Pushing the Cart - How post-release content is reshaping the game industry

Pushing the cart How post-release content is reshaping the game industry

Figure 1: In-game footage from Team Fortress 2. The depicted game mode ‘Payload’ revolves around one team (blue) getting the trolley with explosives into the other (red) team’s base; Valve; A Heavy Update; Badwater Basin, 19 Aug. 2008; Web; 15 Aug. 2010.

Master thesis New Media | University of Amsterdam

Maarten van Sprang 5612160 August 16, 2010 drs. D.B. Nieborg Humanities Mediastudies

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Abstract The study looks at the changing dynamics and practices within the game industry. The development of computers becoming increasingly convergent has led to changes in distribution. Digital distribution has led to new ways of approaching the industry. Instead of just products, games can also be viewed as services. This new paradigm allows for games to be observed as living organisms that can be fed by both corporate entities as well as public influences. Through examining the practices of the gaming company Valve on their title “Team Fortress 2”, this study wants to provide an understanding in how they approach the new paradigm in the game industry. By comparing these corporate actions to the public reactions it becomes clear that the interactions between the producers and consumers are evolving towards a conversation instead of an institutionally imposed monologue. The producing companies in the industry have to change their protective perspective towards intellectual property and they have to work together with their audience in order to successfully apply the service model in the game industry.

Keywords: game industry, post-release content, digital distribution, user-generated content, paradigm flux Word count: 16.559 Update before online publication (September 2nd 2011): This thesis does address not the recently changed service model of Team Fortress 2. Since the Über Update (June 2011) Team Fortress 2 is Free to play, giving everybody with a Steam account free access to the game (with added benefits for paying customers). With an additional (paid) marketplace for ingame items Valve has once again found a new way to attract even more players.

I did not see that one coming. Touché Valve…

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Table of Contents Abstract......................................................................................... 2 Acknowledgements........................................................................... 5 Introduction ................................................................................... 6 Chapter 1. The path towards a new paradigm ........................................ 10 1.1 What is the current situation and where did the game industry stem from? ............ 10 1.2 How are games affected by the technological progress? .................................... 11 1.2.1 How they are perceived as a product................................................... 11 1.2.2 How do they behave in the newly created economic marketplace? ............... 13 1.3 Period one - Pre Internet connection .......................................................... 15 1.4 Period two - Post Internet connection ......................................................... 16 1.4.1 Multiplayer experiences .................................................................. 16 1.4.2 Transition to update culture ............................................................. 18 1.5 Period three - Transition to collaboration and upgrade culture ........................... 19 1.5.1 Collaboration culture ..................................................................... 19 1.5.2 Update culture ............................................................................. 20 1.6 How does Valve position itself within the paradigm flux?................................... 22

Chapter 2. How does Valve manage to keep Team Fortress 2 in the spotlight before, during and after the launch?.................................................... 24 2.1 Creating buzz and getting reviewed (attention before & during the launch)............ 25

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2.1.1 First signs of Team Fortress 2 (pre-release period) .................................. 25 2.1.2 Valve launching the new product (release period) ................................... 27 2.1.3. Paratextual and public influences ..................................................... 30 2.2 Invigorating the game (attention after the launch) .......................................... 32 2.2.1 Valve starts feeding the franchise and commits to long term post-release content.............................................................................................. 32 2.2.2. Paratext speaks its excitement and Valve shows its engagement ................ 34

Chapter 3. Users as producers, companies as facilitators........................... 38 3.1 Upgrades by the fans.............................................................................. 38 3.2 Valve and its fan base embracing possibilities of the new paradigm...................... 40 3.3 The motivation behind the actions in the new paradigm ................................... 42

Conclusion .................................................................................... 44 Works Cited.................................................................................... 46

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Acknowledgements The writing of this thesis has been a tough and challenging journey, but in the end it has also given me a better understanding of the entertainment industry I have come to adore.

All this would not have been possible without the help and support of my family and friends. I want to thank my family – my father Jo van Sprang, my mother Diana Crusio, my sister Esther van Sprang and her family and my stepmother Nicolette Hoebee - for their unconditional love and votes of confidence.

I also want to thank my friends for their ability not to disturb me when needed and for providing some much needed distraction when things got too serious. Special thanks go out to Johanneke Kranendonk for almost making it through my thesis, and to Noortje Offreins for the mental support as well as helping me keep an eye on the details in the story.

Another thanks goes out to the team at Valve who are responsible for the game Team Fortress 2. They have given me the inspiration to write this thesis and to research the state of the game industry. But, more importantly, they have made one of the most enjoyable shooters in history. Because of my lack of designing or developing skills, consider this my addition to the ever-expanding universe of the game.

Last, but not least, I want to thank my tutor David Nieborg for always believing in the relevance and importance of the subject of my thesis. It would not have been possible to finish this document without his power to always being able to jumpstart the process whenever the inspirational vehicle had come to a halt. Thank you all.

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Introduction I am a pirate. Or rather, I was a pirate until I bought ‘The Orange Box’ in 2007. I have always been a fan of games but I have never felt the urge to put extra effort into going out to physically buy the game instead of just pirating a digital copy directly from the Internet. It is morally despicable and I am certainly not proud of it, but I have rarely thought that a game was special enough for me to legitimately purchase it.

There might be some latent link to my Dutch descent, but when Valve offered five games for the price of one, I could not justify pirating anymore. The Orange Box offered the original Half Life 2, along with the two episodic expansions, the puzzle game Portal and the team based multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2. It was truly an offer one could not refuse. The fact that Valve could have easily tripled their revenue by charging for each game individually, but didn’t, got me interested in the way they approach the game industry.

When I had completed the other games in the package, my attention quickly turned towards Team Fortress 2 (or TF2). While I have never been really attracted to multiplayer games, the style of Team Fortress 2 immediately grabbed my attention. The distinct, cartoonish feel of the game in fact lured me into multiplayer gaming. And just at the point where one would grow tired of the same surroundings and the limited amount of maps, Valve stepped in and started updating the game. Within 6 months of its release Valve started rolling out free updates in the form of new levels, game modes, achievements and weapons. My amazement for their ongoing service has triggered me to take a closer look at how this procedure stands out in the game industry.

This short history of how I got into touch with Valve and Team Fortress 2 brings us to the main question I want to address in my thesis: “Is post-release content strategy part of a change in paradigm within the game industry?” Where did this concept originate from and was it a smooth transition or a radical change? Also, what impact does this movement have on the companies and players, and more importantly, the interactive relation between the two? What part does user generated content play in post-release era and how do the production companies react to these forms of participation?

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To find the answers to these questions, I turned to the game that initiated my curiosity on this subject in the first place: Team Fortress 2. By studying the history of the game and its corresponding updates I was be able to find out what lies beneath the practice of supplying consumers with free additional content. But only following the path of institutional research in this situation would pose a one-sided look at the industry. That is why it is equally important to measure the thoughts and actions of the public. In order to fully capture the reactions of the public, administrative research of the paratext is needed. Paratext, a concept defined by Gérard Genette (1), includes all the information about a certain text, without being part of the actual text. In the gaming industry, paratext consists of blogs, magazines, community fora and fan art. All these expressions provide a better understanding of the original text. In her book “Cheating”, Mia Consalvo explains why paratext is crucial in researching the game industry: ... the paratext is gaining ground on the primary text of the game industry, and is moving in particular ways to shape its future directions. Seen in that light, the paratext becomes critical to consider as a way to understand gameplay as well as the business of digital games. (182)

Now that it is clear where to look for answers to the questions posed, the next question is what methodology should be used to come up with the most conclusive research? Because this thesis will examine the cultural and economic exchange of intellectual property between public producers of content and the corporate entities, it is crucial to take in account all the dynamics existent within this particular industry. It is not enough to address this movement solely from a media theory standpoint, because doing so will unravel only some of the incentives fueling it. It can not be researched by looking merely at the cultural effects of technological progress, it is equally important to look at both the forces of the economic and political marketplace, as well as the motives behind the people involved in this economy. Therefore, it is of vital importance to take in account the inter-disciplinary connections and influences, and to focus on how this affects the commodities, the consumers and the corporate companies.

This particular approach towards the new media industry, and specifically the game industry is exactly what Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter propose in their book Digital Play (2003) on how interactive games should be studied. They suggest that to fully grasp the mechanisms at work within the game industry, one should approach it through three different disciplines: media theory, political economy and cultural studies:

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"... media theory, which sees new communication technologies radically restructuring our most basic coordinates of experience and our perceptions of time and space; political economy, which examines new media and technology as extension of capitalist power; and cultural studies, which treat interactive games, as well as film and television, as media texts to be read in terms of representation, narrative, and the 'subject-positions' offered to audiences." (30)

While this already may seem like a comprehensive and conclusive research method, David Hesmondhalgh, does not agree and wants to narrow this down even further. He argues that in order to get a real clear view of the cultural industries one must follows these three disciplines, but he specifically opts for a critical political economic stance, because this school of thought takes a holistic approach towards media, or in this case, games in specific (33). It is important to take a holistic approach because the different theories are fundamentally intertwined. Contemporary media research however still often neglects the coherence, especially when it concerns the gaming industry. Most analysis regrettably fails to transcend the ludology versus narrativity debate. While others may be able to manage to connect different theories, they hardly ever build their arguments by following the critical political economic discourse.

The relevance of this specific school of thought is that it both disperses its attention like Kline et al. do with their three disciplines, but it also concentrates on the balance between corporate interference and public representation. The constant shifts of power within the delicate relation between the two forces bring a much-needed nuance to matter. This last characteristic to the methodology is cardinal in understanding the equilibrium Valve has created, and is maintaining with the Team Fortress 2 community.

The use of critical political economy will undoubtedly result in a more thorough image of the inter-institutional interactions that make this new economy worth researching.

