Developer's Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators Contributor(s): O'Donnell, Casey (Author) |
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ISBN: 0262028190 ISBN-13: 9780262028196 Publisher: MIT Press OUR PRICE: $34.65 Product Type: Hardcover - Other Formats Published: November 2014 |
Additional Information |
BISAC Categories: - Technology & Engineering | Social Aspects - Games & Activities | Video & Electronic |
Dewey: 794.815 |
LCCN: 2014013210 |
Series: Inside Technology |
Physical Information: 0.8" H x 6.2" W x 9.5" (1.30 lbs) 352 pages |
Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
Publisher Description: An examination of work, the organization of work, and the market forces that surround it, through the lens of the collaborative practice of game development. Rank-and-file game developers bring videogames from concept to product, and yet their work is almost invisible, hidden behind the famous names of publishers, executives, or console manufacturers. In this book, Casey O'Donnell examines the creative collaborative practice of typical game developers. His investigation of why game developers work the way they do sheds light on our understanding of work, the organization of work, and the market forces that shape (and are shaped by) media industries. O'Donnell shows that the ability to play with the underlying systems--technical, conceptual, and social--is at the core of creative and collaborative practice, which is central to the New Economy. When access to underlying systems is undermined, so too is creative collaborative process. Drawing on extensive fieldwork in game studios in the United States and India, O'Donnell stakes out new territory empirically, conceptually, and methodologically. Mimicking the structure of videogames, the book is divided into worlds, within which are levels; and each world ends with a boss fight, a "rant" about lessons learned and tools mastered. O'Donnell describes the process of videogame development from pre-production through production, considering such aspects as experimental systems, "socially mandatory" overtime, and the perpetual startup machine that exhausts young, initially enthusiastic workers. He links work practice to broader systems of publishing, manufacturing, and distribution; introduces the concept of a privileged "actor-intra-internetwork"; and describes patent and copyright enforcement by industry and the state. |
Contributor Bio(s): O'Donnell, Casey: - Casey O'Donnell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Media and Information in the College of Communication Arts and Sciences at Michigan State University.Pinch, Trevor: - Trevor Pinch is Goldwin Smith Professor of Science and Technology Studies at Cornell University and coeditor of The Social Construction of Technological Systems: New Directions in the Sociology and History of Technology (anniversary edition, MIT Press).Bijker, Wiebe E.: - Wiebe E. Bijker is Professor at Maastricht University and the author of Of Bicycles, Bakelites, and Bulbs: Toward a Theory of Sociotechnical Change (MIT Press) and other books. |