Mixed messages: The ambiguity of the MOD chip and pirate cultural production for the Nintendo DS

This essay1 examines the ambiguous character of videogame console modification chips (MOD chips) in the space of videogame piracy. While it is possible for these chips to be used to “pirate” versions of games for these devices, they also expand the utility of the devices by adding capabilities. Perhaps more significantly, MOD chips also enable users to create software and videogames that run on these consoles outside the typical rules and regulations of the videogame industry. Ethnographic work amongst Nintendo DS (“dual screen”) MOD communities is examined to illuminate this understudied space of cultural production.

[1]  M. Deuze,et al.  The Independent Production of Culture: A Digital Games Case Study , 2009, Games Cult..

[2]  Lemi Baruh,et al.  Read at your own risk , 2007 .

[3]  Brett Robert Caraway,et al.  Survey of File-Sharing Culture , 2012 .

[4]  Adrienne Shaw,et al.  What Is Video Game Culture? Cultural Studies and Game Studies , 2010, Games Cult..

[5]  Tarleton Gillespie,et al.  The politics of ‘platforms’ , 2010, New Media Soc..

[6]  Majid Yar.  The rhetorics and myths of anti-piracy campaigns: criminalization, moral pedagogy and capitalist property relations in the classroom , 2008, New Media Soc..

[7]  Antonio Gramsci,et al.  From the 'Prison Notebooks' , 2000 .

[8]  Kiriya Iliya.  The Culture of Subversion and Russian Media Landscape , 2012 .

[9]  Patrik Ström,et al.  Enmeshed in Games with the Government , 2008, Games Cult..

[10]  Casey O'Donnell,et al.  The Nintendo Entertainment System and the 10NES Chip: Carving the Video Game Industry in Silicon , 2011, Games Cult..

[11]  Richard Atterer,et al.  Can filesharers be triggered by economic incentives? Results of an experiment , 2008, New Media Soc..

[12]  James Paul Gee,et al.  Why Game Studies Now? Video Games: A New Art Form , 2006, Games Cult..

[13]  Matthew M. Chew,et al.  Virtual property in China: The emergence of gamer rights awareness and the reaction of game corporations , 2011, New Media Soc..

[14]  Tarleton Gillespie,et al.  Designed to ‘effectively frustrate’: copyright, technology and the agency of users , 2006, New Media Soc..

[15]  David B. Nieborg,et al.  The mod industries? The industrial logic of non-market game production , 2008 .

[16]  Olli Sotamaa,et al.  When the Game Is Not Enough: Motivations and Practices Among Computer Game Modding Culture , 2010, Games Cult..

[17]  Helen Nissenbaum,et al.  Hackers and the contested ontology of cyberspace , 2004, New Media Soc..

[18]  B. Latour.  Technology is Society Made Durable , 1990 .

[19]  Ewan Kirkland.  Discursively Constructing the Art of Silent Hill , 2010, Games Cult..

[20]  Casey O'Donnell.  Developer's Dilemma: The Secret World of Videogame Creators , 2014 .

[21]  Leslie Haddon,et al.  The Innovatory Use of ICTs , 2005 .

[22]  Hector Postigo.  From Pong to Planet Quake: Post-Industrial Transitions from Leisure to Work , 2003 .

[23]  Bart Simon.  Machine Aesthetics, Digital Gaming, and the Cultural Politics of the Case Mod , 2007 .

[24]  James J. Thomas.  The moral ambiguity of social control in cyberspace: a retro-assessment of the ‘golden age’ of hacking , 2005, New Media Soc..

[25]  Casey O'Donnell.  Production Protection to Copy(right) Protection: From the 10NES to DVDs , 2009, IEEE Annals of the History of Computing.

[26]  D. Burt.  UNITED STATES COPYRIGHT OFFICE Rulemaking on Exemptions from Prohibition on Circumvention of Technological Measures that Control Access to Copyrighted Works , 2003 .

[27]  Paul A. Taylor,et al.  From hackers to hacktivists: speed bumps on the global superhighway? , 2005, New Media Soc..

[28]  D. Smith.  Writing the Social: Critique, Theory, and Investigations , 1999 .

[29]  J. Law.  A Sociology of monsters: Essays on power, technology, and domination , 1991 .

[30]  J. Law.  TECHNOLOGY AND HETEROGENEOUS ENGINEERING: THE CASE OF PORTUGUESE EXPANSION , 2018, SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY STUDIES.