John A. L. Banks, "Opening the Production Pipeline: Unruly Creators"

(In Worlds in Play)

- Ethnography of game developer/fan relationships (Banks worked for the developer in question)
- Changing relationships between users and producers in the games industry
- Fan communities, end-user creativity
- Voluntary fan labour, distributed co-production
- What are the implications of opening the commercial development to voluntary fan content creators? (Not an opposition)
- Lower cost of production by using fan labour (otherwise game could not be released)
- Problems with delays, consistency, support, etc. (logistics)
- Not unwitting exploitation, fan-creators are aware participants in a mode of practice
- What if the development process was actually organized around fan content creation?
- Banks' perspective is very much from the commercial side of things ("how can/are the industry" questions, not "how can/are the fans")