May I Recommend: John Harris' Game Design Essentials

John Harris over at Gamasutra has just released the second installment of his Game Design Essentials series, which I would like to recommend to those of you with an interest in game studies. The format of the series is to overview 20 case study games that best exemplify key game forms and issues within digital game design. While written from a practitioner perspective, the articles (so far) deal with numerous themes of interest to game scholars (and players!). The first installment was 20 Difficult Games, and the most recent is 20 Open World Games. The "Design Lessons" and links provided at the end of each short case study are also great resources to have on hand. Enjoy!

Neopets Key Quest Crosses Boundaries

The perpetual motion machine that is 'Neopets' continues to churn, with announcements this week of a new partnership with toy manufacturer Jakks Pacific to create a whole gamut of new Neopets toys and accessories. The site itself is still growing strong -- according to comScore, Neopets attracted 5.9 million visitors last month, its strongest month yet and a 50% increase over the same period last year. comScore also reports that the average "tween" user spends 2 hours and 33 minutes on the site. Wowza! This new partnership expands upon previous/existing Neopian merchandising initiatives, and also represents a further integration of Neopets' online and real-world play products. In particular, a number of the Jakks toys will tie-in to Neopets' new multiplayer "Key Quest" game, by providing codes that will allow kids to "transport" their toys into the online environment (so basically, a rip off of Webkinz). From Gamasutra:

The Jakks toy line will focus on plush Neopets toys, but the aggreement also covers action figures, accessories, playsets and plug-and-play interactive toys, as well as role-play products, vehicles, youth electronics, water toys, novelties, stationery products, kites, and craft activity toys. Jakks’ Neopets collectible plush products are expected to begin to hit retail shelves in early spring 2008, with figures, playsets and other Neopets products shipping to retailers nationwide for fall.

Additionally, the plush toys and other upcoming Neopets consumer products will tie into a new multiplayer “Neopets Key Quest” in the game. The toys will contain codes that allow kids to unlock virtual extensions of the toys to use as part of the Neopets Key Quest game, with virtual versions of the toys represented in the users' Neopets profile.

The companies plan to release the new line next spring (2008). Until then, kids will just have to content themselves with Webkinz and The Littlest Pet Shop.

Trend Alert: From Buffy to Twilight

Interesting story from the CBC this week on Twilight, an enormously popular tween/YA book series written by a young Mormon woman named Stephanie Meyer - think Buffy the Vampire Slayer without a super-powered protagonist and even more relationship talk. From the CBC website:

Meyer’s saga — the third book was published recently — offers readers supernatural bodice rippers without much bodice ripping (more on that later). Since its 2005 debut, the series has sold upwards of 2 million books, and the latest installment, Eclipse, sold 150,000 copies on its first day alone. With a certain boy wizard in retirement, Twilight is the biggest young-adult phenom going.

Frothing with romance and gothic atmosphere, the books tell the story of Bella Swan, a regular jeans-and-T-shirts girl who moves from Phoenix, Ariz., to a drizzly corner of Washington state. It’s all doom and gloom — that is, until she encounters boy-vampire Edward Cullen on the first day of school. "He was glaring down at me," she narrates in the first book, Twilight, "his black eyes full of revulsion. As I flinched away from him, shrinking against my chair, the phrase if looks could kill suddenly ran through my mind."

The article goes on to describe the books' huge fan following, which includes swarms of vampire-attired girls showing up for book signings, and a healthy online component. The series has been optioned for film adaptations by Summit Entertainment, and two more installments are set for publication by 2009.

Disappointingly, the article doesn't make any mention of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, despite the obvious points of comparison...both in terms of themes and in terms of the substantial fan base. Ok, so Buffy was never at the same level ($$-wise or audience-wise) as Harry Potter, but still! It seems kind of likely that Twilight is tapping into some of the same audience, and at the very least extended an already established tradition of "vampire-romance" within girls' culture (from Anne Rice to Buffy and Angel to The Darkangel Trilogy).

By the way, for those of you who still miss it, Joss Whedon has been publishing a comic version of Buffy Season 8 through Dark Horse Comics. I suspect the book will eventually be made available as a graphic novel as well, so if you've missed the first few issues you might want to hold off until next spring and get the "complete season."

Virtual Worlds for Kids...and Marketers

From earlier this week, a new report by eMarketer on the big rise in popularity of virtual worlds among and for kids and teens...which according to Marketwire is really great news for marketers (their title, "Wildly Popular, Virtual Worlds Are Marketers' Playground", kind of says it all). Some highlights from the Marketwire article include:

- eMarketer's prediction that "24% of the 34.3 million US child and teen Internet users will visit virtual worlds once a month in 2007"...a figure that they argue will rise to 34% in 2008 and up to 53% by 2011.

- the conclusion that young people are attracted the the "UGC" or creative aspects of virtual worlds, which are "allow kids to tap into their creativity, indulge their desire for self-expression and exercise their proclivity for exploration."

- the direct links the article makes between UGC and market research, claiming that "The good news for marketers is that most virtual worlds are capable of offering detailed information about how their users interact with brands and advertising." The bad news? "[I]t is difficult to know what all this virtual interaction really means. What value is there in a person's avatar drinking a Pepsi? Or wearing a shirt bought from a virtual store? What if a person's virtual activities have no bearing on their real-world activities?"

The real bad news, however, is for the kids/teens who flock to these sites - namely that without respect for their privacy or intellectual property, their every move within these environments might be tracked and analyzed by market researchers in the off chance that it might tell them how to target youth demographic groups better.

You can read more coverage of the report on Izzy Neis' blog as well.

My Looming Comps

The reason I haven't been posting much lately, and won't likely be posting much or at all until sometime late next week, is that I'm finally writing my comprehensive exams this week, after much rescheduling, reading, rescheduling again, more reading and many hours of prep work. I've posted a little info about this process before, but haven't really shared as much about my progress through the comps as I thought I would when I first started this blog last fall. Oddly enough, however, maintaining Gamine Expedition has nonetheless been really helpful -- not only for my research, but also in terms of getting me into the habit of frequent spontaneous writing and pulling things/ideas/references together on the fly. Reading gaming news and kids' media blogs everyday has also been helpful in getting me in the right "reading mood" over the past few months.

