Author: Jesper

Only the Obvious can be Protected – on Games and Copyright

With the Tetris lawsuit of the way, the action has moved to EA’s lawsuit against Zynga for copying the Sims in Zynga’s The Ville.

Like the Tetris case, it comes down partly to the idea-expression dichotomy. (Better explained here.) You cannot protect the core idea of the game (semi-controlling little people), but you can protect the details of how it is expressed:  protection is afforded to the combination of character looks, menus, etc… all the small design decisions that express this idea.

Xio Interactive lost to the Tetris company because a sufficient number of small design decisions such as size of the playfield and color changes were similar to the original Tetris. The judge said:

“I find the following elements are also protected expression and further support a finding of infringement: the dimensions of the playing field, the display of “garbage” lines, the appearance of “ghost” or shadow pieces, the display of the next piece to fall, the change in color of the pieces when they lock with the accumulated pieces, and the appearance of squares automatically filling in the game board when the game is over. None of these elements are part of the idea (or the rules or the functionality) of Tetris, but rather are means of expressing those ideas.”

I am sympathetic to the principle that you cannot copyright a game idea.

On the other hand, this creates a counter-intuitive reversal in which the core innovative idea of a game is unprotectable, and only the trivial design decisions that follow are afforded protection. I think this makes some sense, but isn’t there something strange about it too?

In practice you see something similar in patents, such as in the Apple-Samsung case, where each patent is just a list of obvious or near-obvious concepts combined, with some vague specifics added (a database! a heuristic! a mobile device!), but where it’s the staggeringly banal specifics that actually make it patentable. Patents and copyright are obviously not the same thing, but there are some parallels here. Or this Google patent for face unlocking of devices, which has already been done a million times, except now it’s on a mobile device, with user switching!

Patent law is clearly broken, but I am not sure I would change copyright law.

It’s just that our intuition of what constitutes the “core of a game” puts emphasis on what we could call “the idea”, whereas copyright puts emphasis on what seems to be the shallow surface.

Markus Montola: On the Edge of the Magic Circle

Markus Montola’s Ph.D. On the Edge of the Magic Circle is now available for download at http://acta.uta.fi/english/teos.php?id=1000161

Abstract

On the Edge of the Magic Circle studies two threads of contemporary western gaming culture: Role-playing and pervasive games. Recreational role-playing includes forms such as tabletop role-playing games, larps and online role-playing games, while pervasive games range from treasure hunts to alternate reality games. A discussion on pervasive role-playing connects these strands together.The work has four larger research goals. First, to establish a conceptual framework for understanding role-playing in games. Second, to establish a conceptual framework for understanding pervasive games. Third, to explore the expressive potential of pervasive games through prototypes. And fourth, to establish a theoretical foundation for the study of ephemeral games.

The central outcome of the work is a theory complex that explains and defines role-playing and pervasive gaming, and allows them to be understood in the context of the recent discussion in game studies.

In order to understand these two borderline cases of games, the work establishes a theoretical foundation that highlights gameplay as a social process. This foundation combines the weak social constructionism of John R. Searle with the recent game studies scholarship from authors such as Jesper Juul, Jane McGonigal, Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman.

Actually, I crashed on Purpose

More sportsmanship discussion from the Olympics, here is gold-winning British cyclist Philip Hindes publicly admitting that he crashed his bike on purpose to get a restart.

https://youtube.com/watch?v=IO5QGCzZhb0
Hindes has since retracted the comment, but I have to say that it’s one of the less convincing crashes I’ve seen.

(Via Dylan McKenzie.)

Losing a Match to Win the Tournament

Last week at the Olympics, The Badminton World Federation disqualified eight badminton players for losing matches intentionally in order to get weaker opponents in the coming round.

It is one of those questions: is it OK to lose a match in order to get ahead, or are you always to supposed to put in maximum effort? The Badminton “Code of Conduct” does state that you should always try to win a match:

BWF’s Players’ Code of Conduct – Sections 4.5 and 4.16 respectively – with “not using one’s best efforts to win a match” and “conducting oneself in a manner that is clearly abusive or detrimental to the sport”.

I can understand why it would be frustrating to pay money to watch such a match, but on the other hand the players really were performing to the best of their abilities in order to win the tournament.

I feel that it is the responsibility of the game designers, the Badminton World Federation and the Olympics, to make sure that the optimal way of playing the game involves winning every match. In this case, the players are really being punished for poor game design.

