ROM Hacks and Modding in the Age of User- Generated Content

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Hugelmann Christopher
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

 

“We Don’t Sell Blocks” Exploring Minecraft’s Commissioning Market

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Koutsouras Panagiotis Martindale Sarah Crabtree Andy
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

In recent years, we have experienced the proliferation of videogames that have, as their main mode of play, the creation of in-game content. Even though existing literature has looked into various characteristics of these games, one of their aspects that warrants further exploration is the monetisation practices that can emerge in their context. Through our ongoing ethnographic study, we became aware of a vivid commissioning market in Minecraft’s creative community. Our findings point out the 3 main actors that constitute this market: the clients, who own Minecraft servers; the contractors, who handle the clients’ orders of Minecraft maps; and the builders, who are responsible for the creation of said maps. Furthermore, our work has revealed that the commodity at play is not the in-game content, as one would expect, but the service of creating this content. These findings suggest that commissioning in Minecraft – a well-organised process, initiated and sustained solely by the members of the game’s community – plays a crucial role in the game’s current structure. Moreover, they challenge the belief that content generation in gaming settings is free-labour that is exploited by the developers of those games.

 

The Social Dimension of Collective Storytelling in Skyrim

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Puente Héctor Tosca Susana
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

This paper examines the social dimension of collective storytelling around a par-ticular ludic object. We study the action role-playing game Skyrim (2011) through a mixed methodology that integrates the humanities and the social sciences. Based on extensive analysis of player generated videos, we demonstrate that the social dimension plays an all-important role in the shaping of storytelling by the Skyrim fan community. Finally, we conceptualize this social dimension in terms of com-munities of practice.

 

The Early Micro User: Games writing, hardware hacking, and the will to mod

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Swalwell Melanie
2012 DiGRA Nordic '12: Proceedings of 2012 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

Historical perspectives are largely absent from contemporary debates about user-making. In this paper, I approach the question of user and player making, historically. I consider what microcomputer users and players did in the 1980s, when digital games first became available to play. Excavating the practices of early users through historical research into game coding, hardware building and hacking places not only places practices such as game modification into a longer arc of cultural history of user activity. Exploring what early users did with computers also provides new perspectives on contemporary debates about users’ productivity. The high degree of interest that contemporary users’ productivity is generating in academic circles provides a wider context for such inquiries.

 

Doing It Themselves! A Mixed-Method Study into the Motivations of Players to ‘Create’ in the Context of Gaming

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Van Den Bosch Frederik Ribbens Wannes Van Looy Jan
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

The idea of digital games being a space for creativity is as old as the medium itself (Sotamaa, 2003). Not only can the interaction of players within the virtual world of a digital game be seen as an act of creation (Juul, 2005), the digital nature of those worlds is often perceived as an invitation for alteration and modification (Jansz & Theodorsen, 2009). Player creation manifests itself on multiple levels: players can create their own rules (Myers, 2008), adjust the look of game characters (Ducheneaut, Wen, Yee, & Wadley, 2009), and build new objects or construct new virtual environments (Postigo, 2007). In this paper we explore how user-generated content in digital games can be conceived within the conventional knowledge of player motivations and uses. In this study we focus on players of two particular games: Spore (PC, Mac) and LittleBigPlanet (PS3). Both titles have consistently been promoted as creative game experiences and have introduced several popular user-generated content principles into mainstream gaming. By consequence, we can ask ourselves if and how these new game mechanics have an impact on players’ uses and gratifications. Our data has been collected through a multi-method approach, combining in-depth interviews (N = 8) and an online survey (N = 97). As such, both qualitative and quantitative research was carried out to examine the motivations to play games which allow for the creation and the exchange of game content. In our in-depth interviews, respondents indicate playing almost all game genres and multiple motivations are put forward. The possibility to create is mentioned by all interviewees, but not always in the same manner. Some are involved in the actual production of user-generated content. Their main motivation for purchasing the game is to create new game content. Playing the content created by the developers is merely a way of becoming inspired and unlocking new build options. Others appreciate the create option for its direct effect on the available content. These players enjoy the contributions of more creative players, but are not interested in building new content themselves. Three main reasons are provided for not using the level-editor: a lack of spare time, the degree of effort it requires and the perceived pressure to produce high quality content. This last threshold touches upon a social and utilitarian dimension of creativity. Participants automatically compare their own creative potential to the quality of available user-generated content. Building new levels needs to be justified in the ecology of existing user-created material; it needs to add a worthwhile new game experience. Likewise, interviewees using the level-editor mention the importance of user-input in the course of the design process. Building user-generated content is perceived as a challenge which needs to be on par with an implicit, socially constructed standard. This threshold for succeeding results from the quality level of other user-created content and/or the feedback from other players. In the online survey, motivations to play “creative games” are measured using an extended version of the uses and gratifications scale developed by Sherry & Lucas (Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, & Lachlan, 2006). The twenty items measuring motivations for Fantasy (α = .78), Arousal (α =.67), Competition (α = .58), Challenge (α = .73), Diversion (α = .88) and Social Interaction (α = .76) are supplemented by a new Create construct (α = .65) consisting of four items (“I play games because they allow me to create new things”, “Video games stimulate my creativity”, “I sometimes play games with my own rules or I ignore the rules of the game” and “I often seek alternative ways of playing”). Challenge scores highest with a mean of 3.79 (SD = 0.81), followed by Arousal with a mean of 3.43 (SD = 0.72) and Create with a mean of 3.28 (SD = 0.81). In general, all seven motivations score relatively high, which is in line with participants’ high scores on most genre preference questions. This comes as no surprise, as games such as LittleBigPlanet, and to a lesser extent Spore, allow for multiple forms of play. Furthermore, Create correlates with challenge (r = 0.64, p < 0.01) which supports the hypothesis raised during the interviews that creation is challenge-related. Finally, when asked about participants’ past creative game experiences, results reveal a strong orientation towards game creation. In the past, 81% of the participants used a level-editor, 56% built an entire level and 15.5% participated in making a mod. 20.2% even indicated having contributed, at least once, to the development of a game. These last two activities require in most cases specialized knowledge on coding or graphical computing, revealing a strong willingness to create in at least a subset of our sample. In sum, this study shows that the appeal of user-generated content gaming lies in a mixture of traditional gaming motives and the will to create new gaming experiences.