Carly Kocurek
Illinois Institute of Technology, Department of Humanities, Faculty Member
- History, Digital Humanities, Pedagogy, Violence, History of Video Games, Game History, and 20 moreGender Studies, Arcades, Video Games, American Studies, Game studies, Game Design, Games, Videogames, Gaming, Moral Panic, Video Game History, History of Games, Video gaming, Death Race, Exidy, Arcade, Cultural Studies, Critical Theory, Cultural Theory, and Popular Cultureedit
- I'm active on Twitter @sparklebliss. I research the history of video games from the perspective of an American Stu... moreI'm active on Twitter @sparklebliss.
I research the history of video games from the perspective of an American Studies scholar with an emphasis on gender. My courses cover game studies, media studies, and digital culture at the graduate and undergraduate levels.edit
This chapter explores the ways in which the field of Game Studies helps shape popular understandings of player, play, and game, and specifically how the field alters the conceptual, linguistic, and discursive apparatuses that gamers use... more
This chapter explores the ways in which the field of Game Studies helps shape popular understandings of player, play, and game, and specifically how the field alters the conceptual, linguistic, and discursive apparatuses that gamers use to contextualize, describe, and make sense of their experience. The chapter deploys the concpet of apportioned commodity fetishism to analyze the phenomena of discourse as practice, persona, the vagaries of game design, recursion, lexical formation, institutionalization, systems of self-effectiveness, theory as anti-theory, and commodification.
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By making work seem more like leisure time, gamification and corporate training games serve as a mechanism for solving a range of problems and, significantly, of increasing productivity. This piece examines the implications of... more
By making work seem more like leisure time, gamification and corporate training games serve as a mechanism for solving a range of problems and, significantly, of increasing productivity. This piece examines the implications of gamification as a means of productivity gains that extend Frederick Winslow Taylor’s principles of scientific management, or Taylorism. Relying on measurement and observation as a mechanism to collapse the domains of labour and leisure for the benefit of businesses (rather than for the benefit or fulfilment of workers), gamification potentially subjugates all time into productive time, even as business leaders use games to mask all labour as something to be enjoyed. In so doing, this study argues, the agency of individuals – whether worker or player – becomes subject to the rationalized nature of production. This rationalization changes the nature of play, making it a duty rather than a choice, a routine rather than a process of exploration. Taken too far or used unthinkingly, it renders Huizinga’s magic circle into one more regulated office cubicle.
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In the game industry, community managers engage in social and emotional labor as they split their loyalties between game communities and game companies. Community managers do not fully represent the interests of one group, and their... more
In the game industry, community managers engage in social and emotional labor as they split their loyalties between game communities and game companies. Community managers do not fully represent the interests of one group, and their intermediary role puts particular stresses on the types of emotional labor that they are called upon to enact. Further, community managers must also participate in social labor—work that builds and exploits social connections for monetary gain. Most of this labor, however, is undervalued and in some instances is simply uncompensated " free " labor carried out by members of a fan community. Ultimately, we argue, casting the role of the community manager as a social and emotional laborer feminizes this work, monetarily devaluing it while isolating workers in these roles from the communities that they ostensibly serve.
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This chapter explores the ways in which the field of Game Studies helps shape popular understandings of player, play, and game, and specifically how the field alters the conceptual, linguistic, and discursive apparatuses that gamers use... more
This chapter explores the ways in which the field of Game Studies helps shape popular understandings
of player, play, and game, and specifically how the field alters the conceptual, linguistic, and discursive
apparatuses that gamers use to contextualize, describe, and make sense of their experiences. The chapter
deploys the concept of apportioned commodity fetishism to analyze the phenomena of discourse as
practice, persona, the vagaries of game design, recursion, lexical formation, institutionalization, systems
of self-effectiveness, theory as anti-theory, and commodification.
of player, play, and game, and specifically how the field alters the conceptual, linguistic, and discursive
apparatuses that gamers use to contextualize, describe, and make sense of their experiences. The chapter
deploys the concept of apportioned commodity fetishism to analyze the phenomena of discourse as
practice, persona, the vagaries of game design, recursion, lexical formation, institutionalization, systems
of self-effectiveness, theory as anti-theory, and commodification.
