Divergent Design Competence in the RPG Maker Community Trevor Owens, Center for History and New Media, George Mason University

Abstract Central Questions The RPG Maker VX Community site provides its Advance to Complete Game, 1 Who is involved in the community? more than 40,000 members a space to collabora- Resource staff tively critique and design PC role-playing games. Start New project This poster presents preliminary results from a 2 What is the extent and nature of their qualitative study of this community. Analysis of in- Take and Take and involvement? terviews and discussions on the RPG Maker site, give criticism give criticism combined with information gathered through a 3 What kinds of skills and knowledge Make and Share survey suggest that the RPG Maker Community Start and Share participants are developing through is scaffolding young game enthusiasts into a Resources Game Project their involvement? deeper understanding of game design and allied digital art perspectives. The study proposes a Revisit for 4 How do participants find, join and ad vance within the community? model for how members join, advance, and de- feedback velop new literacy competencies through partici- Visit for pation in the community. resources .

Conceptual Context Interest in/ Awarness Conclusions Analysis of the interviews and discussions on Online affinity communities are increasingly being

Design Competence of RPG Maker explored as places where young people are ac- the RPG Maker site, combined with information quiring new literacies (Gee, 2004). Through ex- Allied Game gathered through a survey suggest that the RPG Maker Community is scaffolding game tensive ethnographic fieldwork Ito and others . Arts Design enthusiasts into a deeper understanding of (2010) found young people “geeking out” in web Design Domain based affinity communities where individuals are - game design and art and allied art and design “learning to navigate esoteric domains of knowl- perspectives. This work supports the following

edge and practice and participating in communi- From Interest to Community theory for engagement in the community. ties that traffic in these forms of expertise” (p. 28). one of my friends, whom I know in college, showed me this site and said he got most Came for Members join to gain access to the resources, Studies of Flickr (Davies, 2006), fan fiction sites "scripts" for his game from this site. So I guess was initially sparked by the re- resources character sprites, maps, scripts, and other art- (Black, 2005), and Civilization fan-sites (Squire & “sources the RMVX site had. Facets, music tracks, character sprites - it was a grow- work. Some then engage in a cycle of critical giovanetto 2008; Owens 2010) support the idea ing treasure box for customizing and would allow me to add depth to my game. I Stayed for dialog with other community members. The that young people are acquiring critical new lit- also liked how many people actually collaborated online and actually completed Colaboration evidence suggests that those who persist in eracy skills in these communities. video games - watching other people complete online collaboration gave me engaging in this dialog develop a range of criti- some confidence to join and perhaps start my own Colaboration cal competencies 21st century skills and new illiteracies in art and design. The communal and cooperative nature of these 19, female, California Built Confidence informal learning communities suggests that they ” be understood as communities of practice (Lave & Wenger 1991). Community members develop Game Design Experience Contact competence and refine their skills toward mastery The biggest change was not to "write as I work". Prelude to some people was confus- Chromprehensive Trevor Owens through interaction and engagement, and encour- ing because of the weakness in the fidelity of the plot. For Crescendo, I made sure I Design Center for History and New Media agement from expert community members. The “pieced together the story in a storyboard before I started making the game. An- George Mason University RPG Maker community offers a space to further other big change was balancing, as there was an issue with that in the first game as Attention to Ballance [email protected] examine these kinds of interest and affinity driven well. This time I did the entire database before I started making the game. I would edit trevorowens.org spaces. the numbers accordingly if I found a player/enemy too strong or too weak. Finally I Attention Pacing changed the pacing of each of the game's segments. In prelude, missions were very long and most people found resting spots to be too far apart. I decreased the size of Attention to References Research Design dungeons and added more save locations, as well as made sure the plot kept moving This poster presents part of a larger multi-method Simplicity and Depth Black, R. W. (2005). Access and affiliation: The literacy and composition at a steady pace. I took many of the suggestions and simplified the system without practices of English-language learners in an online fanfiction commu- study of the RPG Maker Community. The larger nity. Journal of Adolescent & Adult Literacy, 49(2), 118-128. removing depth from the game. study uses a randomized survey of participants to Mr. Moo, 19, male, Calgery Canada doi:10.1598/JAAL.49.2.4 Davies, J., (2006). Affinities and Beyond! Developing Ways of Seeing in chart general demographic information and in- Online Spaces. E-Learning, 3(2), 217-234. volvement in the community, in-depth interviews ” Resource Design Experience Gee, J. P. (2004). Situated Language and Learning: A Critique of Traditional with a purposeful sample of ten community mem- Impressed by Schooling. Routledge. To sum it up, there was a Japanese script that impressed me. It was being badly bers to document participant reactions and under- users work Ito, M., Baumer, S., Bittanti, M., Boyd, D., Cody, R., & Herr, B. (2010). Hang- standing, and analysis of forum discussions and maintained. I took the reigns and decided to maintain the script myself. The transla- ing out, messing around, geeking out: Living and learning with new “tion of this Japanese script has considered good by the community and, for some media. Cambridge: MIT Press. rules posted on the community site to examine Saw need, steped up Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated Learning: Legitimate Peripheral Par- the actual interactions of community participants. reason, I rode the wave of this popular Japanese script and got recognition by help- ticipation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. This poster reports preliminary results from these ing lots of people regarding this script. If there's something unclear about this, let Recieved recgonition Owens, T. (2010). Modding the History of Science: Values at Play in Modder me know....I'm not actually a full-fledged coder, at least not yet. I chose to go into Discussions of Sid Meier's CIVILIZATION. Simulation Gaming. three data sets, focusing primarily on articulating doi:10.1177/1046878110366277 programming because of RPG Maker. Surprisingly, RPG Maker provides very good a model of community engagement and the com- Develops idenity as Squire, K., & Giovanetto, L. (2008). The higher education of gaming. E- petencies community members develop. examples of basic concepts used in Ruby and other programming languages. What programer Learning, 5(1), 2-28. makes RPG Maker so great with learning is that it is applied learning. It is done in a game development context and that's not only fun, but applied learning is how I learn Ascribes idenity to best. Mr. Bubble, 24, male, Portland Oregon” learning context