Games Studies

Data Dating is a collection of ten academic essays accompanied by works of media art that provide a comprehensive insight into the construction of love and its practices in the time of digitally mediated relationships. The essays come from recognized researchers in the field of media and cultural studies.

INTRODUCTION
Introduction: Dating (the) Data and Other Intimacies
Ania Malinowska and Valentina Peri

1. WIRED LIMERENCE (feat. Deep Love by Antoine Schmitt)
Technology, Commerce and the Intimacy Revolution
Lauren Rosewarne

2. LOVE INFO-STRUCTURES (feat. Glaciers by Zach Gage)
Romance in a Time of Dark Data
Lee McKinnon

3. MEDIATED MATCHMAKING (feat. A Truly Magical Moment by Adam Basanta)
Fast Love. Temporalities of Digitized Togetherness
Ania Malinowska

4. EMOTIONS WITH THE MACHINE (feat. Ashley Madison Angels at Work by !Mediengruppe Bitnik)
‘Emotoys’: Ethics, Emotions and Empathic Technologies
Andrew McStay and Gilad Rosner

5. SELF-FASHIONING DESIRE (feat. Kill Your Darlings by Jeroen van Loon)
The Greatest Love of All: Recognition, Self-Love and the Imaging of Desire
Derek Conrad Murray

6. DIGITAL ONSCENITIES (feat. Peeping Tom (Porn Version) by Thomas Israel)
The New Onscenity. Navigating Digital Desires in the Twenty First Century Pornoscape
Lynn Comella

7. LIBIDINAL TECHNO-SCAPES (Webcam Venus by Addie Wagenknecht and Pablo Garcia)
The Proxemics of Digital Intimacy
Kyle Machulis

8. TOUCHLESS EMBRACES (feat. VR Hug by Tom Galle and Moises Sanabria)
Virtual Hugs and the Crises of Touch
David Parisi

9. SOUNDS OF FEELING (feat. Digital Synaesthetic E.E.G. Kiss by Karen Lancel and Hermen Maat)
I Can Hear Your Feelings
Andrew Blanton

10. INTERFACES OF EMOTIONAL SURVEILLANCE (feat. Face Messenger by Tom Galle and John Yuyi)
Timestamp Anxieties
Kristin Veel and Nanna Bonde Thylstrup

As an emergent medium capable of telling complex stories, the video game gives us unique insight and challenges to established critical theory. This chapter will examine the ways ‘the gaze' is expressed and utilized in video games, particularly the “survival horror” genre. It will discuss some of the ways ‘the gaze' has been shaped by literary and filmic studies before turning to Outlast (2013) by Red Barrels Games as an example of the way the medium can rearticulate our understanding of watching and being watched. Through its player-driven diegesis, immersion and phenomenologically-situated avatar body, and an ability to stimulate emotional response through game mechanics, the video game gaze might be capable of engendering emotional sympathy rather than constructing hierarchical positions of mastery. With its narratives of state control and institutionalization, journalistic distance, and medical invasiveness, Outlast uses critical understandings of ‘the gaze' to ask q...

Suelen considerarse los videojuegos como una manera de entretenimiento, pero pocos han prestado atención al aprendizaje que implícitamente el jugador obtiene mientras juega. Dentro de los distintos temas que se pueden aprender, la Historia es parte de estos. Lo que presenta este trabajo son los distintos temas dentro del campo de la Historia que se pueden utilizar para acercar a las personas a desarrollar un interés por la Historia.

Many scholars have discussed the recent expansion and mixing of Play in our societies, a process generally labelled cultural gamification or ludification. Many cultural phenomena and societal domains are increasingly permeated by ludic elements, metaphors and mindsets. The influence of cultural gamification can also be seen in the media system, through the spread of game-like patterns influencing the narratives and usage of different media. The aim of this paper is to describe the emergence of game-like narratives and interaction in media, focusing on their semiotic dissimulation patterns. More specifically, the following pages will present and analyse recent playful elements and patterns connected to mystery, thriller and similar genres, investigating the ways in which game models interact with other media, and the resulting decrypting and dissimulation effects, both at the textual and at the discoursive level.

