An Ethnography of Game Design DISSERTATION
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UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, IRVINE Fractured Imaginaries: an Ethnography of Game Design DISSERTATION submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Anthropology by Morgan Lynn Romine Dissertation Committee: Professor Tom Boellstorff, Chair Associate Professor Keith Murphy Professor Bonnie Nardi 2016 © 2016 Morgan Romine DEDICATION To Oscar and Joe for being everything good. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page GLOSSARY v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS viii CURRICULUM VITAE x ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION xi INTRODUCTION—Imagined Players and Design Empathy 1 Design Perspectives 3 Social Imaginaries 9 Subjectivity and Agency 12 Situated Design and Technosocial Assemblages 17 Methods 20 Structural Notes 23 CHAPTER 1—The Historical Situation: Tracking Changes in the Business of Fun 26 The Vision: A Historically Embedded Narrative 30 The Visionaries: Local Legacies of Leadership 35 Industry Pressures in AAA Game Design 40 Publishers, Investors, and Developer Quality of Life 43 Free-to-Play: A Changing Monetization Framework 45 CrowdFunding and Beta Tests 49 Conclusion 54 CHAPTER 2—Politics of Creative Spaces 57 A Developer’s Day 60 Open Spaces and a Flat Structure 65 Virtual World Spaces and Platforms for Collaboration 68 Shared Space and Social Work 75 Backstage, Private Spaces, and Gender Politics 79 Conclusion 84 CHAPTER 3—Developer Profiles and Professional Visions 86 Developer Demographics 88 Perspectives and Specializations 92 Designers 95 Artists 100 Programmers 104 Conclusion 108 iii CHAPTER 4—Coping with Complexity 111 Cultural Unifiers 113 BlueSky Values 116 Drinking Culture 120 Tiki Time and BlueSky Tribe Ritual 122 Cultural Touchstones 126 Hiring Practices 131 Conclusion 135 CHAPTER 5—Finding the Fun 138 The Playtest 138 The Fun Scale 142 Design Consideration #1: Challenge 148 Design Consideration #2: Choice 150 Design Consideration #3: Variable Patterns 153 Design Consideration #4: Transparency 155 Design Consideration #5: Embeddedness 158 Conclusion 160 CHAPTER 6—Gamer Imaginary 164 An Imagined Community of Players 164 Embedded Ideologies: Technolibertarianism in Gaming 169 Fantasy Immersion and Escapist Imaginings 173 Achievement Meritocracy 184 Conclusion 193 CONCLUSION 195 Mindful Design 198 Hiring and Diversity 200 People’s Design: The Future of Community-Driven Design 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY 206 iv GLOSSARY AAA games: a categorization intended to describe video games that meet the highest standard for graphics, production quality, and technological requirements. They are often identified by the amount of money spent in development, and during the period of this research, games that cost more than $20 million to make were usually considered AAA games. beta test: a software development phase immediately proceeding a product’s commercial launch, during which testers, often public volunteers, use the software and provide feedback about their experience. blue-sky (v): a design term used to describe an active process of imagining by developers discussing the future forms of a design in broad-scope, fantastical details, often times to an unrealistic, untenable extent. BlueSky Games: a fictional name for the real, independent AAA game design studio based in Orange County, CA, where this ethnographic study was conducted. DreamShooter: a fictional name for the real, open-world shooter game that was made by BlueSky Games from 2006 to 2014, and was the central product being designed by the developers at the core of this ethnography. FPS: “first person shooter,” a genre of game defined by a central gameplay dynamic involving guns, and the camera set at the player’s perspective. Free-to-Play: a monetization strategy within games in which they are free for anyone to download and play, but make money by selling individual items in the game. v gameplay: specifically refers to the systems in a game through which a player is presented with a challenge, puzzle, or goal, and given various abilities, options, or paths to accomplish that goal. Gameplay is usually the primary focus of game designers. game designer: a professional specialization within game development that involves conceptualizing and orchestrating gameplay and overall game experiences. Designers are typically the most concerned among developers about how players will experience the game as a whole, instead of as independent systemic parts. game developer: anyone who works directly on the development of a game product; can include designers, artists, programmers, engineers, etc. gamer: a cultural designation for someone who identifies with playing video games as a lifestyle, and imagines themselves as part of a community of other gamers. MMO: “massively multiplayer