Tomb Raiders and Space Invaders: Videogame Forms and Contexts
... Consequently, the game emotions elicited by the real-world activity of playing the game are more salient during the moment-to-moment gameplay than the represented world emotions, which have a comparatively lower reality-status. Playing the game makes one focus on its goals, rules and mechanics, potentially overruling the emotional impact of the fictional elements [King/Krzywinska 2006, Rusch/Koenig 2007. This is such a common phenomenon that early game discourse declared the relationship between game and fiction as principally arbitrary [Juul 1999, Aarseth 2004] (a position that has been revised in the meantime [Juul 2005, Koster 2005, King / Krzywinska 2006]). ...
... As King and Krzywinska (2006: 168) proclaim, video games "do not exist in a vacuum". On the contrary, they "often draw upon or produce material that has social, cultural or ideological resonances, whether these are explicit or implicit and whether they can be understood as reinforcing, negotiating or challenging meanings or assumptions generated elsewhere in society" (King and Krzywinska, 2006). Accordingly, examinations of satire in video games can help to build a picture of how these games respond to prevalent events, issues, and ideas. ...
... These expectations are represented within the diegetic gamespace via Joel's initial attitude towards Ellie: Joel is loath to take on the burden of a dependent girl and expresses an annoyance that borders on disgust with qualities traditionally associated with youth and femininity. Ellie, however, proves to be a foil both for the Damsel in Distress and for the Strong Female Character (King and Krzywinska 2006;Conroy et al. 2023). She is by turns soft and steely, fragile and tough, wily and noble, vicious and compassionate. ...
In this article, I analyse the function of supporting child-characters in contemporary videogames. I integrate Stephen Zimmerly’s typology of sidekicks in Young Adult literature with critical writing on the ‘Daddening’ of videogames, a coinage that refers to the rise in the number of videogames that centre on the filial bond between a father figure and a child. Bringing these ideas into conversation with each other allows me to expand Zimmerly’s sidekick typology to include the ‘Ludic Gateway’, the ‘Morality Certificate’, and the ‘Disciplinary Tool’. I explore each category in greater depth using two case studies: The Last of Us series (2012; 2014; 2020) and the God of War series (2008; 2018; 2022). These commercially successful, critically acclaimed franchises rely on young deuteragonists to humanize and redeem the gruff, aggressive, violent male player character. Furthermore, the child sidekicks also serve to regulate the player’s in-game behaviour by way of a parasocial relationship. Using a close reading approach, I demonstrate that the supporting child-characters function as meta-critical devices to discipline gaming communities and the video game medium itself.
... The significance of recognizing video games as a distinct medium that merges elements of literature, film, and other media is accentuated, while concurrently spotlighting the potential for novel storytelling avenues through player agency and interactivity. By scrutinizing specific instances, such as the "Tomb Raider" and "Resident Evil" franchises, the study illustrates how video games can effectively captivate players in narrative experiences that are both reminiscent of established literary motifs and pioneering in their incorporation of interactive components (King & Krzywinska, 2006). ...
The video game industry has flourished since the 1970s, and literature has had a profound impact on game creation, from classic novels to graphic novels and comics. Although adapting literary works can enhance video games' cultural significance, it may hinder originality. The Lord of the Rings series has left a lasting influence on gaming, with various adaptations showcasing the potential of literature to inspire gaming experiences. Balancing literary inspiration with innovative gameplay is a challenge for developers, but achieving equilibrium is crucial for immersive experiences. Analysing the relationship between literature and gaming highlights the creative possibilities of both mediums, emphasizing the importance of fostering originality. This article explores how video game adaptations of Tolkien's novels offer insights into British culture, demonstrating games' ability to connect diverse cultures and promote understanding.
... 1978 brachte "Space Invaders" -entwickelt von Tomohiro Nishikado und herausgegeben von Taito -bedeutende Neuerungen im "Shoot 'em up"-Genre [400]. Das Spiel etablierte eine Spielmechanik, bei der Spieler von einem festen Standpunkt aus invasiv vorrückende Aliens abwehren mussten, was den Grundstein für viele zukünftige Entwicklungen in diesem Genre legte. ...
(German) Studienbuch mit Blick auf den Studiengang Digital Games Business (B.A.).
Vindigni, G. (2024): Games-Wirtschaft und Digital Games Business (302 S.).
Dieses akademische Studienwerk erforscht die historischen, soziokulturellen, medienökonomischen und rechtlichen Rahmenbedingungen der Spieleentwicklung und deckt auf, wie informationstechnologische Progressivitäten und gesellschaftliche Strömungen die digitale Spielelandschaft nachhaltig geformt und diversifiziert haben. Es analysiert die Rezeptionsgeschichte in Bezug auf die Traditions-, Ursprungs-, Form- und Wirkgeschichte des Spielens, von den frühen mechanischen Ideationen und Inventionen bis zu normativen und prozessualen Innovationen der Gegenwart, die in anspruchsvollen digitalen bzw. immersiven Welten münden. Dabei wird die eklektische Konvergenz einfacher Spielmechaniken zu komplexen digitalen Ökosystemen beleuchtet und die emergenten Entwicklungen moderner Spielmechaniken aufgezeigt, einschließlich der politischen, ökonomischen, rechtlichen und sozialen Konsequenzen dieser Disruptionsprozesse.
