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326 Mizuko ItoInternet. They often work on tight deadlines, and the fastest groups willturn around an episode within twenty-four hours of release in Japan. Forthis, fansubbers receive no monetary rewards, and they say that they pursuethis work for the satisfaction of making anime available to fans overseas andfor the pleasure they get in working with a close-knit production team.Similarly, fan conventions are organized entirely by volunteers, who atbest might get a free hotel room for months of work in organizing an eventfor thousands of fans. Some of the most dedicated of convention organizersIto interviewed described spending almost all of their vacation time and asubstantial amount of their own financial resources to act as volunteerorganizers. Gamers also pour tremendous amounts of time and energy intoorganizing online guilds and developing their own content to enhance thegaming experience for others, such as game reviews, walk-throughs, mods,and machinima. Because these activities are constructed as fan or playeractivities, and there are legal constraints on their monetization, participantsare doubly hampered in translating these activities into personalfinancial gain. The nonmarket ethic of fan-based production is that thiswork is done “for fellow fans” and not for financial gain. This stance representsa kind of accommodation between fans and commercial mediaindustries, in which the latter tolerates some degree of fan distribution andderivative works, provided they are not framed as commercial work.Box 7.4 Final Fantasy XI: Trouncing TiamatRachel CodyAccording to Wurlpin, 5 a twenty-six-year-old white male in San Diego, “FinalFantasy XI is like a chat room with action in the background.” The game isabout the people. It is the peer groups—from friends to linkshells 6 —thatprovide motivation for many to log in to the game and make the gamemeaningful. The communities and relationships developed within the gameextend beyond it into websites, forums, instant messenger programs, andemail. The players chat with one another across servers or linkshells in thesecommon spaces, sharing their strategies, advice, and questions. Workingcollectively allows a level of success in the game that would be impossibleto attain individually. One of the most impressive acts of coordination andcollaboration during my fieldwork was the slaying of the dragon Tiamat bythe linkshell KirinTheDestroyers (KtD).At the time of our fieldwork, Tiamat was one of the most difficult dragonsin Final Fantasy XI. When linkshells were first attempting to kill her, Tiamatwould often require more than two alliances 7 (thirty-six players) and four