For those of you going through the same process, or are simply interested in what I'm going to be writing about, here are my (very long) field definitions (which, as of August 2, are now officially on file with the School of Communication):

Theories of Play and Games
With the continued rise in the prominence and popularity of digital games since the 1980s, interest in play theories has mushroomed within communication and media studies, as scholars attempt to theorize and understand this new form of mediated play. While the works of a small number of play theorists, most notably Huizinga (1950/1955) Caillois (1958), and Sutton-Smith (1997), have thus far been singled out and established as canon in the study of digital games, the vast majority of communication scholars studying digital games have failed to adequately ground their studies within the full spectrum of traditions and perspectives that make up the field of play scholarship. Yet, a wide variety of play theories have enormous relevance for communications scholars, not only within the context of digital games, but also in terms of spectator sports, interactive media, consumer leisure culture, and children’s “branded” play. In order to truly understand the role of play within new media interactions, we must first construct a broader understanding of play that examines both why and how people play. This comprehensive exam will survey theories and research that provide a theoretically grounded context for future studies of mediated play and games. Included are readings that explore four key themes that I believe can better situate communication scholarship on games and play within a more comprehensive cross-section of play studies traditions: play and development; play, philosophy and critical theory; play and culture; and mediated play: toys, games and rules.

In the first two sections, I will review various functional and philosophical explorations of why humans play. An emphasis on purposive play arises within the first section, play and development, which explores the developmental function of play as expressed in a number of studies and theories originating from the field of psychology. One of the most important aspects of this section involves the relationship between play and child development. Play fulfills an important role within children’s cognitive development, wherein playing games and learning rules leads to the development of higher mental functions (Piaget 1965) and the internalization of fundamental social scripts (Vygotsky 1933). On the other hand, while the structures and systems of games are linked to developing brain functions, other scholars highlight the importance of fantasy and imaginative play in facilitating children’s socialization, as well as in providing a contained, “safe” outlet for children’s creativity, stress and aggression (Paley 2004; Bettelheim 1987). I will also include in this section theories that approach play from a more universal approach, relating play activities to a myriad of cognitive and emotional functions in adults as well as children (e.g., Csikszentmihalyi 1994).

The universality of play is explored further within the second section, play, philosophy and critical theory, which situates the question of play within philosophical, moral and social contexts. The primary problem that I will address in this section is the various ways in which play is delineated and defined, which relates back to the question of functionality through a questioning of the assumptions that shape our understanding of what play is in the first place. This section will explore debates around the purposiveness of play (Marcuse 1978; Bateson 1973), the parameters of play (Hans 1981), the biases and class dynamics that inform our understandings of play (Bourdieu 1991; Gruneau 1983; Lash 1979), as well as the metaphysical essence of play (Suits 1978; Winnicott 1971).

The third section, play and culture, will incorporate the question of ‘why we play’ with analyses of ‘how we play,’ drawing upon studies conducted from within the fields of sociology and anthropology. I will start with the canonical works of Caillois (1958) and Huizinga (1950), who were among the first scholars to construct a differentiated theory of play as a culture-creating activity. Their categorizations and definitions of play and games provided an early lexicon for discussing various aspects of play, while their positioning of play as existing outside of capitalist Industrial society launched a crucial debate among play theorists on the relationship between play and work (explored in depth in the next section). This theme is taken up again by Darnton (1981), for example, who repositions play within the context of the workplace and emphasizes the profane element of play, thereby problematizing the high/low dichotomy inherent within differentiated notions of play. Subsequent works by Goffman (1961) and Geertz (1973) represent a further shift, by approaching play as a representational realm of activity, wherein issues and relationships of social and cultural significance come to be represented and made sense of in the form of social rituals, which include forms of play. Their work on the representational function of play within different cultures and contexts leads directly into the work of Sutton-Smith (1971; 1986; 1997), a key figure within emerging constructivist theories of play. I will explore the recent evolution of Sutton-Smith’s (1997) theories about the cultural and symbolic significance of play, and the impact his research has had on other play theorists (Pellegrini 1995). Finally, I will review the works of Schwartzman (1978) and Vallone (1995) who represent the developing space for feminist discourse within cultural and representational theories of play.

The theme of ‘how we play’ will continue in the final section, mediated play: toys, games and rules. Here, I will review the artefacts and systems that have come to dominate and structure play within the technologized western world. In this section I will explore the various tools of play, by unpacking the technological and design features of toys (Goldstien et al. 2004; Formanek-Brunell 1998; Hendershot 1996), as well as their representational and symbolic functions (Sutton-Smith 1986; Erikson 1977), and the relationship between mediated play and commercially-mediated culture (Cook 2001; Flemming 1996; Kline 1993). I will also examine the structuration and systematization of play through games and rules. As rules and standardized games become integrated into technological, bureaucratic and economic systems, such as online digital games, they come to enact a form of rationalization of play. An overview of the literature on games and rules will thus allow a better understanding of how play comes to be defined by the parameters of a game (Dyck, 2000; Jenkins 1998; Avedon & Sutton-Smith 1986), which are in turn representative of larger social systems.


Critical Theory and the Politics of Technological Artefacts
The study of technological artefacts has a long tradition within communication and media studies. From the foundational works of Innis (1951) and McLuhan (1951), to the more recent contributions of political economists (Smythe, 1981; Castells, 2003; Mosco, 2004), communication historians (Eisenstein, 1983) and cultural studies theorists (Williams, 1974), communication scholars contribute a unique perspective into the social, cultural and political implications of technologies and their contents. In recent years, media technologies have undergone a series of profound transformations, in terms of their technological design, their corporate and regulatory infrastructures, as well as their relationship with audiences. With the advent and widespread adoption of domestic “new media” technologies in particular, audiences become reconfigured as “users,” entering into ever more direct relationships and interactions with the technologies that structure, disseminate and produce our shared “digital” culture (Barney, 2000; Livingstone & Lievrouw, 2003; Rushkoff, 2003). As the presence of technological artefacts, systems and users expands into increasing areas of everyday life, communication scholars are called upon to provide critical analysis of the impact this has on cultural and social experience. To this end, communication studies is experiencing a deepening compatibility with an emerging body of work that explores the complex dynamics between users, technologies, and social institutions. Deriving from a variety of disciplines, including anthropology (Suchman, 1987), philosophy (Berman, 1982; Winner, 1986; Feenberg, 1999) and design research (Kirkham, 1996; Druin, 1999; Graner Ray, 2004), as well as specialized approaches such as science and technology studies (STS) (Hughes, 1989; MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1999) and social construction of technology (SCOT) (Pinch & Bijker, 1987), these critical theories of technology have much to offer communication scholars in their quest to understand the changing role of media and other cultural technologies in contemporary society.

This comprehensive exam will review key texts examining the ways in which technological artefacts embody and interact with their larger social contexts, particularly in terms of dominant ideologies, political economics and the everyday lifeworld of the user. In order to provide a broad overview of the various methods and approaches currently available for deconstructing the ideological and socially-constructed dimensions of technological artefacts and systems, this exam will combine studies conducted by communication scholars with seminal texts drawn from the interdisciplinary fields of technology studies. These works can be further categorised around four major themes that are of particular relevance to discussions of new media technologies: philosophy of technology; studies of technological artefacts and systems; the politics of technology (with an emphasis on feminist critiques of technology); and children and technology.

