
6 Indie Grows Up
A Man Called Steve
By making Minecraft players rely on each other, Mojang effectively

introduces the new players to other amateur creators and enthusiasts.
By regularly updating and revising Minecraft (and giving fairly laconic
details about the content of these updates) Mojang ensures that players
return to their online communities to share information. By making
community participation intrinsic to the game, Mojang builds social
networks around the game. All this, plus its Indie origins and its nature
as a “sandbox” game, would seem to make a paradigm for the mar-
riage of amateur creativity and digital games.
—Lastowka (2011)
In the previous chapter, I argued that Indie gaming has come to mean several
very different things, and attempted to categorize these meanings in social,
developmental, marketing and ideological contexts. These aspects, depend-
ing on their locus, are understood concurrently by players who engage with
Indie gaming in various ways. Although the Indie scene encourages a pro-
active and largely optimistic attitude towards gaming, and is seen as one
where originality or experimentation are welcomed, a wider reading of Indie
shows that it lacks cohesion and clear structural patterns. Indie becomes a
movement where a flexible meaning is more useful than a singular one. The
multiple readings of Indie have positive and negative effects, not least the
potential to exploit users commercially or to produce poor-quality projects
which are marketed through Indie communities due to an expectation of
lower production values. The perceived authenticity of Indie is also prob-
lematic, since this nebulous but extremely important idea can be under-
mined by companies who produce false products under these criteria (i.e.
games that are incomplete or are the product of larger companies with con-
siderable financial backing). Finally, it can fall prey to accusations of ‘selling
out’ by fans, should their perception of the game text or company change.
In this chapter, I examine Indie gaming communities as a site of ten-
sion, where partially formed social codes or assumptions cause considerable
difficulty within groups. This chapter restates and builds on my previous
research into gaming communities, which found that concordance is often
assumed rather than actually present (MacCallum-Stewart, 2011b, 2013). It
connects these ideas with the shifting meanings of Indie, and examines what
happens when a game transitions across the different communities already
identified.
My previous research found that when conflict arises, online communi-
ties collapse dramatically because they lack sufficient social tools to remain
together, but then reform in modified versions fairly quickly afterwards.
Thus; a guild might collapse and split into two or three separate units within
hours. Groups often act to blame or ostracize dissident members by using
substantiation from within the game—so the internal cultural lore of the
game is sometimes used as a form of bleed to establish the external social
law of the group. Disingenuous representation of the self or other disruptive
activities, both intentional and otherwise, can cause huge ructions within
social groups. The ability to bar or exclude people from a group with a few
clicks can lead to extreme behavior, as can the false sense of security and
anonymity that the online sphere provides. These tensions are enacted here
through the shifting meanings of Indie, and the Indie community, which pro-
duces conflicting issues which exemplify some of these disruptive practices. I
examine this by considering an Indie title that has engaged all four meanings
of Indie: Minecraft.
From 2010 through 2012, Minecraft was the darling of the gaming
world. A sandbox adventure game by Mojang Specifications (2009–
present) it is still often cited as the paragon of Indie gaming and its related
communities, reflecting the huge power of the community and the abil-
ity of Indie titles to triumph over their more commercial comrades. The
game brought people together in an immensely productive manner and, as
already discussed, enabled a huge amount of creativity, including allowing
fans to rise to a position of power. Mojang’s operational policies seemed
to reflect a growing trend within the games industry in that it took genu-
ine interest in player opinion and responded accordingly. Not only that,
but by the end of 2012, most of its employees were millionaires. In 2013,
although Minecraft had become less prominent in the media, it was still
one of the most important Indie titles, having outsold most AAA titles
and still engaging a dedicated fanbase. As a game that started at the heart
of the artistic movement, and has risen to AAA popularity, sales and rev-
enue, Minecraft has moved through all of the phases of Indie described
previously.
There is a temptation to rush towards the game and wholly proselytize it,
rather like the Second Life evangelists of the early millennium; indeed, simi-
lar writing which promotes it as both a leading light and potential education
resource is already emerging (Duncan, 2011b; Lastowka, 2011). However, it
is more pertinent to examine game and community in a less idealized light,
taking into consideration the strengths and weaknesses of Minecraft as a
pioneering text. Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter say that this process is use-
ful when studying games because it avoids both fannish representation and
blanket censure of the text, providing instead a methodology that ‘does not
Indie Grows Up 133
assume that socialization for the prevailing order is benign; instead it looks
at games, and the discourses surrounding them, as vectors of contending
interests and agendas, and as inculcating skills that can serve—but poten-
tially subvert—established norms’ (2009: xxvii).
This chapter is something of a primer on a game which is already seen as
hugely influential. It links the rise of Minecraft to the four criteria of Indie
defined previously and discusses why these are important to the chang-
ing nature of gaming communities. I interrogate Mojang’s policy of ‘agile’
development and ask whether it is truly responsive to fan behavior. As
Aphra Kerr (2011) argues, the ways in which companies encourage users to
contribute needs to be examined carefully, and with consideration of both
positive and negative outcomes. Finally, I examine what happens when
communities experience tension or ructions, especially when the illusion of
closeness that online spaces can engender is broken. This section discusses
the rise of Minecraft as a community endorsed game, including a point
of conflict between community and company which happened during the
Minecon conference in 2011. In this way, tensions within the Indie com-
munity can be explored as symptomatic of larger concerns within gaming,
and these events demonstrate how individuals negotiate the transition from
small-scale company to large organization. Minecraft therefore epitomizes
some of the problems inherent in inviting communities to have an autono-
mous relationship with the game text and questions the nature of Indie as
an egalitarian movement.
MINECRAFT: ORIGIN STORY
In 2009, Markus Persson began creating a sandbox adventure game. Based

loosely on the games Dwarf Fortress (2006), Infiniminer (2009) and Dun-
geon Keeper (1997), the game was intended to be a small project to entertain
Persson and to hone his development skills while he worked for various
games companies in Stockholm, Sweden. The game began production on
10 May 2009. Persson, more commonly known by his gamer tag Notch,
posted a screenshot of his new game on TIGSource.com’s feedback forum,
with a link to the game’s applet. Seven minutes later, someone replied to
his post, and after 24 hours, four pages of suggestions, bugs, screenshots,
error codes, compliments and questions were already posted. User Paul Eres
named the game ‘Minecraft’ after Notch asked for suggestions on the IRC
chat channel for the site, and the game started to grow rapidly in accordance
with the suggestions forum users made. Minecraft was released seven days
later on 17 May.
Minecraft received almost instantaneous interest from the Indie develop-
ment community. Word of mouth spread quickly through Indie communi-
ties and forums over the next couple of months, emphasizing the game’s
potential, as well as Persson’s ambition in creating such a project. Minecraft
was released during this Alpha phase for $13 with a promise that this fixed
cost would include all future updates and bug fixes. In September 2010,
sales were so rapid that Persson’s Paypal account was frozen for suspicious
activity. Paypal removed all of the funds under the belief that it was being
used for illicit activities, co-incidentally on the weekend that the author
first tried to purchase a Minecraft account herself. Sales began to rapidly
escalate, as did interest from the gaming community, attracted by the self-
generated buzz that players were providing. In the same month, Persson
formed Mojang Specifications with fellow designer Carl Manneh to con-
tinue the development of Minecraft and other Indie titles (the first of which
were Cobalt [2013] and Scrolls [2013]).
When Minecraft began, it was very clearly an Indie game. It was founded
by a single person in his spare time, and began as an experiment in sandbox
gaming. The game relied on the expertise of others in its early stages, specifi-
cally those from a concordant esoteric group with knowledge in program-
ming and development. The game was derivative, but aimed to include new
elements in the game to support different types of play. Support from the
community, who appreciated what Persson was trying to do, was encour-
aged by the low price point, and when Persson left his job to work full-time
on the game, fans felt that they were helping to support a grassroots game
become popular. The engaged ethos surrounding Minecraft, with Notch
now tweeting many of his successes, failures and questions, suggested play-
ers had an active role in design choices. Notch was not only making an Indie
game; he was also making it for, and with, the Indie community.
Minecraft moved out of its Alpha testing phase on 20 December 2010,
at which point it entered a now infamous period where the game remained
in beta for over a year. This set the tone for the game as unfinished, instead
evolving organically through continuous updates. By 12 January 2011, the
game had sold 1 million copies.
During the beta phase, Notch actively sought player involvement to sug-
gest changes and future directions for the game. Constant development of
the game after release, including ‘secret’ updates on Friday afternoon and
planned leaks of new content encouraged players to keep returning. Mine-
craft quickly became one of the most modded games available, enabling
players to explore gaps in the original version and to customize their play in
wildly different ways. These vary from bespoke additions to the game such
as the Mo’ Creatures (DrZhark, 2011) pack, to downloadable scenarios
and adventures, mods which enable more development or complexity to
experienced players such as the Technic pack (Risugami et al., 2011) and
playful mods such as the Mine Little Pony (Verdana, 2011) and Pokemobs
(SeaGoingManatee, 2011) mods which simply offer alternative play experi-
ences within the game. Using an agile method of management, Minecraft
quickly became one of the coolest games to play, supported by a community
that were both devoted and prolific. When the game came out of beta test-
ing on 18 November 2011, it already had 16 million users and had sold
Indie Grows Up 135
4 million official copies (Minecraft.net, 2011). By October 2013 it had sold
24 million copies, outstripping the sales of many AAA games by a signifi-
cant margin.
WAKE UP IN MORNING, PUNCH A TREE: EXPERIMENTAL

PLAY AND NARRATIVE IN MINECRAFT
Minecraft is by nature blocky and crude. The landscape is formed of 3D

cubes or ‘blocks’, which the player manipulates by mining or cutting down
and then placing together to form structures. The manipulation of blocks
means that the player is only ever working with one modelling tool: a cube.
These have various different properties, including diamond (which is very
hard and very rare), gravel (which does not support itself and thus just falls
down), wood (which can be converted into planks or sticks) and coal (which
can be used to burn things). Creative manipulation of each material can lead
to composite objects; so wood can be converted to sticks and, when added
to a piece of coal, will create torches.
Minecraft’s approach to the learning curve/tutorial stage of understand-
ing the game is variously described as brilliant, experimental or merely lazy;
Lastowka (2011) suggests that Notch was uninterested in writing a tutorial
and therefore did not include one. Players are immediately thrown into a
world with no instructions or idea of what they should do first. As Alex
Leavis points out, the only way to discover how to play is through experi-
mentation; there is no obvious goal and the terrain is procedurally gener-
ated, thus presenting a different completely different world to each player
(Leavitt, 2011).
Minecraft found favor with gamers wanting to experiment with an Indie
sandbox game or build their own creations, but ultimately contained ludic
elements that give the game an underlying structure. The world is diurnal,
and when the sunshine of the day fades, monsters come out to play. Skel-
etons, zombies and spiders (benign in the daytime) all spawn in the night
and attack the player on sight. This day/night–safety/danger pattern is the
only initial indication of ludic objectives. The compulsory need to find shel-
ter however, triggers an interesting reaction in the player. Since trees are the
first thing that the player usually inadvertently destroys (by punching them),
and the resultant wood block can be quickly made into sticks, planks and
a rudimentary workbench (accessible via the inventory and creation menu),
the first thing a player usually builds is a wooden shelter. A natural antipathy
between player avatar and the monsters outside the shelter trying to get in
creates a rudimentary pattern of antagonist versus hero, and the choices that
the player has to make quickly render each game unique. Explore or build
a better house? Mine for more durable materials for the house, or plant
crops and raise cattle? Move to a nicer area or terraform the surrounding
landscape? Perhaps most important, despite the three options offered by
Minecraft for ‘Creative’, ‘Survival’ or ‘Adventure’ modes, most players still
choose to build on the Survival or Adventure settings, which allow these
monsters to keep spawning. Thus, players are actively engaging in a world
where their creations and bodies start to have a possessive worth, simply
because their destruction is possible on a regular basis, and the avatar can
be destroyed in an instant if not properly defended. A high level of imagina-
tive engagement with the world takes place, despite the apparently blank
tableau it presents.
In patch 0.24 (4 August 2009) Notch cemented the construction versus
environment nature of the game by introducing a monster which quickly
turned into both a popular meme and an iconic symbol of Minecraft, The
Creeper (see Figure 6.1):
The Creeper is an infamous, green-camouflaged, near-silent kamikaze

mob that will chase players and hiss for 1.5 seconds before exploding.
Creepers will not catch fire in direct sunlight and can wander around
unharmed day and night. Underground or on the surface, creepers will
spawn at night and in dimly lit locations with a light level of 7 or less.
(Minecraftwiki, 2012)
Figure 6.1 The Creeper from Minecraft, demonstrating the simplistic graphics of
the game
(Image reproduced under fair use.)
Indie Grows Up 137
The Creeper’s explosive power means that it is dangerous to the player
and to any nearby constructions. Creepers are symptomatic of the link
between player engagement and the game itself. The avatar is no more than
four cubes for feet and a rhomboid body with mottled, bright green color-
ation, yet it garners a vast amount of anthropomorphized recognition from
players, who imbue it with ferocious, mindless aggression, and reposition
it as symbolic of the tension and fear that playing Minecraft has so surpris-
ingly evoked.
Unlike Second Life, Minecraft’s popularity lies in the fact that it remains
a game. Minecraft has only two interfaces—the world itself, which includes
a framing user interface (UI) menu bar, and an inventory/crafting screen.
This means that the player is immediately able to build complex objects
by simply picking up mined parts of the landscape and converting them
to useful items via the crafting boxes, and avoids the more abstract design
processes/knowledge required by the less intuitive ‘prims’ of Second Life.
The ludic scenario gives the player something to do; in order to build, they
have to explore, survive and mine. This tableau is relatively broad. Unlike
the Grand Theft Auto series, Skyrim or any other sandbox exploration
games, the game is not thematically directed and does not contain content
unsuitable for minors. The context is rural (magical elements such as drag-
ons, enchantments and alchemical potions were a late addition to the game
in October 2011) and the monsters are either generic fantasy tropes (zom-
bies, skeletons) or unique (pigmen, Creepers). Despite this, it is still possible
to induce hybridity; one of the first well-known artistic ‘builds’ within the
game was a replica of the Starship Enterprise from Star Trek, and many
mods introduce elements that change the landscape and mobs into alterna-
tive settings such as labs, moonscapes and locations familiar from other
games or fantasy/science-fiction settings such as Portal and Mass Effect or
Stargate and the worlds of H. P. Lovecraft.
MINECRAFT AS A COMMUNITY
The flexible nature of Minecraft means that it has extended beyond simply
gaming groups and the Indie development community. In 2011, the game
won the first GameCity Prize because the judges deemed it to have ‘merit
in the game enhancing life and enjoyment beyond just playing the game
itself’ (Hall in Geere, 2011) In this respect, the hype surrounding Minecraft
very much matches that of Second Life, including the rush to adopt it as
more than ‘just a game’. Rather like Second Life, a secondary industry of
developers and researchers began to emerge, seeking to endorse Minecraft
through its educative and artistic value. This group, however, was hugely over-
shadowed by a vast exoteric community who were already producing mods,
building machines, telling stories, forming civilizations and, of course, dig-
ging a lot of holes and getting blown up by Creepers together.
Minecraft is often heralded as an unprecedented success in community
building. The fact that this community grew entirely from an Indie title with
little or no publicity is seen as evidence that gamers are beginning to enter a
period where self-organization reflects their skills, sociality and intuitive use
of Web 2.0. Greg Lastowka discusses this in some detail in his paper on the
implications of Minecraft as representative of Web 2.0:
Minecraft has succeeded by mining the rich gap in our media between
games and tools. It offers players something considerably more than
a conventional 3-D sketching program, but something considerably
more creative than what most games offer. Persson, inadvertently or
not, struck gold by calling on Minecraft’s players to collaborate, deeply,
in the process of creation (including the creation of the game itself).
Millions of amateur creators responded eagerly to this challenge by
embracing a game that let them be more than an audience and a little
more than players too. (2011: 18–19)
Thus, the social aspects, encouraged by a relatively blank narrative tab-

