On Game Mod Communities

…is the title of a paper I will be presenting at the, bear with me, 106th Annual Meeting of the American Anthropological Association in Washington DC this November 28th. (program) My main argument breaks down like this:Despite agonistic game play, such as found in Command & Conquer: Generals, the experience of video games also involves a great deal of collaboration. So, I will show how game modding communities operate as a locale for communicative exchange, that ultimately provides people with “an increased variety of personal and social models.” (Riesman 1954)

Anyway, I’m mostly just curious about the mods that people make, exploring the question: if you can make anything, what would you make? Followed by a bunch of findings, such as:

“I dedicate this map to the American armed forces and their Allies who now prepare to fight and die for the liberation of the Iraqi people.”

And,

“Après les attentas du 11 septembre 2001, Le gouvernement américain ordonne d’envoyer des forces miltaires en Afghanistan pour traquer les membres d’hakaida et leur chef ousama ben laden. […] Permettre à ousame ben laden et ses gardes du corps de fuir par la frontìere pakistanaise.”

Hopefully the anthropologists will shoot me down and build me back up, as is usually the case whenever I present something somewhere. Last time in Berlin I left feeling confident and organized; ideally suited to write a dissertation proposal.