Das Studienheft bietet im Sinne des lernzieltaxonomischen Theorie-Praxis-Transfers eine tiefgehende Betrachtung der strukturellen, prozeduralen, ökonomischen und kreativen Aspekte der Spieleindustrie. Es legt dar, wie traditionelle und moderne Spielmechaniken konvergieren und durch das Aufkommen neuer Geschäftsmodelle und Marktstrategien in der gegenwärtigen Lebens- und Arbeitswirklichkeit transformiert werden. Zielgruppe des Werkes sind Studierende, Forschende und Praktiker, die ein vertieftes Interesse an der Ökonomie digitaler Spiele haben. Das Studienheft strebt danach, umfassende Einblicke in die historische und gegenwärtige Entwicklung der Branche zu geben, um ein profundes Verständnis ihrer Komplexität, u. a. die Marktsegmentierung in Bezug auf die Trias Segmenting-Targeting-Positioning und zukünftigen Trajektorien zu fördern. Eine erweiterte Version (mit ca. 800 S.) wird fachwissenschaftlich verlegt werden.
... It is on this notion of presence that I focus on in this paper. Most prominent work in game studies on presence considers it alongside the concept of "immersion" (Calleja, 2011;King & Krzywinska, 2006;Murray, 1997;Vella, 2015), focusing on the player-avatar relationship, and stems instead from Marvin Minsky's more spatial, distance-oriented telepresence (1980). These are useful perspectives, but take the term in a slightly different direction to how I treat it here. ...
I examine the prevalent construction of the long-lost yet technologically more highly-advanced society in the Mass Effect trilogy and The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. First, I situate this construction within its long history, which finds a common touchstone in the myth of Atlantis. Through the lens of Jacques Derrida's hauntology, I consider how this construction is used in these two popular and prevalent yet different examples to evoke nostalgia for their own fictional pasts. I analyse the ways in which the ghosts of these gameworlds haunt the player in the present, through modalities of threat, nostalgia, lost futures and destiny. These manifest on various levels of the game: the gameworlds' fictional pasts (often overlapping with what would popularly be called a game's "lore"); digital materiality; and the games' spatial environments and the traversal of them. The examples differ in how and why the player interfaces with the gameworlds' ghosts on each layer, opening up some of the potential strategies for this game-internal nostalgia and haunting, while not being exhaustive.
http://gamestudies.org/2104/articles/dom_ford
... Lankoski and Björk (2015), for instance, use the term without reference to these traditions thereby inadvertently lumping formalism together with structuralism, pattern language in architecture and game design theory. And while works by film scholars such as King and Krzywinska (2002, 2006a, 2006b and Wolf (2001) are situated within a neoformalist paradigm (which itself builds on the literary tradition), neoformalism remains an unmentioned and unexplored backdrop for ideas which means the focus moves seemingly randomly between formal elements like rules or narrative devices, experiences like presence, and even the industry's production model, without a legitimizing and guiding approach. Although I am not claiming that these approaches are not in their own sense formalisms (I am not making an exclusive claim to the term here), I am arguing, in line with Thompson (1988, p. 3), that not engaging with these traditions also keeps these approaches from building on a set of core assumptions (on what constitutes form, engagement with the artefact and the relationship of the artefact to the world around it) which risks them becoming unfocused, inconsistent and even self-contradictory. ...
This article provides a general overview of the theoretical foundations of formalism to assess their usefulness for the study of videogames and thereby establish grounds for a more robust approach. After determining that formalism has been used as a go-to term for a variety of ontological and methodological approaches in game studies, this article draws more specifically from Russian Formalism to use the label for a functionalist approach interested in how formal devices in videogames work to cue aesthetic responses. Through an exploration of three pillars of Russian Formalism, a videogame formalism emerges that focuses on the workings of the game as a machine while still taking the aesthetic player response as the methodological starting point and acknowledging the importance of synchronic and diachronic historical perspectives in establishing the functioning of game devices.
... Such a correspondence contributes to create this make-believe atmosphere within which gamers feel the gameworld and its objects as realistic as possible (Low, 2001). When these two worlds collide against each other, realism in gaming lies deeply on how persuasive the correspondences between their representations of reality are for gamers (Egenfeldt-Nielsen;Smith;Tosca, 2008;King;Krzywinska, 2006). In so far as the representations of reality in a gaming world are somehow congruent with those representations lived by gamers in their mundane world, the ontological status of such worlds is cognitively to be held as equally "real" at least in gamers' brain (Aarseth, 2007;Karhulahti, 2012). ...
