Computer Games and Technical Communication

Contents: Forward, Ken S. McAllister and Judd Ethan Ruggill; Introduction: playing the field: technical communication for technical games, Jennifer deWinter and Ryan M. Moeller. Connecting Professional and Technical Communication and Game Studies: It's all fun and games until someone pulls out a manual, Jeff Greene and Laura Palmer; Come out playing: gender, sexuality, and constrained agency in computer games and technical communication, Marc Ouellette. Industry Documentation and Procedural Guides: Between the novel and the mundane: technical writing and the transition to coin-op video games, Carly A. Kocurek; Just playing around: from procedural manuals to in-game training, Jennifer deWinter; 'It wasn't intended to be an instruction manual': ethics, gaming guides, and technical communication online, A.V. Luce; Game design documents: changing production models, changing demands, Anthony T. Sansone. Getting the Player Involved: User-testing narratives: usability testing, playtesting, and the liminality of computer games, Alex Tilley, Carmen Blandino, and Jennifer deWinter; Psyche and Eros: rhetorics of secrecy and disclosure in game developer-fan relations, Josh Zimmerman; Patching as design rhetoric: tracing the framing and delivery of iterative content documentation in online games, Lee Sherlock; 'You are how you play': data mining and behavioral analysis in social networking games, Stephanie Vie; Working at play: modding, revelation, and transformation in technical communication, Kevin Moberly and Ryan M. Moeller. Games in the Professional and Technical Communication Classroom: Inhabiting professional writing: exploring rhetoric, play,and community in Second Life, Jennifer Bay and Samantha Blackmon; How World of Warcraft could save your classroom: teaching technical communication through the social practices of MMORPGs, Melissa Bianchi and Kyle Bohunicky; The three Ds of procedural literacy: developing, demonstrating, and documenting layered literacies with valve's steam for schools, Jason Custer; Questing through class: gamification in the professional writing classroom, Eva Grouling Snider, Jennifer Grouling, Stephanie Hedge, and Aly Schweigert; From realism to reality: a postmortem of a game design project in a client-based technical communication course, Christopher Ritter, Sameer Ansari, Scott Daner, Sean Murray, and Ryan Reeves. Index.