Table of Contents

Part I. Introduction
Chapter 1: Introduction to Social Exclusion, Power and Video Game Play
David G. Embrick, J. Talmadge Wright and Andras Lukacs
Part II. Social-Psychological Implications of Virtual Play
Chapter 2: Marking the Territory: Grand Theft Auto IV as a Playground for Masculinities
Elena Bertozzi
Chapter 3: Discursive Engagements in World of Warcraft: A Semiotic Analysis of Player Relationships
Elizabeth ErkenBrack
Chapter 4: The Intermediate Ego – The Location of the Mind at Play
Vanessa Long
Chapter 5: Producing the Social in Virtual Realms
J. Talmadge Wright
Part III. Social Inequalities in Video Game Spaces: Race, Gender, and Virtual Play
Chapter 6: Racism in Gaming: Connecting Extremist and Mainstream Expressions of White Supremacy
Jessie Daniels and Nick LaLone
Chapter 7: Worlds of Whiteness: Race and Character Creation in Online Games
David Dietrich
Chapter 8: Gendered Pleasures: The Wii, Embodiment and Technological Desire
Adrienne Massanari
Chapter 9: Sincere Fictions of Whiteness in Virtual Worlds: How Fantasy Massively Multiplayer Online Games Perpetuate Colorblind, White Supremacist Ideology
Joel Ritsema and Bhoomi Thakore
Chapter 10: The Goddess Paradox: Hyper-resonance Shaping Gender Experiences in MMORPGs
Zek Cypress Valkyrie
Part IV. Game Fans Speak Out
Chapter 11: To Play is to Design: An Analysis of Player/Designer Interactions in World of Warcraft
Sean C. Duncan
Chapter 12: Western Otaku: Games Crossing Cultures
Mia Consalvo
Chapter 13: Beyond the Virtual Realm: Fallout fans, Producers, and the Troublesome Issue of Ownership in Videogame Fandom
R.M. Milner
Part V. Summary and Conclusions
Chapter 14: Conclusion
Andras Lukacs, David G. Embrick, and J. Talmadge Wright

About the Author

David Embrick is assistant professor in the Department of Sociology at Loyola University, Chicago.

J. Talmadge Wright is associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Loyola University, Chicago.

Andras Lukacs is a PhD candidate at Loyola University, Chicago.

Reviews

Social Exclusion, Power, and Video Game Play is a timely collection of essays on virtual worlds and online games. The contributors challenge sociologists (and others) to take these spaces of social interaction seriously, as both revealing and shaping broader cultural dynamics. By exploring issues including the psychology of online identity, the impact of racism and sexism, and relationships between design, play, and fandom, this book helps bring questions of power and inequality to the fore in debates over the impact of online games in virtual-world and physical-world contexts, both very 'real.'
*Tom Boellstorff, University of California, Irvine and author of Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human*