Abstract
The emergence of various interest-based online communities has led to the popularity of new forms of distributed creative teamwork such as citizen science, crowdsourcing, and open source software development. These new phenomena further complicate the context and content of distributed creative teamwork: what are the characteristics of these new forms of creative teams? And how do they shape people’s perceptions and social experiences of distributed creative teams? In this paper, we report our empirical research of the team characteristics and practices in a creativity-centric technology community (i.e., independent [indie] game development) in hopes of exploring these questions. Our findings show that 1) indie game development teams are formed upon shared aspirations and use various strategies to collaborate with friends or online strangers; and their team practices are achieved through a balance between individual creativity and collective vision as well as a collaborative learning for problem solving and self-improvement; and 2) these teams mediate new forms of social interaction and collaborative experiences, featuring a mix of online comradery and weak social ties, and a mix of self-confidence and self-confliction. Using this new dataset and research context, we confirm and extend existing theories of distributed creative teams in CSCW. We also argue that studying these small-scale, self-selected, and interest-based teams can inform the design of collaborative systems to support various creative teams’ social needs.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
AAA, or Triple-A, games refer to games with the highest development budgets and levels of promotion.
References
Al-Ani, Ban; Agnes Horspoo; and Michelle C. Bligh. (2011). Collaborating with ‘Virtual Strangers’: Towards Developing A Framework for Leadership in Distributed Teams. Leadership, vol. 7, no. 3, August 2011, pp. 219-249.
Al-Ani, Ban; Matthew J. Bietz; Yi Wang; Erik Trainer; Benjamin Koehne; Sabrina Marczak; David Redmiles; and Rafael Prikladnicki. (2013). Globally Distributed System Developers: Their Trust Expectations and Processes. In CSCW’13. Proceedings of the 2013 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Antonio, USA, 23 - 27 February 2013. New York: ACM Press, pp. 563-574.
Aragon, Cecilia R.; and Alison Williams. (2011). Collaborative Creativity: A Complex Systems Model with Distributed Affect. In CHI’11. Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, Vancouver, Canada, 7-12 May 2011. New York: ACM Press, pp. 1875-1884.
Aragon, Cecilia R.; Sarah S. Poon; Andrés Monroy-Hernández; and Diana Aragon. (2009). A Tale of Two Online Communities: Fostering Collaboration and Creativity in Scientists and Children. In C&C’09. Proceedings of The Seventh ACM conference on Creativity and Cognition, Berkeley, USA, 26 – 30 October 2009. New York: ACM Press, pp. 9-18.
Barish, Stephanie. (2015). The Independent Game Development Boom: Interview with Stephanie Barish, CEO of IndieCade. New York Film Academy. https://www.nyfa.edu/student-resources/indie-game-development-interview-with-stephanie-barish/. Accessed 1 Oct 2018.
Bergström, Mattias; and Peter Törlind. (2007). Examining Creative Collaboration in Distributed and Co-Located Design Teams. In ICED’07. Proceedings of International Conference on Engineering Design, Paris, France, 28 – 30 August 2007. Paris: Design Research Society, pp.1-12
Bjørn, Pernille; Morten Esbensen; Rasmus Eskild Jensen; and Stina Matthiesen. (2014). Does Distance Still Matter? Revisiting the CSCW Fundamentals on Distributed Collaboration. ACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction (TOCHI), vol. 21, no. 5, November 2014, pp. 1-26.
Bradner, Erin; and Gloria Mark. (2002). Why Distance Matters: Effects on Cooperation, Persuasion and Deception. In CSCW '02. Proceedings of the 2002 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, New Orleans, USA, 16 - 20 November 2002. New York: ACM Press, pp. 226-235.
Carroll, Jack M. (2010). Beyond Being Social: Prospects for Transformative Social Computing. Communications of the Association for Information Systems (CAIS), vol. 27, no. 1, November 2010, pp. 641-650.
Cooke, Nancy J.; Jamie C. Gorman; Christopher W. Myers; and Jasmine L. Duran. (2013). Interactive Team Cognition. Cognitive Science, vol. 37, no. 2, November 2012, pp. 255-285.
Dourish, Paul; and Victoria Bellotti. (1992). Awareness and Coordination in Shared Workspaces. In CSCW’92. Proceedings of the 1992 ACM Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, Toronto, Canada, 1- 4 November 1992. New York: ACM Press, pp. 107-114.
Duncan, Sean C. (2011). Minecraft, Beyond Construction and Survival. Well Played: A Journal on Video Games, Value and Meaning, vol. 1, no. 1, January 2011, pp. 1-22.
Dyer, Jean L. (1984). Team Research and Team Training: A State-of-the-art Review. In F.A. Muckler (Ed.): Human Factors Review. Santa Monica, CA: Human Factors Society, pp. 285-323.
Engeström, Yrjö. (2001). Expansive Learning at Work: Toward An Activity Theoretical Reconceptualization. Journal of Education and Work, vol. 14, no. 1, August 2001, pp. 133-156.
Farago, Peter. (2012). Indie Game Makers Dominate IOS And Android. Furry Insights. http://flurrymobile.tumblr.com/post/113378049600/indie-game-makers-dominate-ios-and-android. Accessed March 20, 2018.
Farooq, Umer; John M. Carroll; and Craig H. Ganoe. (2007). Supporting Creativity with Awareness in Distributed Collaboration. In GROUP’07. Proceedings of the 2007 International ACM Conference on Supporting Group Work, Sanibel Island, USA, 4 – 7 November 2007. New York: ACM Press, pp. 31-40.