The first section, philosophy of technology, explores major themes and theoretical issues involved in the study of technology within the contemporary Western context. These foundational texts reveal key social, political and cultural dimensions of the technologization of modern life, and set the tone for subsequent work in this area. I will examine how the technological determinism and technological disenchantment of the post-war era, as established in the initial explorations of technology’s role in Canadian life and culture embarked upon by Innis (1951) and McLuhan (1951), eventually led to a critical rethinking of technology in the form of responsive examinations of the limits of technological rationalization (Marcuse, 1964), and a reclamation of the active role of institutions, social groups and individual action in shaping technology (Williams, 1974; Franklin, 1989). I will trace the evolution of the critical theory approach to studying media technology into the contemporary context, through works which consider the materiality of communication technologies (Angus, 2000) and the rationality of the (computer) “networked society” (Barney, 2000). This section will also explore alternative and emerging critical theories of technology, focusing on Feenberg’s (1999; 2002; Veak, 2006) theories of instrumentalization and democratic rationalization.

In the second section, I will review studies of technological artefacts and systems, which provide insight into the historical and contextual backdrops of particular technological artefacts, as well as methodological frameworks for future investigations of this kind. These readings will include historical and applied examinations of technological development (Kumar, 1978; Eisenstein, 1983; Suchman, 1987), studies conducted within the SCOT approach (which also applies historical analysis) (Pinch & Bijker, 1987; Oudshoorn & Pinch, 2005), and studies of technological systems (Hughes, 1989; Star & Bowker, 2003). In terms of methodology, these readings will also provide an overview of recent reinterpretations of SCOT theory provided by the “social shaping of technology” approach (MacKenzie & Wajcman, 1999; Lievrouw & Livingstone, 2003). Lastly, this section will review interdisciplinary studies of new media technology, informed in part by SCOT and other applied theories, including Bakardjeva (2000), Flichy (in Livingstone & Lievrouw, 2003), and McMillan (in Livingstone & Lievrouw, 2003).

The third section will emphasize the political dimensions of technological artefacts and systems, with a special emphasis on political economic and feminist critiques of technology. From Winner’s (1986) controversial work “Do artefacts have politics?”, to Berg and Lie’s (1995) reworking of Winner’s thesis to include gender issues (“Do artefacts have gender?”), these readings challenge the underlying assumptions and biases of early technology studies by introducing questions of power and ideology to the analysis. The political economy of new media technologies is the focus of Castells (2003) and Mosco (2004) who, like Berman (1982), envision technological systems as conduits for the dominant ideologies of modernity—including hyper-capitalism and social rationalization. A similar emphasis on ideology is also found within feminist critiques of technology and technology studies, who demonstrate how political and social constructs—such as gender—become embodied within technological artefacts and systems, at both the level of design (Kirkham, 1996; Graner Ray, 2004), and at the level of social practice (Wajcman, 1991, Rothschild et al., 1999, Arisaka, 2001).

The final section comprises texts focused on an often-neglected user group within media and technology studies—children. While children figure prominently within social, cultural and political discourses around technology (Buckingham & Willett, 2006)—they are the focus of regulatory debates, the catalyst for the expansion of technological forms into new areas of social life (from the home to the school to the playground), and the locus of cultural hopes and fears about technological impacts—their role as users is a subject that is often excluded from academic discussions of technology. The works reviewed in this section demonstrate how conflicting social conceptualizations about the nature and function of childhood within late modernity are reproduced in the form of dichotomous, “moralistic” debates within academic deliberations of children’s unique relationship with new media and digital technologies (Hutchby & Moran-Ellis, 2000), ranging from the highly celebratory (Rushkoff, 1996; Holloway & Valentine, 2003) to the deeply pessimistic (Kline et al., 2003). The ideological and political dimensions of these discourses are further revealed (often by contrast) within emerging studies of children’s technological artefacts (Druin, 1999) as well as preliminary examinations of children’s experiences as users of technological forms (Suoranta &Lehtimäki, 2004; Seiter, 2005).

CFP Exploring New Media Worlds Conference

Just got this CFP for a conference coming up in February/March 2008 in Texas entitled Exploring New Media Worlds: Changing Technologies, Industries, Cultures, and Audiences in Global and Historical Context. Keynote speakers will include children's media scholar Ellen Seiter and political economy of communications theorist Vicent Mosco. Here's the description and submission details:

Integrating fields of study in a time of change; setting a new agenda for media studies.

Papers and proposals are invited on any aspect of the conference themes, offering reports of new research, position-taking conceptual essays, discussions of media and telecommunication policy, and both international and historical comparisons on changing technologies, industries, cultures, and audiences.

The program will include keynote speakers (Larry Grossberg; Steve Jones; Vincent Mosco; and Ellen Seiter), roundtable discussions, thematic panels, prominent scholars as respondents, and time for interaction. A wide selection of papers from the conference will be published. Travel grants are available for student members of the National Communication Association (see our webpage for more information).

Send papers or proposals (abstracts or annotated outlines) with a 50 word professional biography by email attachment to mediaworlds@libarts.tamu.edu. Panel proposals are also acceptable. Deadline: November 20, 2007.

Conference will be held from February 29 to March 2, 2008

For more information see http://comm.tamu.edu/mediaworlds

Email mediaworlds@libarts.tamu.edu or Rothenbuhler@tamu.edu.

Keynote speakers:
Larry Grossberg; Steve Jones; Vincent Mosco; and Ellen Seiter.

Confirmed participants:
Carole Blair, Sandra Braman, Celeste Condit, Bruce Gronbeck, Andrea Press, Ronald Rice, Paddy Scannell, Joseph Turow, Angharad Valdivia.

And the Texas A&M faculty:
Patrick Burkart, Heidi Campbell, Antonio La Pastina, Srivi Ramasubramanian, Eric Rothenbuhler, Michael Stephenson, Randy Sumpter, and Ian Weber plus strong faculty groups in Rhetoric and Public Affairs, Health Communication, and Organizational Communication.

The Exploring New Media Worlds conference is hosted and co-sponsored by the Department of Communication, the College of Liberal Arts, the Glasscock Center for Humanities Research, and the Program in Presidential Rhetoric,Texas A&M University, with support from the National Communication Association.

Mark Your Calendars: Worldwide Day of Play

From Cynopsis: Kids!:

Nickelodeon's fourth annual Worldwide Day of Play will be held on September 29, 2007,when the network and its digital siblings Nicktoons Network and Nick G.A.S. will go dark for three hours (12p-3p) as part of an ongoing initiative to get kids up and active to combat childhood obesity. Nickelodeon comes back on air at 3p with health oriented messaging and the finale of the Let's Just Play Go Healthy Challenge at 6p (30min), followed by new episodes of several series and the premiere of Back at the Barnyard at 9p. The Let's Just Play Go Healthy Challenge is a joint effort of Nickelodeon, the Alliance for a Healthier Generation, an initiative between the American Heart Association and the William J. Clinton Foundation and the American Heart Association. Some 1,000+ Go Healthy events are scheduled to take place around the world on this day.

