{"product_id":"the-videogame-industry-does-not-exist-isbn-9780262545402","title":"The Videogame Industry Does Not Exist","description":"\u003cb\u003eUnderstanding the precarious reality of videogame production beyond the corporate blockbuster studios of North America—with insights from 400+ game developers.\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eThe videogame industry, we're invariably told, is a multibillion-dollar, high-tech business conducted by large corporations in certain North American, European, and East Asian cities. But most videogames today, in fact, are made by small clusters of people working on shoestring budgets, relying on existing, freely available software platforms, and hoping, often in vain, to rise to stardom—in short, people working like artists. Aiming squarely at this disconnect between perception and reality, \u003ci\u003eThe Videogame Industry Does Not Exist\u003c\/i\u003e presents a much more accurate and nuanced picture of how the vast majority of videogame-makers work—a picture that reveals the diverse and precarious communities, identities, and approaches that make videogame production a significant cultural practice.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eDrawing on insights provided by over 400 game developers across Australia, North America, Europe, and Southeast Asia, Brendan Keogh develops a new framework for understanding videogame production as a cultural field in all its complexity. Part-time hobbyists, aspirational students, client-facing contractors, struggling independents, artist collectives, and tightly knit local scenes—all have a place within this model. But proponents of non-commercial game making don't exist in isolation; Keogh shows how they and their commercial counterparts are deeply interconnected and codependent in the field of videogame production.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eA cultural intervention, \u003ci\u003eThe Videogame Industry Does Not Exist\u003c\/i\u003e challenges core assumptions about videogame production—ideas about creativity, professionalism, labor, diversity, education, globalization, and community. Its in-depth, complex portrayal suggests new ways of seeing, and engaging in, the videogame industry that really does exist.Acknowledgments ix\u003cbr\u003eIntroduction 1\u003cbr\u003e1 From Videogame Industry to Videogame Fields 17\u003cbr\u003e2 Videogame Production in Australia 49\u003cbr\u003e3 Getting by in the Videogame Gig Economy 75\u003cbr\u003e4 Enrolling Students into the Field 103\u003cbr\u003e5 Embedding Gamemaking Skills 133\u003cbr\u003e6 Scenes and Communities 155\u003cbr\u003e7 From Videogame Field to Videogame Industries 185\u003cbr\u003eConclusion: Centering the Field of Videogame Production 209\u003cbr\u003eNotes 219\u003cbr\u003eReferences 225\u003cbr\u003eIndex 243“Provocative but not polemic, humorous yet deadly serious, Keogh convincingly challenges the way we talk and think about ‘the game industry.’ Anyone invested in making gams owes it to themselves to read this book.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eDavid Nieborg, Associate Professor of Media Studies, University of Toronto\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Keogh asks us to rethink \u003ci\u003ewho \u003c\/i\u003emakes games and \u003ci\u003ewhy\u003c\/i\u003e, deftly illustrating the consequences of myopically substituting ‘the industry’ for a much broader and diverse cultural field of contractors, artists, and hobbyists.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eJennifer R. Whitson, Associate Professor, Sociology and Legal Studies, University of Waterloo, Canada \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e \u003cbr\u003e“Keogh has written an empirically rich, theoretically ambitious, and altogether incredibly useful book for anyone who wants to understand videogame production as a cultural, social, and economic phenomenon.”\u003cbr\u003e—\u003cb\u003eOlli Sotamaa, Professor, Tampere University; coeditor of G\u003ci\u003eame Production Studies\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003eBrendan Keogh is a senior lecturer in the School of Communication and a chief investigator of the Digital Media Research Centre at the Queensland University of Technology. His books include of \u003ci\u003eA Play of Bodies: How We Perceive Videogames\u003c\/i\u003e and, as coauthor, \u003ci\u003eThe Unity Game Engine and The Circuits of Cultural Software\u003c\/i\u003e.","brand":"The MIT Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":46302119756005,"sku":"NP9780262545402","price":40.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1842\/7735\/files\/9780262545402.jpg?v=1767742075","url":"https:\/\/k12savings.com\/products\/the-videogame-industry-does-not-exist-isbn-9780262545402","provider":"K12savings","version":"1.0","type":"link"}