But part of the issue is also about the scope of “one’s best efforts”. The players’ best efforts were not going toward that particular match, but toward the overall tournament. It follows that we could imagine at least four different type of “best effort” arguments, from strict to lenient:

  1. As a player you should put in maximum effort in every single moment in a game.
  2. As a player, you should always put in maximum effort in order to win a match.
  3. As a player, you should always put in maximum effort in order to win a tournament.
  4. As a player, you can do whatever you want as long as it is within the general rules of the game. Win, lose, play well, play badly – it’s up to you.

As we can see, the BWF has chosen type 2: they will probably not punish a player for playing below ability when far behind in a set, or for not diving in order to catch every single shot. Conversely, they don’t acknowledge that a match in a tournament may be played for larger goals (type 3). A more lenient type 4 argument would say that players can do whatever they wanted within the rules (the famous spoilsport behavior).

Summing up, I was about to say that I intuitively support a type 3 argument, but do I really? For some reason I feel that losing on purpose is more acceptable in Badminton than in Soccer. Perhaps because Soccer matches are longer and involve more people, and hence feel more like standalone events? But I am certain that we are having this discussion only because the BWF made a poor game design decision.

Well Played Journal issue on Romance in Games

New issue of the Well Played journal, this one on romance:

 

Preface
Jane Pinckard

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Technology and emotion: Playing for the love of the game
Richard E. Ferdig & Kristine E. Pytash

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NPC Romance as a Safe Space: BioWare and Healthier Identity Tourism
Heidi McDonald

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Tick Tock: A review of Jason Rohrer’s Passage
Eric Hamel

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Quest for Love: Playing the Women of King’s Quest
Anastasia Salter

Get it here: http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/files/WellPlayed_v1n4-12-romance.pdf

Why You should Never Ask for a New Ending

The extended Mass Effect 3 ending is now out, and we can consider whether it was a good idea to complain about the original ending. Here is some of what the download gives us:

“Against all odds, and in the face of the greatest threat this galaxy has ever known, we survived.

We suffered many losses. The relays are severely damaged, but we won.

This victory belongs to each of us…every man, woman, and child. Every civilization…on every world.

Now, as we take our first steps towards restoring what we lost, we must remember what it took to win.

This wasn’t a victory by a single fleet, a single army, or even a single species.

If this war has taught us anything, it is that we are at our strongest when we work together.

And if we can put down our grievances long enough to stop something as powerful as the Reapers, imagine what we can achieve now that they are defeated.

It will take time, but we can rebuild everything that was destroyed. Our homes, our worlds, our fleets and defenses. All of this and more.

Together, we can build a future greater than any one of us can imagine.

A future paid for by the sacrifices of those who fought and died alongside us. A future that many will never see.

And while we still have many challenges ahead of us. We can face them together. And we will honor those who died to give us that future.”

Someone never bought into the whole “War Against Cliché” thing. And no further comment is necessary. 

The extended ending makes me realize how much I disliked the long morale speeches in the game … can I say openly that the writing above is sort of terrible? Here, the extended ending has simply amplified the worst things about the game. And I have very  little interest in having the fate of every single character spelled out for me. Did Grunt finally open the auto repair shop that he had always dreamt of? That belittles what I found interesting in the game. But again, this the Lost  ending problem: how do you wrap up a work with broad appeal, given that the audience may have very different investments?

Is Tetris copyrightable? [In the US]

[Update: EA is suing Zynga for copying The Sims Social in The Ville.]

Here’s a recent court case on a question that keeps popping up: can a video game be copyrighted? (In the US that is.)

THE TETRIS COMPANY vs. XIO INTERACTIVE, INC.

The Tetris Company sued Xio for copyright infringement for the game Mino. The judge has  ruled against Xio, and hence for the present and future ability of the Tetris Company to sue apparent Tetris clones.

Not being a legal scholar, here are some things I find interesting: Overall, the case doesn’t differ too much in general layout from previous court cases, and it cites generously from previous cases regarding the copyrightability of video games.

The main question concerns the “idea-expression” dichotomy, where by convention an idea is not copyrightable, but the expression of an idea is:

“protection is given only to the expression of the idea—not the idea itself.”

