FCJ-106 Rule Making and Rule Breaking: Game Development and the Governance of Emergent Behaviour
Jennifer R. Whitson · The Fibreculture Journal · 2010
We are invited by games to bend the rules. It is in the very nature of play to find the movement between the rules, and for many players the ‘fun’ in play is the inherent challenge of attempting to master, defeat, or remake games’ formal structures. These rationalities of play preclude blind obedience to the rules and have distinct implications for how games are governed. While there have been numerous studies of players who bend or break the rules (Consalvo, 2007; Foo and Koivisto, 2004; Dibbell, 1998; Kolko and Reid, 1998; Williams, 2006; Mnookin, 1997) and players who alter and re-make the rules in their role of co-producers (Sotamaa, 2009; Kucklich, 2005; Humphreys, 2005; Taylor, 2006b), there is little research on game development companies and their attempts to harness these rationalities of play and uphold the rules. This paper draws from governmentality and Actor-Network-Theory (ANT) to highlight the extensive work developers and game designers undertake in managing not only technology, but humans as well. Following Latour (2005), each game is a network that links many diverse elements together, both human (e.g. producers, designers, programmers, players, etc.) and non-human (the technologies used to create, produce and play the game, etc.). Game networks do not just exist by themselves but need labour to create and maintain. Game developers occupy a central role as ‘shepherds’ of game network and their roles and responsibilities in this network are rapidly expanding due to the shift to player produced content as well as the incursion of real world economies and deviance into game worlds. A key contribution of this paper is to highlight the complexity of game networks, and highlight the need for future research on the role of developers and development processes in these networks. The multiple layers of rules that give the network its form are under constant revision, modification, and change. Rather than trying to force the complexities of governance to fit into a single framework of domination, this paper uses both ANT and governmentality studies to emphasize the pulling and pushing of different actors and the intricate balancing act that ensures the game network’s survival.