Title:
Game developing, the D'ni way: how myst/uru fans inherited the cultural legacy of a lost empire

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dc.contributor.advisor Pearce, Celia
dc.contributor.author Watson, Nicholas en_US
dc.contributor.committeeMember Bruckman, Amy
dc.contributor.committeeMember Murray, Janet
dc.contributor.committeeMember Nardi, Bonnie
dc.contributor.department Literature, Communication, and Culture en_US
dc.date.accessioned 2012-09-20T18:24:09Z
dc.date.available 2012-09-20T18:24:09Z
dc.date.issued 2012-07-05 en_US
dc.description.abstract This research considers how the culture of game developer Cyan Worlds influences the gameplay environment and the culture of fans in Myst Online: Uru Live. The game has gone through two commercial releases and in both cases it was cancelled after a short time. Fans have attempted to salvage the game by producing their own server software and content creation tools. Recently, Cyan released their own source code and development tools to the fan community, giving fans an official channel for creating new content. This work builds off of Pearce's (2009b) study of the culture of Uru players and emergent play, but adds the dimension of considering the culture of developers themselves. A primary goal of this study was to determine how the culture of a game developer like Cyan shapes the constraints of the designed "play ecosystem" (Pearce 2009b: 7), and how it shapes the processes by which fans can salvage aspects of the game to create new content. One finding is that the design of Uru's gameplay environment is rooted in the cultural practices, personal philosophical goals and individual personality traits of its developers. Fans were able to assert ownership over the Uru story-world and the means of production of new content by proactively applying technical and problem-solving skills--the same sorts of skills that players must apply to solving puzzles in Myst games. This fan action, coupled with Cyan's goal of making an open-ended world, has helped to propel the initiative to provide open-source tools for creating new content. When fans produce new content, they draw significantly from an existing shared cultural repertoire of cues and conventions. These conventions are supported both by the software affordances of the development environment and by cultural precedent--they are readily adapted to Myst-like narratives and are easily "read" by experienced players. en_US
dc.description.degree MS en_US
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/44898
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology en_US
dc.subject Myst en_US
dc.subject Uru en_US
dc.subject Game developers en_US
dc.subject Fan culture en_US
dc.subject Game design en_US
dc.subject Virtual worlds en_US
dc.subject MMOGs en_US
dc.subject.lcsh Virtual reality
dc.subject.lcsh Shared virtual environments
dc.subject.lcsh Popular culture
dc.subject.lcsh Video games
dc.subject.lcsh Computer games
dc.subject.lcsh Fantasy gamers
dc.title Game developing, the D'ni way: how myst/uru fans inherited the cultural legacy of a lost empire en_US
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Thesis
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.corporatename School of Literature, Media, and Communication
local.contributor.corporatename Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 43c73fdb-8114-4ef3-a162-dfddd66e3da5
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication b1049ff1-5166-442c-9e14-ad804b064e38
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