Hence the question really is what parts of Tetris is an idea, and what parts are an expression of that idea. The Tetris company specifically claims that these 14 points are expression:

1. Seven Tetrimino playing pieces made up of four equally-sized square joined at their sides;

2. The visual delineation of individual blocks that comprise each Tetrimino piece and the display of their borders;

3. The bright, distinct colors used for each of the Tetrimino pieces;

4. A tall, rectangular playfield (or matrix), 10 blocks wide and 20 blocks tall;

5. The appearance of Tetriminos moving from the top of the playfield to its bottom;

6. The way the Tetrimino pieces appear to move and rotate in the playfield;

7. The small display near the playfield that shows the next playing piece to appear in the playfield;

8. The particular starting orientation of the Tetriminos, both at the top of the screen and as shown in the “next piece” display;

9. The display of a “shadow” piece beneath the Tetriminos as they fall;

10. The color change when the Tetriminos enter lock-down mode;

11. When a horizontal line fills across the playfield with blocks, the line disappears, and the remaining pieces appear to consolidate downward;

12. The appearance of individual blocks automatically filling in the playfield from the bottom to the top when the game is over;

13. The display of “garbage lines” with at least one missing block in random order; and

14. The screen layout in multiplayer versions with the player’s matrix appearing most prominently on the screen and the opponents’ matrixes appearing smaller than the player’s matrix and to the side of the player’s matrix.

The judge does not make a decision for every single claim, but much of the argument concerns whether Mino could have made other decisions than have same size playfield, ghost pieces, and so on. The judge says:

In addition to the design and movement of the playing pieces … I find the following elements are also protected expression and further support a finding of infringement: the dimensions of the playing field, the display of “garbage” lines, the appearance of “ghost” or shadow pieces, the display of the next piece to fall, the change in color of the pieces when they lock with the accumulated pieces, and the appearance of squares automatically filling in the game board when the game is over. None of these elements are part of the idea (or the rules or the functionality) of Tetris, but rather are means of expressing those ideas.

And there you have it. As I read it, this decision seems to pull more game elements into the domain of expression (and hence copyright) than previous decisions did, but I will leave that analysis to others.

(Ars Technica also has a writeup here.)

Nordic DiGRA 2012 Papers

Aaaand here are the papers from the Nordic Digra 2012 conference.

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Visualizing Persuasive Structures in Advergames

de la Hera Conde-Pumpido Teresa
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Since the publication of Ian Bogost’s two first books (2006, 2007), procedural rhetoric has been the focus of attention of many scholars working on persuasive strategies in digital games (e.g., Heide & Nørholm 2009, Flanagan 2009, Swain 2010, Ferrari 2010). This paper aims to demonstrate that other persuasive dimensions could complement procedural rhetoric to design games with advertising purposes. This paper initially explains the value of use for each one of the persuasive dimensions that could appear in an advergame: narrative persuasion, procedural rhetoric, visual rhetoric, audiovisual rhetoric and textual rhetoric. Then a framework to analyze and visualize the persuasive structure of advergames is proposed, explained and defended. Finally the model is applied to three case studies.

Keywords: advergames, persuasive structures, procedural rhetoric, narrative persuasion

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Gambling in Social Networks: Gaming Experiences of Finnish Online Gamblers

Kinnunen Jani, Rautio Erkka, Alha Kati, Paavilainen Janne

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Online gambling is often regarded as asocial activity. Previously players could not interact with each other in online environments. The situation has changed as internet, in general, has evolved towards a more social environment. First Finnish online gambling games, eBingo and online poker, which enabled in-game social interaction were opened in the year 2010. This article reports findings from the study which focused on the social interaction connected with these games. Based on the questionnaire data of 409 players 16 players were selected for the thematic interviews. The analysis of the interviews indicates that even if social interaction is not necessary in order to play, it is meaningful in players’ experience of the game. The different levels of sociality before, during and/or after the game have an influence on the construction of gaming experiences and connect gambling as meaningful part of players’ social networks.

