Title
The Cooperative Work of Gaming: Orchestrating a Mobile SMS Game
Abstract
This paper focuses on orchestration work in the first iteration of a mobile game called Day Of The Figurines, which explores the potential to exploit text messaging as a means of creating an engaging gaming experience. By focusing on orchestration we are especially concerned with the `cooperative work that makes the game work'. While the assemblage or family of orchestration practices uncovered by our ethnographic study are specific to the game --- including the ways in which behind the scenes staff make sense of messages, craft appropriate responses, and manage and track the production of gameplay narratives as the game unfolds --- orchestration work is of general significance to our understanding of new gaming experiences. The focus on orchestration work reveals that behind the scenes staff are co-producers of the game and that the playing of games is, therefore, inseparably intertwined with their orchestration. Furthermore, orchestration work is `ordinary' work that relies upon the taken for granted skills and competences of behind the scenes staff; `operators' and `authors' in this case. While we remain focused on the specifics of this game, explication of the ordinary work of orchestration highlights challenges and opportunities for the continued development of gaming experiences more generally. Indeed, understanding the specificities of orchestration work might be said to be a key ingredient of future development.
Year
DOI
Venue
2007
10.1007/s10606-007-9048-1
Computer-Supported Cooperative Work 96
Keywords
Field
DocType
cooperative work,ethnography,mobile games,orchestration,SMS text messages
Short Message Service,World Wide Web,Competence (human resources),Craft,Computer science,Exploit,Narrative,Human–computer interaction,Orchestration (computing),Ethnography,Explication
Journal
Volume
Issue
Citations 
16
1-2
20
PageRank 
References 
Authors
1.55
17
8
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
andy crabtree11650157.92
Steve Benford25886696.64
Mauricio Capra320318.75
Martin Flintham484590.56
Adam Drozd549252.21
Nick Tandavanitj659668.07
Matt Adams762880.24
Ju Row Farr8804.60