Playermaking: the institutional production of digital game players

HD Industries. Land use. Labor;PN1990 Broadcasting;T Technology (General)

Boyer, Steven Andrew ; Boyle, Raymond

University:University of Glasgow

Department:School of Culture and Creative Arts

关键词: digital games, computer games, video games, players, audience, audiencemaking, media industries, institutions, cultural policy, national policy, measurement, audience image, constructionist, discourse, media work, global production network, national industries, national audience, negotiations;   

Others  :  http://theses.gla.ac.uk/4925/1/2013boyerphd.pdf

来源: University of Glasgow

【 摘 要 】

This thesis investigates how the digital games industry conceptualises its audiences in boththe United States and the United Kingdom. Drawing upon research focused on other mediaindustries, it argues in favour of a constructionist view of the audience that emphasises itsdiscursive form and institutional uses. The term “player” is institutionally constructed inthe same way, not referring to the actual people playing games, but to an imagined entityutilised to guide industrial decisions. Using both desk research and information gatheredfrom expert interviews with digital game development professionals, this thesis looks athow ideas about players are formed and held by individual workers, transformed tobecome relevant for game production, and embedded into broader institutional conceptionsthat are shared and negotiated across a variety of institutional stakeholders.Adapting the term “audiencemaking” from mass communication research, this thesisidentifies three key phases of the “playermaking” process in the digital games industry.First, information about players is gathered through both informal means and highlytechnologised audience measurement systems. Institutional stakeholders then translate thisinformation into player, product and platform images that can be utilised duringproduction. The remainder of the thesis looks at the more broad third phase in which theseimages are negotiated amongst a variety of institutional stakeholders as determined bypower relations. These negotiations happen between individual workers who hold differingviews of the player during development, companies and organisations struggling overposition and value across the production chain, and the actual people playing games whostrive to gain more influence over the creation of the images meant to represent theirinterests. These negotiations also reflect national policy contexts within a highlycompetitive global production network, visible in the comparison between the USneoliberal definition of both the industry and players as primarily market entities and theUK creative industries approach struggling to balance cultural concerns while safeguardingdomestic production and inward investment. Ultimately, this thesis argues that conceptionsof players are a central force structuring the shape and operation of a digital gamesindustry in the midst of rapid technological, industrial, political and sociocultural change.