Video Game Worlds: Working at Play in the Culture of EverQuest

by Timothy Rowlands

Overview

As massively multiplayer online (MMO) games grow in scope and popularity, what are the characteristics of their emerging gaming culture? How is this culture shaped by the decisions made by game designers and the collective interpretations of a game’s player base? In this book, Timothy Rowlands brings a diverse mix of ethnographic, semiotic, and analytical approaches to the virtual world of EverQuest. Through first-hand player experiences and interviews of other gamers, Rowlands analyzes a gaming environment that, as time goes on, looks less like leisure and more like a workspace. This groundbreaking fusion of sociology and the world of MMOs is a must read for scholars and gamers alike.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611320688
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	01/15/2012
Pages:	201
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Introduction; Chapter 2 The Emergence of the Dominant Strategy; Chapter 3 The Holy Trinity Camp Group; Chapter 4 A Textual Reality; Chapter 5 The Membership Career; Chapter 6 Playing at Empire; Chapter 7 Whither Open Space?; Chapter 8 Conclusion;

Editorial Reviews

A tour de force that will redefine how social scientists look at computer mediated interaction in general, and especially the logics and perspectives of gamers in particular. This is an amazing study of the merging of the social and the social virtual worlds, joined through media formats. This work will challenge the entertainment logic, formats, and values that constitute standard game platforms that undergird much of the industry. His analysis of how the virtual world reflects and amends everyday life perspectives about competition and competence reveals much about the social order of justice in a virtual world.”—David L. Altheide, Regents' Professor, Arizona State University

From the Publisher