You can check out the official site here, where kids can sign up to join the challenge of either losing weight, exercising more or eating healthier foods.

Waiting for LittleBigPlanet

I believe that the demo version for LittleBigPlanet, the much anticipated upcoming WYSIWYG user-generated content game being built for the PS3 by Media Molecule, is going to become available (or perhaps already is) sometime this fall, with the full game launching in early 2008. In the meantime, we can only speculate about what the game's UGC features, potential market (and ultimate ESRB rating), and overall gameplay will look like. From the official (and fan) game description, however, it looks like it could (potentially) represent quite an innovation in collaborative game creation. From the Media Molecule site:

The LittleBigPlanet experience starts with players learning about their character’s powers to interact physically with the environment. There are obstacles to explore, bits and pieces to collect and puzzles to solve – requiring a combination of brains and collaborative teamwork. As players begin to explore, their creative skills will grow and they will be ready to start creating and modifying their surroundings – the first step to sharing them with the whole community.

Characters have the power to move anything in this glued and stitched-together landscape; hey have the power to design, shape and build both objects and entire locations for others to play.

There’s no complicated level editor; all of these skills can be learnt by simply playing the game. Creativity is part of the gameplay experience and playing is part of the creative experience. Players can make their world as open or as secretive to explore as they like.

When it’s ready, they can invite anyone within the LittleBigPlanet community to come and explore their patch – or can go and explore everybody else’s.

Check out the official site (and demo) here, or watch the trailer here.

Chief Barbie Girl Needs Some Schooling in "Advertising" Terms and Definitions

A few days ago the Boston Globe ran a story on Be-Bratz and BarbieGirls.com, among others, commenting on the recent success of branded virtual worlds for kids. Although the article features some of critiques of the Be-Bratz site (via an interview with Peggy Meszaros, director of the Center for Information Technology Impacts on Children, Youth, and Families at Virginia Tech University), its coverage of BarbieGirls reads more like a promo piece. Specifically, the interview with Rosie O'Neill, "chief Barbie Girl" at Mattel, paints a highly celebratory and shockingly inaccurate picture of the site and its contents. For example:

O'Neill...said the online service is designed to expand and enhance the experience of playing with Barbie dolls. Every feature of the online Barbie Girl can be customized, including eye and skin color, hair style, and the design and color of shoes, jewelry, and clothing. "On other sites you're simply picking a fashion to wear, O'Neill said. "On Barbie Girls, you design it."

Anyone who has visited the site knows very well that the "design features" are not at all different from the customizing features found on other sites of this kind -- the only potential difference (and again this is found on many other sites) is that you can choose both clothing items AND colours from a standardized, set palette. So, players have a choice of bottoms, from say a dozen or so pants and skirts, and a choice of tops, from less than a dozen options, along with shoes and some accessories. Furthermore they can pick the colours -- not quite a design feature if you ask me. The last time I checked, putting together an outfit at a store (virtual or otherwise) and picking out which colours I preferred from those available is pretty much exactly what "picking a fashion to wear" means...styling, perhaps, but certainly not fashion design. But what really got to me was this follow-up quote about in-game ads and marketing on the site:

O'Neill rejects the idea that Barbie Girls is little more than a marketing tool. "In the site we don't actually show any other products," she said. "There's no advertisement on the site."

Shocking! One of the only ways to earn "B Bucks" is to watch trailers for Barbie DVDs -- Barbie and the Twelve Dancing Princesses, Barbie and the Magic of Pegasus, etc. In every set of guidelines I've read, trailers count as ads, and I really don't see how this is any different. Since when are DVDs for Barbie movies not "products"? Furthermore, the site heavily promotes the accompanying BarbieGirl mp3 player -- without it, players are extremely limited in terms of what they can do and (most importantly, since it's probably THE main activity on the site) "buy". Since when is focusing primarily on one particular product -- in this case the BarbieGirl mp3 player -- synonymous with "no advertisement"...repeatedly during gameplay, the mp3-less player is confronted with a pop-up window informing them that the item or action is only available with the mp3. From this window, three clicks of a mouse bring the player to an actual online store where they can buy the mp3 itself..that's hardly "no advertisement."

Meszaros, who is quoted later on in regards to Be-Bratz makes an important point that the sites themselves are "pure consumerism" -- creating a branded environment where every act, image and event provided by the site are either explicitly or implicitly promotional in nature (of course, players can add new elements or subvert the structure, but the promotional features remain front and centre in the site/game design). The BarbieGirls site is an exercise in consumer values, where the only thing you can do easily is shop. Chatting -- the only other primary activity -- is made extremely difficult as a result of the "safety" restrictions a large number of words and/or word combinations, including words like "difficult", any numbers, punctuation, etc. Most of the time, all there is to do is shop -- for your avatar, for your room, for your pet -- and then integrate your purchases into your room decor or wardrobe. The main products on offer are clothes, furniture, pet supplies -- which, by the way, are all common accoutrement in Barbie World, featured in the accessories and booster packs that you can buy for Barbie dolls, the Dream House and now the BarbieGirl mp3. The overall promotional aspect of BarbieGirls and other sites of this type should not be underestimated. I think that immersive advertising and branded MMOGs can best be understood in terms of Buckingham and Sefton-Green's concept of a "pedagogy" of consumerism.

Wii Like to Party!!!

Cute story by Beth Snyder Bulik in today's Advertising Age about the surge in "video-game parties" since the introduction of the Nintendo Wii, and group-friendly games like Guitar Hero. The practice of inviting people over to play some Wii has become so common that Evite began making Wii Party e-vites in March, and is now partnering up with Nintendo to feature actual Wii Miis (avatars), characters and brand imagery (as seen above). As Bulik writes:

The Wii party popularity is part of a growing phenomenon that's overhauling the video-gaming industry. That is, video gaming is beginning to transcend the solitary boy-in-the-basement stereotype with a new generation of gamers including women, older people and younger children who want to play in a more social atmosphere.

Nintendo is getting really creative about how it integrates itself into social and community events. For example, as Bulik describes:

Nintendo already is striking up partnerships such as the Evite one. Beth Llewelyn, senior director-corporate communications at Nintendo, said the company has partnered with Norwegian Cruise Lines to put Wii and Wii parties onboard cruises, as well as the Erickson Retirement Communities to place Wiis in those group homes. They're also in discussions with local libraries about how to use Wiis for community-building.

[...]

