The moral economy of user-created content in the digital game industry

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216208%3A11230%2F21%3A10445246" target="_blank" >RIV/00216208:11230/21:10445246 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=6_8qG58I7p" target="_blank" >https://verso.is.cuni.cz/pub/verso.fpl?fname=obd_publikace_handle&handle=6_8qG58I7p</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1386/jgvw_00043_1" target="_blank" >10.1386/jgvw_00043_1</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

The moral economy of user-created content in the digital game industry

Original language description

Modders, as people adding modifications or suggesting those to original creations, have been a source of free labour in the digital game industry. Their contributions have been at the root of many controversies. As such, corporations have adopted either hostile or friendly attitudes towards the practice of modding, which is reflected in how corporations try to facilitate or limit modders&apos; agency to create user-created content. This article explores the perspective of players as creators, commonly referred to as modders, on corporate strategies to commodify their free labour. The empirical work consists of semi-structured interviews with modders associated with the website fora Nexusmods.com and ModDB.com. By adopting Sayer&apos;s concept of moral economy, this study draws two conclusions: first, that modders exist within a participatory ecosystem comprised of the modder, the community and corporate actors, where all actors participate in a political-ideological negotiation on how modders ought to create digital game modifications; second, when analysing agency affordances, a moral economy of multiple actors with different norms, values and social codes constitutes a provision system of social dependency that is at risk of collapsing whenever there is outsider interference, as well as corporate attempts to incorporate modders into paid-mod systems.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

—

OECD FORD branch

50802 - Media and socio-cultural communication

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2021

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

Journal of Gaming &amp; Virtual Worlds

ISSN

1757-191X

e-ISSN

1757-1928

Volume of the periodical

13

Issue of the periodical within the volume

3

Country of publishing house

GB - UNITED KINGDOM

Number of pages

21

Pages from-to

285-305

UT code for WoS article

000811799200003

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85132182675