Routledge Video Game Worlds: Working at Play in the Culture of EverQuest

Product Description As massively multiplayer online (MMO) games grow in scope and popularity, what are the characteristics of their emerging gaming culture? How is this culture shaped by the decisions made by game designers and the collective interpretations of a game’s player base? In this book, Timothy Rowlands brings a diverse mix of ethnographic, semiotic, and analytical approaches to the virtual world of EverQuest. Through first-hand player experiences and interviews of other gamers, Rowlands analyzes a gaming environment that, as time goes on, looks less like leisure and more like a workspace. This groundbreaking fusion of sociology and the world of MMOs is a must read for scholars and gamers alike. Review "A tour de force that will redefine how social scientists look at computer mediated interaction in general, and especially the logics and perspectives of gamers in particular. This is an amazing study of the merging of the social and the social virtual worlds, joined through media formats. This work will challenge the entertainment logic, formats, and values that constitute standard game platforms that undergird much of the industry. His analysis of how the virtual world reflects and amends everyday life perspectives about competition and competence reveals much about the social order of justice in a virtual world."--David L. Altheide, Regents' Professor, Arizona State University About the Author Timothy Rowlands is currently a post-doctoral researcher with the School of Social Transformation at Arizona State University. He researches online communities and the potential they have for creating spaces in which people construct, re-invent and negotiate online identities. His work crosses the disciplinary boundaries of sociology, anthropology, communications, cultural studies and new media studies while focusing on the shaping of virtual selves. His research utilizes traditional qualitative approaches such as ethnographic and interview methods while applying them to studies of online spaces and communities. At the same time, he brings a deep commitment to texts through his emphasis on in situ semiotics.