What Videogame Making Can Teach Us About Access and Ethics in Participatory Culture

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Kafai Yasmin B. Burke William Q. Fields Deborah A.
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In “Confronting the Challenges of a Participatory Culture”, Jenkins and colleagues (2006) outlined three challenges in their participatory competencies framework that need to be addressed to prepare youth for full involvement in a digital culture – participation, transparency, and ethics. Expanding upon the framework of our earlier work, in this paper we examine more closely two aspects of Jenkins and colleagues’ challenges – the participation gap and the ethics challenge – as they apply to game-making activities in schools. We report on a four-month ethnographic study documenting youth’s production of video games in both an after school club and classroom setting. The growing use of videogamemaking for learning in schools offers youth the opportunity to no longer simply be consumers but also producers of technology. But as kids learned to contribute as such producers, both participatory and ethical issues arose in the ways they were willing or reluctant to share their own ideas and projects with their peers. Schools’ long-standing focus on individual achievement and traditional notions of plagiarism drew these issues of participation and ethics to the foreground, making them especially relevant considerations given on-going efforts to bring more game playing and making activities into schools.

 

Stealing from Grandma or Generating Cultural Knowledge? Contestations and Effects of Cheats in a Tween Virtual World

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Fields Deborah A. Kafai Yasmin B.
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Much research has described the various practices of gaining access and participation in multi-user game communities. Cheat websites that are a prominent part of the game culture and industry have been debated because of their illegitimate nature but received little attention in terms of their educational value. In this paper we analyze the cheat sites created by players for a tween virtual world called Whyville.net, which encourages youth ages 8-16 to participate in a range of social activities and play casual science games. Analysis of a sample of 257 cheat sites resulted in typologies for both the cheats and sites in terms of quality and quantity of science content. In addition we followed a particularly active cheat site over the course of eight months and investigated formal discussions of the Whyville community concerning cheating. Implications of these findings as cultural artifacts of the game community and as guides for designing informal online learning activities are discussed.#

 

“Blacks Deserve Bodies Too!” Design and Discussion about Diversity and Race in a Tween Online World

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Kafai Yasmin B. Cook Melissa S. Fields Deborah A.
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

In this paper, we investigate racial diversity in avatar design and public discussions about race within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net with more than 1.5 million registered players ages 8-16. One unique feature of Whyville is the players’ ability to customize their avatars with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the racial diversity of available resources for avatar construction and online postings about the role of race in avatar design and social interactions in the community. With the growing interest in player-generated content for online worlds such as Teen Second Life, our discussion will address the role of avatars in teen/tween identity development and self-representation, and the role of virtual entrepreneurs and community activists in increasing the diversity of avatar parts available.

 

Transgressive Gender Play: Profiles and Portraits of Girl Players in a Tween Virtual World

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Kafai Yasmin B. Fields Deborah A. Giang Michael T.
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Little is known about how girl players navigate through virtual worlds, negotiate their identity, and challenge cultural norms and practices. We investigated over 500 players in a science-themed tween virtual world called Whyville.net with girls being the majority (68%) of its 1.5 million registered players. Using logfile data collected over a six-month long period, we identified three distinct groups: core gamers (7% of all players), semi-core gamers (34% of players), and peripheral gamers (59% of players). We found that all groups participated in common practices but that core players also participated in non-traditional, transgressive practices. These included private flirting with other players and aggressive scamming of others for personal profit as well as public denials of such activities because they violated gender and social norms. Often hidden, these facets of girls’ play indicate the value of virtual worlds as digital publics that offer youth opportunities to engage in identity exploration and border crossing.

 

Your Second Selves: Resources, Agency, and Constraints in Avatar Designs and Identity Play in a Tween Virtual World

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Kafai Yasmin B. Fields Deborah A. Cook Melissa S.
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Avatars in online games and worlds are seen as players’ key representations in interactions with others. It is surprising then that this aspect of game play has not received much attention in research, in particular what concerns playergenerated avatars. In this paper, we investigate the avatar design and identity play within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net with more than 1.5 million registered players ages 8-16. One unique feature of Whyville is the player’s ability to customize one’s avatar with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the expressive resources available for avatar construction, individual tween players’ choices and rationales in creating their avatars, and online postings about avatar design in the community at large. With the growing interest in playergenerated content for online worlds such as Second Life, our discussion will address the role of avatars in identity play and self-representation as well as the social issues that arise within the game world.