Joshua J Zimmerman

Interests

Research

Games, Play, New Media, Community, Online Communication

Courses

Scholarly Contributions

Chapters

• Zimmerman, J. J. (2021). Public and Applied Humanities (PAH) 330 – The Video Game Industry: An Introduction to the Business of Making Money with Play. In Teaching The Game: A Collection of Syllabi for Game Design, Development, and Implementation.(pp 148 - 162). ETC Press.
• Zimmerman, J. J. (2021). The World Through Another's Eyes. In Wildcat Perspectives(pp np). UA Pressbooks.
• Zimmerman, J. J., & Johnson, A. (2019). Roll for Seduction: Sex as Forbidden Play in Critical Role and The Adventure Zone Fan Fiction. In .” Representing Kink: Fringe Sexuality and Textuality in Literature, Digital Narrative, and Popular Culture(pp 157 - 174). Lexington Books.
• Zimmerman, J. J., Mcallister, K. S., & Ruggill, J. E. (2018). The Overhead Projector: Visuality and Materiality. In Routledge Companion to Media Technology and Obsolescence. New York: Routledge.
• Zimmerman, J. (2016). Psyche and Eros: Rhetorics of Secrecy and Disclosure inGame Developer–Fan Relations. In Technical Communication and Video Games. Taylor and Francis. doi:10.4324/9781315573243-17
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  This chapter discusses Custer's who walks through the pedagogic application of a course to teach layered literacies. It examines a postmortem, a reflection of sorts, which ruminates on the process of making a game. The chapter provides four of the members of a student team that took on a project to gamify a cardiac rehabilitation center's diabetes education program present a postmortem of the development of the game, which was entitled New Me. It describes teaching technical communication in graduate school; class was built on the following premise based on Gee's call for assignments. The chapter presents the class as a simulated game development company. Active development of the project evolved in three iterative stages for which used the software development terms Alpha, Beta, and Release Candidate. The Alpha Stage was a High Concept Document (HCD), which included some amazing sketches, very clear descriptions of the general reward system, and navigation of the game.

Journals/Publications

• Zimmerman, J. (2025). Queer temporality, chrononormativity and monstrous composition in gameplay compilation videos. Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, 17(Issue 2). doi:10.1386/jgvw_00130_1
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  In this article, I examine gameplay compilation videos – videos which compile gameplay, cutscenes and other materials from a computer game – through the lenses of Jack Halberstam’s and Elizabeth Freeman’s respective works on queer temporality, Bo Ruberg’s work on queer play in computer games and Sara Howe’s work on ‘monstrous’ fan compositions and composition practices. Starting from Ruberg’s supposition that Halberstam and Freeman’s theories of chrononormativity extend into game worlds and play – i.e. that there is a temporally normative way to play – this article argues that compilation videos operate as ‘temporal monstrosities’, which both record and are themselves instantiations of queer temporality. I examine two different types of compilation videos and analyse how they employ Howe’s monstrous compositional practices to instantiate queer temporality. Finally, I offer thoughts on future research potential and the videos possible use as archival objects.
• Zimmerman, J. J. (2017). Computer Game Fan Communities, Community Management, and Structures of Membership. Games and Culture, 14(7-8), 896-916. doi:10.1177/1555412017742308
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  Community management is an important but relatively understudied facet of computer game development. This article begins filling this gap by examining how community managers in the computer game industry manage communities of players through the establishment of structures of membership: positions and practices designed to encourage membership hierarchies. Beginning with the construction of an analytical framework through which to understand different subcommunity activities, this article then examines structures of membership at every stage of Kim’s membership life cycle and, ultimately, how those structures help to attract, educate, and retain dedicated community members.