Gunfights at the Online Corral: Multiplayer Gaming and Imaginative Communities
Proposal for a special session at the MLA Convention, Deccember 27-30, 2002.
Computer, arcade and console games continue to attract only minimal
scholarly attention, despite the fact that sales of gaming software and
hardware have now surpassed the annual revenue from Hollywood films, and
despite the fact that commentators routinely link videogames with both
important aesthetic revolutions and dire communal
disintegrations. Furthermore, the bulk of existing scholarly work has
considered videogames only as single-player forms of entertainment. In
fact, gaming is increasingly a multiplayer phenomenon. Spurred by the
advent of broadband internet connections and by the development of a new
generation of game consoles (Sony's Playstation 2, Microsoft's X-Box) which
feature built-in internet connections most single-player games now feature
a multiplayer component (sometimes more popular than the single-player
game, as in the recent _Return to Castle Wolfenstein_). Recent years have
also witnessed the popularity of multiplayer-only games (_Counterstrike_),
multiplayer games available only via the web (_Warbirds_), and the advent
of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) (_Ultima Online_, _World War
II Online_, and the forthcoming _Star Wars: Galaxies_).
This panel will offer new critical perspectives on multiplayer gaming. I
would prefer submissions from people who combine a scholarly expertise with
extensive gaming experience but all submissions will be considered. Among
the areas that might be explored in this panel are the following:
A) the life of player communities (guilds, clans, squadrons, tribes). How
are they formed and maintained? How do these communities influence the
behavior of participants online and offline?
B) How does a multiplayer environment influence participants' perceptions
of character (both their own, and that attributed to other players)?
C) What kinds of communications practices are supported by different gaming
environments? What kinds of communication strategies are employed by players?
D) What is the effect on the gaming environment of various software,
hardware, peripheral and internet developments?
E) What kinds of games do multiplayer games play with history?
F) What impact does online gaming have for our understanding of race,
gender, and class? In what ways are these categories incorporated into the
game worlds or excluded from them?
G) How do multiplayer games influence our understanding of the nature and
purpose of genre conventions, and of genre as a conceptual category?
H) In what ways do these games engage with "traditional" entertainment
forms like films and novels?
This list is, of course, far from exhaustive!
In your abstract please indicate what, if any, audiovisual equipment you
will require.
Please send 500 word abstracts by March 15 to:
Mark Mullen
Department of English
The George Washington University
Washington D.C. 20052
Abstracts may also be sent by e-mail to:
ishmael@gwu.edu.
Mark Mullen Simon: "It hurts to breathe."
George Washington University Henry: "Of course it does."
ishmael@gwu.edu --Henry Fool
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