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Abstract
The online multi-user game is an exemplar of the emergent structures of interactive media. Social relationships and community networks are formed, and developer/player relationships are negotiated around ongoing development of the game features and player-created content. The line between production and consumption of the text has become blurred, and the lines between social and economic relationships must be redrawn. This article explores these relationships, using EverQuest as a case study. It suggests that the dynamic, mutable, and emergent qualities of the online multiplayer game exceed the limits of the reifying processes embodied by copyright law and content regulation regimes.
Notes
Sal Humphreys is a researcher with the Creative Industries Research and Applications Centre, at the Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia. Her research interests include online media and Digital Rights Management, computer games, and interactivity. Correspondence to: Sal Humphreys, CIRAC, Creative Industries Faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia, 4001. [email protected]
[1] See, for example, John Hartley, Uses of Television (London: Routledge, 1999).
[2] Jesper Juul, “Games Telling Stories? A Brief Note on Games and Narratives,” International Journal Of Computer Games Research 1 (2001) online at http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/juul-gts/(accessed 27 August 2001) and Marie-Laure Ryan, “Beyond Myth and Metaphor—the Case of Narrative in Digital Media,” International Journal Of Computer Games Research 1 (2001) online at http://www.gamestudies.org/0101/ryan/(accessed 27 August 2001).
[3] Andy Cameron, “Dissumulations: Illusions of Interactivity,” Millenium Film Journal 28 (1995): 33–47.
[4] Espen Aarseth, Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (Baltimore, MD: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997).
[5] Juul.
[6] Jesper Juul, “The Open and Closed: Games of Emergence and Games of Progression” in Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference Proceedings, ed. Frans Mayra (Tampere, Finland: Tampere University Press, 2002).
[7] Nicholas Yee, “The Norrathian Scrolls” Version 2.5 2001. http://www.nickyee.com/eqt/report.html (accessed 17 October 2002).
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[9] I use the term publisher to encompass the term developer because Sony Online Entertainment (the publisher of EQ) has bought out the company that developed this game (Verant) and is now the developer and publisher. In the sense that this product is one in continual development and continual publication, this makes more sense than with some other types of media.
[10] J.C. Herz, “Multi-Player Worlds Online,” in Game On, ed. Lucien King (London: Laurence King, 2002), 87.
[11] Herz, 87.
[12] This was indeed the case when I discussed ideas for this article with a social sciences professor of Internet studies.
[13] Yochai Benkler, “The Political Economy of Commons.” Upgrade IV 3 (2003) online at http://www.upgrade-cepis.org/issues/2003/3/upgrade-vIV-3.html (accessed 10 October 2003).
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[15] Bettig.
[16] Jeremy Rifkin, The Age of Access (London: Penguin, 2000); John Frow “Res Publica,” Australian Book Review 201 (February/March 1999) online at http://home.vicnet.net.au/∼abr/FebMar99/fro.html (accessed 5 May 2003).
[17] Hugenholtz.
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[19] Coombe quoted in Smiers, 128.
[20] Taylor, 233.
[21] Taylor, 232.
[22] Taylor, 233.
[23] Edward W. Soja, “Digital Communities, Simcities, and the Hyperreality of Everyday Life,” paper presented at the Transarchitectures: Visions of Digital Community Conference, 5–6 June 1998; Rifkin.
[24] Tiziana Terranova, “Free Labor: Producing Culture for the Digital Economy,” Social Text 63 (2000): 38–39.
[25] Charles Leadbeater, Living on Thin Air (London: Penguin, 2000), 32–33.
[26] John Banks, “Negotiating Participatory Culture in the New Media Environment: Auran and the Trainz Online Community—An (Im)possible Relation.” Paper presented at the Digital Arts Conference, Melbourne, 20–23 May 2003.
[27] J. C. Herz, Release1.0 20, (9) 2002, p. 21.
[28] J. C. Herz, “Harnessing the Hive: How Online Games Drive Networked Innovation”; Banks; John Banks, “Gamers as Co-Creators: Enlisting the Virtual Audience—a Report from the Net Face” in Mobilising the Audience, ed. Mark Balnaves, Tom O'Regan and Jason Sternberg (St. Lucia, Old: University of Queensland Press, 2002),188–212; Celia Pearce, “Emergent Authorship: The Next Interactive Revolution,” Computers and Graphics 26 (2002): 21–29.
[29] I recognize that different countries have different systems of protections and regulation with regard to these issues but am speaking here more of the broad principles involved.