Abstract
This chapter explores the opportunities of mobile games to critique and constitute the networks of which they are a part, attending particularly to location-based games. It discusses how these kinds of mobile games reconfigure people's relationships with other people and objects in their environment. In order to understand this reconfiguration, a model is put forward that clarifies the various ways in which people and objects are presented to the mobile game player. Using this model, examples are discussed of games that make interactions available that are disruptive of a social or political order, arguing that this disruption may be drafted into socio-political critique. Other examples demonstrate how mobile games bring everyday life within a capitalist logic, monetizing leisure and the mundane. This suggests that mobile gaming as a technology, practice, or product is neither fundamentally emancipatory nor fundamentally regressive but rather can be employed in various ways.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Interdisciplinary mobile media and communications |
| Subtitle of host publication | social, political, and economic implications |
| Editors | Xiaoge Xu |
| Publisher | IGI Global |
| Pages | 260-277 |
| Number of pages | 18 |
| ISBN (Electronic) | 9781466661677 |
| ISBN (Print) | 1466661666, 9781466661660 |
| DOIs | |
| Publication status | Published - 30 Jun 2014 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- General Computer Science
- General Engineering