DCRC - Digital Cultures Research Centre

The computer game may serve as a diagnostic site for a culture grown more and more ludic. The incursion of pleasure and desire into the public sphere, and our increasing dependence upon technologies that demand ludic engagements have led me through computer games to a consideration of ways in which thinking about games and play can help us to understand contemporary culture. We can look at the computer game produced as ideal form through wider cultural processes. Investigating the game in turn allows us to investigate some of its wider discursive determinants and what they accordingly have to tell us about the culture we live in. As mass media are becoming more participatory in their transformations through digital technologies play becomes the paradigm for understanding our media experiences the post web internet is just such a participatory space, a zone in which users can continue their relationships with TV, music or film by linking up with other consumers, or downloading customized artifacts.