Revealing myself in games : constructing an identity through game creation.

• Main Authors: Hong, Renyi., Lee, Jasmine Lin Zhi., Tan, Nathanael Kian Wee., Ong, Grace Ting Hui.
• Other Authors: Chen Hsueh-hua
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2009
• Subjects: DRNTU::Social sciences::Mass media
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/15516
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

The proliferation of media production technologies has allowed for game players to become game creators, tinkering and forging their own games. This qualitative project explores how amateurs express and construct their identity through the activity of game creation. Forty interviews were conducted with renowned game modifiers and independent game developers internationally. The findings revealed that the game creation performance is characterized by the practices of play, object-relating and public performance. These practices advanced not only the amateur game creator identity but also their ludic and individual identities. In addition, amateur game creators exhibited variance in their willingness to reveal their hobbies in real lives. Many factor in risk before deciding on taking up fragmented or coherent identities. The findings furthered the literature on ludic identities and fragmented identities, and generated new approaches to the study of identity, media use and media effects, adding the affective media approach and the two phase model to the study of media production.