In contrast to the traditional scholarly and literary focus upon geographical, mythopoetic and narrative, aesthetic and architectural, and historical elements of world-building, this essay will aim instead to unpack the value of culture, society, and politics to game world-building. These are dimensions that have been rarely analyzed by scholars, or considered fully in literature designed to aid the world-building creator. Nor have they often examined in behind-the-scenes media relating the process of game design to interested audiences. Nevertheless, they have been an inextricable and essential component of many of the most detailed video game world-building efforts to date, such as the Deus Ex, Bioshock, Command and Conquer, Crusader Kings, and Soulsborne series, and games such as Alpha Centauri (1999). However, their lack of physicality or easy presentation when compared to the traditional world-building elements —since political, social, and cultural dimensions of life tend to be complex, diffuse, actively enacted, or embodied— may seem harder to depict in a game than elements such as architecture or geography that are readily visually portrayed, and harder to relate in a design context to the interested observer. This essay is therefore designed specifically to unpack these three dimensions of world-building, relate their importance to the consideration of constructing densely-detailed video game worlds, and examine how these dimensions are constructed to intersect with gameplay and bring such concerns into the foreground of the player’s experiences. Exploring the work and its interweaving of the social, cultural, and political elements of world-building alongside core gameplay objectives, the essay will argue for a renewed interest within game studies in such elements of game design, the potential for new kinds of gameplay that can emerge from detailed simulation and presentation of these aspects, and their centrality to any comprehensive understanding of world-building in video games.

O artigo se propõe a discutir a pornografia nos videogames em um cenário de hiper-realidade. Assim, são apresentados casos de imagens produzidas através dos games que alcançaram um patamar mais que real de acordo com o conceito desenvolvido por Jean Baudrillard. Nesse contexto, debater como as representações pornográficas de personagens de videogame migraram para o nosso cotidiano com os quadrinhos pornográficos japoneses através do ahegao. E por fim, apresentar e problematizar o processo de criação comunitária da personagem Bowsette: fanarts, histórias em quadrinhos, cosplay, modificações e produções pornográficas.

The article proposes to discuss pornography in video games in a scenario of  hyper-reality.  Thus,  cases  of  images  produced  through  games  are  presented  that have reached a more than real level according to the concept developed by Jean Baudrillard. In this context, to debate how pornographic representations of video  game  characters  migrated  to  our  daily  lives  with  Japanese  pornographic  comics through ahegao. And finally, to present and problematize the process of community creation of the character Bowsette: fanarts, comics, cosplay, modifi-cations and pornographic productions.

El artículo propone discutir la pornografía en videojuegos en un escena-rio de hiperrealidad. Así, se presentan casos de imágenes producidas a través de juegos que han alcanzado un nivel más que real según el concepto desarrollado por Jean Baudrillard. En este contexto, debatir cómo las representaciones porno-gráficas de personajes de videojuegos migraron a nuestro día a día con los cómics pornográficos japoneses a través de ahegao. Y finalmente, presentar y problema-tizar el proceso de creación comunitaria del personaje Bowsette: fanarts, cómics, cosplay, modificaciones y producciones pornográficas.

Abstract: This article discusses the processes involved in the construction of group membership and cohesion in a semiprofessional team of esports in the city of Belém, the capital of the state of Pará, in the Brazilian Amazonian territory. This effort discusses what characterizes the progression and union of a particular team in a local competitive scenario in which ephemeral teams predominate. Based on an eleven-month ethnography with a set of players engaged in professional competitive practice, and through observations from field research, we compiled a set of 12 essential characteristics filled out by the team. Also, this study points to the development of an ethos of professionalism in a peripheral context, indicating the existence of an Amazonian esports scenario – in the North Region of the Brazil, with emphasis in Belém, Pará. The results indicate the subsistence of a social fabric composed of a variety of other elements that, in turn, constitute an ethos of group camaraderie that plays a central role in the competitive dynamics that underlie the team as a group.

