Garry Crawford is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. His teaching and research primarily focus upon audiences, fan cultures and the everyday uses of media technologies. He is the author of Consuming Sport (2004), and the co-author of the second edition of Introducing Cultural Studies (2008, with B. Longhurst, G. Smith, G. Bagnall, and M. Osborn) and the Sage Dictionary of Leisure Studies (forthcoming 2009, with T. Blackshaw).Victoria K. Gosling is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. Her teaching and research interests encompass gender, urban regeneration, social exclusion, leisure, popular culture and digital games. She is the current editor of the British Sociological Association newsletter Network, an editorial board member for the journal Sociology, and the former post-graduate forum convenor of the BSA. Ben Light is Professor of Digital Media in the School of Media, Music and Performance, and a member of the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Centre at the University of Salford, UK. His current research interests centre on analysing the development and use of social media in everyday life.

• Part I: Introduction 1. The Social and Cultural Significance of Online Gaming Part II: Production and Play 2. Player Production and Innovation in Online Games: Time for New Rules? 3. Conflict, Thought Communities and Textual Appropriation in MMORPGs 4. Thrift Players in a Twisted Game World? A Study of Private Online Game Servers 5. The Only (End)Game in Town: Designing for Retention in 'World of Warcraft' 6. The Boardgame Online: Simulating the Experience of Physical Games 7. Games in the Mobile Internet: Understanding Contextual Play in Flickr and Facebook 8. The Whereabouts of Play, or How the Magic Circle Helps Create Social Identities in Virtual Worlds 9. Framing the Game: Four Game-related Approaches to Goffman's Frames Part III: Communities and Communication 10. Identity-as-Place: The Construction of Game Refugees and Fictive Ethnicities 11. The Rise and Fall of 'Cardboard Tube Samurai': Kenneth Burke Identifying with the 'World of Warcraft' 12. Analyzing Player Communication in Multi-player Games 13. Recallin' Fagin: Linguistic Accents, Intertextuality and Othering in Narrative Offline and Online Video Games 14. 'Second Life' as a Digitally Mediated Third Place: Social Capital in Virtual World Communities 15. Representations of Race and Gender within the Gamespace of the MMO 'Everquest' 16. 'Wordslinger': Visualizing Physical Abuse in a Virtual Environment Part IV: Conclusion 17. It's Not Just a Game: Contemporary Challenges for Games Research and the Internet

Garry Crawford is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. His teaching and research primarily focus upon audiences, fan cultures and the everyday uses of media technologies. He is the author of Consuming Sport (2004), and the co-author of the second edition of Introducing Cultural Studies (2008, with B. Longhurst, G. Smith, G. Bagnall, and M. Osborn) and the Sage Dictionary of Leisure Studies (forthcoming 2009, with T. Blackshaw).Victoria K. Gosling is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. Her teaching and research interests encompass gender, urban regeneration, social exclusion, leisure, popular culture and digital games. She is the current editor of the British Sociological Association newsletter Network, an editorial board member for the journal Sociology, and the former post-graduate forum convenor of the BSA. Ben Light is Professor of Digital Media in the School of Media, Music and Performance, and a member of the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Centre at the University of Salford, UK. His current research interests centre on analysing the development and use of social media in everyday life.

• Part I: Introduction 1. The Social and Cultural Significance of Online Gaming Part II: Production and Play 2. Player Production and Innovation in Online Games: Time for New Rules? 3. Conflict, Thought Communities and Textual Appropriation in MMORPGs 4. Thrift Players in a Twisted Game World? A Study of Private Online Game Servers 5. The Only (End)Game in Town: Designing for Retention in 'World of Warcraft' 6. The Boardgame Online: Simulating the Experience of Physical Games 7. Games in the Mobile Internet: Understanding Contextual Play in Flickr and Facebook 8. The Whereabouts of Play, or How the Magic Circle Helps Create Social Identities in Virtual Worlds 9. Framing the Game: Four Game-related Approaches to Goffman's Frames Part III: Communities and Communication 10. Identity-as-Place: The Construction of Game Refugees and Fictive Ethnicities 11. The Rise and Fall of 'Cardboard Tube Samurai': Kenneth Burke Identifying with the 'World of Warcraft' 12. Analyzing Player Communication in Multi-player Games 13. Recallin' Fagin: Linguistic Accents, Intertextuality and Othering in Narrative Offline and Online Video Games 14. 'Second Life' as a Digitally Mediated Third Place: Social Capital in Virtual World Communities 15. Representations of Race and Gender within the Gamespace of the MMO 'Everquest' 16. 'Wordslinger': Visualizing Physical Abuse in a Virtual Environment Part IV: Conclusion 17. It's Not Just a Game: Contemporary Challenges for Games Research and the Internet

Garry Crawford is a Senior Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. His teaching and research primarily focus upon audiences, fan cultures and the everyday uses of media technologies. He is the author of Consuming Sport (2004), and the co-author of the second edition of Introducing Cultural Studies (2008, with B. Longhurst, G. Smith, G. Bagnall, and M. Osborn) and the Sage Dictionary of Leisure Studies (forthcoming 2009, with T. Blackshaw).Victoria K. Gosling is a Lecturer in Sociology at the University of Salford, UK. Her teaching and research interests encompass gender, urban regeneration, social exclusion, leisure, popular culture and digital games. She is the current editor of the British Sociological Association newsletter Network, an editorial board member for the journal Sociology, and the former post-graduate forum convenor of the BSA. Ben Light is Professor of Digital Media in the School of Media, Music and Performance, and a member of the Communication, Cultural and Media Studies Research Centre at the University of Salford, UK. His current research interests centre on analysing the development and use of social media in everyday life.

• Part I: Introduction 1. The Social and Cultural Significance of Online Gaming Part II: Production and Play 2. Player Production and Innovation in Online Games: Time for New Rules? 3. Conflict, Thought Communities and Textual Appropriation in MMORPGs 4. Thrift Players in a Twisted Game World? A Study of Private Online Game Servers 5. The Only (End)Game in Town: Designing for Retention in 'World of Warcraft' 6. The Boardgame Online: Simulating the Experience of Physical Games 7. Games in the Mobile Internet: Understanding Contextual Play in Flickr and Facebook 8. The Whereabouts of Play, or How the Magic Circle Helps Create Social Identities in Virtual Worlds 9. Framing the Game: Four Game-related Approaches to Goffman's Frames Part III: Communities and Communication 10. Identity-as-Place: The Construction of Game Refugees and Fictive Ethnicities 11. The Rise and Fall of 'Cardboard Tube Samurai': Kenneth Burke Identifying with the 'World of Warcraft' 12. Analyzing Player Communication in Multi-player Games 13. Recallin' Fagin: Linguistic Accents, Intertextuality and Othering in Narrative Offline and Online Video Games 14. 'Second Life' as a Digitally Mediated Third Place: Social Capital in Virtual World Communities 15. Representations of Race and Gender within the Gamespace of the MMO 'Everquest' 16. 'Wordslinger': Visualizing Physical Abuse in a Virtual Environment Part IV: Conclusion 17. It's Not Just a Game: Contemporary Challenges for Games Research and the Internet