Using the methodology and practices mentioned before, chapter one will take a look at the history of the game industry. It researches the different perceptions towards periodization in the history of the game industry and eventually comes up with a three paradigms. These paradigms mark existential shifts in the industry, but they also pose a major theoretical problem, because paradigm shifts take place through revolution. The changes in the game industry, as the first chapter will point out, take place through evolutions. That is why this chapter will opt for a nuance in theory by regarding the changes in the industry as a paradigm flux.

The second chapter zooms in on the practices by Valve on their game Team Fortress 2. I will follow the conversation between the corporate actions and the paratextual responses, before, during and after the release of the game. How do the

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consumers react to Valve’s operational policy and how well is the post-release content received?

The final chapter looks at how user generated content plays an important part in the product cycle of Team Fortress 2. It examines the many forms of expression by the dedicated fans of the title. It also tries to understand why people are willingly adding new content to a product, without them getting paid for the work they do. And lastly, this chapter returns to the complicated relation between company and their consumers. How does Valve react to the participatory culture and how can they use their devoted community to their benefit, without being accused of exploitation?

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Chapter 1. The path towards a new paradigm The game industry has changed tremendously over the course of years. It has taken a drastic new form from its inception more than half a century ago. The industry has been gradually working its way to a new paradigm in which games are increasingly being treated as ongoing, moldable and expandable services instead of finalized, permanently fixed products.

In order to understand the present situation in the game industry, we have to look back at how it has come to this point. How does this new cultural industry relate to the broader spectrum of new media developments and how should we study it? When the answers to these questions are known, it is much easier to understand the transformation games have gone through.

It is then possible find the motives to the changes in the way they are perceived as a product and how they behave in a newly created economic marketplace. This chapter concludes by using all the newly learned techniques and theories on the accumulated developments on display, to answer the core question of this chapter: What has been the catalyst of this change in paradigm?

1.1 What is the current situation and where did the game industry stem from?

Digital media is changing the cultural landscape rapidly; in only a few decades our society went from an analogue community to a fully connected digital global village (McLuhan, 31). The discoveries in the field of communication technology (telephone, television, computers, Internet) helped breaking down the geographic boundaries and initiated the birth of a form of collective culture.

In this same period computer games first emerged in the 1950’s as mere green oscilloscope blibs and transversed from there to the multi-platform multi-user immersed experiences as we see them now. This evolution can be viewed as a so-called long wave development, as opted by Terry Flew (42). These long waves mark 50-year periods in which technological, economical and social developments have occurred within the capitalist marketplace. This theory divides these periods by the structural changes taking

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place in organizations, industries, government, geography and communication. These are all characteristics applicable to the changes that took place in the gaming industry.

Because this young industry is still taking shape and much has changed over the last fifty years, this time span may seem too capacious. However, it might still be a suitable theory to use on this particular subject because as Flew mentions earlier in his book “New Media, An Introduction�, determining a proper and conclusive historical timeline is problematic because many of the current technologies have evolved through gradual changes. An example from the book that proves that the current new wave is in fact subject to various changes is the shift towards a 'new economy' by Diana Coyle (Flew 42). This theory, in which the trade of knowledge becomes the centerpiece of the continuing developments, is part of a trend surfacing around the 1990s. While it is a fundamental concept of this last long wave, it is also just one of the many developments distinguishing the new wave from the previous one. Later in this chapter, when discussing the path towards the new paradigm in the game industry, I will elaborate on the theoretical complication that many gradual developments can still herald a shift in paradigm.

The fact that computer games roughly follow the same evolutionary path as other digital media is no coincidence, on the contrary, it is apparent that both fields borrow from and extend each other. While I might be using a different historical and theoretical timeline in paragraphs 2.3 and 2.4, the two shifts within the long wave are unequivocally appearing as underlying parallel theories.

Because of these similarities, it is crucial not to view new media developments as individual actions but rather as interconnected entities that shape and influence each other within a larger media context. The practice of the various technologies and the mutual appropriation within the different fields of new media shape the development of the entire new media economy as such. That is why it is essential to take a holistic approach towards this industry and consequently always to look at the full array of the forces at work in a completely new media domain.

1.2 How are games affected by the technological progress?

1.2.1 How they are perceived as a product As will be pointed out in the next paragraphs, the game industry brought forth a couple of slightly different theories trying to grasp this phenomenon of the producers and consumers working together. These theories of participatory culture (Jenkins, 2006) and hybrid

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economy (Lessig, 2008) are all efforts trying to both understand as well as categorize this movement towards a new mediated global marketplace.

In order to find out how games relate to other forms of media we should try and deconstruct the game as a commodity. The present situation of the gaming economy is both complex and diverse; it has a vast number of internal and external variables that shape the construction of this unique marketplace. The clear distinction of corporate entities mass-producing homogeneous commodities, and the massive crowds of people just waiting to absorb and take for granted everything that is thrown at them is long gone. The one way flow of meaning has come to a stop with the arrival of new media, as said by Kline, Dyer-Witheford, and de Peuter: "Online gaming especially transforms play into a group exercise in world creation where reality is no longer ordained from above, but generated by its participants" (16). This transformation has not only taken place within the game as an experience or activity, but also within the game as a product or commodity.

The age of broadcasting has been replaced by an age of interactivity which resulted in personalizing, changing and sharing products in order to create a different experience from the ones we are fed to by the corporations. The digital age introduced a shift towards dynamic, moldable and negotiated texts. When we look at broadcasting, we see the same trend emerge: before, television gave everyone a homogeneous, timely experience towards receiving audiovisual texts. Now, we see this similar and essentially unchanged message, but thanks to websites like YouTube we can own copies of the message, rate it, respond to it by posting a video commentary and even annotate and appropriate the text. At first glance, the text itself may not have been changed, but the way it is delivered and the way we consume it now has changed tremendously (Jenkins, 18,19).

This is the case in contemporary gaming as well, we now long for a one of a kind experience and we get less excited and interested by the familiar static texts with their superimposed constitutional and institutional character. In single player gaming it was artificial intelligence at first that tried to simulate the feeling of having freedom of choice and control, but it was multiplayer gaming that set off the real breakthrough that gamers were looking for. Multiplayer gaming meant that one of a kind experience could be initiated by either ourselves or other individuals, or even groups of individuals that supply the means for such an experience. While the intricacies of multiplayer gaming itself are not a part of this thesis, the added social layer to gaming provides every single match with a totally unique experience. This recurrent one-of-a-kind gameplay has also been an important part to the success of multiplayer games like Team Fortress 2.

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Another very important development is that with the help and approval of the developing companies, gamers were given a change to edit and add to the original game by using level building software or complete software developing kits (SDK). This resulted in massive amounts of users creating maps and even entire modifications of games. One of the prime examples of games originating from a user created modification is CounterStrike, which was - and still is - extremely successful. The original developer of the engine used for creating Counter-Strike, Valve, took notice of the popularity and acquired and sold the game in future releases. It was in fact so successful that is spawned its own modifications to the game that originally started out as a modification itself.

Slowly but surely the concrete wall between companies and consumers, between developers and players is coming down and it is taking form in a totally new organizational structure. How this takes shape will be described in the next paragraph.

1.2.2 How do they behave in the newly created economic marketplace?

Many companies are still not accustomed to seeing the full potential of their customers.

Fortunately however, quite a few of them do begin to understand the value, but still only a hand-full are pioneering on the edges of what is organizationally, digitally and legally possible. Organizational because new bonds require new structures. Digital because while bandwidth might not be a problem anymore, digital products still require networks and finding the right digital distribution form will still be a risky operation. And legal because of the many difficult examples of intellectual property and digital copyright.

One of the companies that does understand how to deal with these opportunities, Valve, will be the recurrent case throughout my thesis. Not only because I think they try to distance themselves (or they do a great job marketing it) as much as possible from being the mighty corporate entity that they actually are. But also because much of this ethos of individualism is at the heart of the company's strategy, with Valve being both a production and distribution company. Much of that translates to how they manage to approach and treat their players.

In his book “Cultural Industries” Hesmondhalgh briefly pays attention to 'digital games' as being a part of the combined cultural industries. However, he relies on much of the classical forms of production, distribution and legal practices when describing the gaming industry: "In its organisational form, the industry follows the publishing logic (or 'editorial model') of commodity production identified by Miège as characteristic of the production of books, records and films. In this model of cultural productions: - texts are sold on an individual basis to be owned

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- a publisher/producer organises production - many small- or medium-sized companies cluster around oligopolistic firms - creative personnel are remunerated in the form of copyright payments." (244)

While this structure still is a viable and predominant model within the industry, Hesmondhalgh ignores the various important developments taking place within the video game industry as well. He argues that while it is an interesting cultural form, there is no significant shift in structure and organization from other digital cultures (246). As I will point out in the following paragraphs, I do think that the game industry is changing both structurally and organizationally and that it is crucial to further research this particular industry.

Although I agree with Hesmondhalgh that at first there was not much difference between the game industry and the other cultural industries, the past few years have proven that the technologies brought forth by the digital age have greatly affected the role of cultural artifacts, specifically games. Movies and television-shows have relatively stayed the same, the form in which they appear may have been shifting from an analogue disc or cassette to a digital medium, but in the end the product itself remains unchanged by the new technologies. The heavy majority of movies and TV-shows are still linear, passive and closed media.

Games have always been more interactive and non-linear, but until recently most certainly enclosed. Being a digital medium from its origin, games have an advantage over the other, traditional media: They have the ability of easily adopting and embracing new technologies. And through that they are able to mutate into a new, enhanced form, not only in a narrow sense of games adapting to new hard- and software, but also in a broader, industry scale, sense. It has in fact initiated a new era in game industry, and subsequently it is continuously pushing itself further away from other cultural industries.

