Casey O’donnell
Biographic Data
| ID | 89724 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Casey O’donnell |
| GIVEN NAMES | Casey |
| FAMILY NAME | O’donnell |
| SIGNATURE | O’DONNELL C |
| AFFILIATIONS | Michigan State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0001-5396-6384 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 14 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 49 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 14 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2004 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 4 |
Introduction: Toward Critical Game Design
This special issue addresses the epistemological, institutional, and political challenges of integrating critical games scholarship with game development practices and pedagogy. The featured essays help form a foundation for Critical Game Design and draw from intellectual traditions and debates not only from both game studies and game design, but from the classical design disciplines as well. We aim to build more connective tissue and collaborati…
Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America by Michael Z. Newman
Reviewed by: Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America by Michael Z. Newman Casey O'Donnell (bio) Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America By Michael Z. Newman. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 252. I was born too late to be a part of the "Atari Age," but the epoch explored by Michael Z. Newman in Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America echoes through today. Going beyond the exploration of the technologi…
I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer by Nathan Altice
Reviewed by: I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer by Nathan Altice Casey O’Donnell (bio) I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer. By Nathan Altice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015. Pp. 440. Paperback $30. I desperately wanted to write this book. Of course, then it wouldn’t have been this book. When I was told someone else was going to be writing “the NES book,” I was intensely jealous. Consequently, I went into my reading of the text with unr…
Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape, How Video Games Impact Players: The Pitfalls and Benefits of a Gaming Society and Knowledge Games: How Playing Games Can Solve Problems,…
Ethnographic Apps/Apps as Ethnography
Today, people nearly everywhere are experiencing multiple events through the medium of mobile apps: Social networking platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, are now accessed through sm
Games Are Social/Media(ted)/Technology Too
In this manifesto, we argue that social media research needs to take the broader field of game studies in the exploration and understanding of social media. Many of the results, theories, and concepts developed in the study of games has significant implications for the study of all social media. Of course, game studies should be paying attention to social media research too
Developer's Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators
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 devel…
Getting Played: Gamification and the Rise of Algorithmic Surveillance
Gamification, the idea that game mechanics can be integrated into assumed "non-game" circumstances has gained ascendance amongst champions of marketing, behavior change and efficiency. Ironically, some of the most heated critique to gamification has been the broader community of "traditional" videogame developers. Connecting broadly to projects surrounding "big data" and algorithmic surveillance, the project of gamification continues to expand an…
On Balinese Cockfights: Deeply Extending Play
In this article, I advance three points, each in service of "extending play" as a critical conceptual category. The article begins with Clifford Geertz's essay "Deep Play," tracing through its lens the possibilities for "deeply extending play." The essay extends Geertz's argument that games and play are in/as/of/through culture. Games and play are not generative of, reflective of, just culture. Rather they are intensely interwoven. I argue that g…
Wither Mario Factory: The Role of Tools in Constructing (Co)Creative Possibilities on Video Game Consoles
This article examines the role that game development tools have in the design and creation of video games. It does so through the lens of a series of patents by Nintendo that outlined the technological foundations for a truly (co)creative production platform for games. Game development tools shape and are shaped by the kinds of games they are used to produce as well as the underlying technologies of game consoles. The roles, sites, and means by w…
On the Back of a Flying Gryphon: Soaring Over/Through the Global Game Industry
On the Back of a Flying Gryphon: Soaring Over/Through the Global Game Industry Casey O’Donnell (bio) Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter, Games of Empire Bonnie A. Nardi, My Life as a Night Elf Priest William Sims Bainbridge, The Warcraft Civilization After more than thirty years as a thing that can be called “an industry,” the video-game industry now finds itself in its middle ages, as well as the object of critical and scholarly inquiry. Th…
The Nintendo Entertainment System and the 10NES Chip: Carving the Video Game Industry in Silicon
This essay makes the argument that the numerous ''networks'' or ''inter/intranetworks'' that structure the video game industry have lived local effects for those involved in the production of video games. In particular, this is most visible in the realm of console video game development but is visible in many other contexts as well. It uses the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as an index into this complex and highly structured world that freq…
Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom
Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts-Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth-using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSD…
A case for Indian insourcing: Open Source interest in IT job expansion
The controversy surrounding the "off–shoring" of IT jobs from the United States to other countries, in particular to India, has become a focal point in American political discourse and has been widely represented in the media. Disturbingly, little attention has been paid to this occurrence beyond its implications for American employment opportunities. Representing Indian and American IT workers as unified groups whose interests are mutually exclu…
Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom
Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts-Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth-using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSD…
Getting Played: Gamification and the Rise of Algorithmic Surveillance
Gamification, the idea that game mechanics can be integrated into assumed "non-game" circumstances has gained ascendance amongst champions of marketing, behavior change and efficiency. Ironically, some of the most heated critique to gamification has been the broader community of "traditional" videogame developers. Connecting broadly to projects surrounding "big data" and algorithmic surveillance, the project of gamification continues to expand an…
Ethnographic Apps/Apps as Ethnography
Today, people nearly everywhere are experiencing multiple events through the medium of mobile apps: Social networking platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, are now accessed through sm
The Nintendo Entertainment System and the 10NES Chip: Carving the Video Game Industry in Silicon
This essay makes the argument that the numerous ''networks'' or ''inter/intranetworks'' that structure the video game industry have lived local effects for those involved in the production of video games. In particular, this is most visible in the realm of console video game development but is visible in many other contexts as well. It uses the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as an index into this complex and highly structured world that freq…
