Re-Crafting Games: The Inner Life of Minecraft Modding

Re-Crafting Games:

The Inner Life of Minecraft Modding

Nicholas Watson

A Thesis

In the Department

of

Communication Studies

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements

For the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy (Communication) at

Concordia University

Montr¨¦al, Qu¨¦bec, Canada

May 2019

? Nicholas Watson, 2019

CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY

SCHOOL OF GRADUATE STUDIES

This is to certify that the thesis prepared

By:

Nicholas Watson

Entitled:

Re-Crafting Games: The inner life of Minecraft modding

and submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of

DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY (Communication)

complies with the regulations of the University and meets the accepted standards with

respect to originality and quality.

Signed by the final examining committee:

Dr. Martin Lefebvre

Dr. David Nieborg

Dr. Darren Wershler

Dr. Charles Acland

Dr. Owen Chapman

Dr. Mia Consalvo

Approved by

Chair

External Examiner

External to Program

Examiner

Examiner

Thesis Supervisor

Dr. Jeremy Stolow, Graduate Program Director

June 20, 2019

Dr. Andr¨¦ Roy

Dean, Faculty of Arts and Sciences

ABSTRACT

Re-Crafting Games: The inner life of Minecraft Modding

Nicholas Watson, Ph.D.

Concordia University, 2019

Prior scholarship on game modding has tended to focus on the relationship between

commercial developers and modders, while the preponderance of existing work on the open-world

sandbox game Minecraft has tended to focus on children¡¯s play or the program¡¯s utility as an

educational platform. Based on participant observation, interviews with modders, discourse

analysis, and the techniques of software studies, this research uncovers the inner life of Minecraft

modding practices, and how they have become central to the way the game is articulated as a

cultural artifact. While the creative activities of audiences have previously been described in terms

of de Certeau¡¯s concept of ¡°tactics,¡± this paper argues that modders are also engaged in the

development of new strategies. Modders thus become ¡°settlers,¡± forging a new identity for the

game property as they expand the possibilities for play. Emerging modder strategies link to the

ways that the underlying game software structures computation, and are closely tied to notions of

modularity, interoperability, and programming ¡°best practices.¡± Modders also mobilize tactics and

strategies in the discursive contestation and co-regulation of gameplay meanings and programming

practices, which become more central to an understanding of game modding than the developermodder relationship. This discourse, which structures the circulation of gaming capital within the

community, embodies both monologic and dialogic modes, with websites, forum posts, chatroom

conversations, and even software artifacts themselves taking on persuasive inflections.

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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This work is dedicated to Seanna and Steve Watson, for their unwavering support over the

years that it took to complete.

I wish to extend my heartfelt thanks to my thesis supervisor, Dr. Mia Consalvo, and to Drs.

Bart Simon and Darren Wershler, for advice, guidance, and support; and also to the rest of my

examination committee, including Drs. Charles Acland, Owen Chapman, and David Nieborg; and

to Drs. Maude Bonenfant, Jeremy Stolow, and William Buxton, who offered feedback on early

portions of this project.

Thank you also to advisers and mentors of my undergraduate and Master¡¯s programs, who

helped to set me on the path that led here: Drs. John Haslem, Larry Breitborde, Celia Pearce, and

Amy Bruckman.

I am especially grateful to all those in the Minecraft modding community who made this

work possible. Some of these people were interviewees and participants in my ethnographic

research; others did not participate directly, but provided advice, technical assistance, and guidance

on what I should explore and whom I should talk to. In alphabetical order: Alta, asie, capitalthree,

card1null, Cervator, copygirl, Icoso, JAvery, LShen, Mezz, modmuss50, Nikky, Omira, Qwil,

SarahK, ScriveShark, Tothor, Velo, VicNightfall, XCompWiz, Zoll, and several anonymous helpers

and participants.

Finally, thank you to Jason Wakeland, Laura Lewellen, Trish Audette, Ryan Scheiding,

Victoria Puusa, and Tugger the Siamese cat, for moral support.

Funding for portions of this research and related projects was provided by the mLab at

Concordia University; the Technoculture, Art, & Games research centre (Concordia University); the

Milieux Institute for Arts, Culture, and Technology (Concordia University); and a SSHRC-D award

grant from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................ IX

I. INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1

1.1 Mod, break, win! ................................................................................ 1

1.2 Background on Minecraft ...................................................................... 4

1.3 Variants and lineages of Minecraft .......................................................... 6

1.3.1 Java Edition ........................................................................................................................ 6

1.3.2 Pocket and Bedrock editions .................................................................................................. 7

1.3.3 Legacy console editions ......................................................................................................... 8

1.3.4 MinecraftEdu and Minecraft: Education Edition .................................................................... 8

1.4 Beginning to define "mods" .................................................................. 11

1.5 Modding frameworks .......................................................................... 16

1.6 Blueprint.......................................................................................... 18

1.6.1 Purpose and scope .............................................................................................................. 18

1.6.2 About this document ........................................................................................................... 18

II. REVIEW AND COMMENTARY ON THE LITERATURE ............................ 22

2.1 Under the influence: Mass media and audience passivity.............................. 22

2.1.1 The spectre of effects studies ................................................................................................. 22

2.2 Voices from the listeners ...................................................................... 25

2.2.1 Wandering lines: How videogames invite participatory action ................................................ 28

2.3 Commercial media meet the digital commons ........................................... 31

2.3.1 Making, hacking, remixing ................................................................................................. 33

2.3.2 Converging on co-creation ................................................................................................... 35

2.3.3 Enclosure of the digital commons ......................................................................................... 37

2.4 So¡­ which of these things qualifies as modding? ....................................... 41

2.4.1 Why mod anyway? ............................................................................................................ 44

2.5 Research on Minecraft ........................................................................ 46

2.5.1 A tool for teachers ............................................................................................................... 46

2.5.2 Minecraft in children¡¯s social and psychological development .................................................. 48

2.5.3 Minecraft in play................................................................................................................ 48

2.5.4 Produsage, platform rhetoric, and Minecraft exceptionalism ................................................... 51

2.6 What¡¯s missing .................................................................................. 53

III. A WORKBENCH OF THEORY AND METHOD.................................... 55

3.1 Rationale ......................................................................................... 55

3.2 Research questions ............................................................................. 55

3.3 Key themes ....................................................................................... 56

3.3.1 Tactics and strategies, poaching and settling ......................................................................... 56

3.3.2 Rationalization and operational logics ................................................................................. 57

3.3.3 Modder discourse and gaming capital................................................................................... 58

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