In recent years, game-related scholars have claimed that the
study of videogames can reveal important insights for
understanding and challenging the concept of realism advocated
by previous theories of visual culture. In fact, videogames have
increasingly been acknowledged as a valuable site for opening
up new ways of interrogating traditional theories of realism.
Drawing upon Alexander Galloway’s seminal work Social realism
in gaming, the argument we seek to advance here is that: his
theorizations of social realism in gaming alongside the notion of
“congruence requirement” are largely grounded on indirect
realist assumptions. In order to provide support to our claim, we
assumed that his theory of realism is suggestive of an indirect
form of correspondence between the fidelity of gamers’
ordinary world, their derivative actions within the gaming-world
and the modes of representation of objective reality depicted in
videogames.
... Even in the early days of virtual reality however, distinctions were made between perceptual immersion (fooling the senses), as Howard Rheingold [38] and Alison McMahan [25] noted, as opposed to a more fragile sense of deep emotional engagement with events in the fiction [30]. Games aim to create a multi-levelled sense of immersion for players: often games solicit cognitive engagement through their gameplay mechanics and while a more emotional engagement is developed through the players connection to their game character and through the design of the environment in which the mechanics appear (see [22]). We have sought in our practice to bring such tried and tested methods to our work with museum partners. ...
Immersive technologies can be used to broaden the possibilities of storytelling in heritage contexts to enrich the ways in which museum collections are interpreted and to facilitate more active engagement with history. To this end, as part of the United Kingdom’s Industrial Strategy, new models, methods, and workflows are being developed to help realise the value of such technologies across the country. However, prior art shows that immersive technologies present particular challenges with respect to usability, uptake, onboarding, sustainability, and authenticity. Towards addressing these challenges, a programme of action research has been established across a series of museums in Cornwall. Focusing upon the Augmented Telegrapher at Porthcurno Telegraph Museum, a co-designed social escape room experience that utilises the Microsoft HoloLens to simulate a telegraphy training exercise from World War 2, this article addresses what partnerships with smaller, rural establishments need to effectively realise the value of immersive technologies. Using the work of Erik Champion as a critical lens, the article shows how an iterative constructivist approach leveraging game design principles can underpin success. This is distilled into a set of recommended interaction blueprints and transdisciplinary working practices that will be of interest to curators, researchers, and serious game developers.
... Although the system was original, it was a commercial failure. King and Krzywinska [26] suggested that the high price and physical discomfort while playing the game contributed to the demise of this device. ...
In this paper we describe the main concepts of a new game genre (live-action virtual reality game) made possible by the advances of virtual reality technologies and context-awareness. This set of games requires that players wear HMD devices, from where they see a complete virtual world that is built using part of the physical configuration as the basic geometry and context information. games keep both the virtual and real-worlds superimposed, requiring players to physically move in the environment and to use different interaction paradigms (such as tangible & embodied interaction) to complete game activities. As tracking physical elements is a key issue in the implementation of games, in this paper we also describe an architecture that addresses indoor navigation and tracking in live-action virtual reality games. The system we propose is based on infrared markers, working on the infrared spectral region that provides low optical noise and better precision when compared to traditional solutions based on fiducial markers. Furthermore, this paper describes our system and presents two case studies based on our architecture.
... Among the extensive bibliography available on this type of videogame and on online mul tiplayer systems, we would highlight the following fundamental studies: Barton (2008), Kelly (2004), King and Krzywinska (2006), Peterson (2012), Taylor (2006). must first create a character, which he or she defines in all its details (race, profes sion, weapons, etc.), and introduces it into the game, where it increases in level and experience through Player vs. Player (PvP) fights, or Player vs. Environment (PvE) fights, or by carrying out different adventures or missions called quests. ...
What was a hero in Classical Antiquity? Why is it that their characteristics have transcended chronological and cultural barriers while they are still role models in our days? How have their features changed to be embodied by comic superheroes and film? How is their essence vulgarized and turned into a mass consumption product? What has happened with their literary and artistic representation along centuries of elitist Western culture? This book aims at posing these and other questions about heroes, allowing us to open a cultural reflection over the role of the classical world in the present, its meaning in mass media, and the capacity of the Greek and Roman civilizations to dialogue with the modern world. This dialogue offers a glimpse into modern cultural necessities and tendencies which can be seen in several aspects, such as the hero’s vulnerability, the archetype’s banalization, the possibility to extend the heroic essence to individuals in search of identities – vital as well as gender or class identities. In some products (videogames, heavy metal music) our research enables a deeper understanding of the hero’s more obvious characteristics, such as their physical and moral strength. All these tendencies – contemporary and consumable, contradictory with one another, yet vigorous above all – acquire visibility by means of a polyhedral vehicle which is rich in possibilities of rereading and reworking: the Greco-Roman hero. In such a virtual and postmodern world as the one we inhabit, it comes not without surprise that we still resort to an idea like the hero, which is as old as the West.
