Product Description

In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps--as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces.

Taylor's detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)--including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online-and offline life--and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers "power gamers," who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play--and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don't fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space--what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #176066 in Books
• Published on: 2006-03-10
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 205 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Refuting the idea that playing video games is an act of isolation undertaken by teenaged boys in dark basement rooms, Taylor presents the world of online gaming as a thriving social scene where players create friendships that transcend the digital domain. In playing EverQuest, (an MMOG, or massively multiplayer online game), Taylor travels through the digital fantasyland, slays other players, builds up her character's inventory and skills and, most importantly, shows how playing creates a huge network of people, many of whom take an almost job-like approach to gaming. She even meets up with fellow gamers and notes how "Recounting fights is a common topic of conversation among players." Also insightful are her thoughts on women and gaming, an underreported topic to which she dedicates a chapter. Taylor is, however, an academic, and tends to make simple concepts overcomplicated. So, sentences like: "There is no culture, there is no game, without the labor of the players. Whether designers want to acknowledge it fully or not, MMOGs already are participatory spaces (if only partially realized) by their very nature as social and cultural spaces" are far from uncommon. Save the moments of impenetrable jargon, Taylor's immersion into the online gaming world is a fascinating one that proves video games aren't just for the geeky neighbor kid anymore.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review
"An articulate and thoroughly researched work, Play Between Worlds is an intriguing look behind the curtain of the world's hottest entertainment phenomenon: virtual-world gaming. Unlike other academics who merely play tourist in these games, Taylor spent four years in one world and became part of the community. You get to reap the benefits of her close association with the people who make these worlds exciting: the players."
--Jessica Mulligan, coauthor of Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide

"Reading Play Between Worlds is anything but grinding. Taylor has long been one of the most nuanced scholars of life in the massively multiplayer game world--someone who knows her orc from her dark elves, who understands the complex intertwining of online and offline identities, and who has interesting things to teach us about the ethics of power gaming. At the same time, she is someone who asks big questions about the relationship between work and play, about the debates surrounding gender and games, and about issues of online governance and intellectual property which will shape the future interactions between gamers and game companies. Each of the book's chapters could be read and taught on its own terms; taken as a whole, they add up to a vivid picture of a world where many of us are spending lots of time these days."
--Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies, MIT

"T. L. Taylor's book takes the reader on a full-immersion tour of a virtual world, coupling solid academic discussion with vivid descriptions. A must-read for anyone interested in the ways in which this fascinating medium has developed and will continue to grow."
--Raph Koster, Chief Creative Officer, Sony Online Entertainment

"Taylor's well-researched book provides a lively and engaging explanation of the social significance of online gaming. Play Between Worlds is essential, not just for scholars of gaming and computer-mediated communication, but for anyone interested in popular culture, social organization, and the relationships between leisure, socializing, and work in everyday life."
--Lori Kendall, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub

From the Inside Flap
Endorsements "T. L. Taylor's book takes the reader on a full-immersion tour of a virtual world, coupling solid academic discussion with vivid descriptions. A must-read for anyone interested in the ways in which this fascinating medium has developed and will continue to grow." --Raph Koster, Chief Creative Officer, Sony Online Entertainment

"An articulate and thoroughly researched work, Play Between Worlds is an intriguing look behind the curtain of the world's hottest entertainment phenomenon: virtual-world gaming. Unlike other academics who merely play tourist in these games, Taylor spent four years in one world and became part of the community. You get to reap the benefits of her close association with the people who make these worlds exciting: the players." --Jessica Mulligan, coauthor of Developing Online Games: An Insider's Guide

"Reading Play Between Worlds is anything but grinding. Taylor has long been one of the most nuanced scholars of life in the massively multiplayer game world--someone who knows her orc from her dark elves, who understands the complex intertwining of online and offline identities, and who has interesting things to teach us about the ethics of power gaming. At the same time, she is someone who asks big questions about the relationship between work and play, about the debates surrounding gender and games, and about issues of online governance and intellectual property which will shape the future interactions between gamers and game companies. Each of the book's chapters could be read and taught on its own terms; taken as a whole, they add up to a vivid picture of a world where many of us are spending lots of time these days." --Henry Jenkins, Director of Comparative Media Studies, MIT

