ASSMT 1: 2.5 Notes on games, ARGs and digital commons

The topic of Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) was an interesting one this week that I think fits well with my remediation project and essay. Although I have chosen to remediate and write an essay about the sub plot of a television series - the way in which the characters story intertwines with real life scenarios is similar to the way in which ARGs are operate.

Örnebring states: "Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are a form of internet-based mystery game in which participants are immersed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem-solving" (Örnebring 2007 p. 445).

And they work by:

  "Events and things mentioned in the episodes of the TV series itself will also provide clues. Bit by bit, these clues form a separate narrative set in the fictional world" (Örnebring 2007 p. 446).

In the TV show Gavin and Stacey - Nessa's back story is never fully told and she remains somewhat of a mystery. A series of clues are dropped by Nessa in her stories that reflect upon past conquests involving famous people from the real world. If viewers choose to investigate these clues they will find that these stories not only reference real life people but also real life scenarios that have been reported in the press. Nessa turns out to be someone that has escaped the limelight while being involved in a great deal of scandal.

Therefore the TV show follows a similar line to ARGs in that:

• A mystery is created
• Clues are given
• Clues can be investigated by audiences
• Clues link to real world people and scenarios through press reports

My remediation project sets out to join these clues together through a blog that presents Nessa as if she is a real life person and further the idea that the stories are true. Unlike a game there is no puzzle solving winning at the end, it is merely a site for investigating clues and filling in the back story - a kind of virtual reality blog based on a virtual reality storyline in a TV show.

In this regard my blog could be seen as an example cultural labor  described by Fiske and quoted by  Örnebring as " ‘filling in the syntagmatic gaps in the original narrative’ (Örnebring 2007 p. 451 quoting Fiske, 1992). In other words the blog pieces together a back story that enriches the characters in TV show. Örnebring believes that this type of culture labor supports marketing for television shows (as does other fan created content) - as it stays within the storyline and concept of the show rather than changing it, and disseminates to a wider audience

This same idea was covered in our second reading about Digital Commons - especially in the sections about mods which are fan produced modifications for games. The point was made here too that modders stick to the boundaries of the originating text source as per the following quote:

"most mods are thematically conservative, undertaken by technically accomplished fans who love a particular game and want more of it – more weapons and monstrous opponents for shooters, different campaigns and battles for war games – in variants that don’t stray far from the spirit of the original" (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007).

Both readings link fan culture, virtual reality and media institutions all of which relate to my remediation project. As the blog is aimed at fans and new watchers of the show Gavin and Stacey -  this topic would be good to cover in my essay.

Coleman, S., and N. Dyer-Witheford. 2007. Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture. Media Culture Society 29:  Sage publications. http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/29/6/934 (accessed 26/10/11).

Örnebring, H. 2007. Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10: 445 - 462. Sage Publications. http://ics.sagepub.com/content/10/4/445 (accessed 20/10/11).

Do you mod? Why do modders mod?

Coleman & Dyer-Witheford describe modding as follows 

“modders aim to expand games: changing characters’ ‘skins’, adding weapons, creating scenarios, levels or missions, building new games out of old engine” (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p. 941)

I am not much of a gamer so modding is not something that I do or have encountered before although I can see its benefits.

For entertainment purposes alone being able to modify a game would make it a lot more enjoyable. When the game gets boring just adding an extension or accessing an extension someone else has created would allow continued and more interesting play.

I can also see this practice as being greatly beneficial the individual in terms of education.   By studying and experimenting with the original code, one could learn to create games through a process of self education. Overall, modding could create highly educated games developers who be seen as both a threat and an asset to gaming companies.

Coleman, S., and N. Dyer-Witheford. 2007. Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture. Media Culture Society 29:  Sage publications. http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/29/6/934 (accessed 26/10/11).

Unpack the tenuous and complex tensions between game pirates and games companies.

According to Coleman and Dyer-Witheford Game Pirates can be categorized as follows:

Black Market Centers:

·      Businesses that produce high volumes of copied games for sale and profit. They run factories in “Southeast Asia, Eastern Europe, and Latin America” (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p.938) that are professional and sophisticated and mimic the business model of legitimate games producers but within a criminal syndicate.

