Co-Creation Produces Fan-Free Labor… and that’s okay.
Posted by classypassi on February 5, 2013
From certain excerpts from the readings, I gathered that fan-based labor and co-creation are apparently things that have been concerning topics in one or two conversations on the media front. I have always been, for lack of a better term, aware that in several amounts of online games or video games the player is allowed to create their own character, story line, ideas, etc. and share them to other players using the pre-made ideas and accessories given from the game (i.e. your Mii character on the Wii may be your creation, but it is a creation from pre-developed art from real producers, graphic artists, etc.). In this situation, it becomes concerning because the concept of spreadibility in the book emphasizes the agency of consumers, like us, that are the ones that spread the content, in turn producing free fan labor for the companies.
“Spreadable media networks blur the professional-amateur divide and foreground the increasingly interdependent relationships between “producers” and users” (Cocreative Expertise)… the rest of this paragraph sums up that although professionals are talented and produce what they are getting paid to produce, “citizen-consumers” are simply just as innovative and creative… which raises the question if this is ethical or not? Tolerable?
I believe without the co-creation of both gamers and professionals, the successful development of any game would not be as thrilling. Die-hard fans know exactly what is wanted and not wanted in the game-world because they are in fact in it. Professionals only help develop what is desired. So, in the case of whether or not this is ethical or tolerable– through policies, maybe not. But to help make money and spreadability– definitely. Because our society is so consumed in being unsatisfied, things are constantly changing. And who is better to know what is desired than those IN the society reporting back to the mainstream media.
samford said
Your ambivalence here is exactly how I think we should think about this. On the one hand, audiences have more ability to have a voice, to shape things, to participate, to co-create, etc. On the other, we have to be wary of those relationships between companies and audiences. I come at this from an audience advocacy standpoint but one that believes commercial and audience interests can sometimes align, even as companies are primarily “in it” to make money and audiences for non-commercial purposes. The question is the degree to which companies react to how audiences want and need to interact with them and use their material, and the degree to which companies attempt to control audiences’ participation, on the one hand, or to take their labor without giving them much in return, on the other. We will talk about this in relation to the concept of “Web 2.0″ to a large degree, which is built on the idea that companies can profit from enabling audiences to do things they want to do (mutually beneficial), but which sometimes loses sight of the tensions that arise when the audience’s desire and the business model aren’t aligned.
andyarnoldpopculture said
I like your attitude towards this as well. Audience demands and requests are important to fulfill, but at what cost? If you imagine a video game’s fandom is split into fourths as to what they want, and they’re all even, which side do you take? Which fans do you alienate, and which do you pat on the back? Are hardcore competitive fans going to miss out? Are casual players going to love it? It’s an interesting subject, and requires a great deal of analysis and judgment on the content producer’s side of things.