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Entanglements of creative agency and digital technology: A sociomaterial study of computer game development

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  • Panourgias, Nikiforos S.
  • Nandhakumar, Joe
  • Scarbrough, Harry

Abstract

Digital technology, with its distinctive characteristics that result from the fundamental process of digitalization that underpins it, is seen as fundamentally altering processes of creativity. However, we currently have limited understanding of creativity in relation to the development of digital technology. Computer game development, with its combination of esthetic, affective and cultural use features and highly sophisticated digital technologies, is a valuable setting for investigating these issues. In this paper, we explore how computer games are shaped through the interplay between the creative intentions of developers and the digital technologies involved in their production and playing. Drawing on in-depth studies conducted at three leading computer game development studios and a leading producer of the software system used in game development, this paper shows how the game developers' creative ideas for imagined novel game-playing experiences relate to a) the development of relevant digital technologies, and b) the emergence of new game development practices. The article goes on to propose a view of creativity as an on-going flow that, following an initial ‘creative impulse’, ripples through the sociomaterial entanglements of a particular setting, reconfiguring them in the process and spreading out in time and space in often unexpected ways.

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  • Panourgias, Nikiforos S. & Nandhakumar, Joe & Scarbrough, Harry, 2014. "Entanglements of creative agency and digital technology: A sociomaterial study of computer game development," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 111-126.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:tefoso:v:83:y:2014:i:c:p:111-126
    DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2013.03.010
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    1. Ernkvist, Mirko, 2015. "Velocity shifts in the creative economy: incumbent-entrant dynamics in the emergence of Japanese social games," Ratio Working Papers 267, The Ratio Institute.
    2. Yu-Yu Chang & Jason Potts & Hui-Yu Shih, 2021. "The market for meaning: A new entrepreneurial approach to creative industries dynamics," Journal of Cultural Economics, Springer;The Association for Cultural Economics International, vol. 45(3), pages 491-511, September.
    3. Panourgias, Nikiforos S., 2015. "Capital markets integration: A sociotechnical study of the development of a cross-border securities settlement system," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 99(C), pages 317-338.
    4. Lee, Changjun & Hwang, Junseok, 2018. "The influence of giant platform on content diversity," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 136(C), pages 157-165.
    5. Şengün, Sercan & Santos, Joao M. & Salminen, Joni & Jung, Soon-gyo & Jansen, Bernard J., 2022. "Do players communicate differently depending on the champion played? Exploring the Proteus effect in League of Legends," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).

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