Nintendo is trying to cast the net even wider by giving consumers in certain influencer groups -- mother/daughter, couples and active 50-plus leaders -- Wiis for them to hold parties for family and friends.

It's all contributing to a booming video-game industry. NPD Group reported overall hardware sales are up 34% with consoles alone up 69% during the first half of 2007 vs. the same time period during 2006. NPD also said the industry is on track to ring up $16 billion to $18 billion in sales this year. The rise of this social gaming is definitely visible in the numbers. Of the top-10-selling video-game items in June, seven were Wii software or accessories. "Guitar Hero 2" for PS2 and Wii ranked Nos. 6 and 7 respectively, selling almost 400,000 guitars (and software) at average prices of $80 to $90, according to NPD.

The author predicts that the phenomenon will probably continue to spread as more people manage to get their hands on a Wii, and as new fun games like Boogie, and SingStar for the PS3 (and Rock Band???) are released. That said, I have yet to receive one of these Wii-vites and encourage my own friends and family to jump on this bandwagon post haste.

Leigh Alexander Explores Little Girls in Horror

You simply must check out this new blog post on GameSetWatch by fellow "Escapee" and widely published games journalist Leigh Alexander. In it, she discusses BioShock, little girls and horror gaming. The relationship between little girls and horror is an issue I've been meaning to think more about for some time, ever since I played Rule of Rose last year while reading Sharon Lamb's book The Secret Lives of Girls. Alexander does a great job drawing comparisons between current hot topic game BioShock and more general themes in horror gaming, focusing on the recurring image and ambivalent role of the creepy and/or vulnerable "little girl". Here's an excerpt:

It’s not unusual to see small, saucer-eyed children as conventions in the horror genre; in fact, it’s common. Young girls in particular make very good devices in survival-horror video games, either as archetypes of feminine vulnerability (for who needs you more than a damsel-in-distress except a little damsel?) or as strange aggressors, all the more fearsome for their innocuous appearance. The genre of BioShock is already the subject of much debate, but for the topics discussed here, it cleaves rather closely alongside survival-horror story elements.

The Little Sisters are preceded by a long list of girl-children in that genre. The desperate circumstances of Resident Evil 2 were accentuated with the pivotal appearance of Sherry Birkin, whose helplessness served to heighten the fear – and emotionalize the stakes. Of note was her child-like physicality when under the player’s control, the juvenile, vulnerable unease with which she climbed over too-tall obstacles and scrabbled through the dark.

The Silent Hill series, too, couldn’t do without its children – Cheryl Mason and Alessa Gillespie were the catalysts of the entire series’ events, and even in the canonically divergent Silent Hill 2, the mysteriously antagonistic Laura taunts the protagonist, unaffected neither by his guilt, his shame, nor the ghosts of the world. In another survival-horror title, Fatal Frame 2, a pair of twins are drawn into a nightmarish plot as they investigate the brutal religious sacrifice of orphan twin children before them.

Rule of Rose drew fire (and was prohibited from a UK release) for its use of children as aggressors – juvenile perpetrators of near-sociopathic crimes on one another, as well as some faint strains of sexualizing them. In all of the above examples, though, it was the appearance of the children that made the game truly frightening. Sherry, Laura, Alessa, Diana – all of them are both powerful -- because they motivate all of the game’s action, and appear to know things the protagonists do not -- and ambiguous, because their presence is as dangerous as it is useful. The same can be said for the Little Sisters.

Click here to read the rest of the article.

For more on BioShock, click here to watch a trailer, or here to read some first impressions of the game by The Escapist editor Russ Pitts.

New Issue: Journal of Children and Media

With my comprehensive exams a mere couple of weeks away, I have less than no time for any additional reading...of course, now would have to be the time when all these great journals are coming out with their most recent issues. Anyway, that's my problem. For the rest of you, make sure to check out the most recent issue of the Journal of Children and Media, for lots of good stuff of girls' culture and child-TV-family dynamics. Here's the table of contents:

Sharon R. Mazzarella and Norma Pecora: "Revisiting Girls' Studies: Girls creating sites for connection and action."

Mary Celeste Kearney: "Productive Spaces: Girls' bedrooms as sites of cultural production."

Mark A. Callister, Tom Robinson and Bradley R. Clark: "Media Portrayals of the Family in Children's Television Programming During the 2005-2006 Season in the US."

Dina L. G. Borzekowski and Thomas N. Robinson: "Conversations, Control, adn Couch-Time: The assessment and stability of parental mediation styles and children's TV and video viewing."

Moniek Buijzen and Claartje Mens: "Adults Mediation of Television Advertising Effects: A comparison of factual, evaluative, and combined strategies."

Milton Chen: "Training the Eye: Expanding the "language arts" with the grammar of film."

Also, be sure to peruse the issue's two reviews, one on the recent Fifth World Summit on Media for Children (which took place in Johannesburg, South Africa in March), and one on David Williamson Shaffer's book How Computer Games Help Children Learn.

Marketing Research in Habbo Hotel

This story is from a couple of weeks ago, about a "new" (is it new? The Sulake website seems to imply otherwise, as in that the study is more than a year old) market research study conducted in Habbo Hotel. Business Week's Reena Jana has written a good overview of the study, linking it to larger trends within in-game market research and providing a run-down of the study's major findings and demographic data. From Jana's article:

Sulake, the Helsinki (Finland) company that created Habbo, a popular eight-year-old virtual world aimed at teens, found a way to survey more than 42,000 such consumers in 22 countries, by soliciting responses to questions about real-world global shopping preferences from Habbo avatars. Its first Global Habbo Youth Survey, conducted in association with Finnish market researcher 15/30, was published in the form of a 200-plus page report earlier this year, and it's now available to curious corporations for $5,000.

In September, Sulake will conduct a second survey, this time without an outside partner. The process of surveying teens on this massive, global scale via their avatars was so efficient, Habbo decided that there is no need for external help. "We found we could gather this data in about a week," says Emmi Kuusikko, director of user and market insight at Sulake. "It is extremely rewarding to carry out this quantitative research. The [teens] were so eager to participate. They were in their own environment, an environment they can trust."

The site solicited respondents from all across Europe, North America, and Asia by sending a message to Habbo avatars which linked to an external online questionnaire. According to the article, respondents spent an average of 33 minutes answering a variety of questions about their "backgrounds, tastes, and their shopping and media consumption habits." In exchange for their participation, respondents were "given a reward" in Habbo credits (which usually cost real money). Overall, respondents were predominantly based in the UK, but the survey managed to draw participants from around the world:

Most (8,852) came from Britain, followed by the U.S. (3,747), and Norway (3,244). The fewest responses were from Venezuela (197), Portugal (175), and Austria (90). And responses was split pretty equally between genders: 51% of survey takers were female, 49% male. Most respondents were in the 13- to 15-year-old age group (60%), followed by 16- to 18-year-olds (19%). Only 12% were 12 and under [which is odd since players are supposed to be at least 13 to play], and 10% were 19 and older.