Games Are Social/Media(ted)/Technology Too
In this manifesto, we argue that social media research needs to take the broader field of game studies in the exploration and understanding of social media. Many of the results, theories, and concepts developed in the study of games has significant implications for the study of all social media. Of course, game studies should be paying attention to social media research too
On Balinese Cockfights: Deeply Extending Play
In this article, I advance three points, each in service of "extending play" as a critical conceptual category. The article begins with Clifford Geertz's essay "Deep Play," tracing through its lens the possibilities for "deeply extending play." The essay extends Geertz's argument that games and play are in/as/of/through culture. Games and play are not generative of, reflective of, just culture. Rather they are intensely interwoven. I argue that g…
Wither Mario Factory: The Role of Tools in Constructing (Co)Creative Possibilities on Video Game Consoles
This article examines the role that game development tools have in the design and creation of video games. It does so through the lens of a series of patents by Nintendo that outlined the technological foundations for a truly (co)creative production platform for games. Game development tools shape and are shaped by the kinds of games they are used to produce as well as the underlying technologies of game consoles. The roles, sites, and means by w…
A case for Indian insourcing: Open Source interest in IT job expansion
The controversy surrounding the "off–shoring" of IT jobs from the United States to other countries, in particular to India, has become a focal point in American political discourse and has been widely represented in the media. Disturbingly, little attention has been paid to this occurrence beyond its implications for American employment opportunities. Representing Indian and American IT workers as unified groups whose interests are mutually exclu…
Culturally Situated Design Tools: Ethnocomputing from Field Site to Classroom
Ethnomathematics is the study of mathematical ideas and practices situated in their cultural context. Culturally Situated Design Tools (CSDTs) are web-based software applications that allow students to create simulations of cultural arts-Native American beadwork, African American cornrow hairstyles, urban graffiti, and so forth-using these underlying mathematical principles. This article is a review of the anthropological issues raised in the CSD…
The Nintendo Entertainment System and the 10NES Chip: Carving the Video Game Industry in Silicon
This essay makes the argument that the numerous ''networks'' or ''inter/intranetworks'' that structure the video game industry have lived local effects for those involved in the production of video games. In particular, this is most visible in the realm of console video game development but is visible in many other contexts as well. It uses the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) as an index into this complex and highly structured world that freq…
On the Back of a Flying Gryphon: Soaring Over/Through the Global Game Industry
On the Back of a Flying Gryphon: Soaring Over/Through the Global Game Industry Casey O’Donnell (bio) Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter, Games of Empire Bonnie A. Nardi, My Life as a Night Elf Priest William Sims Bainbridge, The Warcraft Civilization After more than thirty years as a thing that can be called “an industry,” the video-game industry now finds itself in its middle ages, as well as the object of critical and scholarly inquiry. Th…
Wither Mario Factory: The Role of Tools in Constructing (Co)Creative Possibilities on Video Game Consoles
This article examines the role that game development tools have in the design and creation of video games. It does so through the lens of a series of patents by Nintendo that outlined the technological foundations for a truly (co)creative production platform for games. Game development tools shape and are shaped by the kinds of games they are used to produce as well as the underlying technologies of game consoles. The roles, sites, and means by w…
Developer's Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators
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 devel…
Getting Played: Gamification and the Rise of Algorithmic Surveillance
Gamification, the idea that game mechanics can be integrated into assumed "non-game" circumstances has gained ascendance amongst champions of marketing, behavior change and efficiency. Ironically, some of the most heated critique to gamification has been the broader community of "traditional" videogame developers. Connecting broadly to projects surrounding "big data" and algorithmic surveillance, the project of gamification continues to expand an…
On Balinese Cockfights: Deeply Extending Play
In this article, I advance three points, each in service of "extending play" as a critical conceptual category. The article begins with Clifford Geertz's essay "Deep Play," tracing through its lens the possibilities for "deeply extending play." The essay extends Geertz's argument that games and play are in/as/of/through culture. Games and play are not generative of, reflective of, just culture. Rather they are intensely interwoven. I argue that g…
Games Are Social/Media(ted)/Technology Too
In this manifesto, we argue that social media research needs to take the broader field of game studies in the exploration and understanding of social media. Many of the results, theories, and concepts developed in the study of games has significant implications for the study of all social media. Of course, game studies should be paying attention to social media research too
Ethnographic Apps/Apps as Ethnography
Today, people nearly everywhere are experiencing multiple events through the medium of mobile apps: Social networking platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, are now accessed through sm
Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape, How Video Games Impact Players: The Pitfalls and Benefits of a Gaming Society and Knowledge Games: How Playing Games Can Solve Problems,…
I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer by Nathan Altice
Reviewed by: I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer by Nathan Altice Casey O’Donnell (bio) I Am Error: The Nintendo Family Computer. By Nathan Altice. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2015. Pp. 440. Paperback $30. I desperately wanted to write this book. Of course, then it wouldn’t have been this book. When I was told someone else was going to be writing “the NES book,” I was intensely jealous. Consequently, I went into my reading of the text with unr…
Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America by Michael Z. Newman
Reviewed by: Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America by Michael Z. Newman Casey O'Donnell (bio) Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America By Michael Z. Newman. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2017. Pp. xii + 252. I was born too late to be a part of the "Atari Age," but the epoch explored by Michael Z. Newman in Atari Age: The Emergence of Video Games in America echoes through today. Going beyond the exploration of the technologi…
Introduction: Toward Critical Game Design
This special issue addresses the epistemological, institutional, and political challenges of integrating critical games scholarship with game development practices and pedagogy. The featured essays help form a foundation for Critical Game Design and draw from intellectual traditions and debates not only from both game studies and game design, but from the classical design disciplines as well. We aim to build more connective tissue and collaborati…
Computer Science (13 works) · Digital Games and Media (11 works) · Sociology (9 works) · Political science (7 works) · Artificial Intelligence (4 works) · Economics (4 works) · Epistemology (4 works) · Game design (4 works) · Media studies (4 works) · Multimedia (4 works)