7(1) 2021: Laborious Play and Playful Work II

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9

Becoming one’s own Polaroid: Scenes of Submission at the Interface of Play and Work
Baller, Julian (2021)
This paper explores the relationship of play and work by looking at des- potic domination techniques of enslavement and their ludified renais- sance in the context of the BDSM subculture between kinky private pleasure and professional service. Thereby it argues that especially masochistic settings are able to negotiate psycho-social, socio-material and symbolic-discursive processes from a queer point of view by tempo- rarily suspending the claim to self-determination in the subordination and concentration on pain. In this setting, which is oriented towards radical, present alterity, an aesthetic becoming is possible that allows the participants to temporarily experience themselves as a creation and not as a product.
Instructional Devices: Teaching Machines, Serious Games and Subject Technologies
Nohr, Rolf F (2021)
Under the gamification heading, we are currently discussing a collec- tion of control policies that—depending on the perspective—are either considered omnipotent opportunities to control behaviour and create motivation or, on the other hand, dystopian and inhuman ‘sublimi- nal’ disciplines aimed at breaking the subject in. Regardless of one’s own position: the discussion of a gamified rationality cannot abstain from looking at the discursive prerequisites that led to the gamifica- tion debate of the 2010s. To do so, the following aims to (briefly) trace gamification back to two preceding historic developments: to a specific from of (‘playful’) learning and the consequences related to control policies that arise from this ‘expanded definition of learning’.2 The digitalisation of classrooms and gamified educational offers developed and applied today are not without historic precedent. In the past, tremendous efforts (and investments) were made to equip classrooms with the latest media technology.
Introduction: Playful Work
Abend, Pablo; Fuchs, Mathias; Wenz, Karin (2021)
Making the Virtual a Reality: Playful Work and Playbour in the Diffusion of Innovations
Foxman, Maxwell (2021)
After raising US$2.5 million in a Kickstarter campaign for an inexpen- sive Virtual Reality (VR) display, the technology company Oculus revi- talized the medium through collabourative production and a reliance on the avid participation of fans to make content. This paper investigates the impact of playful labour on the diffusion of innovations (Rogers 2003). Through a platform analysis (van Dijck 2013) of the Oculus Rift and semi-structured interviews with 90 VR adopters, it reveals how a production system based on “playbour” (Kücklich 2005) both shaped perceptions of the Rift as the de facto VR device and provided access to game developers at the expense of other professions. Ultimately, these findings are emblematic of an increasingly common practice: capital- izing on the playful experimentation and expenditure of enthusiasts/ consumers in the adoption of innovations within the “tech” industry.
Post-casual Play: Affect, Demand and Labour in Digital Gaming
Leorke, Dale (2021)
This article examines the concepts of “casual” and “hardcore” games in order to complicate the distinctiveness of these categories. While casual games have become a significant boon to the games industry, radically reconfiguring the composition of its audience, financial models and aesthetics, hardcore approaches to play are increasingly evident in games typically designated as “casual”. Meanwhile games targeted at a hardcore audience of players are integrating features that enable them to be played casually. In light of these concomitant developments I introduce the notion of “post-casual” to describe how game design and gaming cultures are able to draw on both casual and hardcore elements with very little conflict or friction between these seemingly opposing notions. The article will examine and discuss the game design and player cultures of several AAA “hardcore” games, such as Xenoblade Chronicles 2, and popular “casual” games such as Pokémon GO, in order to map the confluences that have emerged. I draw on existing interview data, game analysis, and from formal and informal reviews of games conducted in online press and com- munities. This data suggests three emerging trajectories within post- casual play: “fluid play”, “background play” and “extreme play” that together point towards the post-casualisation of digital games.
Social Production of Hybrid Spaces Through Playbour: An Ethnographic Study of Location-Based Mobile Games
Tokgöz-Şahoğlu, Cemile (2021)