leau, and the huge potential to share creative ideas transmedially through
Web 2.0 (and onwards) were overriding factors in making Minecraft such
a success. Multiplayer mode grouped players on shared servers and helped
them to make more of an impact with shared building projects. Extensive
modding and customization allowed the game to expand in a non-linear
fashion, providing players with a vehicle in which they could take the game
in the direction they wanted. ‘Adventure maps’ created by players allowed
users to download special worlds (called seeds) and enabled a primitive but
often engaging series of quests or stories, thus injecting a narrative into
the game and ultimately bringing about the inclusion of Adventure Mode.
Above all, the active forums and modding community engendered a recipro-
cal relationship in which the ‘always in beta’ ethos expanded to the devel-
opment and improvement of work done by fans and players. With updates
and changes a frequent part of the Minecraft experience, auteur developers
were forced to follow suit, meaning that mods and other products for the
community were constantly in development.
‘A VERY NICE EVERYTHING’: MINECRAFT AND MARKETING
Minecraft has the best modding community in the world. Despite no

official mod tools being released, players are constantly expanding and
adding an astonishing amount of new content.
—Hatfield (2011)
To date, Mojang has spent virtually no money on advertising through con-

ventional means. Its commercial success has been almost entirely generated
through player support, word of mouth and viral sharing online. Mojang’s
Indie Grows Up 139
marketing strategy (for, regardless of the money spent, this agile approach
is still a strategic decision) developed from a very early symbiosis between
developer and community which appears at first to have been entirely natu-
ralistic. However, as the company grew in size, it became apparent that
while Mojang was not intentionally manipulating its player base and fans, it
was deliberately fostering a very specific type of relationship which gave the
player a false sense of engagement with the development team and engen-
dered strong, if illusory, relations with Mojang as well as with the game
itself.
Mojang initially promoted Minecraft by making itself available to the
players and allowing its content to be disseminated through the vast amount
of playthroughs, development tools and forums created and maintained by
fans (including The Yogscast). This also takes place via networks that are
heavily populated by fans, for example Twitter, where the Mojang team
members chat with each other (and to a lesser extent, to fans) as they work,
and through sites such as Reddit and the Minecraft forum. This relation-
ship began through Persson’s willingness to involve fans at a developmental
level. Minecraft was seen as an incredibly ambitious project for one person,
both by players and by the media. In an early interview with Notch, Byte-
jacker (2010) describes the game as ‘one of the most ambitious ever seen
in gaming’. As well as lauding the talent and single-mindedness Notch was
demonstrating, players were more willing to overlook bugs and rough edges.
The sense of Notch as both a maverick and games enthusiast was sup-
ported by his early engagement with fan communities. In March 2010, Pers-
son told the TheClassyGamer webcast that
I try to go with, like the features I add if I see that people use them and
do stuff. And that’s probably where I want to keep developing [because]
I get the most feedback and it’s most fun to work on it so . . . (The
ClassyGamer, 2010)
By fostering a close relationship with fans and players, Persson and

Mojang created an environment in which their respect and debt to the com-
munity are apparently reciprocated through design. This construction is sup-
ported by Van Oost et al. (2009), who argue that innovative communities
need secondary infrastructures and stability amongst members in order to
succeed. Mojang recognized the imperfect/incomplete nature of its game and
relied on its community to provide secondary artefacts such as mods or code
which corrected or improved elements of the game, effectively outsourcing
this aspect of the company to their users. With an initially small develop-
ment team, this appeared to be a good idea—allowing the community to
have autonomy and control over the dissemination of a game that they then
have a large amount of social investment in. Fans interpret this as respect
and personal engagement with their own work and are in turn protective of
the spokespeople they see as representative of their own gaming selves (in
this case, Notch himself).
I now examine what happens when this goes wrong. I suggest that the
tension inherent in becoming a large company does move it away from an
Indie ethos, as well as causing a huge conflict with fans and players when it
is expressed publicly. First, however, it is important to examine some of the
ways in which online groups can create conflict.
GOOD PLAYER, BAD PLAYER
The online world is a huge place of contradictions. Groups cluster together

because they long for cohesion; however, they do not share common cul-
tural practices; in fact, these may clash significantly. This can breed both
tolerant and antagonistic environments. Within online gaming, some situ-
ations and communities tend to provoke these behaviors through groups
assuming that their ideologies match. This clash is created by the environ-
mental situation of the game world, and users’ behavior, not by sociopoliti-
cal rules laid down by the companies, sites or games involved (in fact, these
are made deliberately ambiguous to retain as many people as possible).
There is a great need for many online communities to establish frames of
reference and strong social ties, but ironically this is because these can be
so easily broken. Because signifying popularity or group consensus is dif-
ficult, many sites replace this with more ambiguous markers of approba-
tion. Reddit encourages people to ‘Upvote’ each other, Facebook allows
‘Likes’, Twitter encourages users to ‘Favorite’ or ‘Retweet’ each other’s’
posts and many other sites include similar grades or awards for perceived
good behavior. Research also suggests that the inclusion of creativity and
production by individual members sustain the community ‘atmosphere’
and keep it active (Kozinets, 1999; Shirky, 2008a, 2010; Van Oost, 2009;
Baym, 2010; Gauntlett, 2011)
The online communities studied in this book have largely been regarded
in a positive light, giving examples of how many players behave as active
participants who work well together and are generally supportive of each
other, including their ability to recognize spokespeople and elevate them to
positions of influence. It is more sensible to regard these groups as nuanced;
a tolerant community can behave in an antagonistic way and vice versa. A
good example of this is the crowd mentality that can occur when groups
online perceive that they have been somehow wronged. This may result in
one group deluging the party perceived to be guilty with vitriolic messages,
or the persecution of individuals through other acts of griefing and aggres-
sive behavior. In 2012, Anita Sarkeesian, a webcaster who used Kickstarter
to raise money for a series of videos about the representation of women in
games, was subjected to sustained attacks by players who felt threatened
by her behavior. These included repeated threats of rape, the defacing of
her Wikipedia page with pornographic images, D-DOS (Denial of Service)
attacks and a flash game called ‘Beat Up Anita Sarkeesian’.
Indie Grows Up 141
This type of behavior is redolent of Lewis’s (1992) ‘hysterical crowd’,
in which the pack mentality overrides normative behavior, and allows the
individual to absolve themselves of extremist behaviors. In order to sustain
group cohesion, members feel that they need to take a stance—it makes
them part of the group to be expressing its desires. There are moments where
individuals simply act in an unpleasant or culturally deviant way. Trolling
is a good example of this, but so is socially inappropriate language in any
given group. Overall, there are as many ways to behave well as there are
to behave badly, and in online societies, the relative anonymity of the web
allows this to become excessive. In online gaming communities, there are
often incidences where rule systems, playfulness and behaviors from the
game itself can bleed into these situations, exacerbating them further.
In previous writings, I have discussed the role of griefing, protest play
and deliberate attempts to destabilize groups (MacCallum-Stewart, 2011b).
Online gaming communities are at risk from elements that exist both in and
outside of the game. An example of this is the ‘good player’ argument. Very
often in online guilds, a ‘good player’ is one who is not only efficient at car-
rying the ludic objectives of the group/game but is also socially in tune with
the rest of the group. The claim that a player is ‘bad’ is associated with social
behavior that contradicts the rest of the guild in some way. This can range
from talking out of character in a roleplay channel, to not gathering enough
herbs for the evenings’ raid, but each act is intrinsically linked to social
interaction within the group. When removed from the game, the criteria for
exclusion become nebulous at best, because groups feel shame and embar-
rassment at pointing out the faults of others. ‘In-game’ criteria are often used
to justify these more personal reasons for disliking a player. To support this
(usually unintentionally), guilds often employ self-made rule systems which
are more akin to social codes of practice. These rules are often undeclared
or written in seemingly nebulous ways such as the World of Warcraft guild
Final Chapter’s rule ‘Enjoy WoW or Stop Playing’ (ibid) which can then be
enforced in an equally uneven manner. As an example of this, members of a
guild I was a part of once threw out a player because he was (in their words)
‘being mad’. The player had become increasingly erratic and unstable over
the course of several months and was clearly quite unwell. However, the rea-
son that the guild leaders gave to him was that he was no longer needed on
the raid team and had not been attending regularly enough. This was despite
the fact that other members were frequently absent or did not take part in
raids. Therefore, when issues do occur, the dominant elements of the group
act to shut down aberrant players using ostensibly ludic rules, but these are
rarely the reasons that they give to each other in the aftermath or are the
actual motivations for exclusion.
Ultimately, the usual response of destabilized communities is that one or
more people will remove themselves permanently from the conflict, either
by intent or through deliberate exclusion, and the status quo is restored.
Sometimes this is done by splitting, when two or more groups will separate
from the main body and move elsewhere (new guild, server, side or clan;
see also Chen, 2011). This can be an extremely painful process, since the
lack of clear boundaries often presages a period of conflict in which players
persecute aberrant members, take sides and occasionally grief each other to
exacerbate matters. The lack of direct communication and visual/verbal cues
afforded by the internet mean that misunderstandings can escalate rapidly,
through gossip, backchat talk, scandal mongering, factioneering and false
assumption/speculation. Examples of this are not limited to MMORPGs,
but extend to the wider gaming community where they can be as broad, or
as small as guild collapse, tweet storms over rumour mongering and argu-
ments arising from misinterpreted tone.
Players exist in a liminal space in which they negotiate a series of different
ludic, legal, social and narrative structures, but these are not consensually
shared in games—indeed, companies actively work to avoid laying down
such laws since they may alienate differing groups of players. Without a
series of social checks and balances between each esoteric group, separation
naturally provokes disagreement. Players appropriate a system of best fit
to validate their own activities and use them in an attempt to control their
situation when they feel it is moving beyond their control. Destabilization
therefore often occurs when the community is forcibly made to re-evaluate
itself and discovers that it is not a cohesive unit. Marc Chen (2011) hypoth-
esises in Leet Noobs that changes in the game dynamics of World of War-
craft caused the group to reinterpret their raiding strategies, which in turn
brought the group into conflict. Changing social dynamics can cause even
more abrupt shifts in these structures.
Although Chen points clearly to a specific pattern of events that led to the
group he studied collapsing, it is also true that the ‘always in beta’ and devel-
opmental enhancements (patches, nerfs and alterations) means that the con-
tent (both ludic, paideic and simulatory) can change extremely frequently.
For the most part, players evolve ways to deal with this without major social
trauma. In the case of games such as World of Warcraft, this is epitomized by
diffusion through player frustration with perceived higher authorities and
often articulated through public channels within each world such as forum
or chat channels. The producers of these complaints are often derided (as
with the letter to Notch; see the following extract), but at the same time
these outbursts express the frustrations of players who see themselves as
being ignored by uncaring large corporations. However, there is another
aspect to this that can rebound against the player. Complaints are directed
against figures or companies that players see as largely faceless, meaning
that the resultant dialogue can sometimes be seen as excessive, estranging
the subject and exposing them to extremely violent censure, personal abuse
and antipathy:
Ender realm: POINTLESS

Ender dragons: No.
Indie Grows Up 143
Silverfish spawners? NOOOOO!
Snow breaks torches? FUCK!
We already have a fishing rod. My brewing stand from potioncraft
is in vanilla. NO
*OH I’M POISENED! I’LL DRINK MILK!*
ALL potions and textures from my potions you added to the game.
NEGATIVE POTIONS: WTF?
Snow golems. Same thing as wolves, just worse.
1 use for ender pearls? I wanna use it more than once!
What if I WANT to pick up a glass pane?
There is no good reason to have HARDCORE MODE.
Mushroom biomes, are the most retarded thing ever. (‘Letter to
Notch’, linked from his Twitter feed October 2011; see also www.youtube.
com/watch?v=0KyQX45c3Qw)
The e-mail written to Notch in October 2011 concerns changes made to

a beta patch (1.9) in Minecraft. The author claimed that his work had been
stolen by Mojang and criticized many of the new additions to the game.
After Notch released the letter via a link on Twitter, it was widely satirized
by other fans. Aberrant behavior of this nature, for example fan-producers
claiming that their work has been appropriated, or designers complaining
that their suggestions were ignored, is often suppressed by fans and players.
Rather like my example of the player who was ‘being mad’, this suppression
is similar to the ‘bad player’ ethos, in which the complainer is Othered and
represented as antithetic to the wider community of ‘good’ contributors. By
highlighting the excessive fan of ‘Letter to Notch’, Mojang also went one
step further by identifying opposition as extreme and ridiculous, suggesting
by inference that all complaints are of this nature and are therefore easily
dismissed. From here, it is easier for them to negate the inevitable com-
plaints that arise from modders claiming that ‘their’ ideas have been stolen
or that Mojang refuse to listen to their voices by invoking the binaries of
Mojang as benevolent, engaged and slightly persecuted and the fan as crazed
and excessive.
While these complaints are extreme, the Othering of dissident voices by
Mojang is counterpoised by the recurring idea that the fan-producer sees
themselves as an active agent within the text and is therefore worthy of
attention. Flaming of this nature, despite its extremist stance, is often indica-
tive of underlying tension within the community. In this case, the letter to
Notch expresses a fear that the ‘final’ version of the game had lost integrity,
as well as accusing the company of culling elements of player modification
without fair acknowledgement. Both are serious indications of territorialism
within esoteric groups and suggest a fear that the close relationship with
Notch/Mojang and its community might be disintegrating. The next section
looks at a core moment in the history of Minecraft which showed this to be
the case.
INDIE-VIDUALS: GETTING IT WRONG AT MINECON
I’ve learned that game customers (especially customers of Indie games)