Keywords: Online gambling, social networks, bingo, poker

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Tackling the Metaphor-Simulation Dilemma

Möring Sebastian

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This paper presents a couple of observations on the use of the concept of metaphor in game studies: Firstly, often when authors use the concept of metaphor this appears in conceptual and textual proximity to simulation. Secondly, the concept of metaphor is often applied to signify seemingly abstract games and to form thereby an opposition to mimetic simulations. Thirdly, definitions applied for simulation as well as for metaphor are strikingly similar. As such this paper discusses in a first step respective examples from the field of game studies in order to develop an understanding how the terms metaphor and simulation are used there. In a second step it presents what is here called the “metaphor-simulation dilemma” which shows that the definitions of both concepts are strikingly similar. From these observations I will derive and demonstrate what I call the metaphor-simulation dilemma. Finally, I will argue based on a narrow understanding of metaphor to consider simulations always already as metonyms and thereby challenge the assumption that especially abstract simulations are metaphors. Furthermore, I will challenge the assumption that simulations required a similarity between the simulating and the simulated with Frasca’s sign-based definition of a simulation and comments on this. And finally I will explore a condition which enables us to speak of a metaphoric simulation.

Keywords: Metaphor, simulation, metonymy, synecdoche, game

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Player-reported Impediments to Game-based Learning

Harviainen J. Tuomas, Lainema Timo, Saarinen Eeli

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This article addresses the question of how games function as learning tools, from the perspective of player-stated problems. It is based on interviews and essays, collected from university students who reported problems dealing with unrealistic trust, competitive play leading to game-based logic of business phenomena instead of their learning or applying real skills, and outright cheating. According to the respondents, the main cause of problems appears to be that by many participants, games are framed as an activity that is to be done competitively. Along with reporting the impediments, the article discusses potential solutions.

Keywords: briefing, learning impediments, simulation/games

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flâneur, a walkthrough: Locative literature as participation and play

Løvlie Anders Sundnes

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This paper presents an experiment in facilitating public contributions to an experimental system for locative literature called textopia. Discussing approaches to collaborative writing and the relationship between games and art, the paper presents the development and the testing of a game designed to foster participation in the system. The game is based on the recombination of found texts into literary compositions, integrating the act of exploring the urban environment into the act of writing, as well as into the medium that is studied. The resulting texts are read as a form of situated, poetic documentary reports on the urban textual environment. The experiment also draws attention to the importance of live events in building a literary community.

Keywords: locative literature, pervasive games, ubiquitous games, design

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Digital games as experiment stimulus

Järvelä Simo, Ekman Inger, Kivikangas J. Matias, Ravaja Niklas

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Digital games offer rich media content and engaging action, accessible individually or in groups collaborating or competing against each other. This makes them promising for use as stimulus in research settings. This paper examines the advantages and challenges of using games in experimental research with particular focus on strict stimulus control through the following four areas: (1) matching and regulating task type, (2) data segmentation and event coding, (3) compatibility between participants and (4) planning and conducting data collection. This contribution provides a breakdown of the steps necessary for using a digital game in experimental studies, along with a checklist for researchers illustrating variables that potentially affect the reliability and validity of experiments. We also offer a practical study example. Ideally, the identification of the methodological and practical considerations of employing games in empirical research will also provide useful in interpreting and evaluating experimental work utilizing games as stimulus.

Keywords: digital games, stimulus, experimental psychology, methodology

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Game design tools: Time to evaluate

Neil Katharine

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The art form of the video game has a very idiosyncratic reliance on the process and practice of its designers. We work with creative and computational problems that form a web of deep complexity. And yet, as I have noticed in my professional practice as a game designer, we do not use tools to support our design process. For more than a decade, designers and researchers have argued for the development and use of both conceptual and concrete tools. To this end, formal and semi-formal game design models have been proposed and, more recently, experimental software-based tools have been developed by the research community. To date, however, none of these tools or models have been adopted into mainstream practice within the game design community. In this paper I argue that it is difficult, if not methodologically flawed, to assess the work in the field of game design support without more qualitative data on how such tools fare in actual game design practice. Evaluation research would be an essential contribution towards answering the question of whether – and if so, how – these experimental formal models and tools can support and improve the game design process.

Keywords: Game design, design tools, ludocore, machinations, game atoms, game diagramming

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In Defence of a Magic Circle: The Social and Mental Boundaries of Play

Stenros Jaakko

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This article reviews the history of the concept of the magic circle, its criticism and the numerous other metaphors that have been used to capture the zone of play or the border that surrounds it, such as world, frame, bubble, net, screen, reality, membrane, zone, environment, or attitude. The various conceptions of social and mental borders are reviewed and separated from the sites where cultural residue of such borders is encountered. Finally, a model is forwarded where the psychological bubble of playfulness, the social contract of the magic circle and the spatial, temporal or product- based arena are separated.

