Jennifer R Whitson
Biographic Data
| ID | 163182 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Jennifer R Whitson |
| GIVEN NAMES | Jennifer R |
| FAMILY NAME | Whitson |
| SIGNATURE | WHITSON J R |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Waterloo |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-0648-8871 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 132 |
| WORKS AS AUTHOR | 13 |
| WORKS AS EDITOR | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2008 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
Productive play
Regulatory approaches to games are organized by boundaries between game/not-game, game/gambling game, skilled/unskilled play, consumption/production. Perhaps more importantly, moral justifications for regulating gambling (and condemning digital games) are rooted in the idea that they consume our time and wages but give little in return. This article uses two case studies to show how these boundaries and justifications are now perforated and recon…
What Can We Learn From Studio Studies Ethnographies
This article illustrates a gap between popular narratives of game development in design texts and the reality of day-to-day development, drawing from an ethnographic account of intern developers to highlight the potential contributions of studio studies to Game Studies. It describes three takeaways. The first is that the difficulty developers have in articulating their work to others has implications for how we learn, teach, and talk about develo…
The New Spirit of Capitalism in the Game Industry
This article draws from ethnographic work in the game industry to challenge claims that digital platforms “democratize” cultural production by supporting small teams. I show how game developers exemplify the New Spirit of Capitalism in their search for creative autonomy outside of the risk-averse blockbuster console industry. Their risk of cultural production is ostensibly reduced by tools that leverage big data. By following one studio making fr…
The Missing Producer
This article draws on over 60 interviews and 120 surveys with indie game developers to illustrate relational labour and entrepreneurship practices in cultural industries and their relationship to 'good work'. We first outline the changing organization of games work, the shift towards so-called indie production, and the associated rejection of creatively constrained, hierarchically managed production models. In the move towards small-scale games m…
Megabooth
This article considers the history, practices and impact of the Indie Megabooth and its founders in terms of their role as a 'cultural intermediary' in promoting and supporting independent or 'indie' game development. The Megabooth is a crucial broker, gatekeeper and orchestrator of not only perceptions of and markets for indie games but also the socio-material possibility of indie game making itself. In its highly publicized outward-facing role,…
Voodoo software and boundary objects in game development
This article describes how game developers successfully 'pull off' game development, collaborating in the absence of consensus and working with recalcitrant and wilful technologies, shedding light on the games we play and those that make them, but also how we can be forced to work together by the platforms we choose to use. The concept of 'boundary objects' is exported from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to highlight the vital coordinating …
Game Studies meets Surveillance Studies at the Edge of Digital Culture
While we could attribute the close ties between surveillance and video games to their shared military roots, in this editorial we argue that the relationship goes much deeper to that. Even non-digital games such as chess require a mode of watchfulness: an attention to each piece in relation to the past, present, and future; a drive to predict an opponent’s movements; and, a distillation of the player-subject into a knowable finite range of possib…
Graeme Kirkpatrick, Computer Games and the Social Imaginary
C omputer Games and the Social Imaginary is not your typical games scholarship, which often falls into one of two warring camps -those who laud games and play in terms of increased socialization, problem solving, and technological mastery, and those who lament it in terms of (tenuous) linkages to "addiction," social withdrawal, and violence.Refreshingly, Graeme Kirkpatrick sidles somewhere in between, mediating the two approaches.Kirkpatrick, usi…
Gaming the Quantified Self
By their nature, digital games facilitate surveillance. They allow for the compilation of statistics, internal states, and rules to be recorded, thus hiding many of the internal workings from the players and making the games much more complex. This digitization makes it much easier to collect player data and metrics, and then, as a process of function creep, to use this data in new and innovative ways, such as improving the user experience, or su…
Once More With Feeling
We are interested in how digital games can be designed for learning in the affective domain. Our studies of how emotions are embedded in games and how games sustain affective learning involve observing gameplay and identifying recurring elements that we identify as design patterns. Design patterns help us think about the role of affect in play, what affect in games looks like, and the different ways affective learning might be achieved in educati…
Social gaming for change
The notion that we can positively change behaviours through games and play has long been accepted by social change game creators. In this paper, we argue that social change games should meet social gaming. Thus, we study the characteristics of Facebook style games and of the platform itself. We first discuss the positive traits of social gaming like the pro–social game mechanics, asynchronous multiplayer gameplay and the influence of the social i…
Featureidentity theft and the challenges of caring for your virtual self