are very quick to forgive if they know you are on top of any problem
that arises. With my Twitter feed, Facebook page, and forums, I am
always accessible. These tools are available to everybody, so there’s no
excuse for keeping your customers in the dark.
—Gilbert (2011)
Everyone else in the Minecraft community is all about respecting and

caring. They’re not. They’re an isolated island of egos.
—Persson (on Twitter, 2011)
As individuals form groups, they also gradually become partially separated

from the wider community. For example the exoteric group that comprises
the Minecraft community contains millions of players, but within this com-
munity are many esoteric groups such as modding communities, builders,
groups of friends who play informally together, roleplaying societies and
individuals who simply meet on an ad hoc basis according to need. Further-
more, these groups are physically separated by servers, which are hosted by
individuals, not Mojang itself. This play model is designed to optimize the
amount of people playing at any given time, and by using external hosting,
Mojang is absolved from high server costs and maintenance. Playing com-
munally is optional, although it is by far the most popular mode because it
allows much larger projects to be created and shared communally. Minecraft
does not have embedded voice chat, so players need to find other ways to
communicate. Separated in this way, groups form their own rule systems,
their own means of communication and their own understandings of what
is acceptable gameplay. Single players may have no access to these groups at
all. Without a dominant sociopolitical discourse, players have no formalized
means to moderate social interaction and lack the composite framework
of social signifiers formed by esoteric groups coming into contact. Unlike
most games, they lack even the informal meeting points such as raids, quest
hubs or chat channels that usually inform social practice. The only shared
discourse within the game is the deliberately blank tableau of the Minecraft
world—which has no central narrative.
A further issue arises from Minecraft in that Notch initially encouraged
players to feel as if they were genuinely important. This was supported by
Mojang’s marketing techniques (primarily using the community and word
of mouth), but had a second, perhaps more crucial manifestation. The Mine-
craft community has a flourishing life outside the game. As Hilleman in
Sheffield (2012) argues, by 2012, the game was surrounded by groups who
not only had a considerable investment in the ways that the game was per-
ceived by fans but were also becoming successful—both commercially and
as celebrities.
Indie Grows Up 145
These groups not only had influence over the ways that the game was
read and understood, but also had their own subsets of esoteric fans with
clear ideas about the relative power dynamics relating to the game.
For Minecraft, the social disjoint that had been building in the commu-
nity reached a peak at the second Minecon event, held 18–19 November
2011 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The event was the first formal public Minecraft
event (the original Minecon was organized by fans and held in a park in
Stockholm). The nature of the Minecraft community—highly active, media
aware and often productive in nature—meant that Minecon was attended
by a very high proportion of fan-producers, including webcasters, modders,
builders and architects. It also brought together most of the key players in
the fan community at the time. This meant that it was a high profile event
with a great deal of secondary coverage being produced on location by the
Minecraft community.
From the start, the convention was criticized for a lack of content and poor
organization, most notably in the after-show party and the lack of panels/
events throughout the two days. It seems that the mentality of Indie games
events such as IndieCade and SIGGRAPH (which Mojang usually attended)
did not translate to an audience who wanted a more structured convention
with more individual events to attend. Possibly this was due to the growing
popularity of conventions such as Gamescom, PAX and Comicon, in which
events, panels, talks, freeplays, demonstrations and staged moments appear in
such abundance that the attendee cannot possibly attend even a fraction of the
convention. Perhaps it was because players were expected to take more of an
active role than they did—those tweeting from the event noticed that few peo-
ple were actually playing Minecraft at the event, for example (Leavitt, 2011),
and that the Wi-Fi provided was not sufficient to deal with attendees needs.
Logistics suggest that not all players owned or were able to transport laptops in
order to do this and thus attended as a passive audience, rather than an active
one. The panels were held in rooms too small to house the amount of people
who wanted to attend them, and so many attendees were excluded. Queues,
an inevitable part of any convention, were unexpected by many members who
had not attended conventions before and thus expected immediate access to
various stalls, groups or events. Finally, the presence of a high level of children
(relatively unusual at large conventions) shifted the balance towards a group
more predicated towards being entertained than older groups more likely to be
self-organized (e.g. through meeting existing friends or networking socially).
Conflict arose through secondary sources. Reddit contained a steady
stream of low-level complaints about the event while it was taking place.
These ranged from accusations of poor organization, boredom and more
personal attacks towards Minecraft staff, most notably Lydia Winters
(MinecraftChick), who hosted several of the key sessions. The community
generally ignored or dismissed these until the following Monday afternoon,
during which Persson tweeted a series of dissatisfied comments about poor
behavior by one of the groups who had attended (somewhat inevitably, given
the research topic here, this group was The Yogscast). Persson’s relationship
with Twitter as a medium for promoting Minecraft meant that the response
was dramatic, erupting into a violent Tweet storm that spilled over onto
YouTube, Reddit, 4Chan and onto Minecraft servers themselves. The sheer
fury of fans towards both Persson and The Yogscast demonstrated just how
much of a powder keg the community had become, with players using both
parties as an excuse to air multiple grievances. Actions became excessive;
vitriolic fans griefed Notch’s appearance on a charity event the following
day, performed a sustained D-DOS attack on the Yogscast forums and fired
thousands of personal tweets at each party for nearly 3 days. Interspers-
ing this were various side-taking and accusations by webcasters and other
people who had actually been at the event, again taking the opportunity to
use the firestorm to complain about issues which had been bubbling under
the surface such as the relationship between Mojang and its fans, Persson’s
judgemental attitude, complaints about the game and accusations that the
community was nowhere near as idyllic as portrayed.
The most interesting element of this was not about perceived guilt of each
party, but more the readiness of the fan community to believe that events
had, and could go so badly wrong. Posts on Reddit and 4Chan were as likely
to argue that the game had brought this on itself as they were to cast blame
on either side. The gaming media weighed in with articles on how the rift
between developer and fan-producers was likely to split the Minecraft com-
munity (Brown, 2011b; Robinson, 2011—both of these articles were very
heavily retrospectively altered). Webcaster groups posted short messages of
support for the people concerned or weighed in on Twitter themselves, fre-
quently using the storm to imply an overtone of blame for Mojang’s han-
dling of both Minecon and the unfolding situation. A response 3 days later
from Yogscast calmed the situation, largely because they took some time to
reply and thus interest in the controversy had waned; however, their response
highlighted many of the issues which had already arisen in reports of the con-
vention, and while appearing to ‘forgive’ Persson for being so irascible, they
also echo ideas of a community which seems to have suddenly fractured
under the stress of the event:
We are very disappointed by these tweets from someone we admire and

respect. We can understand that it was the morning after the deadmau5
party and Notch was very tired, but we are still fairly upset. The quotes
and actions that Notch attributed to us were not said by us or published
anywhere by us.
...
Minecon is a new show and organisation was pretty bad, and when
we came to the scheduled signing sessions, nothing had been set up for
us and we had to scrabble around to fetch tables, ropes and pens our-
selves. With some younger kids around, it was our priority to make sure
everything was safe, as we have seen injuries in the past.
Indie Grows Up 147
This lack of organization contributed to long and confused lines and
we were heartbroken to have to turn away so many people when we
ran out of time . . . Although we were frustrated, we would never have
treated fans in the way that Notch suggested we did.
...
The reason we came to Minecon is because we wanted to thank you
guys and meet the community that we love and are a part of. We couldn’t
have gotten to where we are now without you guys, and so we decided
to eat the costs of attending and just have fun. This is why we spent our
panel giving a voice to loads of talented people that couldn’t attend but
have made Minecraft what it is today. (The Yogscast, 2011)
Regardless of the politics on either side of this argument, Minecon pro-

vides a salutary lesson in the ways that communities assume that they exist
in concordance. The illusory homogeny of the Minecraft community was
directly challenged by the experience of the convention, where the removal
of the core text (the game itself), coupled with high tensions underlying the
changing nature of the game, demonstrated that the people engaged with
it did not share common behaviors. Many of the tweets and comments on
Reddit accused Mojang of ‘selling out’ and becoming cash hungry; oth-
ers directly criticized the content of the game or the personalities involved.
Overall, the infighting that resulted suddenly fractured a community that
had hitherto assumed it was cohesive.
Minecon and Minecraft demonstrate that ‘Indie’ is not a universalizing
moniker. It took a very minor event for a community previously heralded
as extraordinary to dissolve into infighting and insults. By destabilizing the
nature of an Indie game, through its transition to multimillion selling title,
Minecraft’s core tenets of authenticity and close relationships with fans was
exposed. Mojang simply could not please everyone all of the time. Notch’s
tweets exposed him as fallible, and his anger towards the significant fan-
base represented by the Yogscast (who had previously been attributed as
being partly responsible for the game’s success; N. Brown, 2011a) infuri-
ated many of Minecraft’s players. All of these acts were unintentional—
Minecon should have been a resounding success, and better public relations
management would have avoided the tweets debacle. But ultimately it was
the exposure of Notch as unable to cater to all of his fans which challenged
the authenticity of Minecraft as a text able to engage community in a cohe-
sive form.
CONCLUSION
The flagship example of Indie games is Minecraft (Mojang Specifications,

2010–present), spearheaded by developer Marcus Persson (aka Notch).
However, this game also exemplifies some of the core issues with the Indie
community, as well as demonstrating what happens when games created
with the Indie ethos become disproportionately large.
Notch fostered a community ethos around Minecraft which initially
worked to his gain. Ultimately, however, the size of this group became too
unwieldy and fractured.
Players struggle to make their own social codes in online spaces, partly
because these are often not clear, and partly because they assume that they act
in concordance, when in fact they may come from vastly different cultural,
social and political spectrums. Often, players will try to mitigate what they
deem bad behavior by using excusative elements from the game. A poorly
socialized player therefore often becomes known as a bad game player.
Many games have specific social codes embedded into both their world-
spheres and their Terms of Usage/End User License Agreements. These direct
players and allow them to base their own codes of practice around them
(although they are often very vague). Minecraft lacks this narrative, as well
as separating players through a variety of other means.
In 2011, the first opportunity for Minecraft players to meet in large num-
bers resulted in a somewhat inevitable collapse, as players realized that their
expectations of the community were false. The catalyst for this is relatively
unimportant, since it was obvious that Minecraft players as a whole were
simply too large an esoteric group to survive.
In this case, confusion over the ‘ownership’ of Minecraft (fans, Notch,
fan-producers) also added to the clashing ideologies, whereby various power
dynamics that had been implicit but not overt came into direct conflict (for
example The Yogscast’s role in publicizing Minecraft via their webcasts).
Overall, the organizational politics of a small Indie company were not
able to cope with large-scale contact with users and fans. This also prob-
lematizes the definition of ‘Indie’ as Minecraft was clearly revealed to be far
more commercial and broad in scope than expected.
7 Always in Beta
Strategizing Gaming Communities
We have to recognize the unfinished nature of artefacts that are launched

on the market, the fact that technical artefacts change over time and
that part of this change over time is induced or produced by their users
and/or their knowledge, or knowledge about them, and their labour.
This line of thinking takes seriously concepts from the sociology of
science and technology which argues that we should view technology
as malleable and as something whose meaning, use and interpretation
change over time and only stabilise as networks of human and non-
human actors coalesce
—Kerr (in Crawford et al, 2011: 27)
In this final chapter, I challenge the claim that online gaming encourages
community by examining the more restrictive practices used by some games
to control social interaction online. These range from the well intentioned,
such as the restrictions placed on communication in free-to-play games
aimed at children, to the illusory, whereby designers create communities that
are explicitly prevented from communicating directly with each other, in
order to facilitate more lucrative play. I examine the ‘always in beta’ method
discussed in earlier chapters, whereby gamers are explicitly used to collate
information and feedback in order to improve a game. I consider one of the
primary concerns that has arisen over the course of the book, namely that
although online communities are too disparate to exist in cultural cohesion,
encouraging the idea that they can do so is often used in manipulative games
design. Having already discussed how disharmony can occur on a personal
level in the previous chapter, in this chapter, I investigate how game design
often encourages a false sense of community or acts as pressure on the player
to act in certain ways.
Many of the restrictive practices applied to online gaming started with the
evolution of Facebook as a social gaming platform, which began from about
2009 onwards. These extended outwards to the app market on smartphones
such as the Android, Mac and iPhone platforms and are now becoming
more pervasive across the gaming scene, on platforms such as Steam, and
via aspects of gaming such as the release and marketing of different titles.
Attitudes to these practices are polarized. Developers engaged with these
games largely view social gaming mechanics through their financial metrics,
specifically their ability to gather and retain players and then to encourage
them to spend small and often after initial purchase. Micro-transactions
(spending small amounts of money on a game after purchase) and in-game
purchases for larger artefacts such as extra content or significant objects
are increasingly seen as a mandatory part of the revenue stream in online
games, ranging from the purchase of in-game currency, to cosmetic or ludic
upgrades that make the game easier to play. Sharing this information with
other users through ‘friending’ is a necessary part of virally sharing the game
without advertising. However, resistance to this method of commodified
gameplay is growing. A Zynga Representative at GDC 2010 was booed
onstage when describing FarmVille as a ‘game’ (Koster, 2010), and Steven
Boyer notes that Zynga vice president Ken Rudin has admitted that ‘we’re
more of an analytics company masquerading as a games company’ (Rudin
in Boyer, 2012; Wingfield, 2012).
In 2013, micro-transactioning and the ‘Freemium’ model (free-to-play
games which are supported by micro-transactions that enhance gameplay
cosmetically or ludically) had become a dominant part of the gaming scene
on the Android market, and although players were avoiding the more heav-
ily constructed models such as those created by Zynga, AAA was also mov-
ing towards Freemium, with companies such as Bioware switching its MMO
Star Wars: The Old Republic (2012) to free-to-play in order to attract more
players after less than a year and then using this strategy to increase play-
ers but charge for extra content. Other AAA gaming companies have also
adopted this method of income generation—the most notable being the
micro-transaction system in Team Fortress II (Valve, 2007), and the ‘real
money’ Auction House in Diablo III (Blizzard, 2012) (although this system
was scrapped in 2013 because it destabilized the economy within the game
and yet still proved to be financially unviable). At the Edinburgh Interactive
Festival in August 2012, the prevailing sentiment from many attendees was
that Freemium was the way forward; whether gaming wanted it or not.
ENTER THE COW CLICKER
I have two Facebook accounts—one is my real one, and one is for

