Exploring Minecraft

This book directs critical attention to one of the most ubiquitous and yet under-analyzed games, Minecraft. Drawing on three years of ethnographic fieldwork into mobile games in Australian homes, the authors seek to take Minecraft seriously as a cultural practice. The book examines how Minecraft players engage in a form of gameplay that is uniquely intergenerational, creative, and playful, and which moves ambivalently throughout everyday life. At the intersection of digital media, quotidian literacy, and ethnography, the book situates interdisciplinary debates around mundane play through the lens of Minecraft. Ultimately, Exploring Minecraft seeks to coalesce the discussion between formal and informal learning, fostering new forms of digital media creativity and ethnographic innovation around the analysis of games in everyday life.

Unites the disciplines of game, media, and cultural studies and education through the lens of Minecraft Provides empirical case studies, critical discussion of research methods in game studies, and additional context and material on state-of-the-art developments in mobile, AR, VR and pervasive location-based games Aims to clearly identify significant cultural issues for game developers and designers, while also being of key relevance to educators and theorists across a broad spectrum of disciplines that are interested in the intersection of media evolution and cultural practices

Autorentext

Larissa Hjorth is Distinguished Professor and Director of the Design & Creative Practice Platform at RMIT University, Australia.

Ingrid Richardson is Professor in the School of Media & Communication at RMIT University, Australia.

Hugh Davies is a postdoctoral fellow in the Design & Creative Practice Platform at RMIT University, Australia.

William Balmford has a PhD in media and communications from RMIT University, Australia.

Inhalt

1. The Phenomenon.- 2. Exploring Play.- 3. Understanding Play.- 4. Play Practices and Modalities.- 5. Metagaming and Paratextual Play.- 6. Playing at Home.- 7. Institutional Play Spaces.- 8. Playing during and post COVID-19 pandemic.