research-article Share on FEATUREIdentity theft and the challenges of caring for your virtual self Author: Jennifer Whitson Carleton University Carleton UniversityView Profile Authors Info & Claims InteractionsVolume 16Issue 2March + April 2009 pp 41–45https://doi.org/10.1145/1487632.1487642Online:01 March 2009Publication History 3citation965DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations3Total Downloads965Last 12 Months111Last 6 weeks6 Get Citation AlertsNew Ci…
Identity theft and the care of the virtual self
This paper analyses how major institutions are publicly responding to the crime of identity theft. It concentrates on how individuals are encouraged to responsibilize themselves against this potentiality, and what they should do in the event they are victimized. These two distinct discourses (prevention and victimization) aim to fashion a hyper-vigilant citizen whose daily routines, home environment, consumption patterns and sense of self are bei…
Gaming the Quantified Self
By their nature, digital games facilitate surveillance. They allow for the compilation of statistics, internal states, and rules to be recorded, thus hiding many of the internal workings from the players and making the games much more complex. This digitization makes it much easier to collect player data and metrics, and then, as a process of function creep, to use this data in new and innovative ways, such as improving the user experience, or su…
Identity theft and the care of the virtual self
This paper analyses how major institutions are publicly responding to the crime of identity theft. It concentrates on how individuals are encouraged to responsibilize themselves against this potentiality, and what they should do in the event they are victimized. These two distinct discourses (prevention and victimization) aim to fashion a hyper-vigilant citizen whose daily routines, home environment, consumption patterns and sense of self are bei…
The Missing Producer
This article draws on over 60 interviews and 120 surveys with indie game developers to illustrate relational labour and entrepreneurship practices in cultural industries and their relationship to 'good work'. We first outline the changing organization of games work, the shift towards so-called indie production, and the associated rejection of creatively constrained, hierarchically managed production models. In the move towards small-scale games m…
The New Spirit of Capitalism in the Game Industry
This article draws from ethnographic work in the game industry to challenge claims that digital platforms “democratize” cultural production by supporting small teams. I show how game developers exemplify the New Spirit of Capitalism in their search for creative autonomy outside of the risk-averse blockbuster console industry. Their risk of cultural production is ostensibly reduced by tools that leverage big data. By following one studio making fr…
Megabooth
This article considers the history, practices and impact of the Indie Megabooth and its founders in terms of their role as a 'cultural intermediary' in promoting and supporting independent or 'indie' game development. The Megabooth is a crucial broker, gatekeeper and orchestrator of not only perceptions of and markets for indie games but also the socio-material possibility of indie game making itself. In its highly publicized outward-facing role,…
Game Studies meets Surveillance Studies at the Edge of Digital Culture
While we could attribute the close ties between surveillance and video games to their shared military roots, in this editorial we argue that the relationship goes much deeper to that. Even non-digital games such as chess require a mode of watchfulness: an attention to each piece in relation to the past, present, and future; a drive to predict an opponent’s movements; and, a distillation of the player-subject into a knowable finite range of possib…
Voodoo software and boundary objects in game development
This article describes how game developers successfully 'pull off' game development, collaborating in the absence of consensus and working with recalcitrant and wilful technologies, shedding light on the games we play and those that make them, but also how we can be forced to work together by the platforms we choose to use. The concept of 'boundary objects' is exported from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to highlight the vital coordinating …
Productive play
Regulatory approaches to games are organized by boundaries between game/not-game, game/gambling game, skilled/unskilled play, consumption/production. Perhaps more importantly, moral justifications for regulating gambling (and condemning digital games) are rooted in the idea that they consume our time and wages but give little in return. This article uses two case studies to show how these boundaries and justifications are now perforated and recon…
What Can We Learn From Studio Studies Ethnographies
This article illustrates a gap between popular narratives of game development in design texts and the reality of day-to-day development, drawing from an ethnographic account of intern developers to highlight the potential contributions of studio studies to Game Studies. It describes three takeaways. The first is that the difficulty developers have in articulating their work to others has implications for how we learn, teach, and talk about develo…
Once More With Feeling
We are interested in how digital games can be designed for learning in the affective domain. Our studies of how emotions are embedded in games and how games sustain affective learning involve observing gameplay and identifying recurring elements that we identify as design patterns. Design patterns help us think about the role of affect in play, what affect in games looks like, and the different ways affective learning might be achieved in educati…
Identity theft and the care of the virtual self
This paper analyses how major institutions are publicly responding to the crime of identity theft. It concentrates on how individuals are encouraged to responsibilize themselves against this potentiality, and what they should do in the event they are victimized. These two distinct discourses (prevention and victimization) aim to fashion a hyper-vigilant citizen whose daily routines, home environment, consumption patterns and sense of self are bei…
