Figure 5. A map of the convoluted cave system

At present, most gamescommit at least one if not all of the following missteps in their realizationof in-game environments: relegating environment to background scenery,relying on stereotyped landscapes, and predicating player success on extrac-tion and use of natural resources.

the term “anthrome”suggests that human beings have had such an enormous impact on theEarth’s surface that it no longer makes sense to speak of our world withoutreference to our planet-changing ways. Unlike regional biomes dictated pri-marily by climate and terrain, anthromes are also determined by the densityof human settlement and human activities such as farming and herding.An important corollary to this reclassification, in Ellis and Ramankutty’sview, is ridding ecology of the antiquated but persistent notion of our envi-ronment as “natural ecosystems with humans disturbing them.” Instead, asthey explain, “Anthropogenic biomes tell a completely different story, oneof ‘human systems, with natural ecosystems embedded within them.’ Thisis no minor change in the story we tell our children and each other. Yet it isnecessary for sustainable management of the biosphere in the 21st century.”

Being a pro-gamer in China means much more than just making a living through gaming, and impliesdemands to be presentable, charming and interactive in order to satisfy the expectations of fans.As fan reception is one of the most significant factors in assessing the success of a gaming team,nowadays each LPL team uses its Weibo social network account to announce news, report gameresults and, most importantly, to interact with fans.

In January 2014, player RapingNinja hurled racist insults at player Strider, on account ofhis partner being black.28Unlike the Penny Sparrow affair, whose monkey insult is light relative tothe language used in this case, there was no trial, fine or forced apology. In fact, despite some playersclaiming to have discovered his identity, nothing happened beyond a few concerned writers penningtheir opinions.29In the wake of this 2014 incident, serious, concerned discussion began in the first Facebook group,“DOTA 2 South Africa,” with players detailing their experience of racism and the problems withinthe community. Some players considered the discussion to be somewhat productive, but within a fewhours, the entire thread was deleted by a group administrator: Dota was “just a game”

For Weber,sovereignty is the “monopoly of the legitimate use of physical force” as a defining characteristic of thestate.26Sovereignty appears to be a defining feature of a state, and it is noted that a state is not just agovernment, as a state rules over a defined area and continues to exist even if the government changes.In EUIV, historic states which exercised sovereignty over their territories are usually defined withsome detail and are potentially playable nations, while “empty” or “blank” territory which is ripe forcolonial expansion was inhabited by people who had patterns of land use and systems of governmentwhich did not register with a Eurocentric concept of sovereignty. An infamous example from historywas the British and White Settler Australian legal understanding of Australia as a “Terra Nullius,” anempty land which was used to deny the sovereign rights of the Indigenous Australian and Torres StraitIsland people in Australian courts until the 1990s.

Not only in Korea but in many areas worldwide, the first wave of cybercafés gaveway to the development of LAN centers, which further helped to expand the reach of gaming andencourage multiplayer interactions through local area networks (LANs; see Image 0.10).

While pirated media can be found the world over, they are the standard rather than the exceptionin much of the global south—for example, in the Middle East, where the level of piracy is amongthe highest worldwide—,69“the majority of video games, no matter their origin, are either purchasedas pirated copies or played in public venues where one copy suffices for tens, if not hundreds, ofgamers.”70This democratizing effect, spreading access to players with less disposable income whosegame consumption lies outside the margins of official market data, is key to understanding theimpact of piracy. Studies from Brazil and China show that piracy comes into being largely to helpovercome the significant obstacles between consumers and content, such as tremendously high tariffson imported tech goods.

Consider voluntary “permadeath” playings of games (Keogh2013a), in which a player agrees to the new rule that theywill stop playing a game entirely if they die. This enormouslyintensifies all violent acts in play by restoring a sense of riskand mortality to each moment. Various games have sought tofold this spirit of play into their rules with some success, fromDayZ’s literal permadeath to the punishing grind of Dark Souls,making them a more consequential experience of violence.I’ll end with a hopeful note care of my game design idol,Robert Yang. There are seeds of something very powerful in hisgame Hurt Me Plenty. In it a violent act—striking someone—isreframed by the intimate and erotic world of BDSM. Yang’sdecision to have a cool-down period for the virtual partner torecover is both tender and an acknowledgment of the physi-cality of the act.