... The experience of spectacle, wonder, hard fun, and "functional challenge" (in Cole's terminology) has been covered elsewhere and is common in digital gameplay (King & Krzywinska, 2006;Lazzaro, 2004Lazzaro, , 2009Surman, 2007). The focus of this article is not on this, but on exploring Cole's notion of emotional challenge, and the complex, mixed-affect emotional experience that often arises from playing more avant-garde games (Schrank & Bolter, 2014;Sharp, 2015). ...
The nascent growth of video games has led to great leaps in technical understanding in how to create a functional and entertaining play experience. However, the complex, mixed-affect, eudaimonic entertainment experience that is possible when playing a video game—how it is formed, how it is experienced, and how to design for it—has been investigated far less than hedonistic emotional experiences focusing on fun, challenge, and “enjoyment.” Participants volunteered to be interviewed about their mixed-affect emotional experiences of playing avant-garde video games. New conceptions of agency emerged (actual, interpretive, fictional, mechanical) from the analysis of transcripts and were used to produce a framework of four categories of agency. This new framework offers designers and researchers the extra nuance in conversations around agency and contributes to the discussion of how we can design video games that allow for complex, reflective, eudaimonic emotional experiences.
... These concepts about what games should be like simply become "commonsense" understanding about games, and people stop questioning why videogame culture is a certain way (G. King and Krzywinska, 2006, pg 188). These changes are often imperceptible, occurring so gradually that most people don't realize that they happened at all. ...
Are games worthy of academic attention? Can they be used effectively in the classroom, in the research laboratory, as an innovative design tool, as a persuasive political weapon? Game Mods: Design Theory and Criticism aims to answer these and more questions. It features chapters by authors chosen from around the world, representing fields as diverse as architecture, ethnography, puppetry, cultural studies, music education, interaction design and industrial design. How can we design, play with and reflect on the contribution of game mods, related tools and techniques, to both game studies and to society?
What is a mod? Mods, short for ‘modifications’, are user- made edits made to PC videogames, the game equivalent of fan fiction. Traditionally free, they range from minor code changes to fix bugs or smoothen gameplay to ‘total conversions’—complete overhauls of art assets to form an entirely new experience.
Game modifications can be artwork, skins (graphic look), tools, total game transformations, new code, or, perhaps less clearly, games ported to other platforms by fans. They can also be homage games, which link back to earlier separate, but thematically-linked game worlds. These are not necessarily mods in a strict sense. The endgame, rather than higher, locked levels, could be the modding itself, to extend and expand the enjoyment of the game. In a similar vein, Scacchi (2010) proposed five types of game mods: user interface customizations, game conversions, machinima and art mods, game computer customization, and game console hacking.
So there are many critical and theoretical and design-related issues lurking beneath the surface of game mods. Critical issues range from how to judge the aesthetic, technical and social values of game mods, to how or even whether one can construct general principles of criticism that can be applied to the judgment of game mods. Would this differ significantly from criticism in game studies? Are the theoretical issues involved in game mods merely a subset of game design theory, or something else? Should one reference or pay homage to the original game, can a designer display genuine innovation and creativity in the design of a mod? Could the design of game mods, and the design of tools to create game mods, be improved through criticism and theory? Are these toolsets useful and usable in teaching? And can the tools and techniques of game mod design be applied in areas beyond computer games?
Little empirical research has investigated how players identify with video game characters. In this paper, I use data from interviews with video game players who are members of marginalized groups, to interrogate the links made between how players identify with video game characters and the importance of representation. I discuss how games‟ ludic, bodily and socially interactive aspects result in players‟ being self-reflexive rather than identifying with the game characters/avatars; whereas narrative aspects of games help players identify with characters. Different types of games, moreover, shape the types of relationships players have with the onscreen characters. This paper looks at the links between how players identify with different kinds of video game characters, and concludes with the implications this has for arguments about the importance of the representation of marginalized groups in video games.
Studienheft mit Blick auf den Studiengang Digital Games Business (B.A.). Vindigni, G. (2024): Das vorliegende Studienheft (102 S.) baut inhaltlich auf dem Studienheft 1247 „Games-Wirtschaft" auf, welches als grundlegendes Kompendium konzipiert wurde.
The article is devoted to the study of the problem of defining and classifying interactive cinema as a special media format in the modern digital space. The relevance of the research is conditioned by the rapid development of hybrid forms of media content, blurring the traditional boundaries between cinema and video games, as well as the lack of clear criteria for their theoretical classification. The research methodology is based on a comparative analysis of the characteristics of video games and cinema using M. McLuhan's theoretical concepts of ‘hot’ and ‘cold’ media, the ludological approach and narratological analysis. Interactive projects of Quantic Dream studio – ‘Fahrenheit’ and ‘Heavy Rain’, as well as examples of experimental formats in traditional cinema were used as the research material. The scientific novelty of the research consists in the attempt to distinguish interactive cinema as a separate type of media content; in the proposal of the concept of “hybrid media”, which combines the principles of visual narrative cinematography and interactivity, which allows us to classify new formats more precisely and to understand their features and possibilities more deeply. As a result of the research: the essential differences of interactive cinema from both traditional video games (the absence of classical game mechanics and progression systems) and cinematography (the presence of active user participation and variability of plot development) were revealed; the definition of a new category of “hybrid media” characterized by the combination of cinematic principles of visual narrative with elements of interactive interaction was proposed and substantiated; the specific position of the user in interactive cinema was analyzed, The results of the study contribute to the development of the theory of modern digital media and can be used for further study of hybrid forms of media content.
