[Air-L] New book announcement: Players and their pets

[Mia Consalvo]

hi all!

We're happy to announce the release of our book, Players and their Pets.
It's the result of a long term study of the casual MMOG *Faunasphere* and
the individuals who played the game. Feel free to circulate the notice, and
let us know if you have any questions about the book.

thanks!
Mia & Jason


*Players and their Pets: Gaming Communities from Beta to Sunset*
*Mia Consalvo and Jason Begy*University of Minnesota Press - 2015

In the world of massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), *Faunasphere*
was but a blip on the screen in its short public life from 2009 to 2011.
Its devoted players, many of them middle-aged women, entered a world that
did not build on common fantasy or science-fiction tropes. There was no
evil to defeat or realms to conquer, only friendly animals to care for and
pollution to fight.

In *Players and Their Pets, *Mia Consalvo and Jason Begy argue that its
very difference makes it critically important—even more so than the large,
commercially successful games such as *World of Warcraft* that have all too
often shaped game studies discourse. Consalvo and Begy demonstrate how the
beta period of an MMOG can establish social norms that guide how the game
is played. They also show how a game’s platform creates expectations for
how the game will work and who is playing it—and what happens when those
expectations clash with reality. Even while telling the story of this
particular game and its predominantly female players, *Players and Their
Pets* cautions against oversimplifying players based on their gender.
*Faunasphere*’s playerbase enjoyed diverse aspects of the game, for varied
reasons.
No other game studies book tracks the entire life cycle of an online game
to examine how the game evolved in terms of design as well as how its
player community responded to changes and events. The brief life of
*Faunasphere* makes this possible in *Players and Their Pets*.

Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction: A Different Kind of World
1. Introducing the Caretakers
2. Those Were the Days: Interacting with Beta Players
3. Shifting Platforms and Troubled Ground: Faunasphere and Facebook
4. The End of the World
5. “Why Am I So Heartbroken?” Exploring the Bonds between Players and Fauna
Conclusion: Saying Goodbye to Rock Garden
Appendix
Notes
Gameography
Bibliography
Index

http://www.upress.umn.edu/book-division/books/players-and-their-pets

Also available via Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Players-Their-Pets-Gaming-Communities/dp/0816689830/



-- 
Mia Consalvo, Ph.D.
Professor and Canada Research Chair in Game Studies & Design
Director, the mLab
Co-author of Players and their Pets, 2015, U of Minnesota Press
Co-editor of Sports Videogames, 2013, Routledge

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