The same is true for the game consoles and pc’s. They have had many generations leading up to the current platforms, which are increasingly becoming more and more convergent apparatus. Barry Ip corroborates on this; he says that game consoles are continuously becoming all-in-one entertainment devices by the appropriation of new technologies as well as new forms of content previously reserved only for other types of media (202,203).

Ip made an overview of the history of game consoles and technological features and functions, from the seventies until the latest generation of consoles. As soon as the first consoles, in the early 2000’s, started adding internet connectivity to their consoles, the function started to change from just playing games to a much wider set of entertainment activities. This seemingly minor detail revolutionizes the way games are being experienced and will trigger a new stance towards consumption and distribution.

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For one, the established distribution channels - retail stores - have gained massive competition from the online web shops. Without a physical store and personnel these web shops are fierce competitors, but another gained benefit is the fact that they can serve the ‘long tail’. Chris Anderson (24-26) states that because e-commerce stores do not have to have a physical, yet limited, retail store, they can offer a broader range of products that might not appeal to the mass audience, but will lure in special interest customers.

Besides ordering physical products online and delivering them through mail, a vast number of games are now distributed digitally in the form of paid downloads.

Since the broadband revolution, the current generation of consoles and pc’s has online distribution channels through which the user can easily try out and eventually buy the latest releases. This has three major benefits over regular distribution; the first is that costs are massively reduced because distribution layers are lowered to the minimum required. So a bigger share goes to the developers and because the distribution is digital, there are no added costs for printing box art and producing DVD’s. The second benefit is that small game studios often lack the financial resources to distribute their games; the new console and pc online environments create a lower threshold for these studios to step in. The last benefit is that the studios are now closer to their customers than ever, which offers possibilities to market their players more directly and personally.

In the following paragraphs I propose a possible timeline that explains the connection between the path towards the new paradigm in relation to the development of the medium and the technological advancements to its carrier.

1.3 Period one - Pre Internet connection The first period or phase begins at the cesspool of media research and is marked by the pioneer scientists experimenting with technology and eventually ending up creating the first ever computer games. Not long after that, the first companies started to emerge and started developing games for the masses. Characteristic for the period is the fact that people physically had to go to arcade halls to play the games, because hardware and software were not readily available for people to purchase. The vast number of people coming to the arcade halls was the first sign that gaming was emerging as a subculture to be reckoned with. Meanwhile game companies started developing the first consoles, which gave the audience the opportunity to play the arcade games at home. However, they were still expensive and often limited to operating a single pre-installed game (Kline, DyerWitheford, and de Peuter, 95). Therefore, buying a console was intimately connected to buying a specific game. It was not until the second generation starting in 1976 that game consoles with cartridges were released. It was also the time in which the personal

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computer started appearing in households around the world, along with the first generation of computer games. Around the same time games were now distributed through retail stores and purchased by the consumers for the appropriate platforms. This development, from the first games to the more sophisticated machines ending up in the early/mid 1990’s, is mostly known for the static value of the game.

Lawrence Lessig also acknowledges this, by referring to this period as a Read Only (RO) culture in his book “Remix”. The RO culture is characterized by “a culture less practiced in performance, or amateur creativity, and more comfortable with simple consumption" (87). This period preceded a period of Read Write (RW) in which ‘infernal machines’, like music players, were not yet available. So reproduction of popular media expressions was wholly dependent on the personal ability to recreate a specific piece rather than just turning on a machine to do the work for you. While the RO culture of the following period is not entirely correct, after all personal computers were quite capable of reproducing original works, the culture and stance of the industry however was still very much focused at keeping as much control of the product as possible. Which meant giving as little control of the product to the user, they are here to be entertained though the games that the developers released. When bought, it was a linear experience working towards completing the game and possibly replaying the game later. At this stage computer games were structurally very much related to the other forms of cultural artifacts, such as movies and TV-shows. It was not until the revolution of the Internet transforming from an emerging new technology into a consumable commodity that the second phase in gaming, and the eventual schism with the other cultural media industries was introduced.

1.4 Period two - Post Internet connection The Internet has played a tremendous role in the evolution of gaming; it has sparked a number of critical changes in various fields within the industry. These changes, although not completely linear and chronological, still pose a few gradual steps towards the current state of the gaming industry.

1.4.1 Multiplayer experiences Online connectivity has made multiplayer interaction a major, and extremely popular, part of the game industry. Multiplayer games are especially interesting in the light of this thesis because they radically increase the lifespan of a game because of their embedded open-endedness. All AAA games are either stand-alone multiplayer games or they have a multiplayer component to support the single player campaign. This all started with the

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arrival of Doom in the early days of the network revolution, the nineties. Game studios began making games that supported LAN, so that users could compete with friends within a closed local network. When Internet access was becoming more widespread in the late nineties, games started adding Internet based multiplayer access, despite the slow connection and the often-present lag of the connection, it did create a direct connection between the studio and the player.

Games like Counter Strike (1997), Unreal Tournament (1999) and Quake 3 Arena (1999) were among the first shooters that had multiplayer experience at the core of the game. The majority of them had a single-player component which replaced the human opponents with bots, but the real power of these games was the fact that they were designed to play against other people.

The first multiplayer experiences unintentionally spawned a global stage for players to be recognized for their skills previously only displayed in arcades, at home or with friends. The players are both thriving on and earning recognition for their expertise within realm of a certain game title. This gained expertise can be linked to the maturing of what Mia Consalvo calls 'gaming capital'. It originates as the concept of 'cultural capital' composed by Bourdieu about how certain acquired knowledge about a specific subject can be transferred to other people so they will benefit from it in society. The transferral can be altruistic in nature when it is between friends or within a trusted community, or it can act as a currency when the knowledge is exchanged for goods or money. Consalvo introduced this concept to the gaming industry and in her book “Cheating� she explains why this theory is so important: "I believe that the concept of gaming capital provides a key way to understand how individuals interact with games, information about games and the game industry, and other game players. The term is useful because it suggests a currency that is by necessity dynamic-changing over time, and across types of players or games."

(4)

Consalvo feels that gaming capital can show us the underlying motives in every facet of the industry. It does not only apply to playing games and developing strategies to gain advantage over other players, as we will see in the next paragraphs, this notion of gaming capital can also be used to understand one of most important developments in the game industry; user generated content.

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1.4.2 Transition to update culture More and more development studios now believe that in the vast number of players there undoubtedly has to be a group of potential designers and developers. By releasing level creators and opening up the source code of the game they gave the incentive to the players to become part of the game creation process, they have given them a change to evolve from a consumer into a producer. This development is part of a larger shift in the relation between consumption and production personified in three key trends taking place in the media industry as stated by Jenkins and summarized by Dovey and Kenndy (2006): 1) new tools and technologies that enable consumers to archive, annotate, appropriate and recirculate media content; 2) a range of subcultures that promote do-it-yourself media production; and 3) economic trends encouraging the flow of images ideas and narrative across multiple media channels and demanding more active modes of spectatorship. (13)

By releasing software development kits, most common in the form of level-creators, game studios abode to Jenkins’ first trend; they provided new tools for the gamers to appropriate the previously confined world of game design and development. By doing this they gave everyone interested a carte blanche to prove themselves to try and create valuable additions to the game in the form of new levels, character models, weapons or even complete modifications of the original game. In Jenkins' words, the studios followed the second trend by actively promoting do-it-yourself media production; they hand them the tools and thereby encourage them to create additional or new content for the game.

Jenkins' last trend can also be seen in the gaming industry; the game companies know how to access the various existing channels to promote their games. By giving users the chance (and the freedom!) to appropriate and spread their expressions across these channels it creates an even broader experience within the surrounding sphere of the game.

While many creations might be below average, a few of them however are, both artistically as well as commercially, valuable extensions to the original ones. This development proves that allowing users to create new content greatly fuels the community around a game and undoubtedly already extends the gameplay beyond the initial studio made experience.

This age of online access also introduced the feasibility of releasing updates to the game in the form of patches usually solving technical problems or video driver updates.

This form of perpetual updating is strongly related to Intel’s Gordon Moore, who observed that “the number of transistors that can be built on the same piece of silicon will double

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every 18 months, whilst the price remained the same.� This so-called Moore’s law is, according to Dovey and Kennedy, the technological heart of the current update culture (52).

Through the known paratextual media such as magazines and forums, the studios distributed regular updates, claiming that the player should have the latest version installed in order to have the best experience. In this period game piracy also started to emerge, first in the form of copied and cracked games distributed through physical media, such as the Twilight CD-ROMS, often attained through a friend who knows a friend who knows...

Broadband connections fueled the second wave of piracy through online channels like P2P networks, Usenet and Bit torrent. Thankfully with the emergence of the update culture, it also meant that the developers would now have more control over their copyrighted material; pirating online distributed content is a lot harder than software that does not have a direct connection to its original company. By updating the game regularly, developers now have the opportunity to actively pose resistance to the hacking and cracking of their property.

1.5 Period three - Transition to collaboration and upgrade culture Characteristic for the last period is the participation of the public and the elaborate changes made to the game as a product. Although the one does not automatically causally connect to the other, they do ultimately come together to form the new paradigm the game industry is heading towards.

1.5.1 Collaboration culture As briefly discussed in the previous paragraph, handing people the tools to create additional content often results in some very valuable alterations or spin-offs to the original game. The system of this hybrid culture is sophisticated in the way that everybody seems to gain from it. As Lessig explains, it can be seen as a commercially driven economy getting the most out of a sharing economy (177). But according to Lessig there always has to be separation between the two economies in order to sustain the value of the hybrid.

While I agree that the hybrid economy related to gaming is undoubtedly fueled by commercial motives, I do not agree with this strict separation. There are clear signs that a number of these hybrid cultures promote and improve the sharing experience, while maintaining the focus on profitability. In my opinion one does not rule out the other, it is possible to add to the sharing experience with a commercial goal in mind.

