Play Between Worlds: Exploring Online Game Culture (Hardcover)

Description

In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps--as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces.

Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)--including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online-and offline life--and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play--and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space--what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.

T. L. Taylor is Associate Professor in the Department of Digital Aesthetics and Communication at the IT University of Copenhagen.

 

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments vii
 
1 Finding New Worlds 1
 
2 Gaming Lifeworlds: Social Play in Persistent Environments 21
 
3 Beyond Fun: Instrumental Play and Power Gamers 67
 
4 Where the Women Are 93
 
5 Whose Game Is This Anyway? 125
 
6 The Future of Persistent Worlds and Critical Game Studies 151
 
 Glossary 163
 
 Notes 165
 
 References 177
 
 Index 193
 
 

《在世界之間遊玩》是T. L. Taylor的著作，她在書中探討了多人遊戲生活在邊界和空白中的情況，玩家在線上和線下的社交網絡中穿梭。Taylor質疑了普遍的觀點，即玩電腦遊戲是一種孤立和疏離的活動，只有孤獨的十幾歲男孩才會參與。她指出，大型多人在線遊戲（MMOGs）實際上是為了社交而設計的。她認為，像流行的《Everquest》這樣的遊戲本質上是社交空間。

Taylor對《Everquest》進行了詳細的研究，提供了多人遊戲文化的一個快照。她根據自己作為一個《Everquest》玩家（一個女性Gnome Necromancer）的經驗，包括她參加《Everquest》Fan Faire的經歷（其中線上和線下生活交織在一起），以及廣泛的研究，Taylor不僅向我們展示了遊戲的一些特點，還提出了更廣泛的文化問題。她考慮了“強勢玩家”，他們以一種更接近工作的方式進行遊戲，並探討了我們對遊戲的基本觀念以及為什麼遊戲有時會感覺像工作，甚至可能是痛苦、重複和無聊的問題。她觀察了玩《Everquest》的女性，發現她們不符合女性玩家的狹隘刻板印象，這可能對我們對女性特質的標準化和預設觀念產生懷疑。她還探討了誰擁有遊戲空間的問題，當新興的玩家文化與遊戲背後的主要公司相遇時會發生什麼。

T. L. Taylor是哥本哈根IT大學數字美學和傳播系的副教授。

目錄:
致謝
1. 尋找新世界
2. 遊戲生活世界：持續環境中的社交遊戲
3. 超越樂趣：工具性遊戲和強勢玩家
4. 女性在哪裡
5. 這是誰的遊戲？
6. 持續世界和批判遊戲研究的未來
詞彙表
註解
參考文獻
索引