Progress Wars: Idle Games and the Demarcation of “Real” Games

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Deterding Sebastian
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Abstract Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

 

The other game researcher: participating in and watching the costruction of boundaries in game studies

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Copier Marinka
2003 DiGRA '03 - Proceedings of the 2003 DiGRA International Conference: Level Up

Game researchers are busy doing game studies: researching, writing and publishing articles, organizing conferences and creating a curriculum. I will argue that creating a new autonomous discipline such as game studies mainly involves constructing boundaries on different levels. In this article I would like to discuss how we can watch and analyze where and how these boundaries are being constructed, while realizing that I am also participating in this process. I mainly focus on the construction of borders between game studies and other disciplines and the ways in which a line is being drawn between game researchers, game designers and gamers. I will argue that Donna Haraway’s concept of situated knowledge can help us to realize where and how knowledge is being produced. I will claim we have to look into the empirical situation of game research in order to see that we all produce knowledge from a certain (hybrid) position and perspective.

 

An Irrational Black Market? Boundary Work Perspective on the Stigma of in-game Asset Transactions

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Lee Yu-Hao Lin Holin
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This article looks at the negative images on cash trades of in-game assets in Taiwan, through interview of participants in this activity, we believe the blurring of boundaries between work and play, adulthood and adolescence, real and virtual is what distinguishes this market from previous markets of virtual goods, resulting in its social stigma. We then discuss how the participants confront this stigma and the ambiguity in their social status, through performing various strategies of redefining marginality or constructing alternative boundaries, the participants raise their sense of selfhood and also reflect the inadequacy of the present social categories.