Co-creating Videogames

Dr John Banks is a senior lecturer (Head of Postgraduate Coursework Studies) and researcher in the Creative Industries faculty, Queensland University of Technology, Australia. He researches and publishes on co-creativity, innovation and social media in the creative industries, especially videogames and interactive entertainment. He has a special interest in organisational and workplace culture. His past decade of research on the topic of co-creativity in the videogames industry includes his recent publication Key Concepts in Creative Industries (2012) with John Hartley, Jason Potts, Stuart Cunningham, Terry Flew and Michael Keane.

In the realm of game scholarship, John Banks' Co-Creating Videogames is that rare combination of significant access to the sites of videogame production and astute analysis that resists easy answers. His account of co-creative digital production shows how creativity, uncertainty, and value combine in the new economies (in the broad sense) that videogames have ushered onto the cultural landscape. A crucial contribution is his willingness to recognize the top-down elements of contrivance and design that inevitably shape the seemingly 'bottom-up' dynamics of digital cultural production. This book belongs on the bookshelf of anyone interested or invested in cultural production in the digital age.

• Introduction: Co-creating matters1. Situating Co-creativity2. Co-creative Technologies3. Co-creating Trainz4. Co-creative Labour? (with Sal Humphreys)5. Co-creative Expertise6. Modeling Co-creativity: A Co-evolutionary approach (with Jason Potts)Conclusion: Crafting Co-creative Culture (in Conversation with Will Wright)NotesBibliographyIndex