"Taylor's well-researched book provides a lively and engaging explanation of the social significance of online gaming. Play Between Worlds is essential, not just for scholars of gaming and computer-mediated communication, but for anyone interested in popular culture, social organization, and the relationships between leisure, socializing, and work in everyday life." --Lori Kendall, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, author of Hanging Out in the Virtual Pub

Customer Reviews

A book that can't decide what it wants to be
While I appreciate the sentiment behind Taylor's urge to explain the specifics of virtual worlds to the possibly uninitiated reader (e.g. explaining what mobs are, what buffs are, what leveling is, etc.), I was quite thrown by the dissonance between such writing, which takes up the first 60 pages, and is interspersed throughout the rest of the book, and the *extremely* jargon-riddled approach to otherwise fascinating issues. This combination left me alternately bored and irritated (maybe this is just a pet peeve when it comes to words like problematize, constitute, complicate, etc.).

Needlessly vague, abstract, and technical language aside, I think Taylor brings up very interesting points: about women gamers, about game-content ownership, about emergent game-culture, about the effects of game structure on that game-culture, and many others. Taylor summarizes her arguments when she writes "My call then is for nondichotomous models." This idea rears its head repeatedly in her explorations of distinctions such as game/social, real/virtual, play/work, user/producer, consumer/citizen, and in her broad argument that there are a variety of different activities that constitute "play."

The one distinction I think she gets wrong is the one between the real world and the virtual world. She questions other scholars who worry about the potentially deleterious effects of the 'real world' on the 'virtual world,' calling into question the separation between the two. I don't think other scholars believe in a hard line between the two; I think they make a good point by recognizing that, for instance, if bill-boards for Wal-Mart start popping up in fantasy realms, this is going to ruin the atmosphere and the game. Taylor, at times, stays at too abstract a level of engagement to see these points.

Otherwise, an interesting book, though I would hardly call it "ethnographic" as other reviewers have. Yes she played Everquest, but the book is not really about her experiences. For an ethonographic work check out Julian Dibbell's Play Money: Or, How I Quit My Day Job and Made Millions Trading Virtual Loot.

Fantastic ethnographic approach to MMORPGs
In her book on the MMO gaming world, Taylor brings an ethnographic approach to the game Everquest. Through interviews and personal experience, she gives an insight into the gaming world that portrays it for the rich, complex, social world that it is. A gamer herself, Taylor does an excellent job shining new light on the "frowned upon" gaming world. She also goes beyond the gaming world to show how things are connected through the internet and "in real life" to things within the game.

As far as this being too "basic" in covering the genre - this wasn't aimed to be a book only for advanced gamers. For those of the academic world, who have no experience whatsoever with games, the chapters provide sufficient information about the games to allow understanding. The summary/analysis is as comprehensive as it is rich. There are parts that she could have gone further and I do hope she does write a second book (although she does have articles on this topic as well).

All in all, this is an absolutely fantastic book for academics (or just interested people) who want an ethnographic approach to the gaming world that treats it not as a deviant, subersive "alternate" reality. Gamers and academics alike can appreciate it. Think Jenkins' Textual Poachers (written about the fan world) for gamers.

I sincerely hope this is the tip of the iceberg for this serious academic research into the community, social aspects of MMOs.

Could have gone further
I would term the first few chapters of this book to be MMOs for dummies. They were fairly redundant filled with the basics of the genre. I realize that to a certain extent she had to write about this sort of stuff to ground the book for non-genre players, it went on for a little to long I think. If you took away the stuff that explained how the genre worked, this book may very well have been about 75 pages.

Once you got past this point, the book was fairly good. I especially like Taylor's insight into the ownership rights in online games as I think this subject is currently of major concern to players. The women in MMO section was also fairly good, but again fairly redundant at the same time.

I would like to point out that Taylor is a woman and not a man as a previous reviewer implies. A point she makes quite clear early in the book, and a point which I do think offers a fresh perspective on the genre considering much of what has already been written has come from a male-centric point of view.

Overall, the read is pretty good. I think it would work best for those who are not familiar with online gaming, and maybe even someone who hasn't yet started really reading material on the culture of online gaming. As someone who has both been an MMO gamer for over a decade and someone who has read a number of theories and books on the genre I didn't really feel that this book brought much new to the table which was too bad.