The advent of multiplayer online games brings new actors into the development scene and redefines traditional roles and interactions. Anchored on studies of the role of context in human interaction we argue for a view of multiplayer online games as sociotechnical constructs, and of their “development” as an ongoing process of context engineering. By recognizing the new interplay of actors that extends from design time well into play time we attempt to transcend the technological determinism of approaches that focus on technological devices as determinants of the game experience. Using Actor-Network Theory constructs we propose an alternative perspective that takes context as the development object and technical artifacts, social and game rules, roles, playing and organizational strategies and practices as media designed to influence the emergence of the heterogeneous sociotechnical networks governing online game experiences. Finally, we outline challenges for the innovation of designer and player roles. Read more...

Game studies has yet to engage with a sustained debate on the implications of its fundamentally technologically based foundation – i.e. the ‘digitality’ of digital games. This paper calls for such a debate and offers some initial thoughts on issues and directions. The humanities and social sciences are founded on the principle that historical and cultural agency reside solely in the human and the social. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, Actor-Network Theory and cybercultural studies, this paper argues that a full understanding of both the playing of digital games, and the wider techno-cultural context of this play, is only possible through a recognition and theorisation of technological agency. Taking the Gameboy Advance game Advance Wars 2 as a case study, the paper explores the implications for game studies of attention to non-human agency – specifically the agency of simulation and artificial life software - in digital game play. Read more...