Taking as its starting point the growing interest in both information systems and organizational studies regarding the role of objects and the material, the research presented investigates the role of objects and artefacts in the collaboration involved in the development of computer games. The presentation will draw on studies of three leading UK computer games design and development studios that aimed to capture an in-depth understanding of the way in which the developers studied create, leverage, and alter shared objects in this work and describe the interactions of the developers both with these objects and with one another in their work. The presentation will seek to: (i) show the important roles objects and artefacts play in this type of interactive software development; (ii) highlight some of the advantages and challenges encountered in research studying objects and artefacts; and (iii) discuss some implications for key conceptualisations of the role of objects in collaboration that flow from this research.
Dr. Nikiforos Panourgias is Research Fellow at the Innovation, Knowledge and Organisational Networks (IKON) research centre of Warwick Business School. He is currently working on an exploratory research project funded by UK-IRC on the challenges of commercialising the innovation of ‘serious games’ by computer games companies. Before the current project he worked on an ESRC-funded research project studying interdisciplinary collaboration in the design and development of computer games. Prior to joining IKON he was studying for his PhD at the London School of Economics. His thesis, supported financially by the EPSRC, studied the design and development of an ICT-based platform for the cross-border settlement of securities transactions between the UK and Ireland, France, Belgium, and Holland. While at the LSE he was also a Research Student at the Centre for the Assessment of Risk and Regulation (CARR) for two years and taught on the subject of e-commerce. His main research interests are in the areas of heterogeneity in the design and development of ICTs and the role of ICTs in the reconfiguration of many areas of social life, from games and entertainment to markets and marketplaces. Prior to his thesis, he worked at the ISI Group of the LSE as Research Officer under Dr. Susan Scott on the Moving Markets project that studied the strategic use of ICTs in clearing and settlement arrangements in the reconfiguration of financial markets.
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