The consequences of failure in videogame design can be severe: a single game might cost $100 million to develop, and can bankrupt a studio if unsuccessful. With such narrow margins for error, the capturing and holding of videogame users’ attention has become a central focus, yet the attention-capture techniques currently employed in videogames have been criticized for resulting in a loss of knowledge, with attention reduced to a series of standardized systems.

Working at the intersections of media studies, cultural studies and human geography, James Ash’s research critically re-considers such relationships between technology, theory and space. With a focus on notions of ‘affect’ and attention in particular, Ash has used videogame analysis as a particularly useful example of ‘affective design’, exploring the role of technology in everyday life and developing new theoretical accounts of technology.

Arguing that the attention-capture techniques used in contemporary videogames have become increasingly dynamic and complex (e.g. by actively drawing upon and utilizing users’ skills and knowledge in ways that cannot be understood as standardized) Ash has developed a new vocabulary to challenge traditional understandings, crucial for understanding the broader implications of our relationships with objects, systems and environments.

Drawing upon Bernard Steigler’s notion of a ‘retentional economy’ to theorize the relationship between affect and attention, Ash explores the impact of videogame design upon positive affective and emotional states, and the ways in which human sensory capacities are shaped by various technologies. For example, through an examination of various videogames (including commercially successful games such as Modern Warfare 2 and Call of Duty 4 as well as games that received a poor rating) Ash argues that videogame designers utilize techniques of ‘affective amplification’ to produce, manage and hold players’ attention in the hope of enhancing the commercial success of the game.

Developing and critically expanding upon his ESRC-funded PhD (2009) Ash’s series of publications concerning ‘affect’ within videogame design remain the only research outputs to consider the ethnography of game design. They are unique in their utilization of qualitative data including interviews, observant participation and video ethnography collected through access to game players and designers.

Ash has since published a range of work on videogames and games design, is a popular speaker at conferences and events, and is currently writing a monograph on the digital interface using gaming as an example. 'The Interface Envelope' (due for publication with Bloomsbury in 2015) will develop his thinking on affective value in relation to the ability of digital interfaces to shape our capacity to sense space and time.