online”; most often used as part of “MMORPG” to classify some of the most popular online games in history, like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, that changed the game industry landscape in the 2000s. open-world game: a broad, inclusive term referring to an expansive, “massively multiplayer online” game world that allow free-roaming exploration by players. These come in many forms and would describe the virtual worlds similar to those found in MMO’s like World of Warcraft, non-linear/sandbox games like in the Grand Theft Auto series, RPGs like Skyrim, and virtual worlds like Second Life. PVE: “player-vs-environment”; a type of gameplay in the player’s goals involve defeating objectives in the environment, or beating the world’s creatures. vi PVP: ‘player-vs-player,” used in contrast to PVE, refers to the competitive game modes in most online games in which players compete directly against other players, or other Player Characters, rather than competing with, or battling against, Non-Player Characters (NPCs), which are run by the game’s AI (Artificial Intelligence) systems. player: describes the subject position of a person engaging with a game for playful purpose. RPG: “role-playing game,” describes a genre of game in which the players can choose from a number of different kinds of characters at the beginning of the game, and then play those characters along certain narrative progression threads to accomplish gameplay goals. vii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS Despite the sense that writing a dissertation can sometimes feel like a solo project, it is in fact the product of a vast team of collaborators. I must start by thanking my committee, whose guidance, patience, and encouragement were crucial to the completion of this project. Tom Boellstorff, my committee chair, deserves credit for what appeared to be a supernatural capacity for patience and generosity. He regularly inspired me to think broadly about how my contemporary field might resonate with the historical themes of our discipline. He also worked patient magic in helping me to break through the challenges of finally putting words onto pages. Keith Murphy lent me some wonderful theoretical and methodological tools for recording and examining the details of every-day storytelling. He has significantly influenced my academic notions about design, transcription, and Keynote. Bonnie Nardi was not only an important guide in studying important junctures between anthropology and games, but provided sage advice about how to balance my life and research while on this long quest of graduate study. Paul Dourish was the first to truly welcome me into the rich worlds of STS and HCI scholarship, and did so through the valuable perspective of someone who had also come from industry. Mimi Ito provided me with an early, personal model for how an anthropologist might approach the topics of her own personal fandom, and was the one who suggested I look seriously at UC Irvine’s Anthropology program. I also must thank John Sommerhauser and Norma Miranda for their crucial assistance at numerous points along the way. I have been lucky to have the support of dear friends and family. I want to thank Elham Mireshghi and Grace Jeong for being my beloved friends and supportive cohorts through the first few years of this process. Jordan Kraemer and Lilly Irani for forging their own inspiring paths through UCI academia, just ahead of me, giving me two radiant examples to follow. Alex Wellerstein, and Marisa Brandt, as friends and scholars, offered the kind of encouragement I needed most in the last few months to see this through. TL Taylor was an incredible role model within game studies for years before we got to officially work together. She then came along exactly at the right time to become a partner in new adventures, and a calm, undoubting voice in the final storm of this writing process. viii Clearly, without the trust, support, and friendship of so many people within the game industry, this dissertation would never have begun, let alone been finished. I must profusely thank all of the game developers who invited me into their secret world, allowed me to follow them around, intrude on meetings and conversations, and ask persistently annoying questions all while they were working hard creating an epic game world. I must also thank the industry friends who have turned games into much more than a pastime, and more than a career. I cannot name them all here, but would like to specially acknowledge Scott Rudi, Cameron Winston, Clancy Powell, Scott Youngblood, Jon Hayter, Dave Williams, Grace Eamer, Bryan Malloroy, Elizabeth Kim, Justin Hanson, John Deshazer, Josh Harris, Genna Habibipour, Eric Carter, Mark Kern, Ben Pielstick, Kevin Abbott, Jason Hutchins, Amy Brady, Adam McMahon, Ivan Askwith, Brooke Hattabaugh, and Wendy Gubman. Special thanks to Neeshu Hajra, Kari Ann Hale,