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This book is available as open access through the Bloomsbury Open Access programme and is available on www.bloomsburycollections.com. Social, casual and mobile games, played on devices such as smartphones, tablets, or PCs and accessed through online social networks, have become extremely popular, and are changing the ways in which games are designed, understood, and played. These games have sparked a revolution as more people from a broader demographic than ever play games, shifting the stereotype of gaming away from that of hardcore, dedicated play to that of activities that fit into everyday life. Social, Casual and Mobile Games explores the rapidly changing gaming landscape and discusses the ludic, methodological, theoretical, economic, social and cultural challenges that these changes invoke. With chapters discussing locative games, the new freemium economic model, and gamer demographics, as well as close studies of specific games (including Candy Crush Saga, Angry Birds , and Ingress ), this collection offers an insight into the changing nature of games and the impact that mobile media is having upon individuals and societies around the world.>
About the author
Michele Willson is Associate Professor and Head of Department of Internet Studies, Curtin University, Western Australia. She is the author of Technically Together: Rethinking Community within Techno-Society (2006), and co-author of A New Theory of Information and the Internet: Public Sphere meets Protocol (2011). Willson's work has been published in a range of journals including Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Information, Communication and Society, and Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies. She also has written a number of book chapters including “Communities in the Abstract: An Ethical and Political Dilemma”, which has been included in a number of editions of The CyberCulture Reader.Tama Leaver is Associate Professor and Head of the Department of Internet Studies at Curtin University in Perth, Western Australia. He is the author of Artificial Culture: Identity, Technology and Bodies (2012) and co-editor of An Education in Facebook? Higher Education and the World’s Largest Social Network (2014). He is also a Chief Investigator on Australia Research Council Linkage Grant, Online Money and Fantasy Games – an applied ethnographic study into the new entrepreneurial communities and their underlying designs. Details at www.tamaleaver.net.
