Video games are inherently transnational by virtue of industrial, textual, and player practices. The contributors touch upon nations not usually examined by game studies - including the former Czechoslovakia, Turkey, India, and Brazil - and also add new perspectives to the global hubs of China, Singapore, Australia, Japan, and the United States.

'From the exploitation of cheap and anonymous female labor (Nina Huntemann), to the emergence of unpaid creators as ROM hackers and fan translators (Mia Consalvo) and the cultural work of game developers in the Middle East (Vit Sisler), contributions provide useful, if necessarily episodic, insights into the sometimes grim realities behind the fantasies of game playing. Well edited and properly documented, this collection provides useful insights for those who study the acts of video games on the globalized stage. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.' - CHOICE

Autorentext
Ben Aslinger is Assistant Professor of Media and Culture in the Department of English and Media Studies at Bentley University.

Inhalt
Introduction;N.B. Huntemann and B. Aslinger MACRO Who Plays, Who Pays? Mapping Video Game Production and Consumption Globally; R. Nichols Women in Video Games: The Case of Hardware Production and Promotion; N.B. Huntemann Redefining the Console for the Global, Networked Era; B. Aslinger Snapshot 1: Video Game Development in Brazil; J. Portnow, A. Protasio, K. Donaldson Snapshot 2: Video Game Development in Argentina; A. Pérez Fernández PLAY PRACTICES Snapshot 3: Crafting a Path into Gaming Culture; S.C. Duncan Heterogeneity in Game Histories; P. Tan and K. Mitgutsch Playing at Being Social: A Cross-Generational Case Study of Social Gaming in Shanghai, China; L. Hjorth and M. Arnold Unintended Travel: ROM Hackers and Fan Translations of Japanese Video Games; M. Consalvo LOCALIZATION Equip Shield: The Role of Semi-Permeable Cultural Isolation in the History of Games and Comics; B. P. Johnson Indiana Jones Fights the Communist Police: Local Appropriation of the Text Adventure Genre in 1980s Czechoslovakia; J. velch How Do You Say Gamer in Hindi?: Exploratory Research on the Indian Digital Game Industry and Culture; A. Shaw Snapshot 4: Australian Video Games: The Collapse and Reconstruction of an Industry; C. McCrea STRATGIES Snapshot 5: Game Censorship and Regulation in the United States; C.A. Kocurek Space Wars: The Politics of Games Production in Europe; A. Kerr Internet Development and the Commercialization of Online Gaming in China; P. Chung and A. Fung Video Game Development in the Middle East: Iran, the Arab World, and Beyond; V. Sisler