@article{Chia2020,

title = {Platformisation in Game Development},

author = {Aleena Chia and Brendan Keogh and Dale Leorke and Benjamin Nicoll},

url = {https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/platformisation-game-development},

doi = {10.14763/2020.4.1515},

issn = {2197-6775},

year  = {2020},

date = {2020-10-21},

journal = {Internet Policy Review},

volume = {9},

issue = {4},

pages = {1-28},

abstract = {This article examines how the process of platformisation is manifesting in videogame development. Rather than reinforcing a top-down perspective of platformisation centred on distribution platforms like app stores, we focus on often overlooked game-making tools and the independent, entrepreneurial, and fringe communities that govern and use them. We draw on case studies of Unity and Twine, two such tools that have transformed videogame creation and distribution. By considering how they complicate existing understandings and definitions of both ‘platform’ and ‘platformisation’, we move beyond reductive narratives that frame platformisation as a fixed, hegemonic process. Instead, we reveal a much more ambiguous and complex relationship between game makers and the platforms they use.},

keywords = {Cultural production, Democratisation, Game development, Game engines, Platform, Platformisation},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Albarrán-Torres2019,

title = {Poker Avatars: Affective Investment and Everyday Gambling Platforms},

author = {César Albarrán-Torres and Thomas H. Apperley},

url = {https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1329878X18805088?icid=int.sj-abstract.similar-articles.1},

doi = {10.1177/1329878X18805088},

issn = {1329-878X},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-08-01},

urldate = {2019-08-01},

journal = {Media International Australia},

volume = {172},

issue = {1},

pages = {103-113},

abstract = {This article examines the use of player-controlled avatars on digital gambling platforms and apps. Through a discussion of the influential, but now defunct, online gambling platform PKR ‘The Second Life of gambling’ the article illustrates how the avatar has a key role in the routinization of online gambling and cultivating affective investment from gamblers. The process of creating, maintaining and updating avatars promotes spending winnings in-house as the house now provides digital items that allow players to personalize their avatars. For gamblers, the affective investment in avatars adds a crucial qualitative and social dimension to what is otherwise a game of numbers and odds. The customizable avatar introduces a qualitative uncertainty by creating the possibility for indirect communication through avatar appearance, accessories and gestures, which reconnects online poker to face-to-face gambling through traditions such as bluffing. Affective investment in the avatar thus creates a feeling of co-presence between gamblers while gamblers and gambling platforms.},

keywords = {App, Avatars, Gambling, Online casino, Platform},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{Švelch2019,

title = {Resisting the Perpetual Update: Struggles Against Protocological Power in Video Games},

author = {Jan Švelch},

url = {https://urn.fi/URN:NBN:fi:tuni-201908293061},

doi = {10.1177/1461444819828987},

issn = {1461-4448},

year  = {2019},

date = {2019-07-01},

journal = {New Media & Society},

volume = {21},

issue = {7},

pages = {1594-1612},

abstract = {This article explores the evolution of video game updates and patches from a mechanism of customer support to a tool of control over the way games are played in the ecosystem of digital gaming platforms. It charts a historical trajectory across various cultural industries, including literary publishing, screen industries, and music, to show a shift from multiplicity of editions to one perpetually updated contingent commodity. Focusing on the issues of power and control enabled by the always-online platforms, the analysis shows that previously updating was often voluntary. However, now players must actively resist patches if they wish to play the game on their own terms. As illustrated by three case studies of update resistance, developers, publishers, and platform holders wield protocological power, which can be successfully opposed—although the outcome often remains localized and tends to alter a specific iteration of protocol and not the underlying infrastructure},

keywords = {Contingent commodity, Digital distribution, Patch, Platform, Protocol, Protocological power, Update, User resistance, Video games},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}

@article{VanRyn2018,

title = {Avatar Economies: Affective Investment from Game to Platform},

author = {Luke Ryn and Thomas H. Apperley and Justin Clemens},

doi = {10.1080/13614568.2019.1572790},

issn = {17407842},

year  = {2018},

date = {2018-01-01},

urldate = {2018-01-01},

journal = {New Review of Hypermedia and Multimedia},

volume = {24},

number = {4},

pages = {291--306},

publisher = {Taylor & Francis},

abstract = {Video game avatars have been understood as a key site of players' “affective investment” in play and games. In this article, we extend this conversation to explore the avatar's role in engaging players with gaming platforms. Through a case study of Team Fortress 2 (Valve Software, 2007) and the Steam platform, we demonstrate the avatar's function beyond gameworlds as a tool for encouraging certain kinds of play. Team Fortress 2, we argue, is a crucial testing ground for Valve's experiments with gaming economies via the Steam platform. By extension, we show the importance of video game avatars for encouraging affective investment in platforms more broadly, including Microsoft's Xbox Live, PlayStation Network and even workplace dashboards.},

keywords = {Avatars, Platform, Video games},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}