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In this economy the three parties involved; production companies, players and the prosumers, all benefit from the products emanating from it. The players, of course, are presented with a new challenge to explore and conquer. The original game is extended and gained another level of depth. The gaming companies profit because they get free additional content, which attracts new players. But it also brings the game under attention again. Also, when handled correctly, they gain tremendous amounts of goodwill by the fact that they let people appropriate and resculpt their software. And the other way around too, the delicate handling of user generated intellectual property can certainly work in the advantage of creating an aura of "friendliness", something not to be underestimated in the digital age. By properly crediting players and actively engaging their prosumers, gaming companies can fully absorb the power of the hybrid economy.

And lastly, the prosumers, who develop the new content voluntarily, are recognized for their efforts and gain respect through it. Not only from other players, but also from the gaming companies themselves, sometimes even resulting in job offers. After all in this case it is often the mod culture that keeps the franchise alive.

In my belief this is clearly connected to the previously mentioned notion of gaming capital. The fact that these 'amateur developers' freely and willingly use their gained capital to expand the game universe has to do with the fact that they become highly regarded within the boundaries of the specific game. There is no direct commercial drive behind their actions; rather, it can be seen as a means to escape the role of the consumer and to promote to being a producer. While the actions of the prosumers certainly are not entirely benevolent, the initial drive to create something new often originates from the love and passion for the game.

1.5.2 Update culture As described, the second period mainly revolved around hardware related updates, but gradually gaming companies began updating the actual game, this resulted at first in alterations mostly focused on balancing the internal game mechanic. Units that were too strong were weakened and vice versa. Everything was implemented to make the gameplay more equal for all the players and to provide a more stable and balanced game experience. What was done to the game mechanic could also be done to the game experience.

Game companies starting adding new maps and additional characters to multiplayer games to extend the lifecycle of the game. In the beginning these new additions were distributed through retail in the form of expansion packs. These packs were used to add new ideas and balance the gameplay, without having to develop an entirely new game. Besides being quick wins for the game companies, this practice of

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using small updates to improve and expand the game proved to be the predecessor of what is quickly becoming the new standard in the industry: downloadable content.

Most of today's games come with a fully functional network component. This means that they support multiplayer experiences, but more often; downloadable content. The update trajectory is now already incorporated into the game from the start; everything is carefully thought out and executed. While a number of the developing companies may not yet have a clue what the downloadable content will look like at this point in the cycle, the distribution and payment systems are usually already in place and operational. Games these days are designed to grow beyond their initial appearance; expansion has become an innate property of the potentially never finalized product.

The direct digital connection that the producers have towards the consumers enforces them to both target and engage the potential buyers. As Henry Jenkins sees it, the distribution and consumption of media is part of a larger movement, a path towards media convergence: Convergence does not depend on any specific delivery mechanism. Rather, convergence represents a paradigm shift - a move from medium-specific content toward content that flows across multiple media channels, toward the increased interdependence of communications systems, toward multiple ways of accessing media content, and toward ever more complex relations between top-down corporate media and bottom-up participatory culture. (243)

The evolution of the gaming consoles through the years can be seen in this light of convergence. From platforms that could only play a single game, progressively changing to a consummate media system connected to the Internet and more importantly, to its users.

Network connectivity already effectively shortened the response time to react to updating drivers, fixing bugs or solving balancing issues. But it also induced adding dateor season specific upgrades to the game. For instance, a game that does this very well is the Playstation 3 game called Little Big Planet; by releasing new costumes for the sackboys (the main characters in the game) on special occasions or celebrations the designers use the mood of the moment to generate media attention to the game.

Examples of these season-related upgrades include sackboy costumes in the form of the Statue of Liberty to celebrate Independence Day or a druid sackboy outfit to celebrate Summer Solstice1. While it may not directly add anything to the gameplay experience, from the developers point of view it does convey a sense of commitment to the game and

1

Examples can be found at: http://www.mediamolecule.com

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secondly it stirs up the paratextual media and focus the attention back at the game. They are both very important issues to take in account when operating under the new paradigm.

The gradual changes towards the new paradigm can be viewed as a logical technical and economical process. But only through the accumulation of all the steps, from static games to upgrade culture, one can finally see what makes this current industry fundamentally different from all the previous periods. The impact of the total combined array of technologies, together with company-user interaction in the hybrid economy is what marks a clear paradigm shift.

However, this term, as constructed by Thomas Kuhn (1962), is problematic because it suggests that a paradigm shift can only take place through revolution. As I am pointing out, the change in paradigm in the gaming industry is through evolution, not revolution. In this context I would like approach the transformation in the gaming industry as being a 'paradigm flux'; a change of paradigm through small, gradual revisions, whereby the new paradigm is notably and essentially different than the previous one. It is not initiated by a sudden and radical change, but it takes time and several iterations to completely reach the new paradigm.

All of the periods added something significant to the game industry, but the point we are at right now is something else entirely. The computer game as an artifact is no longer comparable to its predecessor from the eighties, it has become a living and growing organism, fed and nurtured by all the parties involved in the industry.

1.6 How does Valve position itself within the paradigm flux?

Valve, the company responsible for making Team Fortress 2, started out as a production company and in little over six years they have grown into the largest digital pc-gaming distribution company. The release of the Steam application2 in 2003 was the beginning of one of the finest examples of embracing the principles at work in the new paradigm. The interesting part is that the evolution of the Steam application roughly followed the same steps as the entire industry has been going through. It was always meant to be a distribution tool, but it first started out as a service for distributing patches for Valve games. When broadband became more widespread, Steam began to function the way it should; by selling games over the internet. In that respect, Valve is a unique company within the gaming industry; in the retail market they are still only a production company making new titles and letting the distribution be handled by Electronic Arts. In the online 2

Steam application: http://store.steampowered.com/about/

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market they are also the largest non-console distributor, as well as the production company.

But Steam is more than that, it has grown beyond a distribution network alone, it is now also a digital rights management tool and a social network combined. Valve is in total control of the application, the games and the community. While this total control is terrifying and subject to massive amounts of criticism, contrastingly, Valve is also regarded as a company that understands the wishes and sentiments of their target audience, as they carefully demonstrate in their approach with Team Fortress 2.

Team Fortress 2, a sequel to what is now called Team Fortress Classic, started as a class-based multiplayer first person shooter. The new version offered the same cooperative gameplay, but within a completely redesigned and re-balanced engine. The overall reception of the game was positive towards the art-style and gameplay mechanics, but there was some criticism towards the limited amount of maps during the release. But to render this critique obsolete, they started adding new content to the game on April 29 2008, little more than six months after the launch of the Orange Box, and even until today Valve is keeping the player’s hungry for more additional content.

Throughout the update process Valve started to connect to the players by motivating them to send in ideas for following class-updates, by sending in newly designed maps and by participating in expanding the paratext of Team Fortress 2. Examples of these ideas vary from propagandist pamphlets for the classes, comics, cosplay and even fake update sites where creative fans tried to give their view of the next class-update.

The technological advancements making online distribution easier, the multiplayer gameplay with its open-end character, the change of stance of the producers to welcome players to enter the production realm and finally the prosumers voluntarily creating new content for the good of the game have all been important developments that lead up to the current state of the industry.

In the next chapter will research how Valve, with their game Team Fortress 2 engages the public. How do they keep their audience interested before, during and even long after the release of the game.

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Chapter 2. How does Valve manage to keep Team Fortress 2 in the spotlight before, during and after the launch?

The previous chapter looked at the emerging development of online connectivity on game consoles and computers within a larger discourse. It introduced us to new wave of developments invading the digital entertainment sector, and more specific the gaming industry. Understanding the way to how these new markets operate it is essential to look at specific examples and to follow them closely.

But just following and understanding a certain product is not enough, as it does not necessarily capture the importance and the reach of external influences. That is why this next chapter focuses not only on the actions of the game or the manufacturer, but it also tries to encompass the substantial power and possible authority of the media, the audience and the prosumers.

The particular case I will use to illustrate the new conjunction between the businesses and the audience, as well as the intricacies of the paradigm flux throughout the following chapters, will be Valve’s game Team Fortress 2. While Team Fortress 2 has been released on various platforms, I will focus solely on the pc version of the game. This version is not affected by the various layers of control by external technical, commercial and political factors blocking the artistic freedom, in this case personified by the game console companies. The prime example of the new paradigm is the unspoiled and autonomous pc version of Team Fortress 2 operating under the Steam platform.

Chapter 2 will focus on how Valve manages to keep Team Fortress 2 in the spotlight during three periods in the lifespan of the game's development and release. Also, it follows the evolving buildup of a dedicated (online) community around game, a community that will prove its value in the following chapters.

The first period is marked by the time leading up to the release of the game, the second period is situated around the release and the third period begins when the dust around the release settles and where conventional games start to lose interest and

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gradually disappear out of the spotlight. The question I want to answer here is how buzz is created around the game, how it manifests itself and what it means in relation to the new paradigm?

2.1 Creating buzz and getting reviewed (attention before & during the launch) 2.1.1 First signs of Team Fortress 2 (pre-release period) As described in the previous chapter Team Fortress 2 is class-based multiplayer shooter developed by Valve and released in 2007. More than three years later, the game is still lively as ever, setting an example for new ways to approach the industry and its products.

But, before we can take a look at exactly how the game has had an impact on the industry, we should first take a look at its predecessor and the emerging anticipation of a possible successor.

