Blog Archive

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Liveblogging GIA: Louise Madden: Online Gaming and Feminine Subjectivities

Freeform notes from Game in’ Action Conference in Gothenburg 15th June 2007.

Louise Madden: Online Gaming and Feminine Subjectivities

Madden 2

Doesn’t make sense to talk about context. Embodiment. Idea of experience. Emotional, sensation. Take up space in a world, wherever we are.

Janet Radways work on romance models.

Levels of meaning.

How research then.

Notion of subjectivity.

Individual path of the gamer. The articulation of story. What is partially taken up. The messiness of the actions. Impact of gaming. Look at the actual relations of gaming. The activities going on around it. What constitutes possibilities for gaming.

/* now this is really getting interesting */

Method slide.

Internet in general. Gaming as a kind of internet use.

The things that normally slip, what is not recorded, also capture that.

How situated it is. The practices of the space.

Screen. Alison. Using it for escapism.

Example in presentation; Mark. 3 recordings.

1 looking for party

2. in middle

3. Ending.

The irritated cleric. How he copes emotionally.

First reporting a lack of pleasure. Then irritation and stress. But hedging, saying that he shouldn’t let it irritate him, as if inappropriate. Raises interesting issues. Relation between work and play. He still stays although it’s no pleasure, as if he has to, as if it is work. 2. The feminisation of the role of the healer. Self sacrificing. Cleric class extremely flexible.

Slide from forum about how one is supposed to play cleric. No one really wants to do it, it seem. Sue Austin says women in guilds have to act as space so that men and boys can act. Acting as space for others. Fill in the gaps and the flaws of others. Making sacrifices and space.

A suitable gaming computer?

Amy on end of maternity leave. What’s mobilised around her machine. All the requirements that need to be met to be able to play many hours. Amy’s computer doesn’t meet any of those. Watching baby as she plays, while husband sits in the home office with the better computer. So she constantly wonders if he works or plays.

Sarah’s computer.

Arts student at mothers place. Her room full of identity object, having a privacy Amy doesn’t have.

…conclusions slide.

How much one can read from pictures of ppls gaming machines.

Link to pictures of the slides (photos at flickr)