Mia Consalvo's Books

Cheating

Gaining Advantage in Videogames

By: Mia Consalvo

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Cheating

Gaining Advantage in Videogames

By: Mia Consalvo

A cultural history of digital gameplay that investigates a wide range of player behavior, including cheating, and its relationship to the game industry. The widely varying experiences of players of digital games challenge the notions that there is only one correct way to play a game. Some players routinely use cheat codes, consult strategy guides, or buy and sell in-game accounts, while others consider any or all of these practices off limits. Meanwhile, the game industry works to constrain certain readings or activities and promote certain ways of playing. In Cheating, Mia Consalvo investigates how players choose to play games, and what happens when they can't always play the way they'd like. She explores a broad range of player behavior, including cheating (alone and in groups), examines the varying ways that players and industry define cheating, describes how the game industry itself has helped systematize cheating, and studies online cheating in context in an online ethnography of Final Fantasy XI. She develops the concept of "gaming capital" as a key way to understand individuals' interaction with games, information about games, the game industry, and other players. Consalvo provides a cultural history of cheating in videogames, looking at how the packaging and selling of such cheat-enablers as cheat books, GameSharks, and mod chips created a cheat industry. She investigates how players themselves define cheating and how their playing choices can be understood, with particular attention to online cheating. Finally, she examines the growth of the peripheral game industries that produce information about games rather than actual games. Digital games are spaces for play and experimentation; the way we use and think about digital games, Consalvo argues, is crucially important and reflects ethical choices in gameplay and elsewhere.

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Page Count

241

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

026225011X

ISBN 13

9780262250115

Atari to Zelda

Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts

By: Mia Consalvo

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Atari to Zelda

Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts

By: Mia Consalvo

The cross-cultural interactions of Japanese videogames and the West—from DIY localization by fans to corporate strategies of “Japaneseness.” In the early days of arcades and Nintendo, many players didn’t recognize Japanese games as coming from Japan; they were simply new and interesting games to play. But since then, fans, media, and the games industry have thought further about the “Japaneseness” of particular games. Game developers try to decide whether a game's Japaneseness is a selling point or stumbling block; critics try to determine what elements in a game express its Japaneseness—cultural motifs or technical markers. Games were “localized,” subjected to sociocultural and technical tinkering. In this book, Mia Consalvo looks at what happens when Japanese games travel outside Japan, and how they are played, thought about, and transformed by individuals, companies, and groups in the West. Consalvo begins with players, first exploring North American players’ interest in Japanese games (and Japanese culture in general) and then investigating players’ DIY localization of games, in the form of ROM hacking and fan translating. She analyzes several Japanese games released in North America and looks in detail at the Japanese game company Square Enix. She examines indie and corporate localization work, and the rise of the professional culture broker. Finally, she compares different approaches to Japaneseness in games sold in the West and considers how Japanese games have influenced Western games developers. Her account reveals surprising cross-cultural interactions between Japanese games and Western game developers and players, between Japaneseness and the market.

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Page Count

269

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262545764

ISBN 13

9780262545761

Real Games

What's Legitimate and What's Not in Contemporary Videogames

By: Mia Consalvo,Christopher A. Paul

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Real Games

What's Legitimate and What's Not in Contemporary Videogames

By: Mia Consalvo,Christopher A. Paul

How we talk about games as real or not-real, and how that shapes what games are made and who is invited to play them. In videogame criticism, the worst insult might be “That's not a real game!” For example, “That's not a real game, it's on Facebook!” and “That's not a real game, it's a walking simulator!” But how do people judge what is a real game and what is not—what features establish a game's gameness? In this engaging book, Mia Consalvo and Christopher Paul examine the debates about the realness or not-realness of videogames and find that these discussions shape what games get made and who is invited to play them. Consalvo and Paul look at three main areas often viewed as determining a game's legitimacy: the game's pedigree (its developer), the content of the game itself, and the game's payment structure. They find, among other things, that even developers with a track record are viewed with suspicion if their games are on suspect platforms. They investigate game elements that are potentially troublesome for a game's gameness, including genres, visual aesthetics, platform, and perceived difficulty. And they explore payment models, particularly free-to-play—held by some to be a marker of illegitimacy. Finally, they examine the debate around such so-called walking simulators as Dear Esther and Gone Home. And finally, they consider what purpose is served by labeling certain games “real.