Although these practices appear to have been going on in other environments for some time now, the article seems to treat the phenomenon as a new development in online market research:

Some trend watchers think mining virtual worlds for teen-trend data is a logical and timely market-research strategy. "The membrane between our real and our virtual worlds has become very thin, especially for teens today. Most of their social interaction takes place with a screen, whether it's on social-networking sites, instant messaging, using a cell phone to take photos or watch TV, or even just plain e-mailing," observes Robyn Waters, former vice-president of trend, design, and product development at Target and now the head of an eponymous trend-watching firm. "For this generation, interacting in the virtual world isn't just a trend. It's their life," Waters continues. "Trend watching in virtual worlds makes sense for any business in today's environment that wants to be around for the next generation."

Weird - is it just me or does this article seem preposterously out of date? Anyway, of course, there are also marketers and critics who question the validity of the data. AdAge claims that the industry is currently experiencing an "Online Market Research Crisis," and the issues around online surveys will be the focus of an upcoming conference of the Advertising Research Foundation (ARF). For example, check out this video on AdAge to hear editor-at-large Jack Neff discussing the controversy around "scientific flaws" in online survey research. Others, such as myself, have deep and ongoing concerns about the ethical standards applied in these types of studies. Is consent "informed consent"? Is the site exploiting teens' "trust" by approaching them in their "own environments"? Is parental consent addressed? What about the implications of renumeration?

You can also check out the slide show here, as well as the Sulake website for more details on their marketing and advertising activities and future plans for brand expansion.

New issue of Games and Culture Journal

Issue 3, volume 2, of Games and Culture journal is finally out and available through subscription/library access. Here's a run down of the table to contents:

Bart Simon -- "Geek Chic: Machine Aesthetics, Digital Gaming, and the Cultural Politics of the Case Mod."

Maaike Lauwaert -- "Challenge Everything?: Construction Play in Will Wright's SIMCITY."

Kevin Schut -- "Strategic Simulations and Our Past: The Bias of Computer Games in the Presentation of History."

Gordon Calleja -- "Digital Game Involvement: A Conceptual Model."

Celia Pearce, Tracy Fullerton, Janine Fron, and Jacquelyn Ford Morie -- "Sustainable Play: Toward a New Games Movement for the Digital Age."

New Article in This Week's Escapist

I have a new article out in this week's "Generation Why"-themed issue of The Escapist. It's a snapshot of some of the work I've been doing this spring/summer on TV- and toy-themed kids' MMOGs. The Escapist is probably my all-time favourite non-academic games publication, and the other articles in this week's issue are, as always, all pretty awesome. They touch upon generational themes in gaming, from "Growing up Gamer" (by Leigh Alexander) to teen-boy stereotypes of gamers and fanboys (by Charles Wheeler), to shifts in gaming patterns among new parents (by Aaron Griffith), to the construction of socio-cultural norms among M-ature gamers (by Roger Travis). Enjoy!

Kid Nation Puts CBS in the Hot Seat

A quick post today to draw your attention to the latest YPulse Daily, wherein anastasia relays some troubling news about new reality show Kid Nation. From anastasia's "YPulse WTF Files":

I've blogged earlier about how CBS's new reality show "Kid Nation" seems like a recipe for child exploitation (and calling out the parents for letting them participate). Now the show is drawing claims of possible child abuse. From the New York Times article, reg. required:

Several children required medical attention after drinking bleach that had been left in an unmarked soda bottle, according to both the parent and CBS. One 11-year-old girl burned her face with splattered grease while cooking.

The L.A. Times piece, reg. required, reported:

On July 16, Television Week revealed that sources in the New Mexico Department of Labor claimed the children worked as many as 14 hours a day and were taken advantage of because of statutes on the books that protected theatrical and film productions from child labor restrictions.

But what's really unnerving is this quote from a CBS executive (Ghen Maynard) in the L.A. Times about how the show was greenlit with the hope of creating buzz:

"I thought it could be a way to try to get some attention on a broadcast level for a new kind of show, one that really put young kids to the test," he tells the Los Angeles Times. He also says that criticism from media scholars (who the paper talks to) and others is "reasonable."

Of course they're already planning the second season....WTF?

For more info, you should also read an earlier post about the show by Izzy Neis, this article from freep.com, the LA Times article, and some of activist/child advocacy activities going on at Ethics Scoreboard and A Minor Consideration.

Cooking Mama On the DS

Yay! Cooking Mama is now available on the Nintendo DS! According to Joystiq:

It's the story of the little franchise that could as Majesco announced Cooking Mama on the DS has shipped a half million units. The DS game, and its Wii counterpart, have been responsible for significantly boosting Majesco's bottom line. Despite control issues with the Wii version, which Majesco addressed soon after, the DS version is definitely a shining example of solid DS control design.

Can't wait to try it, though I probably won't have time until after my comps.

Toy Recalls and Globalization

Mattel has issued another toy recall, putting its total for recalled toys somewhere between 18 and 19 million (including the magnet-toy recall and the lead-paint recall from earlier this summer. Although no injuries have been linked to the latest batch of recalled toys, an earlier line of recalled toys (CBC says Polly Pocket playsets) caused serious injury to at least three kids who swallowed magnets. According to today's CBC coverage:

The bulk of Tuesday's recall covered magnetic toys manufactured between 2002 and January 2007, and expanded on a similar recall made in November 2006. Also included in Tuesday's recall were 436,000 Sarge brand cars, because the surface paint could contain lead levels in excess of U.S. federal standards.

Under current U.S. regulations, children's products found to have more than 0.06 per cent lead accessible to users are subject to a recall.

"There is no excuse for lead to be found in toys entering this country," Nord said. "It's totally unacceptable and it needs to stop."

The blame, it seems, is being squarely placed on quality control, as well as Chinese contractors in violation of corporate standards. But perhaps a better way to think about all this is in terms of larger trends within globalization, such as the increased reliance of transnational corporations on offshore labour and the subsequent throttling of production costs (and therefore production budgets). The $22 billion toy market [$71 billion globally] makes up a large portion of our imported consumer goods and 60 percent of all toys sold in Canada are made in China (Jones, 2004). Behind the current string of recalls lie the pressures and disparities created by the kind of labour conditions that arise from so much "offshore" production...labour that is displaced onto developing countries and regions in order to shrink production costs by creating an underpaid and undervalued labour force that is often comprised of women and children.