Fischer, Gerhard. (2005). Distances and Diversity: Sources for Social Creativity. In C&C’05. Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Creativity & Cognition, London, United Kingdom, 12 – 15 April 2005. New York: ACM Press, pp. 128-136.
Freeman, Guo; and Wohn, Donghee Yvette. (2017). Social Support in Esports: Building Emotional and Esteem Support From Instrumental Support Interactions in A Highly Competitive Environment. In CHI PLAY '17. Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Conference on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, 15 – 18 October 2017. New York: ACM Press, pp. 435-447.
Gilson, Lucy L.; M. Travis Maynard; Nicole C. Jones Young; Matti Vartiainen; and Marko Hakonen. 2015. Virtual Teams Research: 10 Years, 10 Themes, and 10 Opportunities. Journal of Management, vol. 41, no. 5, July 2015, pp. 1313-1337.
Gutwin, Carl; and Saul Greenberg. (2004). The Importance of Awareness for Team Cognition in Distributed Collaboration. In E. Salas; S.M. Fiore; and J.A. Cannon-Bowers (Eds.): Team Cognition: Understanding the Factors that Drive Process and Performance. Calgary, Canada: University of Calgary Press, pp. 1-33.
Hossain, Liaquat; and Rolf T. Wigand. (2004). ICT Enabled Virtual Collaboration through Trust. Journal of Computer-Mediated Communication, vol. 10, no. 1, November 2004.
Kratzer, Jan; Roger Th AJ Leenders; and Jo ML van Engelen. (2005). Keeping Virtual R&D Teams Creative. Research-Technology Management, vol. 48, no. 2, March-April 2005, pp. 13-16.
Lipkin, Nadav. (2012). Examining Indie's Independence: The Meaning of “Indie" Games, the Politics of Production, and Mainstream Cooptation. Loading... The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, vol. 7, no. 11, December 2012, pp. 8-24.
Luther, Kurt; and Amy Bruckman. (2008). Leadership in Online Creative Collaboration. In CSCW’08. Proceedings of the 2008 ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work, San Diego, USA, 8 – 12 November 2008. New York: ACM Press, pp. 343-352.
Mathieu, John E., Tonia S. Heffner, Gerald F. Goodwin, Eduardo Salas, and Janis A. Cannon-Bowers. (2000). The Influence of Shared Mental Models on Team Process and Performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, vol. 85, no. 2, pp. 273-283.
McCrea, Christian. (2013). Australian Video Games: The Collapse and Reconstruction of An Industry. In B. Aslinger and N. B. Huntemann (Eds.): Gaming Globally: Production, Play, and Place. Now York: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 203-207.
Nemiro, Jill E. (2002). The Creative Process in Virtual Teams. Communication Research Journal, vol. 14, no. 1, December 2002, pp. 69-83.
Nov, Oded; Ofer Arazy; and David Anderson. (2011). Dusting for Science: Motivation and Participation of Digital Citizen Science Volunteers. In iConference’11. Proceedings of the 2011 iConference, Seattle, USA, 8 – 11 February 2011. New York: ACM Press, pp. 68-74.
O'Donnell, Casey. (2012). The North American Game Industry. In P. Zackariasson and T. L. Wilson (Eds.): The Video Game Industry: Formation, Present State and Future. New York, NY: Routledge, pp. 99-115.
Olson, Gary M.; and Judith S. Olson. 2000. Distance Matters. Human-Computer Interaction. Vol. 15, no. 2, September 2000, pp. 139-178.
Parker, Felan; Jennifer R. Whitson; and Bart Simon. (2018). Megabooth: The Cultural Intermediation of Indie Games. New Media & Society, vol. 20, no. 5, pp. 1953-1972.
Paulus, Paul B.; and Bernard A. Nijstad. (2003). Group Creativity: Innovation through Collaboration. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press.
Short, Daniel. (2012). Teaching Scientific Concepts Using A Virtual World—Minecraft. Teaching Science-the Journal of the Australian Science Teachers Association, vol. 58, no. 3, September 2012, pp. 55-58.
Spradley, James P. (2016). Participant Observation. Long Grove, Illinois: Waveland Press.
Strauss, Anselm L. (1987). Qualitative Analysis for Social Scientists. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press.
Trainer, Erik H.; and David F. Redmiles. (2018). Bridging the Gap Between Awareness and Trust in Globally Distributed Software Teams. Journal of Systems and Software, vol. 144, October 2018, pp. 328-341.
Tjosvold, Dean, and Mary Tjosvold. (2015). Leadership for Teamwork, Teamwork for Leadership. In D. Tjosvold and M. Tjosvold (Eds.), Building the Team Organization. London: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 65-79.
Wang, Yi; and David Redmiles. (2016). Cheap Talk, Cooperation, and Trust in Global Software Engineering. Empirical Software Engineering, vol. 21, no. 6, December 2016, pp. 2233-2267.
Westecott, Emma. (2013). Independent Game Development as Craft. Loading… The Journal of the Canadian Game Studies Association, vol. 7, no. 11, pp. 78-91.
Yang, Nianhua. (2013). A Similarity Based Trust and Reputation Management Framework for VANETs. International Journal of Future Generation Communication and Networking, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. 25-34.
Acknowledgements
We thank our participants and the anonymous reviewers. This work was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under award 1849718.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Additional information
Publisher’s Note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Freeman, G., McNeese, N.J. Exploring Indie Game Development: Team Practices and Social Experiences in A Creativity-Centric Technology Community. Comput Supported Coop Work 28, 723–748 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-019-09348-x
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10606-019-09348-x