Featureidentity theft and the challenges of caring for your virtual self
research-article Share on FEATUREIdentity theft and the challenges of caring for your virtual self Author: Jennifer Whitson Carleton University Carleton UniversityView Profile Authors Info & Claims InteractionsVolume 16Issue 2March + April 2009 pp 41–45https://doi.org/10.1145/1487632.1487642Online:01 March 2009Publication History 3citation965DownloadsMetricsTotal Citations3Total Downloads965Last 12 Months111Last 6 weeks6 Get Citation AlertsNew Ci…
Social gaming for change
The notion that we can positively change behaviours through games and play has long been accepted by social change game creators. In this paper, we argue that social change games should meet social gaming. Thus, we study the characteristics of Facebook style games and of the platform itself. We first discuss the positive traits of social gaming like the pro–social game mechanics, asynchronous multiplayer gameplay and the influence of the social i…
Gaming the Quantified Self
By their nature, digital games facilitate surveillance. They allow for the compilation of statistics, internal states, and rules to be recorded, thus hiding many of the internal workings from the players and making the games much more complex. This digitization makes it much easier to collect player data and metrics, and then, as a process of function creep, to use this data in new and innovative ways, such as improving the user experience, or su…
Once More With Feeling
We are interested in how digital games can be designed for learning in the affective domain. Our studies of how emotions are embedded in games and how games sustain affective learning involve observing gameplay and identifying recurring elements that we identify as design patterns. Design patterns help us think about the role of affect in play, what affect in games looks like, and the different ways affective learning might be achieved in educati…
Game Studies meets Surveillance Studies at the Edge of Digital Culture
While we could attribute the close ties between surveillance and video games to their shared military roots, in this editorial we argue that the relationship goes much deeper to that. Even non-digital games such as chess require a mode of watchfulness: an attention to each piece in relation to the past, present, and future; a drive to predict an opponent’s movements; and, a distillation of the player-subject into a knowable finite range of possib…
Graeme Kirkpatrick, Computer Games and the Social Imaginary
C omputer Games and the Social Imaginary is not your typical games scholarship, which often falls into one of two warring camps -those who laud games and play in terms of increased socialization, problem solving, and technological mastery, and those who lament it in terms of (tenuous) linkages to "addiction," social withdrawal, and violence.Refreshingly, Graeme Kirkpatrick sidles somewhere in between, mediating the two approaches.Kirkpatrick, usi…
Megabooth
This article considers the history, practices and impact of the Indie Megabooth and its founders in terms of their role as a 'cultural intermediary' in promoting and supporting independent or 'indie' game development. The Megabooth is a crucial broker, gatekeeper and orchestrator of not only perceptions of and markets for indie games but also the socio-material possibility of indie game making itself. In its highly publicized outward-facing role,…
Voodoo software and boundary objects in game development
This article describes how game developers successfully 'pull off' game development, collaborating in the absence of consensus and working with recalcitrant and wilful technologies, shedding light on the games we play and those that make them, but also how we can be forced to work together by the platforms we choose to use. The concept of 'boundary objects' is exported from Science and Technology Studies (STS) to highlight the vital coordinating …
The Missing Producer
This article draws on over 60 interviews and 120 surveys with indie game developers to illustrate relational labour and entrepreneurship practices in cultural industries and their relationship to 'good work'. We first outline the changing organization of games work, the shift towards so-called indie production, and the associated rejection of creatively constrained, hierarchically managed production models. In the move towards small-scale games m…
The New Spirit of Capitalism in the Game Industry
This article draws from ethnographic work in the game industry to challenge claims that digital platforms “democratize” cultural production by supporting small teams. I show how game developers exemplify the New Spirit of Capitalism in their search for creative autonomy outside of the risk-averse blockbuster console industry. Their risk of cultural production is ostensibly reduced by tools that leverage big data. By following one studio making fr…
What Can We Learn From Studio Studies Ethnographies
This article illustrates a gap between popular narratives of game development in design texts and the reality of day-to-day development, drawing from an ethnographic account of intern developers to highlight the potential contributions of studio studies to Game Studies. It describes three takeaways. The first is that the difficulty developers have in articulating their work to others has implications for how we learn, teach, and talk about develo…
Productive play
Regulatory approaches to games are organized by boundaries between game/not-game, game/gambling game, skilled/unskilled play, consumption/production. Perhaps more importantly, moral justifications for regulating gambling (and condemning digital games) are rooted in the idea that they consume our time and wages but give little in return. This article uses two case studies to show how these boundaries and justifications are now perforated and recon…
Digital Games and Media (11 works) · Computer Science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Political science (6 works) · Game design (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Social science (5 works) · Internet privacy (4 works) · Media studies (4 works) · Multimedia (4 works)