This is Not a Software Industry - The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State, and Future - page 14

Second Life might more accurately be described as a virtual world and
game engine, waiting for content to be added and developed for it by the
users of the worlds.
This is a common occurrence, the expectation or capability for users to
customize a game or add new content to it. Video game systems, in some
cases, will provide players with an interface to the underlying software of a
game. MODs (“modifi cations”) can be created that alter the game or insert
new rules or content. Yet, this is above and beyond the game itself; it is an
opportunity for the player to explore further a virtual space and even create
new content for a game. However, it is content they are creating, not the
underlying software. MODing is an activity rooted in the same activities of
game developers. New models, textures, rules, missions, etc., are created
for the existing software (Postigo 2003, 2007).
Thus, from the perspectives of the developer and player, games are a
very dif erent animal from “typical” software. Yet, a growing number of
scholars are beginning to argue that these are not simply software or part
of the broader software industry, but closer to other forms of media and
their production, more similar to those broader media forms as well.
CULTURAL PRODUCTION
If the production of games and the play of games dif er so radically from
other forms of software, then why is it continually lumped into the same
category as “software”? In my research studying the culture and practices of
video game developers, I have often been asked, “Isn't it just software devel-
opment?” As this chapter clearly demonstrates, this perception is part his-
torical and part simply uninformed. It is true that game development sprung
from the broader software production phenomenon, yet games are increas-
ingly not the same. Activities like game development have more recently been
broadly labelled as “cultural industries” (Dymek 2010, 207).
The consequences that such a reclassifi cation might have are dii cult to
fully unravel. Although for a cultural analyst like myself, such a distinction
is logical, the political and economic considerations of such a categoriza-
tion is far from clear (Kerr, forthcoming). Games are certainly infused with
culture. National culture, nerd culture, geek culture, gamer culture, anime
culture and numerous others instil all aspects of game and game develop-
ment studio alike. Cultural aspects infuse the very design of a game. Games
become a referent point for conversations about new games. This has been
conceptualized as a three-part “circuit of interactivity,” by which culture,
technology and marketing interact (Kline, Dyer-Witheford and de Peuter
2005, 30 -59).
Although I think this model is productive, it doesn't seem to get at the
amount of force that the “marketing” element of the system can exert on
the structure. Whereas subsequent research came to conceptualize that