games. My ‘game’ avatar is a cat. And yesterday I played Scrabble with
a plate of cake.
—Author’s mother (2013)
Freemium games have a different play dynamic than AAA titles. They target
a player who plays frequently and for short periods. A percentage of these
players can be induced to invest in cosmetic alterations which do little to
alter play, or are willing to pay for extra game time during one given session
(e.g. by buying extra lives to continue gaming). Micro-transaction elements
Always in Beta 151
are planned far in advance and allow a perpetual development model, since
they are added gradually, allow an almost continuous stream of changes,
upgrades and alterations. These encourage a long-term engagement with the
game, since the cultural capital of the player has to be regularly maintained
through small upgrades and because the game imposes increasingly larger
barriers to development as it advances.
Because of the relative newness of this model, and because of prejudices
in the gaming industry that privilege a minority of players (Adams, 2012),
Facebook gamers are typically constructed as atypical. Enevold and Hag-
ström (2009) identify mothers who play games within this demographic,
and recent research has shown that this type of gaming has attracted a very
different group of players, many of whom do not self-identify as gamers
(Kowert, 2013a). However, Facebook and Android games have attracted
more players than any other gaming genre to date; an estimated 100 mil-
lion accounts exist for Cityville (Tyni et al., 2011), and Zynga had more
than 292 million active users per month in the first quarter of 2012 (Zynga,
2012). These players are now understood to be reforming the understand-
ing of the gamer as a more generalized archetype (Brown et al., 2012; EIF,
2012), and are symptomatic of a wider acceptance of gaming within society,
especially as the gaming demographic is now stretching to involve older
players (including those who have grown up with games; Pearce, 2008; ESA,
2012). As such, Facebook and the apps market for games represent a site
of tension when defining the gaming community, since they are very dif-
ferent to traditionalist configurations of the gamer and ‘his or her’ desires,
yet definitively point to changes which avoid these traditional, stereotypical
representations.
The first part of this chapter therefore focuses on Facebook and Android
games, with an emphasis on strategies pioneered by the development com-
pany Zynga. Zynga’s rapid rise to prominence and its attempts to remain
in this position are examples of how quickly audiences tire of attempts at
manipulating them and demonstrate their disillusionment with large gaming
companies that treat players as an amorphous mass. They are also examples
of how fickle the gaming industry can be as Zynga suffered a spectacular
plunge from grace in 2012. Zynga is the binary opposite to Mojang, because
its games avoid player interaction and instead concentrate on amassing vast
amounts of what ultimately turned out to be very transient players. Zynga’s
business model relied on social networking but actively prevented players
from communicating with each other. This was partly so that the visible cul-
tural capital of achievements, objects and strengths within the game could
not be negated by personal interaction and so that the illusion of activity
could be maintained without recourse to active presence by the player (or
lack of it) that might contradict it. This model continues in many other
Freemium games, although some aspects of social networking sites (such as
deliberately spamming other people’s feeds), became so unpopular that they
were banned by the social media platforms themselves.
In this chapter then, I briefly return to the idea of ‘always in beta’, a sys-
tem which gives the player a false expectation of his or her engagement with
the game text by suggesting that he or she has a greater input than is perhaps
available. Always in beta continues to be used by games developers as a way
to promote exclusivity between players, encourage playbour which perhaps
could have been carried out by paid developers (thus saving the company
money) and as a way to suggest stronger community ties between players
and developers than may perhaps actually exist.
The second type of game considered here includes a large group of play-
ers that are, rather ironically, no longer considered typical of the gamer
archetype. Freemium virtual worlds are often aimed specifically at children.
Games such as Habbo Hotel (2000), Runescape (2001), Club Penguin (2005)
and Free Realms (2009) are extremely popular amongst younger children
and form a lucrative area of gaming that is rarely examined away from the
‘games as educational’ context (see Crowe and Bradford, 2006; Kluge and
Riley, 2006; Garcia-Murillo and MacInnes, 2011). The communities formed
in Freemium games are necessarily very different from those in other player
groups since they are predicated by societal fears of protection and ‘stranger
danger’. Controversy arises from unease about children playing too many
games, as well as the genuine need to protect them from internet predators,
both fiscal and sexual. This latter is a pronounced element in the moral pan-
ics that surround player identity, and the access that paedophiles can gain
to children through falsely representing themselves is a security priority for
these games, as well as a popular target for sensationalist media reporting
(Channel 4 News, 2012a; 2012b; Seifert, 2012).
As a result of this, in the third section, some of the censorship methods
used in online games for children, such as forbidding freeform conversation
or restricting ‘dangerous’ topics (e.g. the typing of a telephone number on a
public channel) are discussed. While I do not wish to comment extensively
on the ethics of these situations; since that would involve a vast and com-
plicated area of study beyond the remit of this book, these topics are worth
considering because of their role in containing certain behaviors in online
spaces, supported by the belief that protection for minors in such spaces is
an important part of community ethics.
In this chapter, I suggest that generating a sense of community within
games, and seeming to engage players, is not always as straightforward or
altruistic as my earlier writing might have suggested. Games companies need
to make money, and with the rise in expectations from players, keeping a
game in beta or releasing a cheap title, which then provides them with a
number of ‘extra’ benefits for a small cost afterwards, is seen as a viable way
to attract and retain players, who may then choose to spend more. There
are many ways in which the player can be exploited while this takes place.
However, the growing sophistication with which communities are treated is
a final indication of how these groups enact complex relationships with the
game text and sometimes also align themselves to titles despite a knowledge
of their relatively unscrupulous practices.
Always in Beta 153
ECHOING BAZAARS: DEFINING THE
SOCIAL NETWORKING GAME
You get a cow. You can click on it. In six hours, you can click it again.
Clicking earns you clicks. You can buy custom ‘premium’ cows through
micropayments (the Cow Clicker currency is called ‘mooney’), and you
can buy your way out of the time delay by spending it. You can publish
feed stories about clicking your cow, and you can click friends’ cow
clicks in their feed stories. Cow Clicker is Facebook games distilled to
their essence.
—Bogost (2010b)
Freemium games usually have several common criteria. Most involve per-
forming a series of simple activities that give a visual gain. In some cases, this is
often as simple as filling a bar or levelling characters by spending points; Mafia
Wars: (2009), Castle Age: (Phoenix Age Inc., 2009), and Haven (Clipwire
Games, 2010) are early examples of this, whereas Puzzles and Dragons, Tiny
Tower (2012) and Pocket Train (2013) add simple elements of management,
limited resource allocation or match-three puzzle gaming. Players progress
through each game by clicking to complete simple objectives. Completing a
task gains loot items, in-game currency and achievements. As an example,
in Mafia Wars (Zynga, 2009), players spend their points on performing jobs
such as ‘Flip a Snitch’ and ‘Obtain Compromising Photos’ until each skill is
mastered. Levelling each tier of jobs allows them to progress to new areas with
new tasks. Each job rewards a certain amount of in-game money as well as
experience points. For some jobs, there is a random chance that a collection
item will drop. When each collection is completed, the player gets a bonus
item. Achievements are gained by performing clusters of these jobs—for exam-
ple mastering all jobs in the New York area of the game, as well as spending
money (buying 1,000 tenement buildings or 1,000 cars for the mafia ‘fleet’),
by repeatedly vaulting collections and, importantly, by gifting to friends. A
slightly more complex version of the social networking game is viewed on an
isometric grid (FarmVille, Cafe World, Amateur Surgeon Theme Hospital).
Players have more creative input in that they can customize their own areas,
balancing functional landscape with objects gained during play, although the
repeated clicking, gathering and accumulation tasks are relatively similar. All
these models contain elements whereby the player will run out of time or
energy points and will be encouraged to spend money to speed up the process.
Many of these games engage with a technique which Tyni et al. (2011)
call Rhythm Design. Players are encouraged to optimize play by incorpo-
rating it into their daily activities, and the timed nature of activities/points
available means that the player does not become bored with the monoto-
nous nature of the content:
The system is very effective as player progression is constantly slowed

down by some timer, and while waiting, players turn to other tasks of
interest. As a result, there always seems to be something to do and—as
most of the pleasure is derived from the delayed gratification—something
to be finished just around the corner. For most, it quickly becomes a
game of optimizing timetables. . . . [By allowing] the player to fine-tune
her play rhythm to sit conveniently with her daily life, the game still tries
to impose rhythms of its own on the player. (Tyni et al., 2011: 27)
Rhythm Design encourages the ‘play little, return often’ mentality described
as a core desire by Enevold and Hagström’s (2009) gaming mothers; one of
the key requirements of the busy lifestyle gamer who may only find times to
play while in transit or between other more demanding life tasks (see also
Juul, 2009).
Freemuim games do not have conclusive endgame sections or final
moments and are centred on a player’s self through cultural capital symbol-
ized by aesthetic decoration. They do not have ‘fail’ criteria and, conversely,
cannot be ‘beaten’, since the emphasis is on representation rather than on
domination. Constant release of new aspects, upgrades and tiers encourages
the player to play indefinitely as without spending money on these aspects,
they will quickly fall behind their peers.
There is an obvious correlation here to the relationship of work ethic
with game. Grinding within the game becomes part of a daily routine,
(Mortensen, 2008; Rettburg, 2008), and playbour is clearly an essential part
of game design (Ku″ chlich, 2005, 2010). Paying more attention to the game
does not necessarily reward the player; instead, spending time away from the
game avoids them making too close a scrutiny of the repetitive gameplay. It
does not really matter what they are producing—more that these artefacts
are tied to achievements or other gains such as the production of cosmetic
objects. So far, however, one thing has been noticeably absent from the ‘social
network’ of these games; other people.
FALSE COMMUNITIES IN FACEBOOK GAMING
These days, whether you are online or not, it is easy for people to be
unsure if they are closer together or further apart.
—Turkle (2011: 14)
Facebook is a social platform. It makes money through advertising on each

page and through product endorsement by users. Click-throughs on these
advertisements generate Facebook revenue. Therefore, one of its core moti-
vations is the sustainment and growth of social circles, enabling products to
become more widely disseminated. Facebook games initially appeared to be
an excellent way to support this. Players were forced to refresh their screens
often in order to get rid of pop-up messages and update their game state,
thus exposing them to more advertising. Facebook games of this nature
also rewarded players who extended and maintained their social circles in
Always in Beta 155
relation to the game, and encouraged game designers to incorporate ele-
ments that would automatically appear on a users’ feed. By spamming their
own update feeds, players were able to alert others to their status or needs
within specific games, as well as spreading the game virally.
In many games, a system of reciprocal gifting is encouraged in order to
facilitate this constant movement between screens. This is often structured
as a collective responsibility; for example a barn or piece of armour might
require several pieces to complete which can only be received from gifting,
a monster might arise which needs multiple people to slay it, or the player
simply needs to make friends with as many people as possible in order to
increase the chances of something happening. As Nicholas Lovell (2009)
points out, the gifter always gains an asset by gifting, and gifts themselves are
usually of greater worth (rarer, more expensive) than those gained through
solo play. The aesthetic merit of these items is also greater—for example the
‘super stove’ in Cafe World (Zynga, 2009) is more ostentatious than normal
stoves, and has a small animation that draws attention to it. There is a clear
connection between these objects and the status of the player, with objects
being an indication that the player has a large supporting network of social
contacts that have helped to provide these artefacts, and is therefore consid-
ered socially impressive.
Bourdieu and Wacquant define social capital as ‘the sum of the resources,
actual or virtual, that accrue to an individual or a group by virtue of pos-
sessing a durable network of more or less institutionalized relationships
of mutual acquaintance and recognition’ (1992: 14). ‘Weak ties’ are types
of social capital comprising loose connections between individuals whose
purpose is more functional than emotional (Granovetter, 1982). Facebook’s
realization of this potential in a virtual space was what led it from small uni-
versity campus site to global success. From their inception, online social net-
works have endorsed the accumulation of friends as social capital (Hampton,
2002; Hampton and Wellman, 2003; Ellison et al., 2007). Tufekci (2008)
describes this as a competitive activity, whereby a large amount of friends
demonstrates a person’s relative social worth and importance. The popular-
ity of former Star Trek actor George Takei is a good example of this. His
2.4 million Facebook ‘friends’ do not know him personally, but he is per-
ceived as someone with whom it is cool to associate. The humorous images
that people send him are in turn shared by others, and this position of pop-
ularity also allows him to use his page to make sociopolitical statements
about the role of homosexuality in current society. On Facebook, therefore,
weak ties are deliberately formed between users to give the illusion of a
large social network, and large social networks thereby equate to social
capital. Allowing users to browse each other’s friend list or show moments
of similarity (such as who has liked a specific post) encourages continued
growth, as they add more from each list and virally increase their network.
Enabling this by simply suggesting random people from a person’s friend list
was an early technique for many social Facebook games. Social networking
strategies of this kind which encourage quantity over quality are intended to
break Dunbar’s number (Dunbar, 1992; Bialik, 2007), which hypothesizes
that social groups reach critical mass at certain numbers, although whether
they actually do is debatable (Dunbar, 2010).
The Facebook gaming structure encourages a large web of weak ties
between players that are used to form social capital. During play, the player
is constantly reminded that others are taking part in the same activities.
Pop-ups inform them what other people need or are doing in their games,
monsters which need to slain collectively show lists of who has contributed
(clicked) the most and large status bars on a player’s main UI show other
players’ levels. These pop-ups create a shared discourse of ‘busyness’ through
obvious semiotic codes (‘X is hard at work on their farm!’). When Facebook
games were first launched, it was also relatively easy to access other people’s
pages and click on the relevant pop-up in their feed to gain more artefacts.
To simplify this process (and gain more items/benefits), players who did
not know each other would often become friends, shortcutting the need to
search for more items by having everyone available on one list held by the
game. However, although these games created the illusion of activity—a
bustling farm, a dragon to be slain, or avatars named for friends ‘visiting’
one’s café—none of these indicate whether the player is present within the
game. This correlates to the fact that although Facebook is designed to cre-
ate the illusion of perpetual attention, rather than being a site where people
post sporadic messages about their lives and may not actually spend that
much time being present.
Early research of online communities suggested that online users were
liberated from the necessity of face-to-face communication. These people
therefore start their virtual friendships networks from scratch, seeking
out friends with like interests (Wellman et al., 1996; Garton et al., 1997),
rather than being restricted to the people in their immediate vicinity
(Horrigan, 2001). Parks and Floyd (1996) suggest a pattern whereby a
birdwatcher might gravitate towards a site at which other users posted
recent sightings and would start relationships with these people as a direct
result. Ultimately, this might lead to meeting in person. Later studies tend
to dismiss this argument and suggest that online users are more likely
to use networks such as Facebook to seek out people that they already
know (Lampe et al., 2006) and subsequently extend into larger exoteric
groups. At present, most social networking sites are formed around users
who gradually build a social network composed of existing friends, and
then expand this outwards according to intent or recommendation. T. L.
Taylor (2008) charts this in Play Between Worlds, in which she maps the
social pathways formed in a World of Warcraft guild. Initially, the partici-
pants were friends and family members, but as the guild grew, acquain-
tances and people met online were gradually added. Freemium games
try to access both these pathways—friendship groups and players loosely
connected by the game.
Always in Beta 157
Facebook gaming is not community driven, because doing this would
expose these loose groups as unconnected. Facebook games bring circles
of players together by suggesting connections and encouraging players to
add each other to their gaming collectives, but they avoid questioning the
strength of this social bond. In most Facebook games, players do not interact
with each other directly. They cannot meet and they can only leave the sim-
plest of messages for each other in-game, if at all. They do not receive ben-
efits for remaining within each other’s’ spaces, and are instead encouraged
to quickly move along. In 2012, to boost falling sales and combat aggressive
measures by Facebook to prevent spam messaging, Zynga’s FarmVille (often
considered as a pioneer of Freemium gaming) developed a system whereby
players did not even have to friend each other to visit each other’s farms
and benefit from the reciprocal gifting system. More traditional, turn-based
games such as Scrabble are not played in real time; hours and days pass dur-
ing the course of one game. Players are, however, encouraged to leave affirm-
ing messages and comments (often automatically triggered), as well as gifts,
which suggest strong friendship ties already exist and that play is persistent.
In FarmVille, new features emphasize the importance of group play and the
ludic gain from doing so:
Trading Post is here! The Trading Post allows you to buy and sell crops
from your friends to earn coins, xp and master crops faster! Place your
free building now and join your friends! (FarmVille, 2010)
Players are therefore bombarded with messages that reinforce the illu-
sion of community. A false sense of activity hurries them through as many
refreshed screens as possible, rather than encouraging them to stop and
communicate, supported by the carrot of personal benefit and semantic
exhortations that ‘friends’ are doing the same thing.
There has been considerable debate over whether Zynga’s games are
made deliberately badly (Liszkiewicz, 2010), or are simply not games at
all (Koster, 2010). Valentina Rao (2008) argues that social games have a
secondary motivation:
Their main function is fulfilled in the larger frame of an “experience”,