This study aims to demonstrate the commercial exploitation of play- bour in location-based mobile games (LBMGs) that merge digital information and physical spaces. The ethnographic method has been applied in this research, and the data were collected through partici- pant observation technique by participating in Ingress (Prime) and Pokémon GO! game communities. The research findings, which show the playbour uses of game companies and advertisers, are grouped under two topics. The first one is the commoditization of playbour by positioning the players as data and content producer and the target of location-based advertising. The second one is to produce economic capital indirectly through social capital that is produced in the game community, shapes everyday life and reproduces urban space.
Speedrunning the Financial Markets: A Comparison of Gaming Culture and High Frequency Trading
Curry, Derek (2021)
This article compares high frequency trading (HFT) practices and video game cheats to explore the potential of using video game culture as a proxy for understanding a secretive and proprietary financial culture. While there is no legal or agreed upon definition for what constitutes HFT trading, it always involves the use of ultra-fast com- puter hardware, software, and network connections to gain a speed advantage over other traders in the marketplace. Likewise, in video game culture, there is no universal agreement as to what constitutes cheating. While some gamers believe any form of external help is a form of cheating, others accept the use of cheat codes, glitches, addi- tional hardware, or external guides as just another part of a game. Like gamers, HFTs use special hardware and cheat codes, and exploit glitches and software bugs to alter the rules for how a game is played. In gaming culture, certain forms of cheating are consecrated by online communities and game companies that supply guidebooks and cheat codes through official, or quasi-official channels to increase interest in certain games. Courts in North America have also ruled in favor of cheating device makers in copyright lawsuits. Similarly, many online exchanges cater to HFTs because their enormous volume of trading generates a revenue stream for the exchange, and some HFT practices have been codified by regulators who view HFTs’ role as middlemen to be a stabilizing force in the markets. Research has found that how gamers use cheats and glitches often translates into attitudes toward cheating behavior in academic contexts or the workplace. A compari- son of HFT with game culture can reveal broader social implications and serve as a proxy for understanding HFT trading strategies for readers without a background in financial technology.
The Business of Gamifying School Work: Perceptions of the Gamification Phenomenon and the Services and Companies Behind It
Oceja, Jorge; Torres-Toukoumidis, Angel (2021)
If we think about the earliest exposure that we, as individuals, have to schedules, routines, effort, and hard work, most probably it is school- ing—and elementary education in particular—that first comes to mind. Historically, teachers have tried (based on learning theory or their own intuition) to motivate students by making learning fun; however, more recently, many schools have become fascinated by the digital gamification phenomenon. This work explores the diverse per- ceptions of the role of this digital gamification among teachers and principals in urban schools in a city in the north of Spain trying to answer why, besides the lack of theoretical foundations, gamification software, hand in hand with the companies behind it, is colonizing classrooms. Three in-depth, semi-structured interviews with prin- cipals (who also work as regular teachers) were carried out and the information obtained was coded and represented through hierarchi- cal trees. Then, the data provided by each respondent was compared. Principal’s perceptions range from the enthusiasm of having easy access to these “free” tools, to more critical opinions on their use— from both a political and pedagogical perspective.
“Work is work and work is good.”
Abend, Pablo; Turner, Fred (2021)
Fred Turner is the Harry and Norman Chandler Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Stanford University. He is the author of three books: The Democratic Surround: Multimedia and American Liberalism from World War II to the Psychedelic Sixties (2013); From Counterculture to Cyberculture: Stewart Brand, the Whole Earth Network, and the Rise of Digital Utopianism (2006); and Echoes of Combat: The Vietnam War in American Memory (1996). Before coming to Stanford, he taught Communication at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He also worked for ten years as a journal- ist and has written for newspapers and magazines ranging from the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine to Nature. We meet on Zoom. Fred is in his home in the Silicon Valley and I am sitting behind a laptop in a vacation home in a rural part of Germany, without fiber optic connec- tion and very poor cell phone service. But the internet via cell phone is stable enough to have a conversation about the Bauhaus in the US, countercultural cybernetics, technology and consciousness.

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