Introduction and research project

[nicwatson]

Hi all,

I'm working on a master's thesis in which I investigate links or differences between the design culture of game developers (i.e. Cyan) and the design culture of players/fans, especially where they are involved in creative work that adds to the game (i.e. groups like the Guild of Writers). I am interested in creative work process and motivations but also in other, general activities. Most of what I would be doing is participant-observation, where I observe and take part in activities in-world. I would also like to do some informal interviews, and may take part in forum discussions or post questions I have here.

If you would like to participate, please read and fill out the consent form here:

https://edu.surveygizmo.com/s3/395671/uru-consent

This explains all of the research activities and your rights as a participant, and ensures that research is carried out in an ethical fashion.

If you have any questions, I can be reached at nicwatson@gatech.edu. I can also be found in-world under the name "Herschel."

Thank you for your time.

(Very brief background: longtime Myst fan, used to hang out on the Cyan web chatroom some 11 years back, first joined Uru during the MOUL/Gametap era. Recently started going to TMP meets. I hope to do some basic age-writing as part of my research too. Right now I'm still teaching myself how to do simple things in Blender. Looking forward to meeting all of you!)

[Christian Walther]

I am interested in participating, but there is one thing that is not clear to me from the consent form.

My motivation for participating is to learn something about myself. That requires that I get access to the research that is being done on me.

When you observe my behavior and make notes about it, will I eventually get to read those notes? If a publication comes of your research, can I be notified of it? If an article is published in a research journal that requires a subscription, can I get a copy without having a subscription?

[nicwatson]

Thanks for your interest, Christian and also everyone else who has contacted me!

The only target publication so far is my master's thesis, which will be completed by November 2011 (or earlier). Certainly I can give you a copy of this. Furthermore, if I do publish anything else down the road, I will make sure to let you know and I can also send a copy of the article to you.

I can show you field notes pertaining to you (although I may have to excise data pertaining to others first).

Hope this helps. If you have any other questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

-- Herschel / nicwatson

[nicwatson]

A little more background info on my project:

I started with the question, "In what ways did Cyan's culture, motivations and design process for Uru play a role in driving the story-world as well as in selecting and determining Uru (player) culture?" Dr. Celia Pearce, who has done past research in Uru(and who is also my thesis advisor) found that designed characteristics and affordances of a game world were connected with the player culture that emerges, and both form part of a "play ecosystem" (from _Communities of Play_, 2009, p. 24). So what I wanted to look at is: given a game developer like Cyan, with its own workplace culture and practice, can connections be drawn not just between player culture and characteristics of the designed game world, but also between player culture and game developer culture?

So the first part of my fieldwork was to develop a sort of oral history of Cyan's development of Uru -- I visited their offices, interviewed employees and reviewed old design documents (several large boxes stuffed full of paper!).

The second part, now, is to study the player community itself. So I've been hanging out in-world, mostly with TMP folks so far (although I would certainly like to meet with other groups too), to observe and take part in activities and make an ethnographic account of player culture. I am also particularly interested in age-writing, modding, tweaking and so on, because this is basically players taking on the role of developers -- except with their own vision and goals.

The final product of this research will be a big thesis paper (to be completed by Nov/Dec 2011) which I will gladly share with anyone who wants. I'll also post a summary of my findings on the forum here when I'm done.

[J'Kla]

I know of Celias work she's also known as Artimesia she has had some significant stuff pubished on the gaming community. With her involvment i would think we might get somthing out of this even if it's just a better understanding between ourselves and Cyan.

It looks like Nic's had some privlaged access at Cyan allready.

[Chacal]

So I've been hanging out in-world, [...], to observe and take part in activities and make an ethnographic account of player culture.

gary-larson-1984-far-side-anthropologists.jpg (195.91 KiB) Viewed 5302 times

[Christian Walther]

Random comments that may be helpful or not:

• Many important historical documents about the relationship between Cyan and fan developers (as well as some recent gems ) are hard to find unless you follow the daily chatter really closely – I am thinking for example of COBBS threads containing communication from Cyantists Chogon and Moke, or summarizing blog posts, or CyanChat logs with former Cyantists. Were you aware of those? I’m sure others here can point you to more if you ask around.
• A note about myself as a research subject – something to keep in mind (that you’re probably aware of): I am not an Age Writer, so I don’t know if what I do even figures among the kinds of fan creativity that you are interested in, but if you only observe my behavior at TMP meetings, you won’t get a complete picture of my “player culture”, as a lot of what I otherwise do in connection to being an Uru fan is usually only marginally touched upon there, and doesn’t even in the majority happen in the game. You would have to follow all forums I post on, my Bitbucket and GitHub accounts, and maybe even put all my test avatars on your buddy list to see when they log in. (Some info here, for more ask me privately.)

[J'Kla]

I know you don't regard yourself as an age writer CW but I know your testing goes a long way to contributing to age building. It's like the Skydivers glitch hunting their discoveries lead to understanding how Cyan built Ae'agura and these insights help writers build better and interesting ages.