The following two chapters refer to participant interviews to pursue two avenues of research. Using this analysis as a starting point, the author then proposes a reflexive methodological framework for studying videogame hacking subcultures, designed to accommodate the ephemerality of virtual communities and the apprehensions of participants. This thesis begins by reviewing popular media and existing accounts of computer hacker culture, primarily Steven Levy’s Hackers: Heroes of the Computer Revolution and Gabriella Coleman’s Coding Freedom, in order to contextualize videogame hacking in broader histories of computer culture. Through interviews, game analysis, and reflective writing, this thesis investigates videogame hacking subcultures of production - communities of creative labour that exist in the margins of mediamaking and the fringes of the law. This thesis aims to explore one hacking practice, videogame hacking, whose practitioners make unauthorized alterations to videogames after their release. “Hacking” is an evocative term - one that is mired in tropes that reduce a diverse range of practices into a few stereotypically malicious activities.
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