The Rogue and the City: Thieves World and the expanding role of Literature in Tabletop Roleplaying

Algorithmic Play in Georges Perec’s Ludic Narratives

Gaming’s secret public: Nerdcore porn and the in/visible body of the female gamer

Vivian James – The politics of #Gamergate’s Avatar

Postdigital Play and the Aesthetics of Recruitment

This paper analyses reconfigurations of play in newly emergent material and digital configurations of game design. It extends recent work examining dimensions of hybridity in playful products by turning attention to interfaces, practices and spaces, rather than devices. We argue that the concept of hybrid play relies on predefining clear and distinct entities that then enter into hybrid situations. Drawing on concepts of the ‘interface’ and ‘postdigital’, we argue the distribution of computing devices creates difficulties for such presuppositions. Instead, we propose an ‘aesthetic of recruitment’ that is adequate to the new openness of social and technical play.

Piracy in the Caribbean: The Political Stakes of Videogame Piracy in Chávez’s Venezuela

This paper will examine the role of videogames in global participatory culture. In particular it will explore the role of software piracy in enabling participation from groups that would otherwise be excluded from accessing videogames due to economic factors. This suggests that piracy in the context of videogames – especially vis-à-vis their role as proselytizers of participatory culture – can be shifted outside of a criminal regime and into one which is concerned with the ability to participate in a global economy as both a consumer and citizen. This issue will be explored through a case study of the gaming situation in Caracas, Venezuela.