Going back to its inception means going back eleven years, more than a lifetime in game years, to 1999 when the game was officially announced for the first time. As Valve’s marketing director Doug Lombardi explains to Gameinformer, they were still working on TF2 building on top the Team Fortress Classic (TFC) model they had released at that time (Berghammer, “The History of Team Fortress 2”). Team Fortress Classic is a remake of a user-generated Quake modification and was released as an addition to the original Half Life game. The origin of the Team Fortress games already show the entwined relation between the mod community and Valve as development, production and distribution company. What started out as a fan-produced modification, then became a stand-alone game appropriated and controlled by Valve and, as we see in the last chapter of this thesis, eventually would be adapted, upgraded and molded into the hybrid form of a cocreationist product Team Fortress 2 has become.

Team Fortress 2 was to follow up on TFC not long after its release. The team behind it was working on several theoretical plausible and fun ideas, which unfortunately did not work well practically (Berghammer). The main focus was aimed towards a realistic military shooter, just like Team Fortress Classic was. But through extensive playtesting they found out that in order to make an entertaining product, they had to tone down the realism. As Valve designer and engineer Robin Walker explains to Gameinformer: In the real world, if you need to kill someone you shoot them with a bullet, you don’t get something that has some travel time, or anything because it’s always going to be worse. And bullets arguably are the least interesting weapon you can have because it gives your opponent no time to dodge, no time to react in any way. You can’t anticipate anything. From your perspective, all you have to do is

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put this dot on a guy and press fire you’re going to hit him. You don’t have to lead him, you don’t have to look at how far away he is versus how fast he’s moving. All the interesting stuff you want to do with weapons, the real world doesn’t have any of them because the real world isn’t about interesting decisions—it’s about killing people real efficiently. In the realism, we felt like we were constantly straight-jacketed into, “Here’s a real interesting weapon idea. Oh. That makes no damn sense whatsoever.” (Berghammer, 2007)

As they explain further in the interview, the level of realism also influences the layout of the levels; both height and environment were major constraints if they had to be realistic.

So abandoning the realism gave them the green light to try out and expand the ideas that were previously unusable. The following years the team worked on TF2 behind the screens.

After a long period of radio silence Valve finally revealed the new TF2 for the first time at the E3 event in 2006. Before this event TF2 rapidly became one of the steady games to reside in the Wired Vaporware Awards top 10, entering the list on 2001 and finally leaving it in the 2006 edition3. The general perception was that TF2 was going to be just another title to never see the light of day, but the E3 convention in 2006 finally proved them wrong. During the Valve presentation it was announced that TF2 is in fact very much alive and was to be shipped in a bundle together with 4 other Valve games (Shoemaker, 2006).

During the event the new art style was also revealed to the public, a part of which Valve was very proud of, but they were also anxious to see how the public would react to it. Because it was such a drastic abandonment of the previous style, Valve knew it was taking a risk; especially considering the original Team Fortress has a solid and passionate fan base. According to the interview by Gameinformer with Charlie Brown of Valve, they intentionally tried something new, because they kept getting stuck in the old version of TF. Because of the change in direction as a result of the problems they encountered in gameplay, Valve could now also experiment with the visual style to align it with the nonrealistic mechanics and surroundings of the game (Berghammer). When the design team was trying to make the different classes visually distinct, they looked to early twentieth century artists and illustrators such as J.C. Leyendecker. The characters in these drawings had easily identifiable silhouettes, something that the designers at Valve were looking for because in multiplayer arenas a player has less than a second to distinguish a friend from a foe (Nutt and Zenke, 2008).

3

The annual Wired Vaporware Awards list depicts the 10 most likely products to never be released. More info can be found on the website: www.wired.com

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Although the general conception of the media and the public was positive, people were still critical because the 'Meet the team' teaser did not show any real gameplay. The art style itself however was something that could keep the crowds busy for the time being. On the Gamasutra website, Team Fortress 2's art director Moby Francke explains what made Team Fortress 2 stand out when it was first released. He says that while many successful games have a memorable appearance (he points to the revolutionary foliage design and the spectacular physics within the game Crysis) but very few of them have an actual marketable art style like Team Fortress 2 (Zefden, 2007).

It is evident that TF2's resurfacing from the vaporware grave gave it a newfound vitality. After years of silence the game made its appearance and showed the industry that it went ahead with its time. The distinctive new art style and the few promotional teaser video clips were enough to get a lot of people excited during the months before the actual launch. To top that they made the game a part of the now legendary Orange Box bundle, alongside the industry giant Half-life 2. The next paragraph will focus on how the revealing of the gameplay and the official release of the game continued to stir up the media and the fans, making them desire this game even more.

2.1.2 Valve launching the new product (release period) If the extraordinary art style did not already gather a massive new audience, hitchhiking alongside one of the industry's icons certainly gave Team Fortress 2 an even larger potential fan base. Half life 2, the second installment of the series, still ranks among the top critically acclaimed video games of all time. Not only did the Orange Box include the original game, it also contained two additions in the form of episodic content.

The two episodes added new layers of dept to both the story as well as the gameplay. The two individual episodes both received tremendous amounts of positive reviews. Also, the experimental first-person puzzle game Portal gained a lot of attention for its highly original gameplay. All these 5 items combined made it hard for gamers not to get a copy of this enticing package.

The Orange Box is an interesting subject by itself. It was an absolute hit when it came out and even though it is a bundle and not a stand-alone game, it still made the charts of Metacritic and Gamerankings as one of the best PC-games of all time. Instead of releasing the last three games separately and gambling on the individual strengths of the titles, Valve took a shot in creating a 'too good to be true' deal that would not only generate positive reviews, it would also introduce new customers to their online distribution platform Steam. Valve lured people into their Steam environment with the Orange Box and now has the opportunity to directly engage these new customers with updates and new titles.

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When Team Fortress was first shown to the public, one of the biggest concerns of the audience was that the game looked good, but not much of the actual gameplay was announced prior to the release. Also, not being used to the distinct style of the game, it was very hard to differentiate in-game gameplay footage from full motion video. As the online reviews started to appear these concerns quickly evaporated, as none of the reviews made it below a score of 88 (with the accumulated scores reaching an average of 92) on Metacritic.

All scores by magazines and blogs are showing more or less the same results in the pc department. In the ranking of best-rated pc games of all time, the games in The Orange Box, as well as The Orange Box itself dominate both the Metacritic4, and Gamerankings5:

Metacritic

Gamerankings

Title

Position

Score

Half life 2

1

96

The Orange Box

3

96

Team Fortress 2

32

92

Portal

73

90

The Orange Box

1

95,95%

Half life 2

2

95,41%

Team fortress 2

28

92,44%

Portal

89

89,19

Table 1: The accumulated scores of Valve titles connected to The Orange Box by the Metacric and Gamerankings websites

The accumulative opinions of various blogs boil down to the fact that every single one of the titles in the Orange Box would get an individual positive score, but the fact that the games are bundled in an extremely worthwhile value-for-money package persuades most reviewers to give (near) maximum scores. That is why the bundle itself ranks so high on the list, it not a game itself but it harnesses the scores of the five games in the package and gains extra commendation for being a sharp-priced package.

The Orange Box turned out to be a harbinger for Valve's willingness to attract new players by breaking with the established traditional market principles. One way of doing

4 5

Metacritics chart: http://www.metacritic.com/browse/games/score/metascore/all/pc?sort=desc (accessed 17 May 2009 Gamerankings chart: http://www.gamerankings.com/browse.html?site=pc&cat=0&year=0&numrev=0&sort=0&letter=&search= (accessed 17 May 2009)

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that is by selling five games for the price of one AAA title6. It is a bold move from a developer and distributor's point of view, but it certainly helped to push hesitant buyers over the line.

The combination of the excellent value of the bundle and the difficulty of hacking the games using the Steam network almost made the effort of pirating the Orange Box seem like more trouble than actually buying it. The prospect of not being able to play some of the games in the box because they connect to the Steam servers, like Team Fortress 2, is a sacrifice the 'pirates' have to make. As we will see in chapter 3, the combination of a game like Team Fortress 2 and its integration in the Steam network is what makes and keeps the game so appealing and is the real reason why the game is still going strong more than 3 years after its release.

When the game was released, Valve's role immediately took different shape.

Before the release everything was carefully protected and contained within their own realm. Every single media appearance was part of a release plan instigated by Valve. They had control of everything that needed to be written about. After the release however, Team Fortress 2 became a tangible object. It became a commodity that people could own, experience, love and ultimately change or adapt. This meant for Valve to give away control. The precious control other cultural industries are destined to keep.

Like the earlier mentioned technological evolution taking place in the game industry, Team Fortress 2's transition from development to release could also be seen as an elemental shift from Read/Only to Read/Write (Lessig, 2008). But, because Valve's and Team Fortress 2's intimate relation to the mod community, they always approached the game to grow towards collaboration between them and the users. And they did this by using Steam as a means to incorporate the sense of freedom to let users modify the text or code, while Valve consistently keeps absolute control over the final product. Chapter 3 will further investigate the cooperation between users as creators and Valve as facilitator.

With the game finally out in the open, Valve had done its job, for now. The ball was now in the court of the consumers and prosumers to take the game beyond its original destination. And people did, many new levels were created, new skins for the characters were designed and machina movies were made using the original ingame characters. Just like Valve's previous releases Half-Life and its sequel Half-Life 2 people appropriated the world Valve created and took it somewhere else, but unlike the Half-Life games, Valve's part in TF2 continued by feeding the title with new material 6 months after the release.

6

AAA titles are the game industry’s biggest and most expensive production titles.

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Before we go into the post-release content period of the game, we first want to examine how the paratext heavily influenced Team Fortress 2's exposure during the conception and the birth of Valve's new baby.

2.1.3. Paratextual and public influences Before the first real announcement, the reactions to Team Fortress 2 were in the line of expectations with the coverage on the blogs. There was a growing skepticism to the fact that it was evidently becoming another vaporware game. As time progressed, media coverage stagnated. Behind the scenes Valve was working hard on the new game, but the media was kept out of the loop for now.