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Page Count

219

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262353636

ISBN 13

9780262353632

Players and Their Pets

Gaming Communities from Beta to Sunset

By: Mia Consalvo,Jason Begy

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Players and Their Pets

Gaming Communities from Beta to Sunset

By: Mia Consalvo,Jason Begy

In the world of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), Faunasphere was but a blip on the screen in its short public life from 2009 to 2011. Its devoted players, many of them middle-aged women, entered a world that did not build on common fantasy or science-fiction tropes. There was no evil to defeat or realms to conquer, only friendly animals to care for and pollution to fight. In Players and Their Pets, Mia Consalvo and Jason Begy argue that its very difference makes it critically important—even more so than the large, commercially successful games such as World of Warcraft that have all too often shaped game studies discourse. Consalvo and Begy demonstrate how the beta period of an MMOG can establish social norms that guide how the game is played. They also show how a game’s platform creates expectations for how the game will work and who is playing it—and what happens when those expectations clash with the reality. Even while telling the story of this particular game and its predominantly female players, however, Players and Their Pets cautions against oversimplifying players based on their gender. Faunasphere’s playerbase enjoyed diverse aspects of the game, for varied reasons. No other game studies book tracks the entire life cycle of an online game to examine how the game evolved in terms of design as well as how its player community responded to changes and events. The brief life of Faunasphere makes this possible.

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Page Count

176

Publisher

U of Minnesota Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1452942250

ISBN 13

9781452942254

Cheating

Gaining Advantage in Videogames

By: Mia Consalvo

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Cheating

Gaining Advantage in Videogames

By: Mia Consalvo

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

241

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

026225011X

ISBN 13

9780262250115

Atari to Zelda

Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts

By: Mia Consalvo

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Atari to Zelda

Japan's Videogames in Global Contexts

By: Mia Consalvo

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

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Page Count

269

Publisher

MIT Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262545764

ISBN 13

9780262545761

Players and Their Pets

Gaming Communities from Beta to Sunset

By: Mia Consalvo,Jason Begy

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Players and Their Pets

Gaming Communities from Beta to Sunset

By: Mia Consalvo,Jason Begy

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Solve jigsaw puzzle

Age

Page Count

176

Publisher

U of Minnesota Press

Published Date

ISBN 10

1452942250

ISBN 13

9781452942254

Atari to Zelda

Japan's Video Games in Global Contexts

By: Mia Consalvo

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Atari to Zelda

Japan's Video Games in Global Contexts

By: Mia Consalvo

In the early days of arcades and Nintendo, many players didn't recognize Japanese games as coming from Japan; they were simply new and interesting games to play. But since then, fans, media, and the games industry have thought further about the "Japaneseness" of particular games. Game developers try to decide whether a game's Japaneseness is a selling point or stumbling block; critics try to determine what elements in a game express its Japaneseness--cultural motifs or technical markers. Games were "localized," subjected to sociocultural and technical tinkering. In this book, Mia Consalvo looks at what happens when Japanese games travel outside Japan, and how they are played, thought about, and transformed by individuals, companies, and groups in the West. Consalvo begins with players, first exploring North American players' interest in Japanese games (and Japanese culture in general) and then investigating players' DIY localization of games, in the form of ROM hacking and fan translating. She analyzes several Japanese games released in North America and looks in detail at the Japanese game company Square Enix. She examines indie and corporate localization work, and the rise of the professional culture broker. Finally, she compares different approaches to Japaneseness in games sold in the West and considers how Japanese games have influenced Western games developers. Her account reveals surprising cross-cultural interactions between Japanese games and Western game developers and players, between Japaneseness and the market."--Booki jacket.

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Page Count

269

Published Date

ISBN 10

0262332183

ISBN 13

9780262332187

Book's by Mia Consalvo

Cheating

Cheating

Atari to Zelda

Atari to Zelda

Real Games

Real Games

Players and Their Pets

Players and Their Pets

Cheating

Cheating

Atari to Zelda

Atari to Zelda

Players and Their Pets

Players and Their Pets

Atari to Zelda

Atari to Zelda

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