be it viral marketing, transmedia storytelling, alternate reality gaming,
or brand construction of a place such as in Facebook. Their role is to
stimulate the playful mood, in an imitation of the dynamics peculiar
to ‘third places’, in order to facilitate socialization and encourage par-
ticipation, but also to fulfil the less disinterested goal of stimulating
consumption.
More recent studies of social networking games have reached similar con-
clusions. One of the most notorious critics of Zynga and social network
gaming is Ian Bogost, whose game Cow Clicker (2010) exposed the banality
of games such as FarmVille (Bogost, 2010a, 2011). The game intentionally
satirized the genre, but this was sometimes lost on the 50,000 players who
devotedly clicked on cows for nearly two years until the ‘Cowpocalypse’
removed them all from their pastures (Bogost in Tanz, 2011). Mia Consalvo
surveyed more than 80 Facebook games in 2010 in an attempt to chal-
lenge the prevailing sentiment that ‘the games feature no meaningful interac-
tions between players, resulting in a mockery of sociality rather than a true
expression of it’ (Consalvo, 2011a,). She concluded that
The social mechanics found in current top social games are quite limited
in how they allow players to be social with one another. Most often
sociality means a ‘click’ that helps one player, or requests help from
others. Likewise, icons of friends and online messages from them (or
impersonal wall posts) are the standard ways to communicate with one
another. While these options do allow players to feel as if they are play-
ing amongst friends, and some may engage in deeper forms of social-
ity and communication in their own play groups, such activities would
seem to happen in spite of the limited affordances that social games cre-
ate for players to be social, rather than because of them. (2011b: 193)
Facebook games are, as Consalvo, Bogost and Rao suggest, more fis-
cally motivated than are attempts to create engaging, social games. Zynga
in particular have come under immense criticism for their methods from
academics, players and users of Facebook. These include forcing players to
continually refresh or reload their page, thus exposing them to more adver-
tisements and, in their early stages, encouraging them to sign up with com-
panies who would later tether real-world charges to their accounts. These
games also expose the superficial nature of many online gaming communi-
ties, and it is perhaps telling, and heartening, that the rapid rise and fall of
games which aggressively pursue these methods were largely engendered by
players becoming disillusioned and irritated with the style of play provided.
There is no doubt, however, that many of the lessons learned by developers
about gathering groups, and encouraging them to ‘play’ with very few ludic
objectives, still resonate through gaming. Furthermore, the Freemium model
is one which continues to evolve, and while developers are usually more
subtle than some of the early games in their methods, micro-transactions
and developing large groups of people with weak ties to each other is still
extremely popular.
STRATEGY: ALWAYS IN BETA
‘Always in beta’ is a useful strategy to involve players and make them feel
part of a valued community. By suggesting that the game is unfinished,
games companies receive a number of benefits which allow them to tweak
Always in Beta 159
the game while it is being played. The ‘beta’ moniker suggests that games
companies are not above making errors—covering their tracks if down-
time or errors are experienced, and encouraging a relationship that sug-
gests players are valued participants. It also tries to pre-empt the tendency
for users to hop quickly from one game to the next—if the game is still
being developed, the potential for new, original content is still very much
apparent. However, ‘always in beta’ can also be used to the opposite effect:
to abuse the goodwill of players, to employ them as unpaid testers or to
provide them with a poor-quality product. Developers may have no inten-
tion of listening to their players in any depth, or may use the beta moniker
to engender a feeling of exclusivity that comes from allowing a select few
players access to early content.
Most games companies have forums where players can report bugs, with
the expectation that these will be patched into the game in order to mend
it. In addition, developers also work to correct any issues that occur after
a games’ release, for example incompatibility with different browsers, or
issues arising from a heavy load on servers which cause some aspects to fail.
Although this is a relatively new occurrence, largely a result of improved
online facilities and access, patches, hot fixes and expansions containing
new content are now an expected part of a games’ shelf life. Thus, there is an
expectation that even after release, a game will be patched and changed to
improve any issues. The onus for this lies increasingly on the player, regard-
less of the coders who remain on the company’s books to help fix such
errors, should they occur. Despite this, companies often wish to test their
games before release or to give the illusion that the game is unfinished in
order to gauge the player response to various structural and design elements.
There are therefore several different ways of using a beta phase to engage
with the gamer community and generate hype about the game.
FarmVille was ‘in beta’ from June 2009 until April 2011, during which
the company asked players to report bugs and make suggestions for new
content. This latter is a fairly common topic on forums, since players who
engage strongly with a game tend to also suggest tweaks or changes which
they feel will enhance play (although these might not always do so). Although
Zynga have an extensive reporting section for players on their forums, sub-
sequent changes are usually not publicized unless something drastic happens
(such as the game crashing or items disappearing). For FarmVille, the ‘new’
content suggested was often cosmetic, such as changes in appearance to
objects, or polls which asked players to choose new expansions. Thus, its
beta phase did not concern alterations in the fundamental game design; it
was used more as a moniker to showcase new content and to test various
elements of the game with the user base. By allowing the player an illusion of
choice, FarmVille also gave the player a false impression of agency; presum-
ably the artwork for each suggested expansion had already been submitted,
so the choices made by the players merely indicated which set was more
commercially viable. Changes to the actual gameplay were not open for
consultation, and it is arguable whether there was any discernable difference
between the beta and full-release versions of the game, since both phases
slowly introduced new game dynamics over time. In this respect, the full
release of Farmville was very much like that of Minecraft; since change was
so steady and continual, determining when the game was ‘complete’ seemed
both arbitrary and unimportant to players.
A second way of using the beta system is through the release of promo-
tional material in advance of a game’s release. In 2012, Diablo III (2012),
Guild Wars 2 (2012), Mass Effect III (2012) and Torchlight II (2012) all
ran beta weekends prior to release or asked players to sign up for beta
testing in order to give them an early taster of the game. Guild Wars 2
advertised heavily during this period, promising ‘early play’ for those who
bought the game. Apart from Torchlight II, which clearly had features miss-
ing, the games were obviously almost complete during these phases, with
beta testing being used as a moniker to generate hype by showcasing a large
block of content (usually the first section of the game) and encouraging
players to purchase the full game in order to generate needed revenue in
advance of the actual release date. Again, it is unclear whether the compa-
nies involved in these releases did make any major alterations to the game
after these phases.
Always in beta as a system through which players report and identify
issues with a game is open to abuse. It relies on the goodwill and enthusiasm
of the gaming community and encourages them to provide free playbour.
Developers have taken advantage of this to release poor quality products
which exploit this. Fate of the World (Red Redemption, 2011) was released
at full price in an entirely unplayable state, and players were forced to buy
an ‘upgrade’, which attempted to fix the numerous bugs, spelling errors and
mistakes (Steam, 2012). The perception that this is becoming rife is also
widespread, as this comment from the Steam forums demonstrates:
Its good practice to wait at least 6 months to buy any game.

I used to jump on them as soon as they came out, but it started getting
that I was disapointed 90% of the time, these games are so buggy on
release, you just end up beta testing for £40, or alternatively get a fully
patched and working games for £9.99 6 months later.
Sorry about that, but it’s the developers in the last 5 years of so
that have started releasing plainly unfinished games, I suppose taking
advantage of the internet, quick patching and instant feedback, but its
caused veterans like me to completely give up buying games on release
for full price.
. . . I really don’t get why games makers think its ok to release these
games in the state they do a lot of the time. You wouldnt accept a music
Cd or film on DVD that only partially worked, or worked only with
some tweaking, so why are gamers expected to put up with it? (Jimg-
narkill, 2012)
Always in Beta 161
In this final state, beta testing is a cheap way to gain labour, as well as
being a financial con. It relies on the goodwill of players, as well as their
desire to form communities of shared experience. Beta-phase players have
higher cultural capital, are able to brag to their friends that they have experi-
enced ‘exclusive’ access to the game or are able to influence its development.
By releasing games in an unfinished state, developers are not only hoping
that players work for them, but are also avoiding their duties to produce
a fully operation product on release. Using this strategy may also require
players to pay more at a later date for the product once their brand loyalty
has been established. While beta tests might originally have evolved as a
way for small Indie companies to enable more well-rounded products, their
appropriation by other aspects of the gaming industry are less altruistic.
SAFEGUARDING CHILDREN’S FREE-TO-PLAY GAMES
‘I have been called a noob, is this reportable?’
Although it can be annoying and isn’t exactly the nicest thing to say, it
is not offensive or an emergency. The best thing to do is just ignore the
player. Please don’t send in a report for this.
—Runescape (2008) Offensive Language and Behavior FAQ
Runescaspe, by Jagex Solutions, is the world’s longest running and most suc-
cessful MMO. Created in 2001, it has more than 200 million user accounts
and 500 million hits per month. Its core demographic is players younger
than 18 (Quantcast, 2012), and for many players, it serves as an intro-
duction to MMO gaming. The basic version of Runescape is free to play,
offering a limited amount of content which lasts several hours. Buying a sub-
scription enables full access to content, more skills, items and storage facili-
ties, including the ability for players to own and customize their houses. The
game is known for its deadbeat humour and highly developed skill system,
allowing players to spend time in the game levelling numerous occupations.
Fighting monsters is an important, although not always necessary aspect
of the game which also involves crafting, collection, narrative quests, mini-
games of dexterity or guile, and exploration. Like many MMOs, the game
also has several large settlements which act as questing and social hubs.
Unlike many other MMOs, Runescape is known for its emphasis on stealth
learning, since the player often gains more experience through enquiry and
socialization, rather than combat. An example of this is the Hunting skill,
which can be increased either through hunting animals or by visiting the
museum and learning about them. The museum, with its archaeological
puzzles and comic exhibits of animals both real and false, used to grant the
player a far higher skill increase than did grinding monsters in the wild.
Runescape is part of a genre of introductory online worlds that encour-
age children to play videogames from an early age. Other examples include
Habbo Hotel (2000), Club Penguin (2005), Maple Story (2003), SilkRoad
Online (2006), Wizard 101 (2008), Puzzle Pirates (2003) and Free Realms
(2009). Each game usually involves some or all of the following elements:
Lengthy grinding for skills, objects or in-game perks

Extensive customization of avatars, including ‘houses’, clothing, acces-
sories and other visual objects
Simple mini-games such as match three, assault courses, spot-the-difference,
card-based games and turn-based combat
Dungeons or other instances based on a rogue-like combat system
Regular events such as parties or festivals whereby subscribed or pay-
ing players are rewarded with free gifts such as items of clothing or
banners
Pets, which accompany the player and are virtually always one of the
most expensive in-game items
Chat or socialization areas
Free-to-play elements that are supplemented by subscriptions and micro-
transactions
Free-to-play MMOs are therefore simplistic versions of their grown-up

brothers and sisters, containing recognizable elements but less sophisticated,
more repetitive play. Unlike games such as World of Warcraft, in which pow-
erful items are usually gained through group play, these younger versions rely
more on players accumulating through micro-transactions or grinding. There
is frequently an emphasis on non-combat play, such as crafting or levelling
skill trees, allowing customization to become a highly visible aspect (players
concentrate on each other rather than on fighting monsters). Mini-games
might be recognizable to adults as versions of classic videogames such as Tet-
ris, Bejewelled or Space Invaders or to children as versions of contemporary
card games such as Magic the Gathering (1993) and Yu-Gi-Oh! (1999).
Free-to-play children’s games are extremely popular, but they are also on
the front line of criticism from parents and concerned other parties. These
anxieties revolve around their perceived educational merit and the safety of
their users. Google abounds with webpages questioning this; for example a
blog written by Jimmy Zimmerman (2007) argues that
Club Penguin ‘has won lots of “awards” for being Kids Safe, but I still
don’t trust it. Even though there is live moderation and message filtering,
it’s the same game where people try to break the controls that are con-
straining them. Someone is going to find a way to infiltrate the system.’
This type of scaremongering is not only relatively common, but is also sup-
ported by more authoritative investigations. In 2012, an exposé by Rachel
Seifert revealed that Habbo Hotel hangouts were being used by players to
proposition each other. While this sort of behavior is common in ‘adult’
Always in Beta 163
MMOs, it is explicitly forbidden within those for children, for obvious rea-
sons. Another issue concerns the relative ease with which children are con-
vinced to buy objects within the game. It is not always obvious which items
cost ‘real’ money and which cost in-game currency, and although developers
usually make sure the icons for each of these currencies are very different
(e.g. a gold coin and a blue/red shield), this distinction is not always under-
stood by younger users. A second kind of cautionary take therefore concerns
children (and sometimes adults) who have inadvertently run up large credit
card bills from buying in-game objects, for which the companies responsible
are not always particularly apologetic (Insley, 2010).
Children’s MMOs therefore have to tread a careful line between protect-
ing their users from harm, justifying their merit to parents, and monetizing
effectively. The first aspect of this is taken extremely seriously and helps
promote the second, with the reasoning that a well-behaved, safe commu-
nity is a useful community. In 2012, as a response to the Habbo article, Club
Penguin spent 4.7 million dollars on an Internet safety campaign within the
game, with the express intent to ‘teach kids the lessons that they need to
become responsible digital citizens’ (Merrifield in Guthrie, 2012). Runes-
cape’s tutorial is partly structured as a guide to playing the game, but also
comprises aspects which teach Internet safety. A large dungeon called the
Stronghold of Security in the free area of the game requires players to answer
multiple-choice questions about what they have learned. The game also has
a moral code, clearly based on the three principles of ‘respect, honour and
security’, again mixing social aspirations and the ethos of ‘good play’ with
practical applications. While these aspects are probably intended to pacify
parents worried about their children, they are still informative and security
conscious towards their player base.
Free-to-play games also enforce security by restricting the access play-
ers have to each other. In this way the identities of minors are kept secret,
and soliciting information from them is made very difficult. Club Penguin
is a typical example of this. Players can emote and chat to each other, but
within the game, parental controls restrict how far this conversation can go.
With certain settings enabled (and, on Runescape, within specific servers),
conversation can only take place through dialogue trees. This means that
players cannot at any point enter their own conversations, but instead must
follow specific patterns. These ‘conversations’ avoid any type of negativity,
so a typical menu chat might consist of the following:
A: Hello.
A: What Quest are you working on?
B: That isn’t in this area.
A: Thanks for helping me! (Wizard 101, 2012a)
On servers, or settings where communication is freer, restrictions still