Keywords: magic circle, psychological bubble, arena, play, game, boundary of play, safety

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Meta-synthesis of player typologies

Tuunanen Janne, Hamari Juho

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This paper investigates different ways in which players have been categorized in game research literature in order to distinguish relevant customer segments for designing and marketing of game’s value offerings. This paper adopts segmentation and marketing theory as its bases of analysis. The goal is to synthesize the results of various studies and to find the prevailing concepts, combine them, and draw implications to further studies and segmentation of the player base. The research process for this study proceeded from large literature search, to author-centric (Webster & Watson 2002) identification and categorization of previous works based on the established factors of segmentation (demographic, psychographic, and behavioral variables) in marketing theory. The previous works on player typologies were further analyzed using concept-centric approach and synthesized according to common and repeating factors in the previous studies. The results indicate that player typologies in previous literature can be synthesized into seven key dimensions: Skill, Achievement, Exploration, Sociability, Killer, Immersion and In-game demographics. The paper highlights for further studies the self-fulfilling and self-validating nature of the current player typologies because their relatively high use in game design practices as well as discusses the role of game design in segmentation of players.

Keywords: game design, marketing, player typology, segmentation

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The Early Micro User: Games writing, hardware hacking, and the will to mod

Swalwell Melanie

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Historical perspectives are largely absent from contemporary debates about user-making. In this paper, I approach the question of user and player making, historically. I consider what microcomputer users and players did in the 1980s, when digital games first became available to play. Excavating the practices of early users through historical research into game coding, hardware building and hacking places not only places practices such as game modification into a longer arc of cultural history of user activity. Exploring what early users did with computers also provides new perspectives on contemporary debates about users’ productivity. The high degree of interest that contemporary users’ productivity is generating in academic circles provides a wider context for such inquiries.

Keywords: Microcomputers, Users, Use, Coding, Programming, Hacking, Electronics, User-generated content, History, Australia, New Zealand

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Main(s) and Alts: Multiple Character Management in World of Warcraft

Hsu Sheng-Yi, Huang Yu-Han, Sun Chuen-Tsai

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Most online games let players create multiple characters, and during avatar creation and gameplay, the relationships between players and their game playing goals are revealed. As multiple characters are developed, player behaviors become more complex. Yet a major characteristic of avatars is that they cannot act at the same time—since gameplay is usually continuous and players alternate between or among avatars, time patterns tend to emerge. For this project we employed a user interface to collect real and continuous data on World of Warcraft players, and developed an algorithm for grouping avatars owned by specific players into sets. We then attempted to identify goals for individual characters, types of set management, and relationships within avatar sets.

Keywords: multiple characters, alternative avatars, online games, avatars, player user interface

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Age-Restriction: Re-examining the interactive experience of ‘harmful’ game content

van Vught Jasper, Schott Gareth, Marczak Raphaël

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Similar to the classification rating of films, screen depictions of violence within digital games are issued with an age restriction rating. Such approaches still fail to adequately incorporate players’ experience of the screen, confounded by the medium’s interactive nature, in their assessments. The current failure to account for, or describe subsequent interactions between player and game text leaves the classification process largely inferential. This paper presents a framework that forms the basis for an empirical assessment of the interactive experience of games. In it, we aim to account for the processes and outcomes of play and the extent to which play relates to the design of the game text. By operationalizing game studies’ extensive theorization of the distinct quality of games, a new model of media ‘usage’ is sought to enhance regulation processes and better inform the public’s perception of games (specifically within New Zealand). In this paper we draw specifically on data produced from one part of a mixed methodology research design (Schott & Van Vught 2011). A structured diary method was employed to allow game players to chronicle different elements of their gameplay experience with a single text as they progressed through it. By demonstrating the applied value of game studies’ contribution to knowledge, the research project aims to contribute to a new paradigm that is capable of accounting for the ‘actual’ experience of play and the ways game texts are activated under the agency of players once they enter everyday life and culture.

Keywords: Gameplay analysis, classification, diary study, player experience, game legislation

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PWNED: Motivation of South Koreans Who Engage in Person vs. Person Gameplay in World of Warcraft

Sheard Adam, Won Young-Shin

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This research explores the two most prominent theories regarding the motivations for South Koreans to engage in player vs. player gameplay in Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games. The data collection process consisted of an ethnographic approach with the researcher immersing himself in World of Warcraft player vs. player gameplay to observe and interview gamers over the course of a year. Results showed that while interviewees displayed motivations that could be considered as psychopathic, the majority of player vs. player motivation stemmed from the innate need of players to validate their masculinity through violence.