This article is a critical review of studies on gaming communities. In particular, it analyses the use of subcultural, post-subcultural and postmodern subcultural theorists in relation to video games players. Academic use of sociological concepts to study gaming communities, such as neo-tribe, subculture, lifestyle, and scene, is not always explained and almost all sociological instruments show limits in engaging the complex and changing phenomena of video gaming cultures. The article focuses on the misleading use of the term subculture and, therefore, analyses effective applications of post-subcultural and post-modern subcultural approaches to specific case studies. Eventually, the relation between gamers and video games cultures is analysed. In this sense, I argue that the complexity of gaming communities is difficult to be framed and I suggest the use of the Bourdieusian concept of champ.
The irruption and broad adoption of digital technologies such as video games are reshaping individuals and affecting fundamental aspects of their symbolic and material configuration such as their identity, gaze, body, and agency. This chapter focuses on what video gamers’ identities tell us about the contemporary processes of identity formation. Drawing on social theorists who have approached the crisis of identity in contemporary society, the chapter sets out a theoretical framework that describes the shift in the identity construction models from those based on solid and permanent identities to those centered around fluid and fragmented ones. The text then explores the most relevant empirical research on gaming and identity, linking it to the main debates on the subject. Not only do video games express the fluid, contingent, and volatile nature of identity in today’s world; they also anticipate social settings in which the very notion of identity is under scrutiny.
»Fictional Practices of Spirituality« provides critical insight into the implementation of belief, mysticism, religion, and spirituality into worlds of fiction, be it interactive or non-interactive. This first volume focuses on interactive, virtual worlds - may that be the digital realms of video games and VR applications or the imaginary spaces of life action role-playing and soul-searching practices. It features analyses of spirituality as gameplay facilitator, sacred spaces and architecture in video game geography, religion in video games and spiritual acts and their dramaturgic function in video games, tabletop, or LARP, among other topics. The contributors offer a first-time ever comprehensive overview of play-rites as spiritual incentives and playful spirituality in various medial incarnations.
In this chapter, I analyse videogames that cast a child-character in the role of hero. I point out the recurrence of cooperative mechanics in these games. Using Röki and Knights and Bikes as examples, I suggest that an emphasis on cooperation challenges the idea that ‘heroism’ is an essential, innate quality possessed by an exceptional individual, and instead frames heroism as something that happens between agents. I argue that, despite the wide-spread use of The Hero’s Journey as a narrative structure, there is something fundamentally ‘unheroic’ about the storytelling affordances of videogames. I adapt terminology from picturebook theory to describe the interplay of semiotic planes in videogames, and appropriate Ursula Le Guin’s ‘Carrier Bag Theory of Fiction’ to develop an ‘Inventory System Theory of Fiction’. I conclude that the child-hero subverts the fetishization of adult independence and honours the neediness of humans of all ages.
Background
The smartphone market is saturated with apps and games purporting to promote mental wellness. There has been a significant number of studies assessing the impact of these digital interventions.
Motivation
The majority of review papers solely focussed on the impact of strict rules and award systems of the apps. There is comparatively little attention paid to other game techniques designed to encourage creativity, a lusory attitude, and playful experiences.
Results
This gap is addressed in this paper in a consideration and analysis of a purposive selection of six mobile games marketed for wellbeing, our focus is on both external and internal motivations that these games offer. Our specific interest is how these games balance rule-based play with creativity. We find that ludic play is a highly-structured, rule-bound, goal-oriented play, in contrast to paedic play which a freeform, imaginative, and expressive. We argue that while ludic play is purposed towards the promotion of habit formation and generates feelings of accomplishment, it nonetheless relies heavily on extrinsic motivation to incentivise engagement. By contrast, paidic play, specifically role-playing, improvisation, and the imaginative co-creation of fictional game worlds, can be used effectively in these games to facilitate self-regulation, self-distancing, and therefore provides intrinsically-motivated engagement. In the context of games for mental wellbeing, ludic play challenges players to complete therapeutic exercises, while paidic play offers a welcoming refuge from real world pressures and the opportunity to try on alternate selves.
Conclusion
Our intention is not to value paidic play over ludic play, but to consider how these two play modalities can complement and counterbalance each other to generate more effective engagement.
