An examination of three digital role-playing game companies—Bethesda, BioWare, and CD Projekt Red—to show how social media and interactive game design have encouraged digital game players to believe that they are, in effect, co-creators of digital games.

With annual gross sales surpassing 100 billion U.S. dollars each of the last two years, the digital games industry may one day challenge theatrical-release movies as the highest-grossing entertainment media in the world. In their examination of the tremendous cultural influence of digital games, Daniel Reardon and David Wright analyze three companies that have shaped the industry: Bethesda, located in Rockville, Maryland, USA; BioWare in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada; and CD Projekt Red in Warsaw, Poland. Each company has used social media and technical content in the games to promote players’ belief that players control the companies’ game narratives. The result has been at times explosive, as empowered players often attempted to co-op the creative processes of games through discussion board forum demands, fund-raising campaigns to persuade companies to change or add game content, and modifications (“modding”) of the games through fan-created downloads. The result has changed the way we understand the interactive nature of digital games and the power of fan culture to shape those games.

"A timely and meticulously researched analysis of major game studios, important and influential video games, and emerging areas of practice and opportunity for technical communication. Written in an accessible and engaging style, the book is highly recommended for those interested in games and writing as well as those considering the future of our profession." - Rudy McDaniel, Professor of Technical Communication, University of Central Florida, USA

"Reardon and Wright offer a comprehensive, compelling, and complex take on 3 love stories between digital role-playing game development companies and the fan-based communities they wooed with varying degrees of effectiveness. Technical Communication plays a prominent role in each of these love stories as the primary means by which developers and fans influenced one another in remarkably expansive co-creative game worlds, for better and for worse." - Rylish Moeller, Associate Professor of Technical Communication & Rhetoric, Utah State University, USA