Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in... more Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in literature search, bringing authors to the fore as nodes in exploration paths. While traditional literature search occurs in a text-based environment, academic social sites bring forward the authors. They make use of actionable researcher personas to facilitate discovery and encourage user engagement. Still, the topic of search and exploration remains underrepresented in the discussions on academic social networks. Current interface design limits the potential of researcher personas to facilitate discovery, and the potential of literature discovery to enrich researcher personas. We study through observation the profiles of 207 Game Studies researchers on Academia.edu and ResearchGate, documenting a significant space for improving engagement beyond current median levels. By introducing the concept of actionable researcher personas and discussing actual limits and opportunities in its imp...
Representations of femininity in video games and other media are often discussed with reference t... more Representations of femininity in video games and other media are often discussed with reference to the most popular games, their protagonists and their sexist predicament. This framing leaves in shadow other dimensions. We aim to identify some of them and to open a broader horizon for examining and designing femininity and gender in games. To this end we look into games with creative portrayals of feminine characters, diverging from the action-woman trope: The Walking Dead, The Path, and 80 Days. We talk in dialogue with scholars, but also with a digital crowd-critique movement for films and games, loosely centered on instruments such as the Bechdel-Wallace test and the TV Tropes.org wiki. We argue that the central analytical dimension of female character strength should be accompanied by three new axes, in order to examine feminine presence across ages, in the background fictive world created by the game, and in network edges of interaction.
Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, 2015
As games are becoming an increasingly popular medium in various demographic and professional stra... more As games are becoming an increasingly popular medium in various demographic and professional strata, scholars are discussing their content and how they shape society. However, despite an increase in gender analysis of video games, little has been written about orienting games towards an elderly audience, or game representations of aging and older persons. Games specifically designed for older persons are focused on improving cognitive functions, starting from the assumption that the elderly are in need of special games in order to repair age-related deficits. This repair-focused design philosophy comes at the expense of pursuing a broader understanding of quality of life and non-programmatic entertainment. Games-for-fun that also explicitly target the elderly as an audience are almost invisible. In this article we turn our attention to a powerful elderly feminine character in an AAA game designed for entertainment without a serious mission, namely Flemeth from Dragon Age. We discuss how the game depicts and models older characters: What repertoire of portraits has Flemeth as an old woman, in the Dragon Age games? How does Flemeth contribute to an enlarged repertoire of portrayals of old women in video games? We conclude that Flemeth's gender and age displays in Dragon Age do not impoverish her portrayal but, on the contrary, turn her into a powerful and complex character, thus offering a model for game design to represent and invite older players.
Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in... more Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in literature search, bringing authors to the fore as nodes in exploration paths. While traditional literature search occurs in a text-based environment, academic social sites bring forward the authors. They make use of actionable researcher personas to facilitate discovery and encourage user engagement. Still, the topic of search and exploration remains underrepresented in the discussions on academic social networks. Current interface design limits the potential of researcher personas to facilitate discovery, and the potential of literature discovery to enrich researcher personas. We study through observation the profiles of 207 Game Studies researchers on Academia.edu and ResearchGate, documenting a significant space for improving engagement beyond current median levels. By introducing the concept of actionable researcher personas and discussing actual limits and opportunities in its implementation, we contribute to a better understanding of the potential of academic social networks to change literature discovery and create a novel experience of search, centered on authors’ mediated presence. When exploring research publications on the two platforms, authors are no longer attributes of texts: they become contexts for making sense of publications and for charting new routes in the research landscape. Such an author-centric experience of literature discovery can emerge and consolidate in time, as users incorporate novel ways of relating to authors and using their personas as tools for navigation. Higher engagement can lead to richer and more relevant home feeds that, in turn, can create new opportunities to practice an emerging skill of literature discovery through actionable researcher personas.
We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine charact... more We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine characters, and we illustrate them through an analysis of This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days. Historical games may include documented historical characters and fictive characters as well; the latter may aim to represent a type of real persons, or may be individualized as a purely fictional character. We argue that This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days have both strong and weak points in their construction of feminine characters, when taking into account the proposed set of indicators.
We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine charact... more We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine characters, and we illustrate them through an analysis of This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days. Historical games may include documented historical characters and fictive characters as well; the latter may aim to represent a type of real persons, or may be individualized as a purely fictional character. We argue that This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days have both strong and weak points in their construction of feminine characters, when taking into account the proposed set of indicators.
