For your theoretical entertainment, Eludamos Journal Vol 9 no 1.
|
Sky LaRell Anderson
|
1-15
|
|
Antranig Arek Sarian
|
17-32
|
|
Erik van Ooijen
|
33-45
|
|
Pierantonio Zanotti
|
47-74
|
|
Victoria McArthur
|
Category: readings
Game Studies Vol 18 no 2
For your theoretical scrutiny: Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research has just published its latest issue (Volume 18, Issue 2, September 2018). All articles are available at http://www.gamestudies.org/1802
Articles
by Meghan Blythe Adams, Nathan Rambukkana
This paper investigates non-monogamy in videogame narratives with a focus on games that include scripted non- monogamous gameplay options, such as Mass Effect (BioWare, 2007), and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (CD Projekt RED, 2007), along with the current limitations on this form of representation in mainstream games.
by Jonne Arjoranta, Marko Siitonen
This article analyses Hearthstone players’ forum discussions. The analysis illustrates how forum participants interpret the game’s limited emote system and talk about ways of misusing the emotes for negatively loaded purposes, despite the designers’ intention of making player-to-player interaction positive.
The Semiotics of the Game Controller
by Johan Blomberg
How the video game experience can be characterized is an important question in video game research. I argue that the video game controller has a crucial role for the interactive experience. This paper presents a semiotic analysis of the relation between player, video game, and controller.
by Ahmed Elmezeny, Jeffrey Wimmer, Manoella Oliveira dos Santos, Ekaterina Orlova, Irina Tribusean, Anna Antonova
Using a qualitative content analysis, this study analyses the differences between trolling strategies and reactions to trolling in two nationally distinct gaming image boards (Russia and Brazil). The research shows that while there are differences in both samples, overall trolling is somewhat homogenous, indicating a transcultural standard.
by Rob Gallagher
Narrated by a father who bonds with his autistic son via Minecraft, Keith Stuart’s novel A Boy Made of Blocks highlights the important role videogames now play in discourses of gender, ability, education and parenting. This article draws on Stockton’s work on ‘queer childhood’ to assess the book’s implications for conceptions of gamer masculinity.
Walking, Talking and Playing with Masculinities in Firewatch
by Mellisa Kagen
The story, mechanics and genre of Firewatch subvert traditional, hypermasculine videogame norms and encourage players to perform a care-oriented masculinity.
No Straight Answers: Queering Hegemonic Masculinity in BioWare’s Mass Effect
by Theresa Krampe
This article discusses the ludic and narrative presentation of non-hegemonic masculinities in BioWare’s Mass Effect trilogy from an intersectional queer game studies perspective. In-depth and multidimensional character analyses reveal the complex power structures permeating the game and regulating its identity politics.
The Wasteland of the Real: Nostalgia and Simulacra in Fallout
by Kathleen McClancy
This article discusses how the intersection of fictional worlds, game rules, and narratives in videogames challenges the creation and ideological employment of Baudrillard’s simulacra through an examination of the Fallout franchise’s engagement with Cold War nostalgia and computer technology.
Everything Merges with the Game: A Generative Music System Embedded in a Videogame Increases Flow
by Joshua D. Sites, Robert F. Potter
Designers strive to create games conducive to flow, “the optimal experience.” This study demonstrates that a generative music system in place of a traditional game soundtrack can help players reach flow, even when they are unaware of the novel music system. The benefits of a generative system were most apparent in the first minutes of gameplay.
American Journal of Play Vol 10 no 2
For your theoretical consumption, American Journal of play Vol 10 no 2.
Editor’s Note
Articles
Book Reviews
*
Kinephanos issue: It’s [not just] in the game
For your theoretical dissection.
Kinephanos special issue: “It’s [not just] in the game”: the promotional context of video games / le contexte promotionnel des jeux vidéo
Volume 7, Issue 1, November 2017 / Volume 7, numéro 1, novembre 2017
Edited by / Dirigé par Ed Vollans, Stephanie Janes, Carl Therrien & Dominic Arsenault
Introduction: “It’s [not Just] in the Game”: the Promotional Context of Video Games
ED VOLLANS, STEPHANIE JANES, CARL THERRIEN & DOMINIC ARSENAULT
Peer-reviewed articles / Articles avec comité de lecture
Exploring the Myth of the Representative Video Game Trailer
JAN ŠVELCH
Independent Scholar
Now You’re Playing with Adverts: A Repertoire of Frames for the Historical Study of Game Culture through Marketing Discourse
CARL THERRIEN & ISABELLE LEFEBVRE
Université de Montréal
Man’s Best Enemy: The Role of Advertising During Atari’s Launch in Brazil in 1983
ANDRÉ FAGUNDES PASE & ROBERTO TIETZMANN
Pontifícia Universidade Católica do Rio Grande do Sul (PUCRS)
“The most Cinematic Game yet”
ED VOLLANS
Bournemouth University
Marketing Authenticity: Rockstar Games and the Use of Cinema in Video Game Promotion
ESTHER WRIGHT
University of Warwick
Configurative Dynamics of Gender in Bioware’s Marketing for the Mass Effect Franchise
LEANDRO AUGUSTO BORGES LIMA
King’s College London
Pervasive Games Beyond the Promotional Tools: Approaches of Aesthetic Pervasiveness in Consumption of Experience
THAIANE MOREIRA DE OLIVEIRA
Federal Fluminense University
Not actual game play, but is it real life?: Live-action footage in digital game trailers and advertising as gamerspace
THEO PLOTHE
Walsh University
Quality of Video Game Trailers
ZEYNEP TANES-EHLE & SARA SPEEDY
Duquesne University
Game-playing, from Submission to Creation
I keep returning to this question: When we play a game, are we free – or are we prisoners of the game rules?