Keywords: South Korea, Player vs. Player, Motivation, Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, Violence, Masculinity

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Rating Logic Puzzle Difficulty Automatically in a Human Perspective

Wang Hao, Wang Yu-Wen, Sun Chuen-Tsai

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Logic puzzle games like Sudoku are getting popular for they are flexible in playing time and space and are useful in education. For puzzles, difficulty is arguably one of the most important factors in problem design. A problem too easy is boring, yet a problem too hard is frustrating. Providing problems with adequate difficulty to avoid boredom or anxiety is thus an important issue. In this paper we rate difficulty level of Sudoku problems with human oriented, general difficulty criteria so that the method can be used to evaluate problems of most logic puzzles. Only few previous Sudoku difficulty research are based on real playing data and the rating methods are limited to Sudoku or at most, constraint satisfaction problems (CSP). We found that the proposed method, despite of its simplicity and generality, can sort Sudoku problems in an order similar to average player solving time, the player perceived difficulty.

Keywords: difficulty, dynamic difficulty adjustment, Sudoku, puzzle, automatic content generation

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The Stereotype of Online Gamers: New Characterization or Recycled Prototype?

Kowert Rachel, Oldmeadow Julian

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The stereotypical online gamer is a socially inept, reclusive, male, with an obsession for gaming. This characterization is shared with a number of other groups too, suggesting it reflects a set of behaviors and concerns common to a range of groups. This study examines the content of the stereotype of online gamers in relation to other similar groups in an attempt to identify the core behaviors or characteristics upon which the stereotype is based. By comparing the similarities and differences in the stereotypes of a range of related groups it is possible to identify the shared and unique features of online gamers that are being reflected in stereotypes about them. Results show similarities in stereotypic content between online gamers and other social groups, including other kinds of gamers. Additionally, the characteristic of social ineptitude, which is a key trait in the stereotype of this group, did not emerge as a distinctive feature for online gamers alone, questioning the unique role that mediated socialization plays in these spaces. Implications for future research within the online gaming population are discussed.

Keywords: online gaming, MMORPG, stereotype, socially inept

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Framing Games

Waern Annika

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In this article, I revisit the everlasting question of what constitutes a game. My purpose is to arrive at a permissive definition that can serve to bridge digital and non-digital game studies. The way I approach the issue is through eliciting the qualities of games for which I believe game studies provides appropriate tools. The article centres on the idea that games are systems, which have been designed to be played or evolved within a play practice. I use previous literature to carefully examine what is required from a game system, as well as what signifies play in relationship to other human activities. The strength of game studies is that it has developed ways to understand how these two aspects are interrelated – how play is shaped by systems, and how systems need to be constructed to support play.

Keywords: Game definitions, re-signification, ludus, paidea, paratelic, telic, rules, game studies

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Buy and Share! Social Network Games and Ludic Shopping

de Andrade e Silva Suen

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By developing the concept of ludic shopping, this paper explores how the centring of gameplay around the (symbolic) purchase of virtual goods has transformed social network games into a blending of consumerism and playfulness. Although ludic shopping points out the capitalistic logic of consumption embedded on social network games, this concept brings also a positive view about consumption as part of players’ identity construction. I drawn on the player types defined by game theorists Richard Bartle and Espen Aarseth to examine the main forms of enjoyment offered by social network games, and to present a new conceptual dimension linked to consumerism. Through a critical analysis of both game mechanics and players’ motivations, I argue that symbolic consumerism is a central experience for players of social network games.

Keywords: Social network games, consumerism, player types, free-to-play, playful identity

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Domesticating Play, Designing Everyday Life: The Practice and Performance of Family Gender, and Gaming

Enevold Jessica

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Playing digital games is now a common everyday practice in many homes. This paper deals with the constitution of such practices by taking a closer look at the material objects essential to play and their role in the “design of everyday life” (Shove et al 2007). It uses ethnographic method and anthropological practice theory to attend to the domestic spaces of leisure and play, the home environments, in which the large part of today’s practices of playing digital games takes place. It focuses on the stagings of material, not virtual, artifacts of gaming: screens, consoles, hand-held-devices essential to play and their locations and movements around the home. It demonstrates how everyday practices, seemingly mundane scenographies and choreographies, practically, aesthetically and technologically determined, order everyday space-time and artifacts, domesticate play and condition performances of family, gender and gaming. In the process, a history of the domestication of play unfolds.

