This paper will examine the role of videogames in global participatory culture. In particular it will explore the role of software piracy in enabling participation from groups that would otherwise be excluded from accessing videogames due to economic factors. This suggests that piracy in the context of videogames – especially vis-à-vis their role as proselytizers of participatory culture – can be shifted outside of a criminal regime and into one which is concerned with the ability to participate in a global economy as both a consumer and citizen. This issue will be explored through a case study of the gaming situation in Caracas, Venezuela. Read more...

Using a case study of Grand Theft Auto 3: Vice City, this chapter examines the cultural context of videogame consumption in Caracas, Venezuela in Summer 2005. Using data gathered through ethnographic fieldwork, participant observation and interviews over that period, it analyzes the features of Vice City that made it the most frequently played single player game in Internet cafés. We argue that it is not so much the game’s graphic or narrative elements, but its flexibility in terms of styles and approaches to play that led to it becoming a standard feature of Venezuelan gaming life. The game caters to the requirements of the intense social space of offline interactions within the Internet café and supersedes the limitations and difficulties imposed by various social, economic and technological factors affecting the game playing audience in Venezuela. Read more...