coding play/crafting code in the city by aphra kerr

Coding Play/Crafting Code in the City

Dr. Aphra Kerr

Sociology,

NUI Maynooth

Entertainment software – ESA in US

Interactive software – ISFE in Europe

Videogames/Digital Games/Computer games

Creative and Cultural industry

Independent or indie

Discursive Struggles.

‘game development is a creative collaborative process involving numerous disciplines rooted in a particular culture producing creative, artistic and culturally important works. Software is a part of this process, and part of the thing created, but it is not the sum of its parts. This is the video game industry’

O’Donnell, C. 2012 ‘This is not a software industry’ pg 18

Game Development

1. Games as a service – MMOGs, peer to peer, esports

2. Data driven game design & metrics

3. Platformisation/Casualisation of games – apps, mobile, ipad

4. Alternative routes to market – STEAM, Facebook

5. Productivity of players

6. Intense state competition for mobile game companies, tax credits, visas & worker mobility

Trends in Game production

Triple A – Tech & Programming

Independents & Player created content

“[…] the notion of independence needs to be interrogated somewhat if it is to have any purchase. …… the "indy" tag may not signify much more than "wannabe". … In other words, the power of already established publishers may in fact be strengthened by the creation of an industrial diaspora of hopeful independents. …” Dovey and Kennedy, p. 141 (2006)

What is an independent producer?

(nothing) intrinsically emancipatory in the practices of production employed or put forward by independent game designers. (Ruffino, P. 2013)

Alternative ideas about Indie?’

Jonathan Blow, author of Braid, “...part of it is trying not to be professional. A lot of people come into indie games trying to be like a big company. What those game companies do is create highly polished things that serve as large as an audience as possible. … The creation of this highly glossy commercial product is the opposite of making something personal.” Indie Game: The Movie, 1:32 –2:06 (2012)

New practices, old structures?

Cultural individualisation?’ (McRobbie, 2001) ‘insitutionalised individualisation’ of cultural labourBanks (2007) Venture Labour and the individualisation of risk (Neff, G. , 2012) Highly gendered..

Cyberfeminists identified programming as craft activity connected to weaving – Plant, S. , Wajcman, J.

equitable access to tools & knowledge

DIY game making as craft. Women only games workshops Toronto since 2011 – addressing wider absence of women in games industry (Westecott, E. 2012)

+ Jenson, J., Harvey, A., Shepherd, T., Whitson, J.

Programming as craft?

Locating the games industry

Gamedevmap - content

Kerr and Cawley, 2009

2009 - Occupational categories

games

management 104 producers

creative

60

Concept artists

animators

design Level designers

programming 72 Network, tools,

graphics

QA & support 895

198

59

26

42

Community support

Quality Assurance

Localisation

Marketing

Admin

Location

47

5 4 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

35

40

45

50

Fig. 1 - Number of Games companies by county

2012 Games industry in Ireland Jamie McCormick

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

2009 Feb-12 Oct-12

21

75

83

Fig 4. Number of companies operating in the Irish Games Industry

FDI V Indigenous Jobs 2012

647

2697

Indigenous Jobs International Jobs

Job Growth 02-12

0

500

1000

1500

2000

2500

3000

3500

4000

2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012

# Jobs

Types of Indies in Ireland

Type

L1 Newbies Graduates, competition and jam teams

L2 Transfers From other industries and university projects

L3 Spin-outs From FDI closures

Experience

Bowen & Deuze– 2009 ‘‘how indie is it?’’

1) Financially – from publisher, investor (public or private), platform, markets 2) Creatively – from publisher, investor, platform, Players

State strategies

Action plans, Incubators, seed funding

‘pioneering’, ‘dynamic’, ‘innovative’

‘talented highly skilled people with the ability to work across cultures’

The need for an ‘anticipatory, agile and responsive approach’

The Games Sector in Ireland: Ac Action Plan for Growth (2011) Forfas

1: NDRC and Launchpad (accelerator) – equity and pr0totyping

2: New Frontiers (EI + IoT) – business development

Private Strategies

Trade association, publicity & events, RnD & tax breaks,

incubators and skills

3. Games Ireland

Membership Games Ireland membership is drawn from companies at all levels of Ireland’s active and diverse video games industry. There are alternative types of membership a vailable allowing different levels of participation in Games Ireland‘s board and policy meetings, public and networking events and the setting of Games Ireland objectives.

Games Ireland & Games ‘Gigs’

4. Promotion

5. ‘GameSpace’ – game specific incubator

GameSpace

Practice, play and learning

Virtual networking & community

From Independence to Play & Craft

6. DubLudo June 2013 ‘Hey there guys. I

want to let you know about something I am very

passionate about - Play. I love playing and playing games. I love our little dev scene here in Ireland and it’s wonderful to see it grow each year, every event I go to I am wowed by a new team or an idea. But something has been missing from our smorgasbord of gatherings and meetings and that has been play.’

dubLUDO is an event for anyone that makes games that wants to make their games better. Bring your game Get feedback Give feedback FAQ: Q: What is this weird thing? A: We are still figuring that out. Q: Can I come? A: Yes Q: Can I show my game? A: You have to show your game. Q: But my game is not very good. A: That is not a question. Q: Do you have ( technology x, item y )? A: Probably not, you should bring it.

Moves to Facebook..

And to Twitter

7. GameCraft

Chief Organisers

Strategies & Tactics

Public/State Private Indy /newbies

Jobs Technology Playing

F2F Networking Team building Tinkering

Seed capital entrepreneurship Creating

Equity publicity Virtual Networking

Office space skills Co-operating

Innovation grants

RnD grants Jams, meet ups

mentoring

tax

launchpads visas

Hothouses Gamespace

Events, meet ups and jams as a bullwark against creative and educational individualisation

Virtual networking & socialisation V individualised work

Passion versus alienation

Tactics for survival

Passionate

Graduates, young (ish), mostly male, white.

Self or mix of funding - contracts, investment, social welfare, teaching

Working long Hours & Flexible

Self-promoting

Self-training/Learning by doing

Your Indy Worker

‘a very complicated version of (creative) freedom’

Hesmondhalgh & Baker 2010

Investment?

An exit?

A release?

Survival?

A hit?

What is success?

2012 & 2013 releases

Getting a Green light on STEAM?

Play, connect, create and more..

Software is much more than code and games are more than software – more cultural industry than software?

Still a gendered industry and a workforce that lacks diversity

Clustering, seed capital, tax credits and business plans as strategies for accelerating startups

Jams, meet ups and networking as tactics for dealing with precarity, risk and continuous learning.

In sum…

Thank you

Aphra.kerr@nuim.ie

@Aphrak