ABSTRACT
The contemporary videogame industry is popularly imagined as a homogenous site where large, international studios pour millions of publishers’ dollars into technologically advanced blockbuster experiences. The sheer amount of money these Hollywood-like games return to their investors through sales is held up in countless scholarly and journalistic articles as both arguments for the cultural legitimacy of the medium and its complicity in neoliberal capitalism. Of this straightforward imagining, the videogames most visible in broader culture are, inevitably, those with the highest budgets and the most advertising—such as the juggernaut franchises of Call of Duty or Grand Theft Auto—and those online games with significant online communities such as massively-multiplayer online (MMO) games like World of Warcraft or competitive e-sports like League of Legends (see Taylor 2006; Taylor 2012 respectively). Much has been written about these most visible sectors: the games they produce (Deuze et al. 2007); the labour practices they cultivate (de Peuter and Dyer-Witheford 2005); the cultures they perpetuate (Kirkpatrick 2013). However, a far more diverse range of creators, audiences, and modes of videogame production and consumption has emerged with the rise of digital distribution and a proliferation of platforms. International corporate publishers now compete with—and draw influence from—smaller teams or individuals that are finding their own critical and commercial success in vibrant independent scenes. While a hobbyist, core, male-dominated “gamer” audience continues to prioritise technological progressivism and virtuosic control, more ubiquitous platforms such as smartphones and social network sites challenge these traditional values by broadening the reach of videogames to a more diverse and casual audience that has an everyday relationship to videogames. A lower barrier of entry to the tools of videogame production, meanwhile, has seen an emergence of DIY developers from marginalised backgrounds creating and distributing experimental and personal “zine” games. Across this diverse network of creators, nascent critical discourses are emerging both publicly and within the academy, in tandem 153with the enthusiast press, to discuss and debate the values and meanings of the videogame form.