Research Interests:
Alternative blood is a practice in video games in which on-screen characters bleed green or other off-coloured blood when killed. The practice, intended to minimise in-game violence and reduce the depiction of gore, has become common... more
Alternative blood is a practice in video games in which
on-screen characters bleed green or other off-coloured
blood when killed. The practice, intended to minimise
in-game violence and reduce the depiction of gore, has
become common since the release of Carmageddon (1997)
and can be deployed as a means of either placating
ratings boards and censors or offering players greater
in-game choice, as in the case of Serious Sam 3 (2011).
This article suggests that alternative blood and the more
general depiction of on-screen targets as ‘monstrous’ as
currently deployed in video games often serves to
dehumanise the familiar and limit the presentation of
death. Instances from video games in the horror, Western
and war genres are examined and placed in a context
that considers the history of these genres and of
thematically related propaganda. This analysis suggests
that the justification of deaths through alternative blood
and monstrousness may not dampen the impact of
violence in the way that developers and moral guardians
might assume. Ultimately, this article argues that the
desire to minimise the impact of in-game deaths by
rendering victims as ‘monsters’ enacts a type of cultural
violence by dehumanising them. This aesthetic
dehumanisation of in-game victims echoes propaganda
strategies used to justify historical violence and may have
negative social consequences and should be further
studied.
on-screen characters bleed green or other off-coloured
blood when killed. The practice, intended to minimise
in-game violence and reduce the depiction of gore, has
become common since the release of Carmageddon (1997)
and can be deployed as a means of either placating
ratings boards and censors or offering players greater
in-game choice, as in the case of Serious Sam 3 (2011).
This article suggests that alternative blood and the more
general depiction of on-screen targets as ‘monstrous’ as
currently deployed in video games often serves to
dehumanise the familiar and limit the presentation of
death. Instances from video games in the horror, Western
and war genres are examined and placed in a context
that considers the history of these genres and of
thematically related propaganda. This analysis suggests
that the justification of deaths through alternative blood
and monstrousness may not dampen the impact of
violence in the way that developers and moral guardians
might assume. Ultimately, this article argues that the
desire to minimise the impact of in-game deaths by
rendering victims as ‘monsters’ enacts a type of cultural
violence by dehumanising them. This aesthetic
dehumanisation of in-game victims echoes propaganda
strategies used to justify historical violence and may have
negative social consequences and should be further
studied.
Research Interests:
By making work seem more like leisure time, gamification and corporate training games serve as a mechanism for solving a range of problems and, significantly, of increasing productivity. This piece examines the implications of... more
By making work seem more like leisure time, gamification and corporate training games serve as a mechanism for solving a range of problems and, significantly, of increasing productivity. This piece examines the implications of gamification as a means of productivity gains that extend Frederick Winslow Taylor’s principles of scientific management, or Taylorism. Relying on measurement and observation as a mechanism to collapse the domains of labour and leisure for the benefit of businesses (rather than for the benefit or fulfilment of workers), gamification potentially subjugates all time into productive time, even as business leaders use games to mask all labour as something to be enjoyed. In so doing, this study argues, the agency of individuals – whether worker or player – becomes subject to the rationalized nature of production. This rationalization changes the nature of play, making it a duty rather than a choice, a routine rather than a process of exploration. Taken too far or used unthinkingly, it renders Huizinga’s magic circle into one more regulated office cubicle.
Research Interests:
This article interrogates the importance of feelies for game design and game history, making the case for considering feelies not as ephemera, but as essential game components. Feelies have often been treated as supplementary aspects of... more
This article interrogates the importance of feelies for game design and game history, making the case for considering feelies not as ephemera, but as essential game components. Feelies have often been treated as supplementary aspects of game design, as evidenced by the reissue and even archiving of games without feelies. However, researchers would do well to consider carefully the impact feelies have on player experience, particularly as practices established around these early games continue to inform game design; too much attention to the digital components of games can efface the physicality of video games and artificially simplify interpretations.