But from the moment Valve's marketing machine started running again at the E3 conference in 2007 the public, through mediators likes blogs and magazines, began spreading the buzz fueled by their enthusiasm of this new game. Finally there was a sign of life from the game that was deemed to be deceased and the paratextual media were eager to step in and deliver that message to the public.

The moment the blogs covered the reveals at the conference, the audience started to get engaged. The most immediate reactions to the game were aimed at the art style of the game, which at that point, was about the only piece of information available on TF2.

It was Valve's big reveal of the Orange Box and the games it consisted of, but it lacked any real details about the new version of Team Fortress 2. They did introduce the art style and all of the nine character classes in a teaser trailer. The tone of the reactions of the public on the Kotaku website, when viewing this teaser7 were predominantly as follows: Jaunty 10:42 AM on Wed Jul 19 2006 Sweet bleeding jesus the art direction for this game is awesome! The only way I could describe my anticipation of this game with words is by declaring that words cannot describe my anticipation of this game.

Grue 10:51 AM on Wed Jul 19 2006 I knew an acquaintance of mine was working on some of the art on this game, but I didn't know it was this awesome! I'll know not to doubt her skills, ever.

Virgil Tibbs 11:28 AM on Wed Jul 19 2006 7

Both the teaser trailer and additional comments can be found on Kotaku website: http://kotaku.com/188399/team-fortress-2-teaser

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finally after 7 years I can put down Counter-Strike and play this for the next half decade. Looks fantastic BUT it better have comedic gore like the first one. It better have gibs. (Kotaku, 2006)

Although some reactions were more critical in the sense that the teaser lacked actual gameplay footage, the teaser did draw a lot of attention to the game. It is also the entrance to the first stage in which people will actively get involved with a product. To elaborate on this, I'm using Scott Burkett's theory on on-line community lifecycles. While this theory is not explicitly made for the gaming industry, most of the paratextual utterances will however take place within on-line communities.

Burkett (2006) sees four different stages in the participation within an on-line community: the passerby (someone who accidentally stumbles upon the subject), the lurker (someone who is interested, but not interested in actively contributing), the participant (someone who is interested and is actively contributing) and finally the evangelist (someone who is extremely contributive and who will actively engage others to promote the product). Before and during the release of the game, the paratextual public engagement will range from passerby (people who accidentally heard about the game and got triggered to find out more) to participants (people who have know about the game for a long time and want to express their excitement or concerns). Evangelists will only start to emerge when the game is operational and when participants can gather enough experience and gaming capital in order for them to evolve to an evangelist. At this stage they are so excited and convinced of power of the game that they will actively start new conversations and engage in existing conversations in online communities. As mentioned in chapter 1, the love for a product takes the role of the consumer to new levels. The commitment to the game will transcend activities like taking part in on-line discussions; it is the stage where ordinary, but devoted players will transform into producers. This transition of public engagement is a key aspect of the new paradigm. With the help and the blessing of the production companies, gamers these days are more and more encouraged to become part of the expanding experience around a product. They are not just looking to consume; they want to contribute.

The question on how and why players are contributing to the increasing substance of a game continues in chapter 3. The next paragraph will focus on the changes occurring on the corporate surface of the new paradigm. What are the steps the production companies are taking in order to build on the growing user commitment, and what actions do they take towards facilitating new content made by their committed fans?

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2.2 Invigorating the game (attention after the launch) 2.2.1 Valve starts feeding the franchise and commits to long term post-release content The previous chapter looked at the time leading up to the release and the reception of the game after that period. Originally, AAA titles have a pre-defined period in which most of the profits have to by acquired. It is the six weeks after a game's release; also know as 'shelf-life', the period a game stays on the shelves in retail stores. Typically this is period a game can expect full attention in the media and maximum sales through both the digital and retail channels. Following the 'conventional' game industry model, a second stage in sales usually begins when a game is out more than a two or three months and gets a pricecut in order to lure in the late majority or initially hesitant buyers. While this system has worked adequately in the various media industries before, it still is a major risk to let a game's success depend on the first six weeks of its existence.

In that light, it is no surprise that the game industry looked for alternative strategies to assure grasping the full potential of a game. And it did so by utilizing its distinctive nature of being a technology driven and ever-developing market. Because technology is so substantially woven into the fabric of the industry, companies quickly realized that emerging applications could be exploited to benefit the games. The latest generation of computers and consoles took care of the physical technological barriers by adding network connectivity to its machines. All that remained was finding a way to add value to game in order to keep the players satisfied, and subsequently make more money of off them. Post-release content delivered through digital distribution was the solution in which game companies could extend their theoretical shelf life by using the distinct feature of computer games; their digital presence. Being able to adapt and extend the initial product, it gave companies a chance to balance and enrich the game experience before players would lose interest.

Valve has firmly incorporated this motto, particularly with Team Fortress 2. As Valve's business development director Jason Holtman points out in an interview with Gamasutra, all companies in the game industry should experiment with post-release content. It requires companies to take a different approach to the products they are selling. By viewing them as being a sustainable service instead of a finished, unmodifiable artifact, companies can ultimately benefit from having a closer, direct connection to the end-users (Remo, 2009). A connection used by Valve to listen to the feedback of the players, and using that feedback to change gameplay features in Team Fortress 2. This iterative approach makes tweaking an existing game much easier and faster, and allows

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for experimenting with the gameplay. But once again, all of this is (still) only possible on the PC-version of Team Fortress 2, because of the 'open' character of this platform. Open is put between apostrophes because it is debatable while the only reason the PC version is open is because Valve both owns and runs the Steam platform that is used to distribute games like Team Fortress 2. Because Valve has unlimited control of the both the platform and the game, they can fully address the possibilities of post-release content through digital distribution.

Some of the possible suspicion towards Valve's motives may be dwindled away when looking at their answer to giving independent developers a stage to present their work: Steamworks. It is a service to submit games to the Steam network, allowing promising titles a proper global audience. Developers can make use of the entire functionality of the network, which consists of automatically updating the game when players connect to Steam, using the achievement system, the anti-cheat system and give them a chance to experiment with price-based marketing and guest passes. While this might be of little importance to Team Fortress 2, it does provide a closer look at Valve's mission to discover promising new artists and games and their genuine willingness to help independent developers distribute their products.

Team Fortress 2 first made use of Steam's digital distribution options when it released its first updates in September 2007. The first weeks mainly consisted of bug fixes and resolving technical non-gameplay related issues. Around October 2007 the first gameplay tweaks were implemented, improving some characteristics of the grenades of the Demoman class. After a few months of fine-tuning the classes and the maps, the first piece of official post-release content was released. Four months after the launch of the game a 'Capture the flag' version of the already existing map 'Well' was added to the game. Three weeks later the first new map 'Badlands' was added to the lineup of official maps; a welcome free addition, but still a fairly conservative move within the downloadable content trend. So far Valve did not do anything worth writing a thesis about, but all that changed April 29th 2008.

This date marked the beginning of Valve's real plans with Team Fortress 2, on this day Team Fortress 2 got its first major update named the 'Gold rush update'. This update introduced a new gameplay type (payload) with a corresponding map (gold rush), an item system to customize the classes and an update for the medic class, granting it new achievements that lead to unlocking new weapons for the same class. Eight months after the release this major update was presented to the public, free of charge. And, as they hinted in the update, this was only one of at least eight more of these class updates to

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come. Below is a chart depicting all major updates from the release until the last class update before completing this thesis:

Figure 2: Team Fortress 2’s updates in chronological order. All dates are gathered from the official Teamfortress.com website.

The chart shows the continuing upgrades to Team Fortress 2. There are two distinct gaps in the update cycle; the first one is a logical pause after the release, the second gap with a duration of six months takes place after 'A heavy update'. The reason for this is that all Team Fortress 2 developers were summoned by Valve to help putting their new game 'Left4Dead' on the market.

The main lesson however is that, three years after the release of the game, Team Fortress 2 is still very much alive. With every major update, massive amounts of new players get lured into the game, and more importantly into the Steam network. Combined with clever pricing strategies during the updates, Valve sees sales go up by 106%, the number of new players increased by 75%, even retail sales went up by 28% (Leahy, 2009).

Even without any actual sales numbers, these percentages justify all the ongoing effort Valve puts in updating a three-year-old game. Valve shows that it takes updating very seriously. Where other companies might stick to fixing bugs and occasionally adding new maps, Valve tries to really enhance, enrich and invigorate the game. And, in turn, their enthusiasm and commitment resonates through to the paratextual industries, as we will see in the following paragraph.

2.2.2. Paratext speaks its excitement and Valve shows its engagement In the period after the release, most of the paratextual media wrote about the gameplay of Team Fortress 2, an aspect of the game that has not been addressed in detail before.

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The majority of the reviews talk about the distinct style, the easy accessibility for a multiplayer shooter and the fine balance between the classes. With no announcements from Valve at that time about the plans for downloadable content, some of the reviews were skeptical about the limited amount of maps and game modes and about the lack of customization of the classes. But in light of the game being a part of the Orange Box package, most of the reviewers appreciate the value and the quality of the entire bundle over any shortcomings of the individual titles.

After the streak of reviews came to an end, the paratextual conversation retracted itself back to the periphery by shifting its attention from public media towards semienclosed specialized communities. The focus of conversation also changed from early anticipation and initial excitement on general gaming blogs, towards detailed guides and descriptions on Team Fortress 2 specific fora and wiki's. The moment the game became operational, the fan community arose and was dedicated to appropriate the conversation, shifting the subject and the tone of voice from general content towards in-depth analyses and information only relevant to adepts.

As with any digital game being released, voices within the paratext also tried to find exploits or loopholes in the game's coder in order to gain advantages over other players, in other words; cheating became a part of the paratextual universe of the game.