apply. Users are not allowed to type strings of numbers (which could be
phone numbers) or addresses. Rude words are banned, as is ‘creative pro-
fanity’ (swearing around the filters but using letter substitution or some-
times rhyming words; Wizard 101, 2012b). All these systems intend to
protect users from divulging unsafe information, and teach them accept-
able online communication skills. This may be why the post about being
called a ‘noob’ quoted earlier is no longer on the Runescape forums, under
the reasoning that even a small ‘acceptable’ insult may escalate into more
pejorative terms later on.
A core question, one which has yet to be asked about these games, is the
role that these stymied communication systems promote in later gameplay.
At present there is a real issue in many gaming communities: that of a loud
and vociferous minority who ‘troll’ other players and make many public
game spaces unpleasant to be in. In multiplayer games, this often takes the
form of teenage players who aggressively catcall their peers, insulting their
abilities and perceived social make-up. The issue has become so great that
many players (especially female ones) do not use voice communication for
fear of censure, which often takes the form of exceptionally sexist abuse.
Recent examples are unfortunately common; when Anna Sarkeesian, host
of webshow Feminist Frequency, tried to launch a series of webisodes con-
fronting these issues on Kickstater, her site, her Wikipedia page and her
Twitter feed were viciously attacked. Pornographic images were attached to
her Wikipedia page, a game called ‘Beat Up Anna Sarkeesian’ was added to
www.newgrounds.com, her webpages were repeatedly subjected to D-DOS
attacks, and she was threatened with violence and rape on her YouTube
channel. This is not an isolated case; the website fattyuglyorslutty.com gives
examples of derogatory comments aimed at women, and comments such as
‘make me a sandwich’ and ‘get back in the kitchen’ have become established
‘jokes’ aimed at female players (see e.g. Cakepie, 2012). Insults are aimed
at perceived minority groups in gaming, most commonly women and the
Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) community, although they
also take the form of aggressive attacks on players who have apparently
underperformed or made uniformed comments.
Is this group the product of non-socialization in earlier games? Certainly
free-to-play MMOs are often attempts to introduce players to a lifetime of
playing games and to familiarize them with gaming community conventions.
Free Realms is explicit about this, and the franchise nature of these games
often introduces related games via secondary advertising on each site. How-
ever, without direct communication, are players unable to translate appro-
priate social behavior into games that they play at a later age, especially
when they move from those in which communication is entirely restricted
to those in which it is entirely free? Perhaps not knowing who the other
player is within these early games, including their gender, cultural back-
ground and age, encourages a feeling of false unity, which is displaced when
voice or communication technologies reveal the player as Other. Potentially,
the frustration with poor play in games with little or no outlet to express it
Always in Beta 165
leads to excession when it is available. While the polite, friendly conversa-
tion threads of Club Penguin allow players to compliment each other, does
a more deviant need to rebel against the uniform options of good behavior
emerge when these controls are removed? In this way, removing the option
to behave badly (and of being punished for it) might be also removing the
ability for children to socialize properly when they are given more com-
municative freedom. Perhaps, however, this hypothesis is simply a result of
overtly negative thinking (supported by the pessimism and scaremongering
being practiced around these games elsewhere). The group of players who
routinely harass others may simply be a minority with poor manners who
have been allowed to dominant the voice of FPS, MoBA and other team
games. Rather like the causality argument regarding violence in games, these
connections will always be difficult to prove—and certainly the large free-to-
play companies will not endorse research that demonstrates that their play-
ers are emerging into the gaming sphere with a lack of socialization skills,
rather than gaining the qualities of team building, friendship and sharing
that they tend to superficially endorse. Ernest Adams (2012), in his ‘Call to
Arms to Decent Men’, argues for a zero-tolerance response to this behavior
and states of such players that
It’s not enough just to mute them. We need to build the infrastructure
that precludes this kind of behavior entirely. (Adams, 2012)
Adams argues that the policing already performed in Club Penguin might
perhaps be an effective way to curtail this behavior precisely because of its
zero tolerance for bullying and bigotry online. If this stentorian measure is
effective, it might also be so because players recognize it from their forma-
tive playing years, rather neatly bringing the argument full circle.
These concerns are pertinent, but absolutely secondary, to the expressed
need to protect children from harm. Free-to-play children’s games do offer
a mode of censorship to their players but have explicit reasons for doing
so which are motivated both by the concerns of parents and incidences of
genuine harm.
PAY TO PLAY
Social games exemplify how playful behaviors are increasingly rooted

in social relations and exchanges of information that are used to main-
tain and expand these networks of relationships. It has, however, been
argued that many recent social games ‘may not be nearly as intensely
or deeply social as has been assumed’.
—Tyni et al. (2011)
The speed at which online communities have evolved has meant that cur-
rent published research is constantly being outstripped by increasingly more
nuanced texts, and as Alex Monea (2011) rather sagely notes, ‘Facebook
is in a continual state of mutation that may violently and rapidly obsolesce
any scholarship based on it’. Dealing with large, community driven sites
such as Facebook means that they are subjected to the whims of control,
governmental agencies, fashion and personal action. As a result, although
considerable research already exists or is in press, the case studies chosen
by authors often date extremely rapidly. A good example of this is Ellison
et al.’s (2007) investigation of Facebook as a campus-wide network. Their
findings accurately theorize the immense potential of the site in subsequent
years, but do not predict the sheer ‘pester power’ that Facebook as a corpo-
ration has come to exert over its users. In this chapter, I have discussed a type
of gaming that underwent drastic changes during the course of this writing.
When this book began, Facebook gaming was a hugely lucrative arena with
a huge turnover. By the summer of 2012, however, Facebook’s decision to
exclude intrusive game dynamics from a user’s pages, prompted by an irrita-
tion with these tactics from the user herself, meant that Zynga and Facebook
gaming in general was in decline. Despite a previously positive relationship
with Facebook (at one point, Zynga was worth 21% of Facebook), the
company was struggling in the face of privacy settings which allowed users
to eradicate games from their pages and block their notifications from sight.
Facebook gaming was becoming increasingly unpopular, supported by the
realization that these games contained little gameplay and often could not
be fully accomplished without financial investment. Facebook games, along
with the other examples here, demonstrate that players can be manipulated
by social dynamics factored into a game’s design or implementation. These
strategies aim to falsely engage the player and often create an artificial sense
of social unity in order to do so. Some of the issues discussed here point
not just to an underlying tension with the manipulation of the player but
also to the ways in which invisible communities are assumed to behave in a
cohesive manner.
However, the participatory nature of the social communities in this chap-
ter demonstrates that there are ways in which players can be disenfran-
chised. Because Web 2.0 encourages participatory creation, producing any
kind of work is increasingly less of a skilled or a minority occupation, and
the games discussed in this chapter take advantage of this formation. Gam-
ing playbour encourages a cycle which is perceived as (although not always)
reciprocal. Games that are ‘always in beta’ not only encourage fans to be
patient with aspects of the game that are not ready or are simply broken
but also encourages them to fix these issues or provide their own solu-
tions through feedback and the instigation of their own patches, mods and
overlays. By encouraging the sense of participation or sharing, these games
encourage an idea that their communities is working in harmony towards
the same ends. Children’s free-to-play games demonstrate that by universal-
izing this image of the community as a cohesive whole, tension may erupt
when the player is exposed as an individual.
Always in Beta 167
CONCLUSION
The Freemium model of gaming relies on a social dynamic whereby ‘keep-

ing up with the Joneses’ encourages players to spend money on superficial,
visual artefacts. This is then supported by the representation of other players
as busy or involved.
Freemium games also encourage reciprocal gifting, putting players in an
emotional debt to each other whereby kindnesses (and gifts) must be repaid.
The player usually gains the most from the act of gifting in terms of assets.
However, gaming communities ultimately realized that early Freemium
games disenfranchised them by using tactics designed to manipulate players
and their social networks. Although Freemium games are still a huge part of
the Android market, their popularity on Facebook has fallen dramatically,
partly as a result of the overly intrusive viral nature of many early games.
Always in beta is a method of keeping a game in development as long
as possible and of utilizing the playbour of players to improve it. However,
the term beta is changing, since many companies now release games in a
preview format and call it a beta phase. Unscrupulous usage of beta phases
is increasingly being criticized by players. It may be that the term simply
adopts a different semiotic meaning in future.
Children’s online games encourage a lack of communication. Overall, this
is a positive, since it is intended to protect them from predators, to prevent
them from sharing private information and sometimes to teach them Inter-
net safety.
There is, however, a question about whether shielding the player from
the identity of others creates a false sense of unity, which has negative con-
sequences later on in a player’s gaming lifetime.
Coda
Final Thoughts
Throughout this book, the capacity for players to act independently has
been a constant theme which underpins their understanding of games. Dis-
cussions of games, on forums, webcasts and through beta reports, are a
common way of sharing information. Always in beta and Facebook games
are examples of how players can self-mobilize against gaming companies
or practices they do not like, as are the actions of players on sites such as
Reddit and 4Chan when protesting perceived slurs against them. The sharp
decline of interest in Facebook gaming is as much an indication of players
walking with their feet as it is of Facebook reacting to this by closing down
the opportunities for push notifications and spam. Cynicism towards always
in beta is less widespread, but players do respond vociferously when they
receive a product that they do not like or find lacking. Beta testing (or, rather,
beta releases) provides a rather disingenuous way of circumventing this—the
player expects a lower-quality product but is often simply provided with
a promotional version of the finished game. Whether ‘beta’ continues to
be a moniker for testing, or simply becomes a word to mean ‘pre-release’
remains to be seen. Finally, although the communication methods outlined
in children’s free-to-play games are restrictive, this is largely seen as a posi-
tive, since it protects children from inadvertently divulging information and
from attempts to gain this. This might produce issues in the future, although
Game Studies lacks the type of long-term research needed to prove such an
assertion.
Various modes to prevent communication appear in games, which is
surprising, since they are often labelled as ‘social games’ or ‘social media.
Some of these present false illusions of community, and the term social gam-
ing actually describes a type of gaming in which the relationships formed
are weak ties. In recent years, established social worlds such as World of
Warcraft, which was originally seen as blending sociality with gameplay in
multiple different ways, have evolved strategies which often make gameplay
more efficient at the cost of sociality. For example whereas early iterations of
the game as studied by the authors in Narrative, Identity and Play: A World
of Warcraft Reader (Corneliussen and Rettberg-Walker, 2008) celebrated
the formation of close social groups in guilds or raiding associations, these
Coda 169
systems were later streamlined in-game at the expense of the communities
surrounding them. In World of Warcraft, flexible raiding and Raid Finder
virtually eliminate the need for guilds at all.
However, this book has also shown that gaming communities are no lon-
ger restricted to the games themselves. As well as forming vibrant communi-
ties to support individual titles, gamers are now evolving new viewing and
playing practices which endorse relationships beyond gaming itself. Groups
such as the webcasters studied in this book are becoming an increasingly
commonplace element of gaming, with viewers tuning in to watch person-
alities as well as the games they play. In this respect, gaming is entering
mainstream culture by copying some of its more commonplace activities,
with a twist. These casters are also developing a media presence of their own
which is both popular and increasingly influential, and their ability to act as
spokespeople for other gamers gives them huge cultural currency. Gamers
are invested in both the games they see played in these webcasts, as well as
the celebrities they watch. The example of these celebrities, who appear to
have become famous despite their relatively mundane demeanour, means
that other fans are encouraged to experiment and to take an active part
in their associated communities, sometimes being able fostering reciprocal
relationships. This unification is a relatively new way of perceiving both
gamers and celebritization and suggests that gamers are able to manipulate
their own communities in developed and unusual ways.
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GAMEOLOGY
Publication date is first year of availability.
Boardgames and Roleplaying Games (primary authors given where known)

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Basic Role-Playing. 1980. Stafford, Greg, and Willis, Lynne, Chaosium. [RPG].
Blood Bowl. 1987. Johnson, Jervis, Games Workshop. [Minatures].
Castle Falkenstein. 1994. Pondsmith, Mike R., Talsorian Games. [RPG].
Chainmail. 1970. Gygax, Gary, and Jeff Perren, Guidon Games. [RPG].
Call of Cthulhu. 1981. Peterson, Sandy, Chaosium. [RPG].
Dominion. 2008. Vaccarino, Donald, Rio Grande Games. [Cardgame].
Dresden Files, The. 2011. Nittner, Sean, Evil Hat Productions. [RPG].
Dungeons and Dragons. 1974. Arneson, Dave, and Gygax, Gary, (later TSR and
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Elder Sign. 2011. Fantasy Flight Games. [Boardgame].
Empire. 2013. Pennington, Matt, Profound Decisions. [LARP].
Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen (The). 1988. Wallis, James, Mag-
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FATE. 2003. Hicks, Fred, and Donoghue, Rob, Evil Hat Productions. [RPG].
Fools and Heroes. 1985. Bell, Steve, and Naylor, John, [LARP].
Fudge. 1992. O’Sullivan, Steffan, Grey Ghost Press. [RPG].
Gathering, The. 1992. Lorien Trust. [LARP].
GURPS. 1986. Steve Jackson Games. [RPG].
Labyrinthe. 1985. Garner, Pete, [LARP].
Lady Blackbird. 2009. Harper, John, One Seven Design. [RPG].
Magic, the Gathering. 1993. Wizards of the Coast (TSR). [Collectable Card Game].
Mansions of Madness. 2011. Konieczka, Corey, Fantasy Flight Games. [Boardgame].
Metagame. 2009. Zimmerman, Eric, Local No. 12. [Cardgame].
Pathfinder. 2009. Bulmahn, Jason, Paizo Publishing. [RPG].
Renewal. 1996. Curious Pastimes. [LARP].
Scrabble. 1938. Butts, Alfred Mosher, Hasbro. [Boardgame].
Settlers of Catan. 1995. Teuber, Klaus, Kosmos. [Boardgame].
Spy. 2013. Wasteland-uk. [LARP].
Talisman. 1983. Harris, Robert, Games Workshop. [Boardgame].
Treasure Trap. 1982. Donaldson, Rob, and Garner, Pete, [LARP].
Trinity. 1997. White Wolf Game Studio. [RPG].
Vampire, The Masquerade. 1991. Rein-Hagen, Mark, White Wolf Publishing. [RPG].
Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay. 1986. Games Workshop, later Fantasy Flight Games.
[RPG].
Wasteland. 2009. Wasteland-uk. [LARP].
Yu-Gi-Oh! 1999. Konami. [Collectable Card Game].
DIGITAL GAMES
Adventure. Crowther, Will, 1975. [Amiga].