Political economic theorists point to the global issues that are often left ignored when large, mostly US-based, conglomerates control the majority of resources in a transnational industry, as is the case with the toy market. Langer (2004) argues that the toy industry’s association of “childhood with play, fun and toys situates toyshops and toy makers as part of the enchanted landscape of childhood” (p.253), naturalizing the current state of the children’s market while the more problematic aspects of global toy production remain obscured. NGO and human rights discourse on global toy production emphasizes the young age of toy factory workers, who Langer argues are often “constructed as ‘little more than children themselves’” (p.259), as well as the low wages, high levels of occupational hazard, and long work hours endured by a largely rural, largely migrant labour force. While the average North American toy maker earns $11 an hour, in 2000 Chinese toy workers were earning an average of 30 cents an hour. While it wasn't specified in the article, I suspect that stat applies to adults and that things might be much different for child "employees."

In an open letter written in December 2003, (Can.) Senator Consiglio Di Nino had this to say about child labour in the toy industry:

More often than not, this is the reality behind the manufacture of children’s toys. Toys are not manufactured by diminutive elves in workshops, but by diminutive beings of another kind… children. China is a popular choice for North American manufacturers because labour is cheap and plentiful. International news reports hint that child labour is prevalent in China, and factory managers go to great lengths to conceal the epidemic. United Press International cites a provincial labour official who confided that, “factory managers are routinely tipped off about inspections and will send child workers home.”

China is by no means the only country in which child labour is widespread; indeed, it is a global issue. Human Rights Watch is particularly critical of bonded labour practices in India and Pakistan, where an estimated 15 million children are being exploited, primarily in the manufacture of textiles. The International Right to Know Campaign, a movement supported by international organizations such as Amnesty International USA, Global Exchange, and Oxfam America, estimates that there are 211 million child labourers worldwide, over half of whom work in China [In 2004, UNICEF increased that estimate to 246 million].

The vast majority of North American multinationals have corporate codes of conduct that apply to their global suppliers. Evidence suggests, however, that these codes are poorly enforced and egregious labour rights violations are the norm. These violations have been documented extensively by the International Right to Know Campaign and by human rights groups across Asia. These organizations indicate that the ineffectiveness of corporate codes of conduct stems from the fact that independent third parties do not conduct the factory audits mandated by these codes and we are told that factory owners are usually notified of the audits in advance.

Of course, this doesn't 100% prove that Mattel -- the world's largest toy company -- has indirectly employed child labour, or that the recalled toys are directly linked to impoverished manufacturing conditions. And I'm certain they didn't know that lead paint was being used by their suppliers, and that the damage control they now face will be a burden that far outweighs any advantage that could have ever been accrued from cutting costs in safety measures. But the fact is, it's unreasonable to expect that costs and work conditions can be continuously cut, threatened and squeezed without any kind of trade off or consequence. The lack of accountability and transparency within the toy industry, combined with known statistics of child labour in the toy manufacturing industry and of the impoverished working conditions in China and other production zones, demands a more thorough consideration of the complicity of North American toy companies (and the toy market!) in creating the substandard conditions from which substandard products have spawned.

These issues got a lot of press coverage a few years ago, when anti-globalization was "hot" and transnational trade was being put under the microscope. At that time, a woman from Victoria, BC, named Sarah Cox wrote a scathing expose of the toy manufacture industry in various parts of Asia called The Secret Life of Toys, which I unfortunately can no longer track down online. Cox did field work in various toy factories that manufactured toys sold in the West, and found rampant workers' rights violations and poor working conditions. But attention to these issues has died down today, and although all of the big toy corporations (Hasbro, Mattel, Irwin) manufacture a large portion of their toys in China, it's been difficult for researchers and journalists to make direct links between specific toy companies and specific toy factories. The transnational conglomerates don't commonly release details about their overseas partners. According to Chelsea Jones, writing for Briarpatch magazine in 2004,

Toy companies such as Mattel hold back names of their suppliers. This means that any toy made by Mattel could have been manufactured by any one of about 50 Chinese factories contracted by the company, or in a factory Mattel may own with private investors. Or it could be that parts of the toy, including it’s packaging, have been made in one of many factories jointly owned by the company and contractors small enough not to be named or legally acknowledged.

In 1998, George Irwin, the president of Irwin Toy Ltd. said that the reason for the strict confidentiality surrounding toy factories is due to the competitiveness within the industry. “We guard very jealously our vendors,” Irwin says, “because we don’t want any of our competitors to get an advantage by knowing who they are.” Sixty percent of Irwin’s toys are produced overseas, primarily in China and Malaysia.

For more up to date info on working conditions and child labour in China, with a healthy amount of focus placed on the toy industry in particular, check out this new report conducted by the Hong Kong Liaison Office.

Langer, B. (2004). “The Business of Branded Enchantment: Ambivalence and disjuncture in the global children’s culture industry”, Journal of Consumer Culture, 4(2), pp.251-277.

GoPets Avatar Bill of Rights

Via GamePolitics.com, an uplifting story of corporate responsibility to counteract yesterday's exploration of corporate neglect. Erik Bethke, CEO of a virtual pet MMO-environment called GoPets, has announced that their site wants the game community's help (academic and practitioner, as well as players, I would assume) in drafting an "Avatar Bill of Rights" that will allow players to retain IP rights and foster user-generated content...as well as create a much more level and democratic playing field wherever political, ethical and legal issues arise. Here's an excerpt of the announcement from Bethke's personal blog:

I am offering a bounty of $5,000 for help in creating a new EULA, TOS, Codes of Conduct, and Privacy Policies for GoPets.

I seeking everyone’s help in drafting a set of instruments (iconic, human bullet points, and legal code). Our mission is to continue to develop the virtual world of GoPets into a platform of living expression and friendship with global reach.

We have long recognized the importance private property in GoPets but so far we have not taken any formal steps to ensure property rights to our citizens and now believe that formal recognition and other tangible forms of human and property rights will accelerate our commercial goals.

The debate in our community of whether or not this or that clause of this or that EULA is of course fascinating to read in the blogs - but we are taking the stance that we will gladly charge ahead of what we are required by commercial law to perform - and instead we would like to reach as high as possible to achieve the natural rights as expressed in the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

We believe that by doing so that we will attract the trust of more customers to invest more of their time, creativity and money into developing the world of GoPets to greater enjoyment of all.

That sounds both cool and promising. I especially like the emphasis on the UN Declaration of Human Rights as a template. Here are some more details about contributing to the initiative:

- The $5K will be divided up fairly among contributors (fair will be determined by Bethke based on the nature of individual contributions).

- The final product will be placed in a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License.

- The final format of the "GoPets Declaration of Rights and Obligations of Citizens" should be similar to that of the Creative Commons: icons, human readable bullet points and finally legal code.

- Deadline for final document will be November 1st, 2007 (to coincide with a new addition to the site).