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In 1976, Exidy's Death Race triggered the United States’ first video gaming moral panic. Public outrage not only fueled sales of the game and made Exidy a household name, but established a pattern by which controversial games receive a... more
In 1976, Exidy's Death Race triggered the United States’ first video gaming moral panic. Public outrage not only fueled sales of the game and made Exidy a household name, but established a pattern by which controversial games receive a high levels of press attention, which in turn drives these games' marketplace success. Exidy released Death Race in the midst of changing cinema production codes and distribution regulations that led to the emergence of films featuring unprecedented displays of violence and sexuality. The game is based on one of these films, Death Race 2000, in which competitors in the Annual Transcontinental Road Race mow down pedestrians for points. Although the filmmakers did not authorize the use of their concepts for the game, the game relies directly on the film's narrative. The chase-and-crash game invites players to strike stick-figure "gremlins" with on-screen cars. Context, including the game's cabinet graphics and the film, contributed to moral guardians' perception that the game was celebrating violence. However, Death Race was distributed in a market filled with numerous other violent games. This suggests the game triggered outrage not only because it was violent, but because it depicted violence which questioned the state's monopoly on legitimized violence and did not follow culturally accepted narratives of violence, such as military or police violence, or the western. Public disapproval of Death Race did not squelch distribution, instead driving sales and vaulting Exidy into the national spotlight. Discourse surrounding Death Race forged a strong tie between video gaming and violence in the public imagination, ensuring the development of similarly violent games. This bond has persisted and led to the development of several similar games, including the controversial Grand Theft Auto franchise, which is the progeny of Death Race in both narrative theme and reception.
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This chapter from »The cake is a lie« Polyperspektivische Betrachtungen des Computerspiels am Beispiel von ›Portal‹ considers the intense identification with Chell precisely because she offers players a female avatar who is ethnically... more
This chapter from »The cake is a lie« Polyperspektivische Betrachtungen des Computerspiels am Beispiel von ›Portal‹ considers the intense identification with Chell precisely because she offers players a female avatar who is ethnically ambiguous. Further, the trope of the mute female in media is considered to account for increased player identification.
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This special issue of the Syllabus Journal offers a multi-disciplinary approach to video game studies. We have organized it with three different categories: 1. Teaching About Games: These syllabi attend to teaching the skills and... more
This special issue of the Syllabus Journal offers a multi-disciplinary approach to video game studies. We have organized it with three different categories:
1. Teaching About Games: These syllabi attend to teaching the skills and theoretical frameworks common in video game programs—those programs dedicated to creating and engaging with game culture writ large.
2. Teaching With Games: These syllabi see games as a useful text to teach diverse topics, such as history, creative writing, and rhetoric and composition. Games become an important medium to convey information or concepts important in non-game-specific disciplines.
3. Toolbox: These are short assignments that use games or teach game concepts. Some are meant for only a day and some are two-week units. They have been written to be easily incorporated into any course syllabus.
1. Teaching About Games: These syllabi attend to teaching the skills and theoretical frameworks common in video game programs—those programs dedicated to creating and engaging with game culture writ large.
2. Teaching With Games: These syllabi see games as a useful text to teach diverse topics, such as history, creative writing, and rhetoric and composition. Games become an important medium to convey information or concepts important in non-game-specific disciplines.
3. Toolbox: These are short assignments that use games or teach game concepts. Some are meant for only a day and some are two-week units. They have been written to be easily incorporated into any course syllabus.
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* Taylorism 2.0: Gamification, Scientific Management and the Capitalistic Appropriation of Play by Jennifer deWinter, Carly A. Kocurek, and Randall Nichols * Zombification?: Gamification, Motivation, and the User by Steven... more
* Taylorism 2.0: Gamification, Scientific Management and the Capitalistic Appropriation of Play by Jennifer deWinter, Carly A. Kocurek, and Randall Nichols
* Zombification?: Gamification, Motivation, and the User by Steven Conway
* Gamification as Twenty-first-century Ideology by Mathias Fuchs
* Towards Gamification Transparency: A Conceptual Framework for the Development of Responsible Gamified Enterprise Systems by Marigo Raftopoulos
* Interview: America’s Army and the Military Recruitment and Management of ‘Talent’: An Interview with Colonel Casey Wardynski
* Zombification?: Gamification, Motivation, and the User by Steven Conway
* Gamification as Twenty-first-century Ideology by Mathias Fuchs
* Towards Gamification Transparency: A Conceptual Framework for the Development of Responsible Gamified Enterprise Systems by Marigo Raftopoulos
* Interview: America’s Army and the Military Recruitment and Management of ‘Talent’: An Interview with Colonel Casey Wardynski
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Reading Contemporary Television Series Editors: Kim Akass and Janet McCabe janetandkim@hotmail.com The Reading Contemporary Television series aims to offer a varied, intellectually groundbreaking and often polemical response to what is... more
Reading Contemporary Television Series Editors: Kim Akass and Janet McCabe janetandkim@hotmail.com The Reading Contemporary Television series aims to offer a varied, intellectually groundbreaking and often polemical response to what is happening ...