While recent data from the Entertainment Software Association indicates there is close to a 50/50 split in gender identification of gamers between men and women, the environment created by stereotypical depictions of women in games as well as negative community interactions continue creating a hostile environment for women who identify as gamers. Since the 2010s, the presence of female playable characters in major studio games began to appear with polarized reception. Horizon Zero Dawn (2017) and Horizon Forbidden West (2022) require players to assume the role of Aloy, a female machine hunter and outcast without a male playable character option. Using Glick and Fiske’s concept of benevolent sexism and the three frames outlined in Schröter and Thon’s video game narrative analysis framework (narrative, ludic, and social), Aloy's narrative was analyzed to highlight how it disrupts amatonormative benevolent sexism in female-led games.
This article advances an affect-based theorization of genre as atmospheric assemblage by applying such a framework to an analysis of videogame genre. The affective excess originating from the relations between the components of the assemblage is experienced by the player as a specific type of thinking-moving-feeling understood as a wholistic atmosphere. By looking at the cases of the soulsborne, rouguelike, and metroidvania genres, the article explains how an assemblage framework is useful to explain how players experience individual videogames as belonging to the same genre despite noticeable differences between them. On the other hand, a final example, that of the puzzle game, illustrates how minimal changes to the articulation of an assemblage enables quite different experiences for the players that may result in the establishment of a different genre. This article suggests that the atmospheric assemblage framework could be applied to other media forms, such as television and film.
This study strives to investigate models and theoretical frameworks that have beenused for sociological analysis of gaming communities. Video gaming culture is acomplex phenomenon affected by ongoing relevant changes. On the one hand, newtechnological devices and software have paved the spread of pervasive games (Capraet al., 2005; Mäyrä, 2015); on the other hand, the birth of live streaming, professionale-sports, and exploitation of workers represented the most evident part of animportant turn in the relation between gaming culture and labour (Johnson &Woodcock, 2018; Woodcock & Johnson, 2019).
(15) (PDF) DiGRA-Australia-2023-Extended-Abstract-Template. Def.. Available from: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/368362192_DiGRA-Australia-2023-Extended-Abstract-Template_Def [accessed Feb 09 2023].
This chapter is intended to provide a detailed, chronological outline of how the Gamergate movement unfolded, including the events and discourse that preceded it. To begin, it discusses existing gender discourse within the gaming community, including harassment in online gaming, the representation of women in games, and the masculine nature of videogames and technology. It then recounts key events from within the games community that led up to and informed Gamergate, before moving on to an overview of the harassment and discourse that characterised Gamergate itself. This chapter explains how, despite a carefully constructed narrative to the contrary, Gamergate was intentionally orchestrated as a front to attack women within the games community. Rather than being a quest for ‘ethics in games journalism’ as asserted, Gamergate instead seemed to stem from anxieties that women and minorities were being ‘pandered to’ by the games industry, the result of which was (or would be) the ruination of videogames.
La industria del videojuego actual es heredera directa de un contexto sociohistórico marcado por la hegemonía de unas pocas economías ubicadas en Norteamérica, el Asia rica y Europa occidental. Estos centros de producción han establecido una serie de relaciones asimétricas y un reparto desigual no solo de los recursos tecnológicos necesarios para crear videojuegos, sino también del espacio simbólico que da vida a las identidades, reduciendo la diversidad cultural a una serie gastada de tópicos excluyentes. El objetivo de este estudio es identificar cómo la reciente emergencia de nuevos centros de producción antaño subsumidos a la periferia del medio repercute hoy en la construcción de identidades culturales a través del videojuego. ¿Qué hacen industrias emergentes como la de Latinoamérica con los nuevos recursos disponibles para hacer llegar sus obras a todo el mundo? ¿Cómo se equilibran las fuerzas globales y locales en el desarrollo de videojuegos desde los márgenes cada vez más difusos de esta Industria Cultural? La pregunta de investigación se responde a través de un proceso en tres partes enmarcado en el análisis crítico del discurso, que implica: en primer lugar, un análisis crítico del debate académico en torno a las ideas de globalización, occidentalización y norteamericanización de la cultura; en segundo lugar, un análisis histórico, económico y estructural de la industria del videojuego desde el modelo centro-periferia; finalmente, un exhaustivo análisis textual de los significantes culturales presentes en el videojuego latinoamericano, bautizado como «análisis etnoludográfico». Las conclusiones revelan una tendencia notable entre los creadores latinoamericanos a generar contenido local pensado para el público global, aprovechando la progresiva descentralización de los recursos sociales necesarios para crear y distribuir videojuegos. Teniendo esto en cuenta, se recomienda seguir estudiando la producción de contenidos de carácter local en las regiones de la periferia y apostar en futuras investigaciones por análisis centrados tanto en la creación como en la relación que se establece entre los jugadores y los textos en cuanto que espacios donde (re)negociar la formación de identidades culturales.
