The ideology of the First Person Shooter FPS: a new form within popular culture Genre-specific negotiation of myth, ideology and identity The digital computer as a medium of cultural expression - the re-interpretation of genre fiction - the re-interpretation of play and games

Main areas Play form The re-configuration of adventure stories War and science (The adventure of civilization) Gender and violence Magic machinery - motion ride Body, machine, illusion

FPS as play form The politics of play: subversion and confirmation Virtual play: detachment and seduction Liminality: ritual performance and creativity

Politics II (Team 3) Globalised popular culture (Post)modernity Work Convergence Resistance

Culture-blindness (?) Textual structures and game-play Online play/LAN play/the mod-community European/American industry

The mirror of work and consumption Mimesis and liminality The game is interface Industrial logic Allegory of consumption

(Post)modernity? Scientific/industrial/militaristic Exotic/alien/temple. Stylistic playfulness, techno-medievalism (doom, Quake, Unreal) The mod-community: a post-industrial economy?

Convergence? Simulation - game - genre fiction. Industrial/consumer convergence (Star Wars, Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings etc) A game is a game (ludologism…) Simulation: a new representational order.

Resistance? Subversive illegitimate practice? The digital bottom-up? Enacting science, technology, war, work Power play and regression (Winnicott) Commodified liminality and non-networked spaces