Here is Playing, my contribution to Henry Lowood and Raiford Guins’ wonderful Debugging Game History collection.
In the piece I argue that there are four main conceptions of the act of game-playing, going from playing as submission to playing as creation.
1. Playing as submission, where the player is bound by the limits set forth by the game rules.
2. Playing as constrained freedom, where the game creates a space in which players acquire a certain amount of freedom and the opportunity to perform particular acts.
3. Playing as subversion, where the player works around both the designer’s intentions and the game object’s apparent limitations.
4. Playing as creation, where the game is ultimately irrelevant for (or at least secondary to) the actual playing.
Read the full text here: http://www.jesperjuul.net/text/playing/
ToDIGRA special issue, 1st DiGRA and FDG conference
For your theoretical consumption:
Special Issue, 1st Joint International Conference of DIGRA and FDG
| Introduction | |
| Ashley Brown, Rafael Bidarra |
| No-one Plays Alone | |
| Chris Bateman |
| “Ruinensehnsucht”: Longing for Decay in Computer Games | |
| Mathias Fuchs |
| Creative Communities: Shaping Process through Performance and Play | |
| Lynn Parker, Dayna Galloway |
| Playful Fandom: Gaming, Media and the Ludic Dimensions of Textual Poaching | |
| Orion Mavridou |
| A Review of Social Features in Social Network Games | |
| Janne Paavilainen, Kati Alha, Hannu Korhonen |
| Focus, Sensitivity, Judgement, Action: Four Lenses for Designing Morally Engaging Games | |
| Malcolm Ryan, Dan Staines, Paul Formosa |
| Developing Ideation Cards for Mixed Reality Game Design | |
| Richard Wetzel, Tom Rodden, Steve Benford |
| Source Code and Formal Analysis: A Reading of Passage | |
| Ea Christina Willumsen |
ISSN: 2328-9422
Well Played volume 6 number 3
For your theoretical delectation: Well Played: volume 6 number 3
Agency, Identity, Sex, Gender, and Pokémon Go
Allison Bannister
So Close You Can Feel Her
Prostitution, Proximity & Empathy in Grand Theft Auto 5
Elena Bertozzi, Amelia Bertozzi-Villa
Learning at the Farm
Developmental Psychology in Peekaboo Barn
Carly A. Kocurek, Jennifer L. Miller
Taking Over the World, Again?
Examining Procedural Remakes of Adventure Games
Anastasia Salter
Game Studies Vol 17, Issue 1
For your theoretical delight, a new issue of Game Studies.
Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research has just published its latest issue (Volume 17, Issue 1, July 2017). All articles are available at www.gamestudies.org/1701
Articles
Watching People Is Not a Game: Interactive Online Corporeality, Twitch.tv and Videogame Streams
by Sky LaRell Anderson
This article examines Twitch.tv in order to reveal the design strategies it employs to direct awareness to the presence of players and viewers. Specifically, I describe the elements that direct attention toward humans, persons and personalities outside of games.
Glory to Arstotzka: Morality, Rationality, and the Iron Cage of Bureaucracy in Papers, Please
by Jason J. Morrissette
This article examines how ludic and thematic elements coalesce in Papers, Please to replicate the monotony of bureaucratic work, trapping players in Weber’s iron cage of bureaucracy. Moreover, by offering opportunities to deviate from administrative protocols, the game highlights the inherent tension between morality and bureaucratic rationality.
Abstracting Evidence: Documentary Process in the Service of Fictional Gameworlds
by Aaron Oldenburg
This paper looks at a strategy for creating content and gameplay using documentary processes such as interviews and on-location evidence collection for games that abstract that content with varying levels of fictionalization.
An Enactive Account of the Autonomy of Videogame Gameplay
by Jukka Vahlo
In this paper, the phenomenon of videogame gameplay is analyzed from an enactive view of social cognition. It is asserted that videogame gameplay arises as an autonomous organization in the reciprocal dynamics between at least one social agent and a responsive game. This autonomy is argued as both original and irreducible to its constituents.