Age of Conan: Hyborian Tales. 2008. Funcom. [Online].
Amateur Surgeon: Theme Hospital. 2012. MediaTonic. [Facebook].
Amnesia: The Dark Descent. 2010. Frictional Games. [Multiplatform].
Baldur’s Gate—Enhanced Edition. 2012. Overhaul Games. [PC].
Bastion. 2011. Supergiant. [Multiplatform].
Bejewelled. 2007. Popcap Games Framework. [Multiplatform].
186 Bibliography
Beyond: Two Souls. 2013. Quantic Dream. [PS3].
The Binding of Isaac. 2011. McMillen, Edmund, and Himsl, Florian. [Steam].
Blocks That Matter. 2011. Swing Swing Submarine. [Steam].
Braid. 2008. Blow, Jonathan, Number None Inc. [Multiplatform].
B.U.T.T.O.N. 2010. Wilson, Douglas, Copenhagen Game Collective. [Multiplatform].
Café World. 2009. Zynga. [Facebook].
Call of Duty. 2003. Infinity Ward. [Multiplatform, Online].
Candy Crush Saga. 2012. King. [Facebook and IoS].
Castle Age. 2010. [Facebook].
City of Heroes. 2004. Paragon Studios / Cryptic Studios. [Online].
Civilisation V. 2010. Firaxis. [Multiplatform, Online].
Club Penguin. 2005. New Horizon Interactive / Disney. [Online].
Cobalt. 2013. Oxeye Games. [PC].
Cow Clicker. 2010. Bogost, Ian, [Facebook, Online].
Cthuhlu Saves the World. 2010. Zeyboyd Games. [PC].
Day of the Tentacle. 1993. Schafer, Tim, LucasArts. [Multiplatform].
Dear Esther. 2012. Pinchbeck, Dan, The Chinese Room. [PC—Steam only].
Defence of the Ancients (DotA). 2003. Eul, Feak, IceFrog. [Online].
Diablo. 1996. Blizzard Entertainment. [PC].
Diablo III. 2012. Blizzard Entertainment. [Multiplatform, Online].
Diner Dash. 2004. Playfirst Games. [Multiplatform].
Dota 2. 2013. IceFrog. Valve Entertainment. [Steam, Online].
Draw Something. 2012. OMGPOP. [Android].
Dream Heights. 2012. Zynga. [Android].
Dungeon Keeper. 1997. Bullfrog Productions. [Multiplatform].
Dungeons of Dredmor. 2011. Gaslamp Games. [Steam, PC].
Dustforce. 2012. Hitbox Team. [Steam].
Dwarf Fortress. 2006. Bay 12 Games. [PC].
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. 2011. Bethesda Softworks. [Multiplatform].
EVE Online. 2003. CCP Games. [Online].
Everquest. 1999. Sony Online Entertainment [Online].
Fable III. 2011. Lionhead Studios. [Multiplatform].
Fallen London. 2009. Kennedy, Alexis, Failbetter Games. [Online].
FarmVille. 2009. Zynga. [Facebook].
Fate of the World. 2011. Red Redemption. [PC].
Free Realms. 2009. Sony Online Entertainment [Online].
Frozen Synapse. 2011. Mode 7 Games. [PC and Android].
FIFA. 1993. Electronic Arts. [Console].
Game Dev Story. 2010. Kairosoft. [Android].
Gauntlet. 1985. Logg, Ed. Atari Games. [Atari].
Grim Fandango. 1998. Schafer, Time. LucasArts. [PC, Amiga].
Guild Wars 2. 2012. ArenaNet. [Online].
Habbo Hotel. 2000. Sulake Corp. [Online].
Half Life 2. 2004. Valve Corporation. [Online—Steam only].
Haven. 2010. Clipwire Games. [Facebook].
Hearthstone. 2013. Blizzard Entertainment. [Online].
Infiniminer. 2009. Zachtronics Industries. [PC].
Johan Sebastian Joust. 2011. Copenhagen Game Collective / Die Gute Fabrik, [PS3].
Journey. 2012. Thatgamecompany. [PS3].
Last of Us (The). 2013. Naughty Dog. [PS3].
League of Legends. 2009. Riot Games. [Online].
Left 4 Dead 2. 2009. Valve Corporation. [Online—Steam only].
Limbo. 2010. Playdead. [Multiplatform].
Little Big Planet. 2008. Media Molecule. [Multiplatform, Online].
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Lord of the Rings: Online. 2007. Turbine Inc. [Online].
Madden NFL. 1998. Electronic Arts. [Console].
Magicka. 2011. Paradox Interactive. [Online—Steam only].
Mafia Wars. 2009. Zynga. [Facebook].
Maple Story. 2003. Witzet. [Online].
Mass Effect 3. 2012. BioWare. [Multiplatform].
Minecraft. 2010. Mojang Specifications [Online].
Modern Warfare 2. 2009. Infinity Ward. [Multiplatform]. (also known as Call of
Duty: Modern Warfare 2).
Myst. 1993. Midway Games. [Multiplatform].
Neptune’s Pride. 2010. Iron Helmet Games. [Online].
Orcs Must Die! 2011. Robot Entertainment. [PC—Steam only].
Papers Please! 2013. Pope, Lucas. [PC, OS X].
Pocket Train. 2013. NimbleBit. [Android].
Portal 2. 2011. Valve Corporation. [Online, Steam].
Puzzles and Dragons. 2013. GungHo Online Entertainment. [Android].
Puzzle Pirates. (also known as Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates). 2003. Three Rings Design.
[Online].
Red Dead Redemption. 2010. Rockstar Games. [Multiplatform].
Redshirt. 2013. Khandaker, Mitu. The Tinest Shark. [PC].
Robot Unicorn Attack—Evolution. 2012. Adult Swim. [Browser].
Runescape. 2001. Jagex Games Studio [Online].
Saints Row IV. 2013. Deep Silver. [Multiplatform].
Scrolls. 2013. Mojang. [Online].
Second Life. 2003. Linden Labs. [Online].
Sequence. 2011. Iridum Studios. [Steam].
Sexy Island Adventure. 2013. Blocks and Big Robots. [X-Box Live Arcade].
SilkRoad Online. 2006. Joymax. Co. [Online].
The Sims. 2000. Maxis [Multiplatform].
Space Invaders. 1978. Taito Corporation. [Arcade].
Starcraft. 1998. Blizzard Entertainment. [Online].
Starcraft 2. 2010. Blizzard Entertainment. [Online].
Star Wars: The Old Republic. 2011. EA/Bioware. [Online].
Super Street Fighter IV. 2010. Capcom. [Multiplatform].
Swords and Sworcery. 2011. Superbrothers and Capybara Games. [Andriod].
Syndicate. 1993. Bullfrog Productions. [Multiplatform].
A Tale in the Desert. 2003. eGenesis. [Online].
Team Fortress 2. Valve Corporation. [Online—Steam only].
Terraria. 2011. Re-Logic. [Multiplatform].
Tetris. 1984. Pajitnov, Alexey. [Multiplatform].
There. 2003. Makena Technologies. [Online].
Tiny Tower. 2012. Nimblebit. [Android].
Tomb Raider. 1996. Eidos Interactive. [Playstation 1].
Torchlight II. 2012. Runic Games. [PC, Online].
To the Moon. 2012. Gao, Kan. Freebird Games. [PC].
Trauma. 2011. Majewski, Krystian. [PC].
Treasure Island. 2010. Zynga. [Facebook].
UFO—Enemy Unknown. 1994. Mythos Games. [Amiga].
Ultima. 1981. Garriott, Richard. Origin Systems. [PC, Online].
Uru: Ages Beyond Myst. 2003. Ubisoft. [Multiplatform, Online].
Wizard 101. 2008. KingsIsle Entertainment. [Online].
Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos. 2002. Blizzard Entertainment. [PC].
Wasteland 2. (forthcoming). inExile Entertainment. [PC].
World of Warcraft. 2004. Blizzard Entertainment [Online].
188 Bibliography
World of Warcraft, Cataclysm. 2010.
World of Warcraft, Mists of Pandaria. 2012.
Yo!Ville. 2008. Zynga. [Facebook].
Zombies, Run! 2011. Alderton, Naomi, Six to Start. [Android].
WEBSITES
4Chan. www.4chan.org/
Classic Gaming. http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/
Classic Games Arcade. www.classicgamesarcade.com/
CoolRom. www.coolrom.com/
DigiBarn. www.digibarn.com/
EmulatorZone. www.emulator-zone.com/
Extra Credits. http://extra-credits.net/
Gamasutra. www.gamasutra.com/
Machinima.com. www.machinima.com/
Minecraftforum. www.minecraftforum.net/
Minecraftwiki. http://minecraft.gamepedia.com/Minecraft_Wiki
Pinterest. https://www.pinterest.com/
Ravelry. https://www.ravelry.com/
Reddit. www.reddit.com
Ludology Subreddit. www.reddit.com/r/ludology
Minecraft Subreddit. www.reddit.com/r/Minecraft
Yogscast Subreddit. htttp://www.reddit.com/r/yogscast
Slayage, The Journal of the Whedon Studies Association. http://slayageonline.com/
TheGameConsole.com. www.thegameconsole.com/
Video Game Museum. www.vgmuseum.com/
WilWheaton.net. 2001–present. https://wilwheaton.net/
Whoosh! 1996–2009. http://Whoosh.org
PODCASTS AND WEBCASTS
Acquisitions Inc. 2011–present. www.wizards.com/dnd/podcasts.aspx

Cane and Rinse. 2011–present. http://caneandrinse.com/
Extra Credits. 2011–present. http://extra-credits.net/podcasts/
Gamerdork. 2009–2011 and 2011–present. http://gamerdork.net/
Geek and Sundry. 2011-present. www.geekandsundry.com/
The Guild. 2007–present. www.watchtheguild.com/.
IGN Podcast. 2008–present. http://uk.ign.com/articles?tags=podcast
Nordrassil Radio. 2010–present. www.nordrassilradio.com/
Retrogaming Roundup. 2009–2012. www.retrogamingroundup.com/archive.htm
PressHeartToContinue. 2010–present. www.youtube.com/user/PressHeartToContinue/
RetroGamingRoundup. 2009–present. www.retrogamingroundup.com/archive.htm
Tabletop. 2011–present. http://tabletop.geekandsundry.com/
Tankspot. 2008–present. www.tankspot.com/
The Most Popular Girls on the Internet. (Korgard, Cassandra, and Nelson, Tara)
2010–present. http://tmpgoti.com/
The Most Popular Girls on the Internet. Episode 108: Pretty Jedis Don’t Play Video
Games. 17 May 2011.
The YoGPoD. 2008–2012. Brindley, Lewis and Lane, Simon. (iTunes)
The YoGPoD. (2009a). Episode 14: Xephos’ War Stories. 5 August 2009.
The YoGPoD. (2009b). Episode 10. Hanging to the Left. 1 June 2009.
Bibliography 189
The Yogscast. 2008–present. (Brindley, Lewis, and Lane, Simon unless otherwise men-
tioned) www.youtube.com/user/BlueXephos.
The Yogscast. 2010a. ‘Minecraft—Part 17: Yogscastle Construction Interrupted’.
18 December. www.youtube.com/watch?v=tchKUw1PA1A.
The Yogscast. 2010b. ‘Minecraft—Part 6: The Mysterious Tree’. 7 December. www.
youtube.com/watch?v=AvrNUFoBl9U.
The Yogscast. 2010c. ‘Minecraft—Part 11: Going Underground’. 12 December.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=gJGYmOF_gR8.
The Yogscast. 2011a. ‘Minecraft – PAX 2011 – Yogscast Teleconference Panel Part 1’.
(SOI behind the Scenes). (Brindley, Lane and MacCallum-Stewart). 5 September.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXB00OkNHEQ.
The Yogscast. 2011b.‘Minecraft – PAX 2011 – Yogscast Teleconference Panel Part 2’.
(SOI behind the Scenes). (Brindley, Lane and MacCallum-Stewart). 5 September.
The Yogscast. 2011c.‘Minecraft—“Shadow of Israphel” Part 11: The Crumbling
Ruin’. 10 February. www.youtube.com/watch?v=80GSvackaxk.
The Yogscast. 2011d. ‘Minecraft—“Shadow of Israphel” Part 28: Fire and Ice’.
16 July. www.youtube.com/watch?v=DdS_-XBMsbw.
The Yogscast. 2011e. ‘Yogscast—Fable 3: Co-op Part 6’. 25 May. www.youtube.
com/watch?v=w4wdpII_aG8.
The Yogscast. 2013. ‘YogsQuest Episode 1: Adventurers Assemble [Geek Week]’.
3 August. www.youtube.com/watch?v=nt_NXdWaDcA.
The Yogscast. 2007–present. ‘TotalBiscuit, the Cynical Brit’. www.youtube.com/
user/TotalHalibut. (Bain, John unless otherwise stated)
The Yogscast. 2010. ‘Amnesia : The Dark Descent—Halloween Special—Part 1’.
30 October. www.youtube.com/watch?v=snnB8C5sDkY.
The Yogscast. 2011a. ‘The Yogscast and TotalBiscuit ruin Trine 2’—Part 1. (Bain,
Brindley and Lane). 9 December. www.youtube.com/watch?v=zUYe49V4144.
The Yogscast. 2011b. ‘WTF Is . . . : WTF Is . . .—Portal 2 (WTF Am I Doing Edi-
tion)’. 19 April.
Twitch Asylum. 2006–2008. www.twitchasylum.com.
Index
AAA Games 11, 50, 70–1, 113–17, Conway, S. 21, 39, 81