Gender analysis of video games has increased its public visibility through the Gamergate controve... more Gender analysis of video games has increased its public visibility through the Gamergate controversy. We examine several casual art games in order to explore the diversity of both conventional and counter-stereotypical gender representations. We find significant reliance on stereotypical presentations, especially in 'sketchy wife' characters. Such tropes may offer rhetorical resources to communicate, in brief lapses of gameplay, messages about life, death and the human condition. We also find creative ways of tackling gender displays through character description and game mechanics. Art games may thus serve as a laboratory for experimenting with doing and possibly undoing gender.
This war of mine' is a critical game depicting the war experience from a civilian's perspective. ... more This war of mine' is a critical game depicting the war experience from a civilian's perspective. As a game, it relies on its interactivity in order to offer the player an immersive experience. As a critical game, it challenges design conventions while also encouraging self-reflection. 'This war of mine' proposes interpretations of both real life and play in an ethical and realistic manner. We show the means it employs as a medium for sending a message: its content, rhetoric, presentation, as well as the debates that it stirs. Thus, as games are played in a cloud of comments and reviews, we also explore the collaborative process of moral learning in 'This war of mine' and we discuss the game's efficiency as a medium in delivering an ethical gameplay experience.
Gender has recently increased in relevance as a game analysis topic. Representations of masculini... more Gender has recently increased in relevance as a game analysis topic. Representations of masculinity and femininity in games have become a growing interest for scholars. Still, little has been written about representations of aging and older persons. Starting from this status-quo, we propose an analysis of age displays in a subtype of video games, namely casual art games. These are designed to encourage reflexivity and perspective-taking on a given topic, examining the human condition and offering a critical view of society. We examine several casual art games and we discuss how they depict and model older characters and the process of aging: What are the game-based narratives of aging? How are elderly characters portrayed and what place do they take in the emerging game story? How do game mechanics model the situation of 'old age' and the process of 'aging'?
Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in... more Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in literature search, bringing authors to the fore as nodes in exploration paths. While traditional literature search occurs in a text-based environment, academic social sites bring forward the authors. They make use of actionable researcher personas to facilitate discovery and encourage user engagement. Still, the topic of search and exploration remains underrepresented in the discussions on academic social networks. Current interface design limits the potential of researcher personas to facilitate discovery, and the potential of literature discovery to enrich researcher personas. We study through observation the profiles of 207 Game Studies researchers on Academia.edu and ResearchGate, documenting a significant space for improving engagement beyond current median levels. By introducing the concept of actionable researcher personas and discussing actual limits and opportunities in its imp...
Representations of femininity in video games and other media are often discussed with reference t... more Representations of femininity in video games and other media are often discussed with reference to the most popular games, their protagonists and their sexist predicament. This framing leaves in shadow other dimensions. We aim to identify some of them and to open a broader horizon for examining and designing femininity and gender in games. To this end we look into games with creative portrayals of feminine characters, diverging from the action-woman trope: The Walking Dead, The Path, and 80 Days. We talk in dialogue with scholars, but also with a digital crowd-critique movement for films and games, loosely centered on instruments such as the Bechdel-Wallace test and the TV Tropes.org wiki. We argue that the central analytical dimension of female character strength should be accompanied by three new axes, in order to examine feminine presence across ages, in the background fictive world created by the game, and in network edges of interaction.
Journal of Comparative Research in Anthropology and Sociology, 2015
As games are becoming an increasingly popular medium in various demographic and professional stra... more As games are becoming an increasingly popular medium in various demographic and professional strata, scholars are discussing their content and how they shape society. However, despite an increase in gender analysis of video games, little has been written about orienting games towards an elderly audience, or game representations of aging and older persons. Games specifically designed for older persons are focused on improving cognitive functions, starting from the assumption that the elderly are in need of special games in order to repair age-related deficits. This repair-focused design philosophy comes at the expense of pursuing a broader understanding of quality of life and non-programmatic entertainment. Games-for-fun that also explicitly target the elderly as an audience are almost invisible. In this article we turn our attention to a powerful elderly feminine character in an AAA game designed for entertainment without a serious mission, namely Flemeth from Dragon Age. We discuss how the game depicts and models older characters: What repertoire of portraits has Flemeth as an old woman, in the Dragon Age games? How does Flemeth contribute to an enlarged repertoire of portrayals of old women in video games? We conclude that Flemeth's gender and age displays in Dragon Age do not impoverish her portrayal but, on the contrary, turn her into a powerful and complex character, thus offering a model for game design to represent and invite older players.
Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in... more Scholarly social networks such as Academia.edu and ResearchGate.net introduce a novel approach in literature search, bringing authors to the fore as nodes in exploration paths. While traditional literature search occurs in a text-based environment, academic social sites bring forward the authors. They make use of actionable researcher personas to facilitate discovery and encourage user engagement. Still, the topic of search and exploration remains underrepresented in the discussions on academic social networks. Current interface design limits the potential of researcher personas to facilitate discovery, and the potential of literature discovery to enrich researcher personas. We study through observation the profiles of 207 Game Studies researchers on Academia.edu and ResearchGate, documenting a significant space for improving engagement beyond current median levels. By introducing the concept of actionable researcher personas and discussing actual limits and opportunities in its implementation, we contribute to a better understanding of the potential of academic social networks to change literature discovery and create a novel experience of search, centered on authors’ mediated presence. When exploring research publications on the two platforms, authors are no longer attributes of texts: they become contexts for making sense of publications and for charting new routes in the research landscape. Such an author-centric experience of literature discovery can emerge and consolidate in time, as users incorporate novel ways of relating to authors and using their personas as tools for navigation. Higher engagement can lead to richer and more relevant home feeds that, in turn, can create new opportunities to practice an emerging skill of literature discovery through actionable researcher personas.
We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine charact... more We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine characters, and we illustrate them through an analysis of This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days. Historical games may include documented historical characters and fictive characters as well; the latter may aim to represent a type of real persons, or may be individualized as a purely fictional character. We argue that This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days have both strong and weak points in their construction of feminine characters, when taking into account the proposed set of indicators.
We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine charact... more We propose a set of six topics of inquiry into historical games as regards their feminine characters, and we illustrate them through an analysis of This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days. Historical games may include documented historical characters and fictive characters as well; the latter may aim to represent a type of real persons, or may be individualized as a purely fictional character. We argue that This War of Mine, Valiant Hearts and 80 Days have both strong and weak points in their construction of feminine characters, when taking into account the proposed set of indicators.
Gender analysis of video games has increased its public visibility through the Gamergate controve... more Gender analysis of video games has increased its public visibility through the Gamergate controversy. We examine several casual art games in order to explore the diversity of both conventional and counter-stereotypical gender representations. We find significant reliance on stereotypical presentations, especially in 'sketchy wife' characters. Such tropes may offer rhetorical resources to communicate, in brief lapses of gameplay, messages about life, death and the human condition. We also find creative ways of tackling gender displays through character description and game mechanics. Art games may thus serve as a laboratory for experimenting with doing and possibly undoing gender.
This war of mine' is a critical game depicting the war experience from a civilian's perspective. ... more This war of mine' is a critical game depicting the war experience from a civilian's perspective. As a game, it relies on its interactivity in order to offer the player an immersive experience. As a critical game, it challenges design conventions while also encouraging self-reflection. 'This war of mine' proposes interpretations of both real life and play in an ethical and realistic manner. We show the means it employs as a medium for sending a message: its content, rhetoric, presentation, as well as the debates that it stirs. Thus, as games are played in a cloud of comments and reviews, we also explore the collaborative process of moral learning in 'This war of mine' and we discuss the game's efficiency as a medium in delivering an ethical gameplay experience.
Gender has recently increased in relevance as a game analysis topic. Representations of masculini... more Gender has recently increased in relevance as a game analysis topic. Representations of masculinity and femininity in games have become a growing interest for scholars. Still, little has been written about representations of aging and older persons. Starting from this status-quo, we propose an analysis of age displays in a subtype of video games, namely casual art games. These are designed to encourage reflexivity and perspective-taking on a given topic, examining the human condition and offering a critical view of society. We examine several casual art games and we discuss how they depict and model older characters and the process of aging: What are the game-based narratives of aging? How are elderly characters portrayed and what place do they take in the emerging game story? How do game mechanics model the situation of 'old age' and the process of 'aging'?
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