Keywords: Play, gender, family, game-time, game-space, performance, practice theory, culture, ethnography, anthropology, everyday life, choreography, scenography, staging-play, material culture, ludotopia, mobility, domestic, design of everyday life, history-of-play

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Should I stay or should I go? – Boundary maintaining mechanisms in Left 4 Dead 2

Linderoth Jonas, Björk Staffan, Olsson Camilla

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In this paper we report an ethnographic study of Pick Up Groups (PUGs) in the game Left 4 Dead 2. Our aim with the study is to contribute with a deeper understanding of how these new social arenas are constituted by its’ participants and the role game design plays in structuring these encounters. As a deliberate attempt to go beyond the discussion in the game studies field about formalism versus play studies, we use both concepts from micro-sociology as well as concepts from the field of game design as our analytical framework. Our results shows that the dynamics of a PUG can be understood in relation to how players uphold and negotiate the boundary between the their in-game-identity based on their gaming skill and a other social relations outside of the game context.

Keywords: Gameplay design patterns, Goffman, Frame analysis, Pick Up Groups, Ethnography

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Feelies: The Lost Art of Immersing the Narrative

Karhulahti Veli-Matti

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This paper discusses the materializations of story world entities that are distributed with game packaging, here referred to as feelies, as props that support narrative elements in story-driven digital games. The narrative support is suggested to function on global and local levels, where the first one refers to the immersive effects concerning the story world, and the latter to the immersive effects concerning the situation in which the player is accommodated to via a player character. Additionally, analog feelies are suggested to possess a tactile aspect that has the potential to enhance their immersive impact at both effective levels. These concepts will be explored through early text adventures Deadline (Infocom 1982) and Witness (Infocom 1983).

Keywords: immersion, feelies, narration, interactive fiction, adventure games

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Affordances of Elliptical Learning in Arcade Video Games

Hock-koon Sébastien

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Many researchers consider that video games have a unique potential for learning. However, Linderoth (2010) criticizes the way researchers link a successful action in the game and learning, without denying this conclusion. Using Gibson’s affordances (1979), he argues that, in order to study learning in a video game, one must carefully study the game itself. This article attempts to understand how “great video games” (Kunkel, 2003) may take “a minute to learn and a lifetime to master.” As a part of my Ph.D research, I trained for six months to perform a one-credit run on the Alien Vs. Predator (Capcom, 1994) arcade game. This expertise will be used to study affordances of learning and non-learning in this video game in order to introduce the concept of “elliptical learning”.

Keywords: Video game, elliptical learning, affordance, closure, ellipsis

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Mario’s legacy and Sonic’s heritage: Replays and refunds of console gaming history

Suominen Jaakko

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In this paper, I study how three major videogame device manufacturers, Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo use gaming history within their popular console products, Microsoft Xbox 360, Sony PS 3 and Nintendo Wii. These enterprises do not only market new game applications and devices but also recycle classic game themes, game characters as well as classic games themselves. Therefore, these corporations are a part of the phenomenon which can be called retrogaming culture or digital retro economy. The paper introduces the different ways in which the corporations began to use history and how they constructed their digital game market strategies to be compatible with the current retrogaming trend. In addition, the paper introduces a model for different phases of uses of history. The paper is empirically based on literary reviews, recreational computing magazine articles, company websites and other online sources and participatory observation of retrogaming applications and product analyses. Sociological and cultural studies on nostalgia as well as history culture form the theoretical framework of the study.

Keywords: retrogaming, classic games, history management, uses of history, consoles

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Angry Birds, Uncommitted Players

Bouça Maura

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Mobile phones have been game-enabled since 1997. However, it seems that mobile phone games are only taking off now, in the 2010s. With mobile phones and, specially, smartphones, reaching critical mass games, in their mobile form are accessible to more and more people, young and old, men and women. Angry Birds, first released for iOS in December 2009, was the best-selling mobile game in 2011 (Reisinger 2011). In order to understand who is playing Angry Birds, how, and why, the author conducted a series of interviews with a group of Angry Birds players. The results of those interviews are here analyzed according to perspectives arisen from those conversations. Two main axis of analysis resulted from the interviews: gender gap and gaming background.

Keywords: Mobile games, Angry Birds, casual, hardcore, gender, computer games