Technology, technicity, and emerging practices of temporal sensitivity in videogames

In this paper I develop the concept of ‘technicity’ to theorise how technology shapes spatiotemporal perception. This concept of technicity is applied to the development of skilled play in the fighting videogame Street Fighter IV. Drawing upon a larger research project consisting of participant observation, interviews, and video ethnography with professional and nonprofessional competitive players, I develop an in-depth analysis of how information about the animation system for the game is compiled and used to develop new sensitivities to time. In doing so, I argue that this is one example of the ways in which a variety of technologies shape users’ capacities to sense space and time through the habitual development of skill.