119–22, 125, 128, 130–5, 150 Crawford, G. 33, 90–3, 109
Aarseth, E. 19, 81
achievements 45, 53–4, 151, 153–4 deviant play 81–2, 87, 105, 140–3, 165
Adams, E. 151, 165 Dark Dungeons 32
agency: of fans 90; of players 29, 42, DiGRA (Digital Games Research
50; illusory 81, 159 Association) 20, 110
agile 3, 127, 133–4, 139 Dungeons & Dragons 5–7, 16, 22–5,
Astley, R. 81 28, 30–3
A Tale in the Desert 10, 114–15 Duncan, S. 63
Dyer-Witheford, N. and de Peuter, G.
Bain, J. see TotalBiscuit 13–14, 38, 55, 132
Bartle, R. 45–6
beta-testing 3, 11, 51, 70, 76, 82, elite fans 50, 55, 60, 85, 88, 92,
98–100, 129, 134, 138, 142–3, 102–110.
151–82 emergent play 5, 7–8, 15, 39, 48–55,
Big Name Fans 85, 92, 102–10 59, 69, 120, 165
bleed 9, 28, 90–2, 132, 141 Enevold, J. 151, 154
blogging 61–3, 88–90, 98 Ensslin, A. 81
bloggers 8, 88–90 esoteric groups 41–2, 112, 126, 130,
BNF see Big Name Fans 134, 142–5, 148
Bowman, S. L. 21, 32 exoteric groups 39, 41–2, 50, 112, 127,
Brown, A. 26, 32, 101, 151 136, 144
Brown, N. 80, 116, 146–7
boardgames 11, 18, 25–6, 33–4, 56 Facebook 1–3, 6, 10, 18, 65, 93, 95,
Bogost, I. 13–14, 101, 153, 157–8, 108, 116, 121, 140, 144,
Blizzard Entertainment 11, 70–1, 108, 149–58, 166–9
150 Fan Studies 17–18, 50, 74, 86–93
Brindley, Lewis 1, 18, 30–1, 36, 57, 63, Fan-producer: as active agent in
65–9, 74–82, 96–7, 103–9 games 3, 15–17, 34–5, 50, 55,
60, 110 defined; 86, 90–8,
Caillois, R. 20, 47 and transformative play: 51,
cardgames 11, 25–26, 33, 162 99–102; as celebrities 102–6;
cheating 12, 101 relationship with other fans;
Club Penguin 152, 162–3, 165 106–10; importance to indie
conventions see also PAX 5, 11, 26, 71, games 112–14; as disruptive
74, 88, 101, 145 142–8
Cow Clicker 153, 157 Farmville 1, 150–1, 157–9
192 Index
Fine, G. 26, 32–3 133, 137–8; definitions 17, 113,
Fleck, L. 41–3, 52, 55, 112 117; development (process)
frame analysis 30, 32, 81, 86, 91 161; as ethos 124–8, 140, 148;
freemium 150–3, 156–8, 167 marketing 128–31, 130–40; as
Free Realms 4, 152, 162, 164 moniker 120–4, 147; movement
free-to-play see also freemium 5, 10, 131–3
17, 149–50, 161–8 Israphel see Shadow of Israphel
gamer: as audience 17, 83–4; behavior Jenkins, H. 60, 67, 87–90, 94–5
exterior to game 15, 58, 81, 91, Jenkins, L. 36, 50
93, 124, 126, 169; celebritized
4, 57; as a collective group 3, Kerr, A. 24, 133, 149
8, 14, 18, 81, 109, 126, 159; Kickstarter 8, 114–5, 123, 127, 129–30,
communities 7, 12, 42–4, 109; 140
conflict 8, 14; definition 4–7, Kozinets, R. 13, 44–6, 63
11, 56; demographic 4–7, 16, Krzywinska, T 14, 100
20, 120, 151; as early adopters Kuchera, B. 26
18, 20, 135, 138, 149; fans 3,
12, 15, 49–51, 85, 90–3, 102; Lane, S. 1, 6, 30–1, 57, 66–70, 75,
as performers 59, 93, 169; 79–83, 96–7, 103–9
as player 8–9, 99, 149, 169; Lamerichs, N. 49–50
perception of 12, 16, 78, 87, LARP (Live Action Roleplay) 16, 21,
89, 151–2; as producers see fan- 26–31, 34, 36, 56; Nordic LARP
producers 28–9
Gamerdork 63, 65–6, 72–3, 75–8, 80, Lastowka, 131–2, 135, 138
106 League of Legends 11
games jams 116, 119–20, 123, 130 Lewis, L. 86, 141
Gauntlett, D. 58, 85, 94, 96–100, 110, Live Action Roleplay see LARP
140 Lovacs, Chris see Sips 70
games culture 1–4, 6, 16–18, 21–2, ludology 20, 101
26–31, 34, 53, 64, 84, 89–93,
102, 112, 110, 115, 126 MacCallum-Stewart, E. 12, 29, 31, 33,
Gee, J. P. 33 89, 93, 131, 141
geek culture 22, 31, 35, 44–6, 64, machinima 15, 21, 49–50, 57, 70, 89,
74, 87 95, 97, 100–1
Goffman, 32, 89 Mackay, G. 17, 26, 32–3
Grouling Cover, J. 32 Melucci, A. 43–6, 112, 127–9
guilds, 3–4, 6, 14, 38, 42, 47, 53–5, micro-transactions 2, 121, 150, 153,
66–7, 95, 132, 141–2, 156 158, 162
Minecon 144–7
Habbo Hotel 152, 162–3 Minecraft: beta phase 2, 68, 97, 160;
Hellekson, K. and Busse, K. 86–8, 91–2 cloning 122; community 40–1,
Hills, M. 51, 60, 82, 85–9, 91–3, 50, 56, 91, 137–8, 144–6;
100–105 development 2, 133–5; and
Holmes E. 26, 32 fan production 95–97, 109,
Huizinga, J. 20 132, 138; influence 1, 21, 110,
humble bundle 17, 40, 115, 124–5, 130 114–5; as Indie game 3, 17,
132–3; marketing 138–9, 160;
Indie developers 2, 109, 114–5 modding 3, 50, 99; narrative
Indie games 2, 76, 82, 112–13 69, 80–1, 95, 138; playing
Indie gamers 37, 68, 112, 144–5 7, 135–8; roleplaying in 16,
Indie: as art 117–120; comparison with 135; relationship with players
AAA 113–6; community 10, 3, 50, 91, 135, 142–7; use by
38–40, 56, 112, 125–7, 130, webcasters 63, 95; and The
Index 193
Yogscast 3, 58, 68–9, 80–1, 95, Salen, K. & Zimmerman, E. 8, 20, 99
99, 102, 144, 146–7 Sandvoss, C. 86, 89
MMORPG 5, 9–10, 12–14, 17–18, 38, Sarkeesian, A. 8, 140, 164
42, 45, 47, 106, 142 Science and Technology Studies (STS)
MoBA 10–12, 14, 18, 39, 165 52, 149
modding 3, 50, 99 Second Life 53, 132, 137,
Mojang Specifications 2–3, 50, 114, Shadow of Israphel 30, 68–9, 80–1,
125, 131–4, 138–9, 143–7, 151 105, 108, 124
Montola, M 9, 21, 28–9, Shirky, C. 7, 60, 63, 95–100, 110, 140
moral panics 19, 32, 38, 152 Sips 70
Mortensen, T. 47, 154 Stark, L. 28–30
Most Popular Girls on the Internet, The Steam 2, 10, 13, 17, 56, 114–7, 120,
65–6, 74–8, 81, 106 122–4, 128, 130, 149, 160,
Stenros, J. 21, 29
Nordic LARP 28–9 storytelling 14, 28–31, 69, 79–80,
Notch see Persson, M. 93–4, 101, 109–10, 114, 157
STS see Science and Technology Studies
online communities see also Sturrock, I. 25
communities; defining 37–41 Sturrock, K. 96
online gamer see gamer
Tabletop (series) 102
Papers Please 115 tabletop roleplaying games 7, 21–26,
participatory culture 89–92, 166 30
PAX 12, 30–1, 61, 65, 106, 120, 145 Taylor, T. L. 11, 21, 33, 38, 101
Pearce, C. 33, 52–3, 59, 151 Tetris 20
Persson, M. 1–4, 114, 125, 133–6, Thornham, H. 32–3, 46–7, 91, 109
138–9, 142–8 thought communities 41–2, 55
Peterson, J. 22, 24 TMPGOTI (see Most Popular Girls on
player identity 16, 38–9, 43–4, 86, the Internet, The)
89–93, 127, 152, 167 Tomb Raider 20, 83
player type 45–7, 49 TotalBiscuit 51, 57, 64–67, 70–2,
podcasts 13, 15, 19, 35, 40, 57–8, 79–85, 105–8
60–7, 70–9, 82–4, 103 transmedia 7, 34–5, 61, 85–6, 90,
podcasting 57–8, 61–4, 70, 82, 84, 90, 92–95, 99–104, 108–11, 127,
104–8 138, 157
Tresca, M. 24, 32
quiet roleplay 93 Turkle, S. 8, 17, 19, 127
Twitter 65–6, 95, 97, 106–7, 139, 140,
Reddit 7, 10, 37, 40–2, 58, 97, 106, 143–4, 146, 164
108, 124–8, 139–40, 145–7,
168 Valve 2, 11, 17, 56, 75, 115, 122, 150
Reingold, H. 39, 44, 52 von Hippel, E. 54–5, 112
rhythm design 153–4,
roleplaying 7, 14–16, 21, 26, 30–33 webcasters and content 30, 35, 37,
roleplayers 31–33 77, 80; as celebrities 50, 60;
roleplaying games 7, 16, 34; tabletop definition 57, 63–4, 84; ethos
21–6, 30–1, 34; live action 37, 84; as fan-producers 3, 60,
roleplay see also LARP 16, 21 84; as innovators 55, 77, 80,
26–31, 34, 36, 56; Nordic LARP 169; harassment of 140, 146
28–9 webcasts 1, 3, 15, 65, 84, 182; content
Runescape 10, 152, 161–4 66–9, 71–2, 77, 83, 139; history
rules 9, 12, 23–5, 28–9, 126; social 12, 18, 61–4, 76, 78, 182; and
97–8, 140–2, 144 machinima 89, 95, 97, 101;
Rutherford, H. 3, 68, 70 narratives 60, 80, 82, 84, 94,
194 Index
101; structure 60, 65, 70, 76, fans 6, 16, 30, 60, 104; as fan-
97; as transmedia 84, 95, 101, producers 40, 50–1, 60, 102–6,
110, 182 109, 124; group structure 74–5,
Wilbur, S. 37, 39–40, 48 97, 106–8, 111; history of 1,
Wilson, D. 120 3–4, 66–70; metrics 18, 58, 76,
World of Warcraft 4, 7, 9–10, 18, 20, 82, 124; modes of production
33, 48–50, 66–68, 70, 102, 67–70, 81, 95; webcasting 51,
141–2, 156 63–4, 72, 79, 139
YogsQuest 30–1
Yee, N. 45–6 YouTube 1, 3, 7, 18, 35, 40, 57–8,
YoGPoD 30, 63, 66, 72, 76, 79, 103, 61–64, 66–7, 72, 76–7, 85, 95,
108 98–9, 102, 104, 106, 108–10,
Yogscast celebritization 80, 85, 109, 146, 164
146–8; community 57, 95, 103,
106, 146; and fans 73, 94, 96–7, Zimmerman, E. 8, 114
103, 105–6, 108–10, 111; as Zynga 1–3, 116, 150–5, 157–9, 166

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Online Games, Social Narratives

The study of online gaming is changing. It is no longer enough to analyze

Esther MacCallum-Stewart is Research Fellow at the Digital Cultures

1 Cyberpop 8 Creating Second Lives

5 Gaming Cultures and Place 12 Mobile Media Practices,

Introduction: ‘Give Honeydew 46 /1’ 1

1 A Brief History of Online Gaming—or Not 19

2 ‘Did He Just Run in There?’: Defining Gaming Communities

3 ‘Digging a Hole’: Reframing Game Narratives

4 ‘Someone a Fan Made’: Gaming Fan Communities

5 One More Block: The Essentials of Indie Gaming 112

6 Indie Grows Up: A Man Called Steve 131

7 Always in Beta: Strategizing Gaming Communities 149

Coda: Final Thoughts 168

3.1 The Yogscast, 2013 64

INTRODUCING THE GAMER

Online gaming is a gateway to a hugely diverse community. Millions of peo-

1. Blatant escapism (from problems: emotional, marital, societal-

The list continues to a tenth point, ‘Regress to childhood / relive childhood’,

ONLINE GAMES AS PLAYFUL EXPERIENCES

GETTING TO KNOW YOU?

PLAYERS VERSUS GAMES?

In this book, I present online communities as rich texts in themselves. I argue

NAME THE QUEST: THE INFLUENCE OF TABLETOP

It seemed to me that [Nick Perretta, the player being interviewed] had

Gilsdorf’s discussion with Perretta, despite good intentions, contextual-

Although it is undoubtedly a niche hobby, LARP has an important

ACQUISITIONS INC. TABLETOP AND LARPING

The amalgamation of these complimentary activities is apparent throughout

ROLEPLAYING THE WORLD

The contemporaneous development of other roleplaying forms is important

In this chapter, I provided an overview of roleplaying games, LARP and the

THEORIZING ONLINE COMMUNITIES

It is apparent even from a cursory look at the groups in this book—webcasters,

Ironically, moral panics which portray games in a negative context go

THOUGHT COLLECTIVES AND

The general structure of a thought collective consists of both a small

Contemporary ‘movements’ assume the form of solidarity networks

A set of social practises (i) involving simultaneously a number of indi-

Only a society that is able to accommodate the thrust of the movements

Since this diversity is understood to be a part of the social ordering of

THE MYTHOLOGY OF PLAYER TYPE

In Netnography, Kozinets outlines a system of classifying communities on

GAMING COMMUNITIES AS EMERGENT PLAY/PLAYERS

Play can be viewed as a particular type of engine for emergence by

Emergent play is increasingly seen as a vital part of gaming community

Pearce believes that productivity is a key element of sustaining a gaming

Innovative or emergent communities are a useful way to examine online

OUTLINE OF CASE STUDIES AND

Virtual community is already a phrase in common parlance, and as a result,

PODCASTING—DEVELOPMENT AND EVOLUTION

Podcasting is defined as ‘a digital audio or video file that is episodic; down-

We will not go back to genuflecting to all these one-way top-down ways

Hammersley describes podcasting as an ‘obvious’ step forwards from text

Figure 3.1 The Yogscast, 2013

A mixed-method approach was taken, including the following techniques:

To us that was quite funny because when people go onto YouTube,

However, misleading or not, this type of commentary proved extremely

. . . things were getting a bit boring. With a Minecraft walkthrough it