Interventions and Recuperations:

Visions of Hope and Harsh Realities

Helen W. Kennedy

School of Cultural Studies

University of the West of England

Helen.kennedy@uwe.ac.uk

10th June, 2004

Why do we get the games we get ?

- Economics- Technology- Culture

The System of Technology

• Permanent upgrade culture• The aesthetic of memory and

speed• Moore’s Law• Kutaragi plans PS1 in mid 1980s

calculating that the chips will be ready by mid 1990s.

The Economic System

• Developers

• Publishers

• Technologists

Games as ‘Trojan Horse’

• Sony’s Ken Kutaragi 1989,• ‘Playstation will be positioned as the

future mainstay digital product and a step toward introducing computers into the house .. we will create infrastructure for a home use computer. This will effectively link game machines with Sony’s audio visual technology.’ (Asakura 2000 :31)

‘Although the system is still porous, the dynamics of marketing and distribution push powerfully towards the ‘mainstream’, a relatively restricted repertoire of games promoted by well connected publishing houses, and towards marginalizing or asphyxiating the projects of developers outside this circle’ (Kline et al 2003:179)

The Publishers

• Top ten control 65% of international market

• Cf ‘independence’ in music industry• Publishers are the interface between

developer, consumer & technology• Licensing deals protect risk• Sony, Microsoft, Vivendi, Universal,

Warner Bros all have publishers/developers

THE SYSTEM OF CULTURE

-The margin of developer choice-Taste, class, race, GENDER. -Early contact with games (not sports)-Early contact with computers-Early interest in engineering (dads)-Teenage dungeons and dragons.-Interest in controllable fantasy worlds-People like us.

“Although Cultural Studies recognizes that the capitalist culture industries are a major site of ideological production, constructing powerful images, descriptions, definitions, frames of reference for understanding the world, it must continue to insist on the active complexity, and situated agency, of consumption. Culture is not something ready-made which we ‘consume’; culture is what we make in the practices of consumption.” (Storey, 2002: 59)

“ Call it a hyper-hip wet dream, but the information and communications technology industry require a new active consumer or it’s going to stall… This is one reason why we are amplifying the mythos of the sophisticated, high complexity, fast lane/real time, intelligent, active and creative reality hackers… A nation of TV couch potatoes (not to mention embittered self-righteous radicals) is not going to demand access to the next generation of the extensions of man.” (Mondo 2000 editorial quoted in Sobchack, 2001:140)

Heroes of Computer Game Culture: From Margin to Centre

‘We were all in it from a sense of wonder. All of us either had no lives before or had thrown them over because of these stupid machines. We may hang out together because we were all the same sort of jerks.’

Doug Carlston – co founder of Broderbund software (King & Borland 2003: 47)

Gatekeepers of New Technology

But computer games were different. They were accessible. They came with their own tools, their own portals – a way inside. And the people who had the keys were not authoritarian monsters, they were dudes. Romero was young, but he was a dude in the making, he figured. The Wizard of this Oz could be him. (Kushner, 2003:7)

Ada Lovelace 1815 – 1852 Computer software pioneer. Daughter of poet Lord Byron directed towards Maths to protect here from the ‘sensual’ dangers of poetry.

Reclaim history of women and computing

OTHER PRODUCERS1-UP is... Adventures in video game culture. A new zine about how and why we play. It's about video games as a way of life, not just a pastime or private addiction. Stories about triumph and defeat, losing quarters, staying up late, and being invincible. Not your little brother's game mag; no cheats, codes, or centerfolds of virtual vixens. We revel in video games as a cultural experience and as art; blinking lights, blip bloop music, and a million ways to approach "gameplay." Raina Lee www.1-up.com

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VIVE LA REVOLUTION

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