Sara M. Grimes

Rationalizing Play: A Critical Theory of Digital Gaming

This article constructs a new framework for the study of games as sites of social rationalization, applying Feenbergs critical theory of technology. We begin by making the case for a consideration of games as systems of social rationality, akin to other modern systems such as capitalist markets and bureaucratic organizations. We then present a conceptualization of play as a process through which the player focuses attention away from the undifferentiated action of everyday life toward a differentiated sphere of playful activity. This approach reveals how the experience of play changes as it becomes rationalized through the technological mediation and widespread standardization that occurs as games become large-scale social practices. We propose a theory of the rationalization of play (ludification), which outlines the key components of socially rationalized games, which we then apply to the specific example of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs).

Saturday Morning Cartoons Go MMOG

This paper traces the migration of North American childrens television into the realm of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), and the issues this raises in terms of the commercialisation of childrens (digital) play. Through a content analysis of three television-themed MMOGs targeted to children, Nickelodeons Nicktropolis, Cartoon Networks Big Fat Awesome House Party and Corus Entertainments GalaXseeds, I examine how this new development within childrens online culture operates in relation to existing industry practices of cross-media integration and promotion. Dominant trends identified in the content analysis are compared with emerging conventions within the MMOG genre, which is generally found to contain numerous opportunities for player creativity and collaboration. Within the cases examined, however, many of these opportunities have been omitted and ultimately replaced by promotional features. I conclude that all three case studies operate primarily as large-scale advergames, promoting transmedia intertextuality and third-party advertiser interests.

Configuring the Child Player

Scholars from various disciplines have explored the powerful symbolic function that children occupy within public discourses of technology, but less attention has been paid to the role this plays in the social shaping of the technologies themselves. Virtual worlds present a unique site for studying how ideas about children become embedded in the artifacts adults make for them. This article argues that children’s virtual worlds are fundamentally negotiated spaces in which broader aspirations and anxieties about children’s relationships with play, technology, consumer culture, and the public sphere resurface as “configurations” of an imagined, ideal child player. The article begins with a brief overview of the childrens virtual worlds phenomenon, followed by a discussion of related research on children’s play and play technologies. Findings from a case study of six commercial, game-themed virtual worlds targeted specifically to children are then presented, with a focus on how these artifacts configure their child players in highly ideological and normative ways, wherein play is narrowly defined in accordance with a neoromantic, consumerist ethos. The article aims to uncover the hidden politics inscribed within a particular genre of children’s technology and to explore some of the implications for children’s digital play.

Little big scene: making and playing culture in Media Molecule's LittleBigPlanet.

Drawing on an on-going, multi-method investigation into Media Molecules popular LittleBigPlanet video game franchise and its ever-growing network of games, players, activities and events, this paper seeks to explore how the notion of ‘cultural scene’ might be used to better understand and analyse games-based, collaborative cultural activities. The discussion begins with a description of LittleBigPlanet, its contents and history, and the various actors involved in the social shaping of its wide-reaching community. The focus then shifts to identifying some of the ways in which LittleBigPlanet might be understood as functioning as (or at least akin to) a ‘cultural scene’, as well as to exploring those facets of LittleBigPlanet that challenge previous interpretations of this concept and its underlying assumptions. Particular attention will be given to the ways in which the LittleBigPlanet scene reflects, extends and deviates from the geographically situated notions of the cultural scene found in previous works in this area. An argument is made that understanding examples such as LittleBigPlanet as cultural scenes requires more than a shift in our notions and experience of locale, but also necessitates a renewed foregrounding of lingering questions relating to power and privatization within both traditional and digital cultural practice.

Penguins, Hype, and MMOGs for Kids A Critical Reexamination of the 2008 “Boom” in Children’s Virtual Worlds Development

According to various media and academic sources, the virtual worlds landscape underwent a profound transformation in 2008, with the arrival of numerous new titles designed and targeted specifically to young children. Although a growing body of research has explored some of the titles involved in this shift, little remains known of its overall scope and contents. This article provides a mapping of the initial “boom” in children’s virtual worlds development and identifies a number of significant patterns within the ensuing children’s virtual worlds landscape. The argument is made that while the reported boom in children’s virtual worlds has been exaggerated, a number of important shifts for online gaming culture did unfold during this period, some of which challenge accepted definitions of “virtual world” and “multiplayer online game.” The implications of these findings are discussed in light of contemporary developments and trends within children’s digital culture and within online gaming more broadly.