Contemporary controllers have buttons called “triggers”for a reason: shooting is one of the more common actions

From the formal technicalities of parameters tothe warm glow of a sunset across a limpid pool, virtual wateris both technology and story, code and emotion. Most of all,in a gallery setting you can appreciate the water itself, withoutthe distraction of having somewhere else to be or someoneelse to kill.You may find your understanding of real, wet water chang-ing too. When I returned to my hometown of Wellington,New Zealand for a visit after making the game, I sat by its har-bor and stared into the water. I watched caustics I only knewthe name of thanks to making a video game; I blinked intothe dazzling reflections of the sun; I thought about the “pro-cessing power” of physics itself, capable of such refractive bril-liance.

Computation is a key part of how a game means what itmeans.

Long after you have moved on, if you have been kindenough to leave your computer on and the game running,CPU Sisyphus will push ever onward, making computationafter computation on that infinite hill (see figure 3.6).CODA: THE VIEW FROM THE BOTTOMVideo games, or, perhaps more to the point, computer games,are fundamentally made of computation. The system runninga game, whether it’s a PC, a PlayStation, or a pocket calculator,sends electrons streaming though logic gates in just such away that, up at your end of things, the show goes on. For thatreason, making a video game is very much about a conversa-tion with the stuff of computation. Developers must think interms of what a computer does well, from tireless repetition toprodigious memory to lightning-fast mathematics. We mustspeak their language.

The term “stuff” is rather hard to pindown, and I don’t plan to try. Anthropologist Daniel Miller(2010, 1), who studies diverse cultural uses of everyday objectsand who literally wrote a book called Stuff, takes the same line.He opens his discussion of the idea with: “don’t, just don’t, askfor or expect a clear definition of ‘stuff’.” And yet, as Miller’swork emphasizes again and again in studies of key artifactsfrom diverse countries, it’s the stuff all around us—from saristo cellphones—that shapes how we think and live.

As games scholars we should ask, is it fair to some game playersthat they are specifically targeted for monetization and personalization?Are existing monetization processes clear and transparent to players? Whattools can be provided to younger and vulnerable players to navigate theconduct and speech they encounter in multiplayer games? Indeed, the complexadvertising infrastructure underpinning many online games, especiallyfree-to-play (Nieborg, Poell, and Deuze 2019), raises many policy challenges.Many European countries policy makers and regulators are asking if gamesare crossing boundaries into gambling and banking

in the absence of any opportunity toacquire stable employment, personify a form of soft capitalism that seemsat once both inevitable and individually fulfilling.As McRobbie (2016) points out, underlying this forced entrepreneurshipis a dispositif of creativity that places all the risk on these mostly youngpeople by holding out an unlikely promise of ‘making it’, of being able to oneday reap the rewards of creativity without having to ask the hard questionsabout sustainable livelihoods.

Our company hosts a game club. Every week we choose a new game,play it for a week and then we get together during a workday to discusswhat it was like. And then we play the next one (Patrik, game designer).

Leo, operations manager responsible for project management and employerwell-being, described the pedagogical value of playing together:When you play a console game and others gather around you, it is interest-ing to see what kind of observations different people make. Some peoplemay focus on a beautiful animation whereas others look at mechanics, orwhatever is their thing. Someone may have special expertise in certainissues and it’s instructive to focus on one thing at the time together.You learn much more than with your own eyes alone (Leo, operationsmanager).Importantly, playing together can help to accumulate shared vocabulary thatis useful when collaborating in game development related tasks. O’Donnell(2009, para. 1.6) uses the term ‘game talk’ when referring to the processthat ‘provides discursive resources for developers when trying to describeabstract concepts like game mechanics’.

I played a lot when I was younger. That’s when it all started. But when Istarted to code seriously at the age of 15 or 16, I played games less. I becameinterested in games in a different way. It was more about dismantlinggames and learning how they worked. Of course, I still try a lot of games,but I don’t necessarily play them for their entertainment value. It’s moreabout research work, has been for the past twenty years. It’s a bit of adifferent starting point compared to actual ‘gamers’ (Hugo, CEO).