This article explores a commonly used feature of many different videogame genres, namely slow motion. It discusses the origins of slow motion, its ontological qualities and why it is important to analyze a game mechanic’s audiovisual elements when doing game studies research. Slow motion in videogames can be divided into two broad categories: cinematic slow motion and bullet time. The focus in this article is on bullet time, which allows the player interactive control and an advantage in overcoming enemies and obstacles found in the gameplay. This retooling of slow motion to suit interactive use has consequences for the aesthetic qualities of the effect. Bullet time takes advantage of slow motion’s intrinsic qualities to highlight player control, feedback, and audiovisual spectacle. Bullet time is a good example of how videogames’ gameplay mechanics have a strong focus on rules while also offering an audiovisual experience that creates aesthetic pleasure.
While the metaphor of “language” to analyze different forms of spatiality is old, it has recently found a topicality in the field of video game studies, thanks to some formalist works (Aarseth, 2001; Pearce, 2008; Siabra-Fraile, 2008), proposing to expose the repertoire and the rules of what would be a new “shared grammar of level design” (Kremers, 2009). If its recurring presence from one game to another has been highlighted, in particular within works focusing on the concept of “ludème” (Borvo, 1977; Schmoll, 2017; Hansen, 2020), its communicational significance, nevertheless, has been underestimated. In this article, we propose a conceptualization of this idea of a "language" of the constructed and represented spatiality of video games, based on examples taken from the level design of the The Legend of Zelda series (Nintendo, 1986-2017). After a brief review of research works focused on video games space, we show that level design constructs a situation of communication based on at least five terms (level designer, critical path, message, navigation attitude, player), which we model after the theories of “play design” (Genvo, 2008) and of the “appropriation space” (Bonenfant, 2008). We underline the existence of a possible dichotomy, between injunctive and inciting language, before introducing a sixth term to the equation, embodied by the concept of “instance of mediation” (textual, cartographic or sensual), and by showing, finally, its role in making the communication situation between the game and the player more fluid.
In this study, I propose a six-tiered classification system on how narrative and gameplay sequences interact and intersect in the videogames medium. Since previous studies offer gameplay and storytelling as discordant processes, such a classification can facilitate an understanding of the different ways they can work together. I perform formal and temporal analyses on a sample set of games discovered by mobilizing community input. Through a close reading process, I categorize the medium into six distinct groups depending on and sorted by the theoretical distance between the gameplay and narrative sequences and discuss and define the strategies employed in each category with examples.
The games are involving more and more in our daily lives with each passing day. This medium, which was once only intended for “entertainment”, has shown itself both in the mainstream media and academia as a medium that attracted attention in many different countries, especially in the USA in the late 90s. Especially with the 20th century, miniature war games, table-top board games, role-playing games and digital games have reached a much wider audience around the world. Game Culture, which is a subculture of its own, is considered as a subculture by the mainstream conscious nowadays, yet it has reached mainstream acclaim its subheadings. The formation of this culture gained momentum, especially in the 1970s, and in the following years it began to grow exponentially. With the development of technology and changes on the production logic of games, games that create an individual culture are one of …
Drawing on Janet Murray (1997), Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2004), and other previous proposals, this article conceptualizes player agency as the possibility space for “meaningful” choice expressed via player action that translates into avatar action, afforded and constrained by a videogame’s design. It further distinguishes between four core dimensions of agency thus conceptualized: First, spatial-explorative agency is afforded by those elements of a videogame’s design that determine the player’s ability to navigate and traverse the game spaces via their avatar. Second, temporal-ergodic agency is afforded by those elements of a videogame’s design that determine the player’s options for interacting with the videogame as a temporal system. Third, configurative-constructive agency is afforded by those elements of a videogame’s design that allow the player to configure their avatar and/or (re)construct the game spaces. Fourth, narrative-dramatic agency is afforded by those elements of a videogame’s design that determine the player’s “meaningful” impact on the unfolding story. The article then moves on to analyze two case studies of independently developed videogames: ZA/UM’s role-playing game Disco Elysium (2019), whose complex nonlinear narrative structure primarily affords configurative and narrative agency, and System Era Softworks’s sandbox adventure game Astroneer (2019), whose procedurally generated game spaces and “open” game mechanics primarily afford explorative, constructive, and dramatic agency.
Critically examines some of the research approaches to video games both in Russia and abroad. The article summarizes conclusions of the leading Western specialists in video games studies and proposes an alternative understanding of video games as particular emergent interactive socialcommunicative means of contemporary digital culture that input to general education, goalsetting, and other gamers’ skills.
This study aims to understand the involvement and immersion present in some of Rockstar Games’ videogames. They were chosen due to their popularity, in addition to the high detail in the topography of Los Angeles and California as a whole, that portray a digital, playable version in which the player must face rivals, enemies and contenders in these modern simulacra systems. During the research, we found the transition from “movie space” to “game space” in the previously mentioned. Despite the proximity to reality, games still have their own worlds that differ from each other. The tested games feature a “world-building” concept that supports expanded and intense environments thanks to technical structures and “reality mechanisms” employed in the creation of digital California. The concept of immersion is present in the games through events that involve spatial, performance and narrative interaction. Despite the freedom provided within the game, it is possible to create stories and tell worlds through a transmedia area that connects the player to the environment.