Mia Consalvo points out that paratextual industries can either "support developer-imposed gameplay limitations, or they may defy them" (183). Even though Team Fortress 2's servers make us of Valve Anti-Cheat software to counteract possible cheaters, the usage of bots to harvest achievements is one of the ways in which users succeeded in getting unfair advantages over other players. Over the course of the game's history, this cat-and-mouse game continued on; Valve tried to outsmart the item-harvesting problem by changing the way to acquire new items. During the 'Sniper vs. Spy' update, Valve changed the achievement-based item gathering to random item drops that occur while playing the game. In response to this solution, the cheaters reacted by creating 'idling programs' that script basic game play repetitively until high value items are dropped8. Valve, in turn, eventually managed to track down players using these programs and punished them by taking away the acquired items. But instead of only disciplining the wrongdoers, Valve granted the players who refrained from cheating with a special hat; a glowing halo called the "Cheater's Lament.' When even issues like pursuing cheaters results in giving away a free piece of downloadable content, it gives us a crucial understanding in the relationship of the company and the players.

8

As noted by Play No Evil website: http://playnoevil.com/serendipity/index.php?/archives/2671-Item-Farming-inTeam-Fortress-2-The-Idle-Threat.html

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Valve manages to actively engage in a dialogue with its consumers, which is one of the characteristics of the new paradigm. They do this directly by listening to the feedback of the community, i.e. with maps like 'Granary'. Granary is 'Control Point' map, in which two teams have to control of all the points on a map. During the Gold Rush Update, Valve added setup time to the map, which means that teams had a limited amount of time to prepare for battle before gates are opened to access the control point in the middle of the map. This gave the teams the advantage to set up traps and to fortify their base, a feature not liked at all by the hardcore clan players. They decided to make a version for professional tournament play, a version without the setup time. When Valve noticed that the majority of the players did not approve of the changes they made, they removed the setup from Granary six months later.

Besides directly altering the game, Valve also incites the paratext with hints and rumors. During the updates the fora are thick with speculation about what will and what will not be in the new updates. The hopes and concerns people express about possible additions are often fueled by hints and Easter eggs at Valve's part. One of the examples is when Valve released a "spoof" flyer of the next (sniper) update on April’s fools day, the new weapon was called "Jarate": a jar of urine possible of humiliating other players. A few weeks later the actual sniper class update did take place and thankfully there was no sign (albeit a lot of speculation) of the Jarate. Halfway through the update Valve announced that not only the sniper but also the spy updates were to be included in the next update.

Every day around the same time Valve revealed another addition to the game, with the previous day giving the players the Ambassador, a new weapon for the spy. Reloading the page the next day randomly showed the same page, but with the spy looking to the right at a blurred yellow jar coming at him. The players were sharing insights on the probable next update and a few hours later the real update did in fact reveal Jarate as a new weapon for the sniper. What makes Valve stand apart from other companies is that they know their commitment goes beyond the game text, they passionately cultivate the paratext by creating backdrop stories to the different characters, (web)comics explaining more about the companies behind the weapons and providing merchandise for the truly engaged fans to buy9.

The anecdote above clearly marks how Valve is trying to excite the players and give them hints and also tease them with the new updates. This is just one of the many example of how Valve tries to communicate with their fans, instead of just a game they try to create a world, a story and a community round their product.

9

One of the prime examples is the Sniper vs. Spy update; loaded with comics, Easter eggs and movies: http://www.teamfortress.com/sniper_vs_spy/

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Every major update puts Team Fortress 2 in the spotlight again; it draws in new players and even further intensifies the value of the brand. Game-blogs write about the game again and social news sites like Digg and Reddit generate much desired attention, to (re)create the hype around the game. During these updates the paratextual center and periphery both join the conversation again, and the status of the game as being the appropriated possession of a sub-culture changes back to being a public subject up for discussion and speculation.

The major updates bringing new content to the game also rendered some concerns about the console versions of the game. The PC version got the update; the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 versions did not. Valve was not reacting to the questions of the consoleplayers, but a month later they broke the silence by saying that updates on consoles are complicated. As I mentioned before, the PC version is not subordinate to the tight control of the medium, the console versions are. Valve reacts to the questions by saying that Microsoft does not provide the option for developers to offer free downloadable content, which is why Valve tells the players that they want to pack as much new content into an update for the lowest price possible. The PlayStation 3 version is even more complicated; Electronic Arts was responsible for porting the game to the PlayStation 3 platform but will not continue to support the updates, and Valve claims that it does not have the knowledge and manpower to handle the PS3 updates themselves. Halfway through 2010 both console versions still operate under the initial version of Team Fortress 2, with no assurance of any updates in the near future.

However, the openness of the PC as a platform does offer Valve the flexibility to take the game to where they want it to go, while console versions suffer under operational and technical restraints.

Valve's motto of viewing TF2 as a service instead of a product transcends the obvious support such as bug fixing and balancing the game. It is not even limited to supplying the game with brand new content every few months. It means expanding and enriching the entire spectrum of the story: text, subtext and paratext. Valve spends a lot of time and money into the game, but is in the end rewarded with a massive fan base.

While other companies might charge players for additional content like Call of Duty 2: Modern Warfare10, or stopped supporting games with free additional content like Burnout Paradise11, Valve sets the bar on the new paradigm in the game industry. And, as we will

10 11

More information on the latest update pack: http://store.steampowered.com/app/10196/

Kotaku website talking about a press statement by Criterion Games: http://kotaku.com/5453411/goodbyeburnout-paradise-dlc-you-will-be-sorely-missed

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see in the next chapter, they take an even bigger lead in the race by letting usergenerated content play a big part in the updates.

Chapter 3. Users as producers, companies as facilitators 3.1 Upgrades by the fans Before we dive into the user-generated additions to the game itself, I want to address the creative influence of the fans to the paratext first. Once again, the distinguishable style of Team Fortress 2 is the catalyst for upgrades to the world surrounding the game text.

The influence of the paratextual media has, as we have already seen before, not gone unnoticed by Valve. In fact, during the DICE (Design Innovate Communicate Entertain) convention in 2009, Valve's co-founder and managing director Gabe Newell talked about how they regard 'Entertainment as a Service'. In a transcript by Brian Leahy for the G4 website the following was noted: "Gabe now speaks about how important Web content creators and blog writers are for the future of games. It brings a tear to my eye! They'll be able to help market products with authority and knowledge. Gabe brings up an excellent point that successful entertainment companies will realize that fans of properties like the property, not the specific product. They are Harry Potter fans, not just fans of the books. " (Leahy, 2009)

Newell addresses two important attributes of the media industry in this quote: One is the significance of the paratextual media in objectively marketing, rating and possibly selling the product. As pointed out in the previous chapter, the direct and real-time character of blogs and other web-based media make these types of media indispensable for companies like Valve. Given that there is news to write about, on-line media are eager to distribute it, and thus prevent active game-titles from going into a "media slumber". While print media might not look to write about updates or downloadable content, the lightweightiness of digital media ensures continuing coverage as long as the game progresses.

The second attribute Newell mentions is that consumers will be turned into fans of the message, as Newell mentions, not just the medium. They are fans of the fantasy, of the characters, of the art style and the weapons, not just of the game. This is proven by the enthusiasm of the fans towards Valve's full motion videos, supplied during several of

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the updates. Each of these 'Meet the team' videos give us a peek into the back-story of one particular character. While these videos might seem trivial to the game, they do help to build up the experience around it and to give new impulse and directions to the fan community.

When players can relate to the art or feel that they should add something to the experience around the game, they advance from being an average participant to a devoted fan. I want to impose an alternative to Mia Consalvo's vision on paratexts, she says, "They [paratexts] may alter the meanings of texts, further enhance meaning, or provide challenges to sedimented meanings" (182). Building on my experiences around Team Fortress 2's paratext, I noticed that fans want to enrich, expand or explain the universe of the game. Enriching the game is done by using given elements from the already existing experience and transferring it to other, non-familiar surroundings. These creative practices do not directly add to the story, but rather use elements and apply them to other environments or media. Examples of enriching include cosplay (dressing up as game characters), machinima movies12 (in which in-game visuals are used to create a movie) or mash-ups (like the trailer for 'Law Abiding Engineer' in which the main characters in an actual movie trailer are replaced by Team Fortress 2 characters13). Expanding the game means that the fans are using the style and the known texts to fill in the blanks and start building on the existing parts of the story. They want to express their visions and thoughts on how certain gaps in the story should be filled in.

This, among other things, is done by fans creating on-line comics14 in which the interactions and interrelations between the characters are drawn out. Another form of expanding the game is by creating faux TF2-updates15. These updates completely mimic Valve's tone of voice, visual style and game content and often have people in doubt whether they are looking at genuine Valve material. It gives an interpretation of the possible dynamics within the game-world or it hints at 'could-been' content. The last fanbased expression in the paratext is explaining the game. This is done by both trying to debunk the mechanics of the game (through comprehensive instructional videos on how to make the best use of the class-specific weapons or how to use the various maps to your

12 13 14 15

Many of the fan art creations have been bundled in a thread on the Steam forum: http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showthread.php?t=649323 The clip can be viewed on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HjGrHBpfqCo Like the site by a French Team Fortress 2 fan: http://www.tf2comic.fr/index.php One of the most impressive fake updates is the engineer update by a user called Sunwar: http://samuelpires.deviantart.com/gallery/

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advantage) as well as providing instructions on how to stay as close to Valve's production standards as possible16.

All these types of participatory culture ultimately add to the collective value of the game experience. It portrays a form of enthusiasm and commitment that the players care to exhibit. When companies can let go of the fear of intrusion to their intellectual property, they might notice the ingenuity and imagination of these prosumers. And, more importantly, the distributed exposure of the brand and the value of free user generated content to the richness of the product. Because economic interests drive the entertainment companies, as Henry Jenkins notes, they will rather collaborate than engage in conflicts with the public (249). While this does not mean that fan culture automatically receives the blessing of the commercial corporations, it does show the collective power and influence of an active audience.

