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Interactions, delegations and online digital games players in communities of practice

Interactions, delegations and online digital games players in communities of practice
Interactions, delegations and online digital games players in communities of practice
Claims around the blurring of producer and consumer categories and user-creativity are now commonplace in the so called age of Web 2.0. Within digital gaming specifically, efforts to enable players to participate in a cultural economy of user-creativity have become a dominant form of innovation in the industry. Sceptical to some of these broader claims, this paper draws on Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) research and on participant observation study within a MMOG to explore the specificities of ?producers? and ?consumers? in interaction. The adopted ?communities of practice? framework used to underpin the exploration is introduced and the paper suggests the framework helps to reveal how player actions are carefully scripted and enrolled within developer?s aims of embedding ?particular users? (Taylor, 2006). The paper concludes with some methodological observations on researcher and player boundaries and how the ?communities of practice? framework offers a place for the researcher within the ?field?.
participation and communities of practice, online gaming, delegation and responsibility, researcher position
1-24
Ashton, Daniel
b267eae4-7bdb-4fe3-9267-5ebad36e86f7
Ashton, Daniel
b267eae4-7bdb-4fe3-9267-5ebad36e86f7

Ashton, Daniel (2009) Interactions, delegations and online digital games players in communities of practice. Participations: International Journal of Audience Research, 6 (1), 1-24.

Record type: Article

Abstract

Claims around the blurring of producer and consumer categories and user-creativity are now commonplace in the so called age of Web 2.0. Within digital gaming specifically, efforts to enable players to participate in a cultural economy of user-creativity have become a dominant form of innovation in the industry. Sceptical to some of these broader claims, this paper draws on Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) research and on participant observation study within a MMOG to explore the specificities of ?producers? and ?consumers? in interaction. The adopted ?communities of practice? framework used to underpin the exploration is introduced and the paper suggests the framework helps to reveal how player actions are carefully scripted and enrolled within developer?s aims of embedding ?particular users? (Taylor, 2006). The paper concludes with some methodological observations on researcher and player boundaries and how the ?communities of practice? framework offers a place for the researcher within the ?field?.

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More information

Published date: May 2009
Keywords: participation and communities of practice, online gaming, delegation and responsibility, researcher position
Organisations: Winchester School of Art

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 375673
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/375673
PURE UUID: ce5b5520-07cc-42d9-b27f-d52ae0906b59
ORCID for Daniel Ashton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3120-1783

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 23 Jun 2015 10:24
Last modified: 12 Dec 2021 04:08

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