Deafness is an often undervalued but increasing problem amongst the worlds population. Besides the difficulty in hearing sounds, it involves many cognitive and emotional issues, like learning difficulties, isolation, and disempowerment. In this paper, the design of artifacts for deaf people is analyzed from two different perspectives: Technology and Communication Science. Regarding technological issues, research shows how Augmented Reality can be applied using screen interfaces or smart glasses translating sounds into visual stimuli; looking at the communication possibilities, the focus is on storytelling and how it can be combined with the technology used to engage people, enhance learning activity and create a community. By looking into these two aspects, the suggested approach is to merge them in a conceptual creative project that can be appealing and useful to the public, through the use of interactive storytelling, while also using the visual benefits of an immersive Augmented Reality experience.
Through a literature review, we explore fantasy in serious games, the function of fantasy, and what contributes to fantasy. This research firstly regards fantasy as a game characteristic, focusing on the definition of fantasy in games. We find two directions: Mental activities and Artifacts. We construct a taxonomy of fantasy from multiple aspects. This classification can help game researchers and designers understand what fantasy is, and how it can be applied in serious games. This classification enables our next step, to conduct a review of experimental studies, testing whether and how the involvement of fantasy improves the effectiveness of serious games.
The Grand Theft Auto franchise features prominently within existing research exploring graphic, virtual, lawless, and damagingly realistic interpersonal violence within video games. Following a review of this literature, we empirically interrogate notions of the ‘realistic’ and the ‘violent’ during gameplay, finding that the undertones of systemic, structural, capitalistic violence are experienced by players as providing the gritty sense of the ‘real’ that the game has been criticised for. Using Galtung’s concept of ‘structural violence’ and Žižek’s notion of the ‘real’, we unpack structural violence as the forerunning violent experience in the open world game. Due to the hidden and subdued nature of this violence, often taken for granted and experienced passively, we argue that it is the most impactful player experience that simultaneously makes the game playable and contextualises violent game activities. For cultural criminology, our data suggest that embedded and discrete forms of violence should be the leading edge of concern when studying the digital economy and playable forms of social harm.
L’objectif de cette thèse est de réfléchir aux enjeux d’une histoire du jeu de stratégie en temps réel (STR). Il s’agit de mieux comprendre les contextes dans lesquels le genre prend sens pour historiciser son émergence et sa période classique. Cette thèse cherche à documenter, d’une part, la cristallisation du STR en tant qu’objet ayant une forme relativement stable et en tant que corpus précis et identifié et, d’autre part, l’émergence des formes de jouabilité classiques des STR.
La première partie est consacrée à décrire l’objet de cette recherche, pour mieux comprendre la complexité du terme « stratégie » et de la catégorisation « jeu de stratégie ».
La seconde partie met en place la réflexion épistémologique en montrant comment on peut tenir compte de la jouabilité dans un travail historien. Elle définit le concept de paradigme de jouabilité en tant que formation discursive pour regrouper différents énoncés actionnels en une unité logique qui n’est pas nécessairement l’équivalent du genre.
La troisième partie cartographie l’émergence du genre entre les wargames des années 1970 et les jeux en multijoueur de la décennie suivante. Deux paradigmes de jouabilité se distinguent pour former le STR classique : le paradigme de décryptage et le paradigme de prévision.
La quatrième partie explique et contextualise le STR classique en montrant qu’il comporte ces deux paradigmes de jouabilité dans deux modes de jeu qui offrent des expériences fondamentalement différentes l’une de l’autre.
There is a long history in videogames of having secret places, concealed locations and hidden space. These locations contain treasures, powerful items, extra bosses, and many other diversions that the player may find desirable. This thesis is an examination of these spaces, where I examine how these hidden spaces manifest in games.
Der vorliegende Artikel rekonstruiert, welchen Beitrag die treibenden Kräfte der Digitalisierung – und hier insbesondere die digitalen Medien(kulturen) – an der Reproduktion des Geschlechterverhältnisses haben und/oder wie sie auch zur Geschlechtervielfalt beitragen (können). Um dies zu leisten, zeigt der Beitrag zunächst auf, in welcher Weise sich die kommunikations- und medienwissenschaftliche Frauen- und Genderforschung bislang dem Themenfeld Medien, Kommunikation und Geschlecht angenähert hat; wobei der Akzent insbesondere auf die Thematisierung des Internets gelegt wird. In einem weiterführenden Schritt steht ein spezifischer Ausschnitt der Medienkultur – die digitalen Spielewelten – im Mittelpunkt der Analyse. Der Beitrag endet mit Anregungen für die (medien)pädagogische Praxis.
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