You should also check out Bethke's more recent posting about his research into case law and the shareholder imperative - fascinating stuff, that makes me wonder about the possibility of creating a MMOG where players become shareholders (through game purchase, subscription, or other membership fee), in a players' cooperative of sorts (kind of like Mountain Equipment Co-Op).

I'd heard of GoPets before, but hadn't yet taken an opportunity to visit it or find out much about it until now. After so many months in Neopets, I think I was kind of avoiding the virtual pet scene. The site, though, is pretty interesting and seems unusually community responsive. It currently claims 400,000 subscribed members, and is available in BETA in North America, parts of Asia and Europe. It's also quite focused on media convergence and integration. Not only does it have upcoming companion game on the Nintendo DS coming out this year, but the "game" itself integrates onto your desktop. Here's the description from the site:

Each GoPet is a unique 3D companion that makes its home on its owner’s desktop. GoPets are not restricted to a single computer, however -- when they feel like wandering, they leave home and visit the desktops of other GoPets users. In their travels, GoPets visit their owners’ friends and families, as well as introducing their owners to other GoPets members who share similar interests. These traveling GoPets are messengers and ambassadors – they form the dynamic network of connections that comprises the GoPets social network.

Hmmm...strange isn't it? Sort of like Facebook meets Nintendogs. The game operates on a virtual/real world currency hybrid -- for example, players are awarded the mid-range currency type (pink shells) for contributing UGC to the site, but have to purchase high-range currency (gold shells) with real money (and, of course, "The coolest items can only be purchased using Gold Shells."). Also, despite the centrality of cutesy virtual pets, the site restricts children under 13 years (citing COPPA compliance). You can check out the site for yourselves by trying the free demo. If you do, let me know what you think.

Kids and Moms Harrassed in XBox Live

An infuriating story is currently being covered by WomenGamers.com about the systematic verbal harassment of a clan of kids and moms in XBox Live. The clan, called "The GR8 Clan", or "The Greats" for short, is an after-school initiative for kids aged 8-16, moderated and led by a few of their gamer moms (by the way, how cool is that!?!). The plan is to create a kid-friendly space within the adult-dominated world of XBox Live, where kids and their parents can play competitively and learn "teamwork, loyalty and sportsmanship" (says their MySpace page). Recently, however, the clan has been subject to insults and inappropriate comments via the live voice feature of XBox Live, which is surprisingly not currently regulated by the phone harassment laws that regulate VOIP and cell phones. According to WomenGamers, this loop hole "has provided a lawless internet frontier where Microsoft has not put in safeguards for children on its own." One of the adult moderators, GR8 Anhialator, contributed the following to the discussion thread:

Yesterday, I asked the GR8 kids if it was my imagination, or, if it was true that more and more people online, in the multiplayer gaming community (specifically XBOX Live), were getting meaner and more hateful toward us. Each of them said that, "people are getting meaner."

Remember that The Gr8 Clan is a group of children known as The Greats, aged from 8 years to 16 years old, chaperoned by GR8 Anhialator (sic). And we play to have fun. Yet, there is an increasing number of foul-mouthed males (different ones each day--proving my theory that more and more people are slipping into "hate" mode) who take it upon themselves to hurl vile insults, and even threats, at a group of children and women.

I've telephoned XBOX Live regarding this matter, and they responded by telling me that there was nothing that could be done.

[...]

[M]y clan is a group of children, and that these jerks come in and call us names as soon as they hear the kids' voices over the headsets. They call us names when we lose, and they call us names when we win. I'm not talking about schoolyard names here, I'm talking about street-slang, gang-banging hateful names, usually referencing genitalia or degrading sex acts.

According to "GR8 Anhialator" one of the reasons the XBox Live support/complaint system can't (or won't) do anything to help them is that the clan itself has received numerous complaints from other payers for censoring speech in their room, kicking people out of their room for saying inappropriate things to the kids, and generally controlling who gets to play with the kids. Some of the harassment also comes from players who disagree that children should be allowed to play M-rated games (they're currently playing Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Vegas (rated "M"), Ghost Recon (rated "T") and Gears of War (rated "M"), among others).

The GR8 Clan has taken the position that ESRB ratings are voluntary and that the kids are playing the games under adult supervision. I find this element of the phenomenon a bit of a contradiction - the gamer community is generally quite vocally against making ESRB ratings mandatory, and yet here the ratings seem to justify an all out assault on young (not to mention female) players. The harassers seem quite keen on establishing XBox Live as an adults-only place...making a kids' clan something akin to bringing a bunch of kids into a strip club. And perhaps certain games and areas should be adult only...these harasser-guys obviously need somewhere away from other people where they can be their horrifying selves. Boundaries can be good, if managed and established correctly -- without undue discrimination, for example. But there is no way that it's ever OK to establish these boundaries through abuse, bullying and threats. These players should take note that the ESRB ratings refer to game content, not the words and behaviour of the real-life people playing them.

This is yet another case of children becoming the locus of larger social tensions -- the disapproving adult-players take out their anger on the kids, and the kids have no legal or even quasi-legal (terms of service rules) recourse other than to remove themselves from M-rated games because adult players can't behave themselves. Where in this scenario do adults ever have to take on some of the responsibility or self-restraint? I really hope this story hits the games blogsphere and gets some attention from XBox, who are in this case failing miserably at making their system more "family friendly."

I also wonder how the kids themselves feel about it, and if there is any difference between girls' and boys' experiences of trash talk in XBox Live and other forums. There is a wonderful forthcoming article by Sonia Livingstone wherein she explores how kids use the Internet to experiment with taboo talk and roles, including sexual themes and flaming in chat rooms...I seem to remember that the boys were more likely to engage in trash talk and flame wars, and I wonder if this carries over into the XBox example. Is this something they engage in, and then it goes too far? Are girls participating in it, or are they merely subjected to it? I'm assuming that the GR8 moderator represents the children's position as well as the moms' on this one, but it would nonetheless be great to hear what these kids think about the whole thing, as well as how this experience differs from other games (maybe E-rated) and multiplayer forums they might also engage in.

This article comes at a pretty interesting time in my own research. Recently, I've been writing quite a bit about restrictions on interplayer communication in child-oriented MMOGs and how this limits opportunities for community-building and creativity. This case is a good counterpoint to keep in mind whenever I get carried away with participatory rights and freedom of expression issues...although I'm still not convinced that it's the kids who need the censoring.

*****Update: Please see Comment section for important corrections to this story from one of the members of the GR8 Clan.******

****Also, check out this recent announcement by Playstation about their plan to ban anyone who becomes overly "abusive" on their Playstation Home feature. From the Escapist article: "He added that Sony was not looking to offer a kids-only environment, and that adult users would have access to products and brands that would be kept out of the reach of children. "A large portion of our demographic is over 18 so we will make a point of catering to that demographic - we certainly don't want to dumb everything down to the lowest common denominator," he said."*****