Warez Groups:

·      Peer to peer file sharing. Warez groups believe that once they have purchased a game that they own it and have a “right to redistribute it” (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p. 938) to other games lovers. They see laws that prevent redistribution as part of a “greedy corporate order” and therefore “gift” games to others within the group without seeking financial reward. The Warez economy works on sharing games and payment comes in the form of “thrill of technological accomplishment” (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p. 938) and a good reputation within the group.

Other:

·      People making the odd copy of a game, sharing them in small groups, businesses copying the odd game to restock their shelves, and games lovers uploading out of production “retro” games online – keeping them in existence which in some ways can be seen to support the gaming industry through the dissemination of gaming culture (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p. 940).

In the eyes of copyright law all three types of piracy are seen as equal in severity and no distinction is made between them despite their vast differences. As Coleman and Dyer-Witheford point out, the games industry was founded on the back of hackers who shared, improved and redistributed games for the fun of it. This was not an illegal activity until big business commodified games, turning their originating producers into criminals (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p. 937).

Further tensions arise within the gaming community when the games industry seeks to recoup their financial losses due to piracy by increasing the sales price of their games, effectively punishing their law-abiding customers while black market groups continue to copy. Furthermore the addition of “anti-coping” technology to games software aimed at reducing piracy has, in the past, reduced the quality of the product – resulting in law suits for the gaming industry (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007 p. 940) and again punishing the customer base rather than the black market criminal. 

Coleman, S., and N. Dyer-Witheford. 2007. Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture. Media Culture Society 29:  Sage publications. http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/29/6/934 (accessed 26/10/11).

2.5 What are commons? In our current consumer/capitalist framework is it possible to even have commons in this context? Is the online environment a digital commons?

Coleman and Dyer-Witheford describe commons as:

“resources that all in a specified community may use, but none can own. They contrast with commodities, exchanged for profit on the basis of privatized possession.” (Coleman and Dyer-Witheford 2007)P934

In this context I believe that we do in some ways have commons in our current consumer/capitalist framework although they are more likely to be referred to as public areas and are not for the exclusive use of a “specified community”. We have parks, national parks, roads, and footpaths, crowned land, a water supply, libraries, and public beaches. Although it could be argued that governments own these resources – the governments are voted in by the general public who fund the upkeep of these resources through the paying of taxes. Therefore these resources could be said to be owned by all or none, depending on how you would like to look at it.

There are laws and regulations that govern our public resources or commons: such as speed limits on roads, fire safety guidelines in national parks, summer time water restrictions and laws that stop you staking out your own private little piece of Bondi Beach but they are put in place to preserve the commons, to ensure fairness, and to keep the general public safe when on common ground. Could we have common land without rules and regulations? I would have to say no. Our capitalist society works by one person taking ownership of a resource and trading for the resources of others. We do not live in a society where we only take what we need to survive; we take what we think we can profit most from. Therefore in this day and age our commons are legislated to prevent profit based on “privatized possession”.

Much like the offline world I believe the online environment is largely privatized but there are small chunks of it that could be thought of as commons. The world wide web is one example – this system of hyperlinks and urls enables us to make use of the internet and it is free – anyone can learn and use the code needed to make a website, but putting the website online is once again privatized through ISP’s charging for domain names. If anything Coleman and Dyer-Withefords article shows is that digital commons are not cut and dry. Companies own the intellectual properly rights to code, characters and the visual style of games. They may embrace the public playing on their turf or they may forbid people from using their code or characters to create new content entirely. In either case the companies still have IP rights over the content, and can choose to litigate at any time they see fit which sends mixed messages, blurring the line between commons and profitable privatization.

Coleman, S., and N. Dyer-Witheford. 2007. Playing on the digital commons: collectivities, capital and contestation in videogame culture. Media Culture Society 29:  Sage publications. http://mcs.sagepub.com/content/29/6/934 (accessed 26/10/11).

What relationships within and between convergent cultures do ARGs represent?

In his article Örnebring explains a theory by Jenkins where ARGs represent the relationship between “top-down processes of convergence…. and bottom-up processes of convergence”(Örnebring 2007) p448.

What this means is that ARGs turn “read only” media texts created by media institutions into texts that can be actively participated in by audiences. Consumers and producers merge and converge in ARGs as do the platforms on which the story is told.