Now that we looked at the influence of fan based art surrounding the paratext of the game, the next chapter looks at more obvious (but no less interesting) additions to the text itself. In other words, a look at the altering of - and the adding to the experience of the game itself.

3.2 Valve and its fan base embracing possibilities of the new paradigm When it comes to upgrades within the game itself, companies have also learned to facilitate rather than to contest user generated content. Or, as Dovey and Kennedy put it: "[...] we see the evolution of a production system that accommodates the pirate in us all by understanding our 'configurative practice' as brand loyalty' (130). Instead of believing in legal actions protecting their properties game companies often accommodate their titles with complementary Software Development Kits, or SDK's. These SDK's provide the producing part of the audience with the necessary tools to start building on the existing code. They are the symbolic invitations to enter a company's intellectual property. They are the game industry's form of compliance to amend and to elaborate on the game experience.

With these SDK's, users are able to use the same models, textures and physics as the production company. With these tool they are able to build new maps, design new models or skins for the existing character and create re-designed weapons. The fact that these items are being build is not to say that they will be found and used by the complete audience. Where some prosumers excel in creativity and technical ability, they usually do

16

Nodraw.net is a website dedicated to instructing users on how to work with the Source engine (the game engine Team Fortress 2 uses): http://www.nodraw.net/

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not have the appropriate distribution channels to get their creations across to a large audience. There are fora like TF2Maps.net or FPSBANANA, which offer a stage for content creators, but the content still merely reaches only a part of the community, instead of the entire audience. For user-generated content to reach its full potential, it still needs the help of the game company.

And that is where Valve stands apart from many of the other game companies. As mentioned before, nearly every major update to Team Fortress 2 contains a user generated 'community map'. These maps are reviewed and sometimes altered to comply with Valve's production standards, but the makers always get credited for their effort.

Gradually Valve started to take suggestions from their community and build them into items that were suitable for distribution through the Steam network. Impressed by the results spawning from their community site Valve teamed up with Polycount (a videogame art resource & community) to hold a contest for designing items for the next - all community content - update17.

When we take these examples like the ones mentioned in the previous paragraphs into account, we can clearly see that Valve embraces community efforts. They believe in the power of user generated content and they have made it an indispensable part of Team Fortress 2. By providing the community the appropriate tools and by giving them a stage to show of their creations, Valve has transformed its mod community into a part of its production cycle. They have managed to institutionalize a concept like participatory culture, and they have done it in an organic way. By giving away control they let the audience come closer by allowing them to create new content. But by controlling the distribution channel, Valve always keeps a final and complete authority over their property.

The only means to break free from the Steam-controlled clutch is by creating a totally new game within the atmosphere of the original title. By creating, what is called, 'total conversions', users borrow elements (game engine, models, levels etc.) from the original game and create a totally new game with different rules, objectives and experiences. One of these examples is 'The Great Class Dash'18, which is a side-scrolling platform game in which the player uses the different TF2 class characteristics to overcome obstacles and reach the finish line. Another total conversion, or 'demake' as the makers call it, is Gang Garisson 2. This game follows the basic gameplay modes and multiplayer

17 18

Information and guideline regarding this contest can be found at: http://www.polycount.com/team-fortress-2polycount-pack/ Made by Dylan Loney, the modification can be downloaded for free at: http://forums.mapcore.net/viewtopic.php?f=61&t=15025

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team based action of the original Team Fortress 2, but presents it in pixilated 2d platform variation19.

With Team Fortress 2 originally descending from a modification of Quake, it seems that these user generated total conversions make the game become full circle again.

While they might not induce the same impact and enjoy the same success as Team Fortress 2 has had, their value as artifacts within a new paradigm in which intellectual property & user generated content, control & freedom and profit & benevolence all coincide, has not been deteriorated.

3.3 The motivation behind the actions in the new paradigm The question that still remains is why these consumers transform into producers and start creating content without making any profit themselves. Why do people willingly extend a commercial product without seemingly gaining any form of financial compensation? The answer here lies in the previously mentioned theory of gaming capital.

The prosumers among the game's fan base have the urge to differentiate themselves from the average players. They want to rise beyond their typical role and manifest themselves as being on the same level as the designers and developers who made the game. I believe that this metaphysical alignment with the original content producers happens in a three-tier process: The first step is being a part of the game, feeling and understanding what it means to be a part of the game's producing universe by gathering knowledge about how the game works behind the scenes. This knowledge distinguishes the player from the general public, but when it is only used for self-interest the player will never receive any acclaim from the community. When the player is ready to share, he is ready to advance to the next tier. The second tier can be reached by adding knowledge or content to the community and being recognized for it. When a player uses the acquired knowledge to contribute to the game or its paratext, they are likely to be praised by the community. This approval by other players increases the value of the player's gaming capital and allows him to proceed to the third tier. The third and final tier is as close as a consumer can get to be a professional content producer without actually being one. It is the stage where a prosumers is being noticed and respected by the owners and creators of the product. It is the highest possible position a consumer can get to being on the same level as the makers of the game, without distorting the consumer/vendor balance.

As the three-tier model shows, the lack of financial or other tangible incentives is compensated by a sense of acknowledgment. The co-creation practices of the game 19

The game can be downloaded for free on the developers’ website: http://www.ganggarrison.com/

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industry are based on this typical exchange products and services. Now that we know what drives the prosumers, we want to go back and take a closer look at how Valve manages to maintain the integrity of the prosumers.

Once again, Valve has a strong connection to the mod community. With some of the most successful titles (Counter-Strike, Portal, Team Fortress 2) either originating from or actually being modifications, they have always tried to incorporate the mod community into their business ethos. And it shows in games like Team Fortress 2, gamers are welcomed to come up with amazing new content and Valve always credits original creators of content and gives acclaim when it is due. Because the Team Fortress 2 team addresses examples of user-generated content on their blog, the incentive for players to actively engage in the conversation has become much higher.

Because Valve gives away the freedom to let people experiment with their product and properly attributes user generated content, players are willing to trade free (profitable!) upgrades in exchange for gaming capital. This is the reciprocity between the two sides of the gaming industry. The company engages the players, the players turn into producers and submit their ideas back to the company and finally the company monitors and ensures that the quality of the content meets Valve's production standards.

This interaction between corporate and public entities is part of a bigger movement in media industry. As Henry Jenkins notes in Convergence culture: The web represents a site of experimentation and innovation, where amateurs test the waters, developing new practices, themes, and generating materials that may well attract cult followings on their own terms. The most commercially viable of those practices are then absorbed into the mainstream media [...] In return, the mainstream media materials may provide inspiration for subsequent amateur efforts, which push popular culture in new directions, In such a world, fan works can no longer be understood as simply derivative of mainstream materials but must be understood as themselves open to appropriation and reworking by the media industries. (148)

For a game company to flourish in the media economy and to fully benefit from the creativity and competence of the customers, they have to work together to make the product better. When this is done it will result in a superior final product as well as a tighter and more solid bond between the company and the consumers.

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Conclusion There is no doubt about the fact that there are changes happening in the game industry. It is in fact inherent to the behavior of a relatively new industry; and it is also what makes this industry fascinating. The ability to converge with new technologies is deeply embedded into the gaming industry (Jenkins, 243). Its courage to defy established institutional and economic practices is what makes game companies successful. They set new goals and standards for other companies and other industries. But can we speak of a new paradigm within the game industry?

I believe we can. Although the road traveled was paved by many small iterations.

And although a traditional theory had to be reworked to still be able to use the concept of paradigms as a measure, I believe that we should be looking at the game industry as being in a paradigm flux. The industry is already a fundamentally different than it was ten years ago, just as that period was fundamentally different than ten years before it. But despite the fundamental differences, the changes have been organically incorporated into the industry; the movement towards a new paradigm has always been a gradual development; an evolution.

To illustrate the characteristics of the new paradigm I have examined the procedures of Team Fortress 2. The effort that Valve puts into upgrading and supporting the game is admirable, they are far ahead of other companies in servicing their customers.

Because Valve is unique in their approach towards Team Fortress 2, I do believe that this is the way the industry is heading. My vision on the new paradigm might be optimistic, and at times even utopian, but I already see that companies like Valve understand the implications of the paradigm. They might sometimes still be struggling to find the best ways to channel the possibilities, the actors and the complications, but at least they try.

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The new paradigm as I have depicted in this thesis is driven by the technological possibilities of online distribution. Without this vehicle, allocating software-updates would be infinitely more difficult. It is the technological necessity to ensure the existence of the other factors in the paradigm.

Another factor is the transition towards post-release content. Or, as Valve calls it, regarding games as a service. This service means that companies will be committing to updating a game regularly. It also means that they are creating a foundation for loyalty, which in turn generates a form of expectance from the consumers. The game-as-a-service is a precursor to a changing dynamic in the interrelations of the industry. Companies are looking for long-term commitments with the customer instead of transient encounters.

The final component of the new paradigm elaborates on the previously mentioned strain of thought; the emergence of user-generated content also redefines the positions of the actors in the industry. It is where the role of the players transforms into producers, and where production companies start to become facilitators. The balance and the function of the relations within the paradigm are shifting; the old divergence between corporations and consumers is dissolving. Instead of one-way traffic, it is increasingly becoming a conversation.

At this point we do not know how long games like Team Fortress 2 will continue to get updated, or how the relations between companies and customers will further develop into the futures. Although we cannot predict how the industry will eventually evolve, we now do have a better understanding in how it has evolved and how we should study it. The path laid out in this thesis is only a possible view on how the game industry will progress.

Because it is such a young and changeable economy, only time will tell how the game industry will eventually take its definite from.

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