Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
as those who buy the game to play ol ine may not care about the online
of erings, potentially requiring designers to ef ectively create two dif erent,
Beyond the players themselves, the channels present for communication
between players and designers shape wordplay as a critical tool. Prior to the
massive spread of blogs, forums, and various news sources about games,
game producers were relatively isolated from their audiences. Certainly,
there were ways in which the people making games got feedback from those
who played them. One of the most sophisticated outreach ef orts was made
mation from gamers. Nintendo then used the data gathered from these tools
to sell players whatever new product was set to be released. Another way for
the audience of players to interact with game developers is to develop user
the spread and mass adoption of the internet, combined with the increase in
market value of the game industry, presents myriad ways for the audience
of games to interact with the authors of games. The development of addi-
tional channels for communication makes the context for wordplay all the
more profound, as the interactions between audience and author are richer,
deeper, and more complex than in the past.
The paths for interchange between those who make games and those
who play them alter the context for what games are made and how they
are played. Additional outlets for players to talk about games, especially
forums and blogs, give players the chance to actively reshape the terrain of
gaming particularly because many are read by developers. Similar chan-
nels of communication also give developers a chance to directly address
players. This leads to situations where prominent players are in a position
to directly interact with developers or where developers reach out to their
audiences in an ef ort to clarify their intent and rally support for a game.
The means by which developers interact with their audiences continues to
change, as demonstrated by a major game developer that opted for a blog
format to “foster developer communication to the players without some of
cussion about games increases, wordplay must adapt. The developer-player
(or author-audience) relationship becomes more complex, as players are
increasingly participating in the construction of the games they play.
Tracing the ramifi cations of more outlets for communication on the
dynamics of wordplay requires a deeper look at how these new channels
work and how they alter the relationship between author and audience.
Starting with some of the ways developers have sought to directly com-
municate with players outside of the game and moving to case studies of
specifi c ways players have reshaped how their games of choice are played it
is possible to trace how words from and to players are key components of
the discourse of video games.