According to Jenkins ARGs operate through a system of “decentralized”, “multi-platformed storytelling”(Örnebring 2007) p448 . Meaning that a little piece of the story is told on one platform (for example a clue is given in the TV show) while the storyline is furthered on another platform (e.g. more clues are given in on a website, or via a phone call) therefore ARGs also represent a blurring in the relationships between media platforms who rather than tell one story in its entirety, tell small pieces of a story that must be pieced together by the audience.

Örnebring, H. 2007. Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10: 445 - 462. Sage Publications. http://ics.sagepub.com/content/10/4/445 (accessed 20/10/11).

Topic 2.5 What is an alternate reality game? Have you played one?

I haven’t played and alternate reality game but Örnebring defines one as an “internet-based

mystery game in which participants are immersed in a fictional world and engage in collective problem-solving” (Örnebring 2007 p.445). The games are created by media companies (usually for marketing purposes) or by fans in order to further explore and interact with their favorite media text.

ARG’s link to particular media texts such as movies, songs, books or TV shows but this link is not always something that is made clear to participants. Örnebring demonstrated this with his example of the ARG created for the movie AI: Artificial Intelligence - called the Beast. This ARG created a buzz surrounding issues covered in the movie yet did not directly reference the movie, its storyline or its characters (Örnebring 2007 p.446). Other ARGs require participants to collect clues from the originating text and use the collective intelligence of the group in order to progress through the game.

Regardless of its form, the purpose if an ARG is to allow the consumer to actively participate in a fictional word that intertwines with reality – participants must suspend belief in order to interact with the game and the media text as if it were a real.

Örnebring, H. 2007. Alternate reality gaming and convergence culture. International Journal of Cultural Studies 10: 445 - 462. Sage Publications. http://ics.sagepub.com/content/10/4/445 (accessed 20/10/11).

Audience research for Remediation Project

As stated in my earlier blog post on the audience for my remediation project, Nessa's little black book will be aimed at those watching or re-watching the TV series Gavin and Stacey either on repeat TV broadcasts or DVD box sets. Given that Gavin and Stacey is no longer in production the idea behind the remediation is create a link between the stories Nessa tells and the now old pop culture references she uses.

It is a given that fans of Gavin and Stacey will own the box sets and re-watch them from time to time, but I also wanted to find out who the new audience would be.

An article on TV tonight (a blog about Australian TV that also contains viewer statistics) states that the BBC have launched an iPad App called iPlayer which will give subscribers access to a back catalogue of BBC programs including Gavin and Stacey. If it goes well in Australia it will also be launched in the USA (Knox 2011). This means that the TV series will be available to US and Australian iPad owners and subscribers to watch whenever they wish, although niche this does bode well for my remediation project.

Gavin and Stacey is currently showing as re-runs in the UK and Ireland on the BBC owned TV Channel UK G.O.L.D which is available on pay television services such as Sky, Virgin TV and Top up TV (Comedy TV shows and video n GOLD TV  2011)

It is currently showing on Netflix (Shelby 2011) which is available in the USA and Canada and is currently expanding into other countries (Company Overview  2011)

Currently showing on TVNZ and TVNZ Ondemand in New Zealand (Gavin And Stacey  2011)

This is a list compiled of legal ways to watch the show that I have found through a Google search in the English language. My search has found that Gavin and Stacey has, in the past been aired in other countries such as Israel on VOD but I am unable to search the respective web-sites in order to backup this claim due to the language barrier. I feel it is also worthy to note that, although I am not condoning it - some of my audience base will be made up of people who watch pirated copies of the show. I am nothing if not a realist!

  Comedy TV shows and video n GOLD TV. 2011. http://uktv.co.uk/gold/homepage/sid/5001 (accessed 20/10/11).

  Company Overview. 2011. https://signup.netflix.com/MediaCenter/Overview (accessed 20/10/11).

  Gavin And Stacey. 2011. http://tvnz.co.nz/gavin-and-stacey/about-1414345 (accessed 20/10/11).

 Knox, D. 2011. BBC iPlayer launches on iPad. http://www.tvtonight.com.au/2011/09/bbc-iplayer-launches-on-ipad.html (accessed 20/10/11).

 Shelby. 2011. Netflix Instant Pick of the Week: Summer TV Part 3. http://uktv.co.uk/gold/homepage/sid/5001 (accessed 20/10/11).