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Influential Game Designers is a book series published by Bloomsbury/Continuum and edited by Jennifer deWinter and Carly A. Kocurek. It is the first series to take seriously the role of the game designer. By profiling game designers who... more
Influential Game Designers is a book series published by Bloomsbury/Continuum and edited by Jennifer deWinter and Carly A. Kocurek. It is the first series to take seriously the role of the game designer. By profiling game designers who have shaped contemporary video gaming, this series provides insights into the practice, history, and artistry of game design. This series responds to a growing interest in the artistic and cultural value of games and an increased focus on the practice of game design.
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" Video gaming: it’s a boy’s world, right? That’s what the industry wants us to think. Why and how we came to comply are what Carly A. Kocurek investigates in this provocative consideration of how an industry’s craving for respectability... more
" Video gaming: it’s a boy’s world, right? That’s what the industry wants us to think. Why and how we came to comply are what Carly A. Kocurek investigates in this provocative consideration of how an industry’s craving for respectability hooked up with cultural narratives about technology, masculinity, and youth at the video arcade.
From the dawn of the golden age of video games with the launch of Atari’s Pong in 1972, through the industry-wide crash of 1983, to the recent nostalgia-bathed revival of the arcade, Coin-Operated Americans explores the development and implications of the “video gamer” as a cultural identity. This cultural-historical journey takes us to the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, for a close look at the origins of competitive gaming. It immerses us in video gaming’s first moral panic, generated by Exidy’s Death Race (1976), an unlicensed adaptation of the film Death Race 2000. And it ventures into the realm of video game films such as Tron and WarGames, in which gamers become brilliant, boyish heroes.
Whether conducting a phenomenological tour of a classic arcade or evaluating attempts, then and now, to regulate or eradicate arcades and coin-op video games, Kocurek does more than document the rise and fall of a now-booming industry. Drawing on newspapers, interviews, oral history, films, and television, she examines the factors and incidents that contributed to the widespread view of video gaming as an enclave for young men and boys.
A case study of this once emergent and now revived medium, Coin-Operated Americans is history that holds valuable lessons for contemporary culture as we struggle to address pervasive sexism in the domain of video games—and in the digital working world beyond." (Publisher's Summary)
From the dawn of the golden age of video games with the launch of Atari’s Pong in 1972, through the industry-wide crash of 1983, to the recent nostalgia-bathed revival of the arcade, Coin-Operated Americans explores the development and implications of the “video gamer” as a cultural identity. This cultural-historical journey takes us to the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, for a close look at the origins of competitive gaming. It immerses us in video gaming’s first moral panic, generated by Exidy’s Death Race (1976), an unlicensed adaptation of the film Death Race 2000. And it ventures into the realm of video game films such as Tron and WarGames, in which gamers become brilliant, boyish heroes.
Whether conducting a phenomenological tour of a classic arcade or evaluating attempts, then and now, to regulate or eradicate arcades and coin-op video games, Kocurek does more than document the rise and fall of a now-booming industry. Drawing on newspapers, interviews, oral history, films, and television, she examines the factors and incidents that contributed to the widespread view of video gaming as an enclave for young men and boys.
A case study of this once emergent and now revived medium, Coin-Operated Americans is history that holds valuable lessons for contemporary culture as we struggle to address pervasive sexism in the domain of video games—and in the digital working world beyond." (Publisher's Summary)
Research Interests: Cultural History, Cultural Studies, American Studies, Gender Studies, Media Studies, and 17 moreNew Media, Media and Cultural Studies, Youth Studies, Popular Culture, Masculinity Studies, Video Games and Learning, Gender and Sexuality, Video Games, American Culture, Gender, Youth Culture, Masculinity, Masculinities, Youth, Games, Games Studies, and Arcades
Carly Kocurek and I originally wrote this chapter after #1reasonwhy to interrogate the game industry's resistance to women in the workforce. We look to the discursive practices around women as consumers, as journalists, and as producers... more
Carly Kocurek and I originally wrote this chapter after #1reasonwhy to interrogate the game industry's resistance to women in the workforce. We look to the discursive practices around women as consumers, as journalists, and as producers of content to define cultural practices of exclusion as well as economic and social oppression. Shifts in the industry, we argue, need to first engage with these discourses and ideology to see positive change and workplace equality.