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" Video gaming: it’s a boy’s world, right? That’s what the industry wants us to think. Why and how we came to comply are what Carly A. Kocurek investigates in this provocative consideration of how an industry’s craving for respectability hooked up with cultural narratives about technology, masculinity, and youth at the video arcade.

From the dawn of the golden age of video games with the launch of Atari’s Pong in 1972, through the industry-wide crash of 1983, to the recent nostalgia-bathed revival of the arcade, Coin-Operated Americans explores the development and implications of the “video gamer” as a cultural identity. This cultural-historical journey takes us to the Twin Galaxies arcade in Ottumwa, Iowa, for a close look at the origins of competitive gaming. It immerses us in video gaming’s first moral panic, generated by Exidy’s Death Race (1976), an unlicensed adaptation of the film Death Race 2000. And it ventures into the realm of video game films such as Tron and WarGames, in which gamers become brilliant, boyish heroes.

Whether conducting a phenomenological tour of a classic arcade or evaluating attempts, then and now, to regulate or eradicate arcades and coin-op video games, Kocurek does more than document the rise and fall of a now-booming industry. Drawing on newspapers, interviews, oral history, films, and television, she examines the factors and incidents that contributed to the widespread view of video gaming as an enclave for young men and boys.

A case study of this once emergent and now revived medium, Coin-Operated Americans is history that holds valuable lessons for contemporary culture as we struggle to address pervasive sexism in the domain of video games—and in the digital working world beyond." (Publisher's Summary)

What is the relationship between player-controlled movement and animation in game media? How do game worlds respond to the movement of characters through different types of space? This article will draw on concepts such as animation, figuration and vitality to analyse some of the ways that in-game animations and graphical rendering activity are activated by player-controlled movement through three-dimensional game environments. The sudden ‘blinking in’ of environmental features in the distant horizon as the player approaches and more gradual ‘filling in’ of graphical detail in objects such as plants, rocks and shadows close to the player character/camera in games such as Red Dead Redemption and Shadow of the Colossus provide materials for considering how animation might be developed as a concept for describing the connection between player agency and game-world visual activity in the said media. Graphical rendering properties such as draw distance and texture pop-in that are tied to the spatial relationship between a player character/camera and game-world objects will be some of the primary ways this dynamic of movement and animation will be analysed.

This is my claim: games are a form of landscape. I'll admit that this isn't the gospel truth, exactly, but it is an exceedingly productive metaphor. Games are constructed spaces, built to support satisfying human interaction, and human choice. They are a space, under a certain abstracted, but useful, notion of space.

This paper addresses the lack of solid historical information concerning early computer game sales and preferences. Two consistent data series from the magazines Softalk and Computer Gaming World (CGW) are analyzed to give an overview of the best selling and best rated games by players for the period of 1980-1984. A “genre palette ” is inferred from the sources, giving a snapshot of how contemporaries framed and interpreted the offer in computer games. A comparison of the series reveals the CGW readership constitutes a distinct “hardcore ” play community amongst general computer game players. It is also observed that genre preferences vary in time: arcade games peak in 1982 and then recede in favor of computer-native genres. A brief comparison with Atari 2600 best sellers reveal the inadequacy of the computer game genre palette to describe home console games. The historical and constructed nature of genres as “horizons of expectations ” is discussed.

No ano de 2007, período em que os jogos eletrônicos já se mostravam como uma indústria consolidada, com um mercado multimilionário, que já abarcava todos os gêneros e faixas etárias, a desenvolvedora Infinity Ward lançou um jogo que prometia inovar todo seu segmento. Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare, além dos gráficos de qualidade e das novas mecânicas de jogo, possuía, em sua narrativa, algo que a diferenciava das suas principais concorrentes. O jogo em questão não se baseava na Segunda Guerra Mundial ou na Guerra do Vietnã, conflitos esses já muito explorados por outras franquias de jogos do gênero. A tal guerra moderna, narrada no jogo, se consistia em um conflito que uniu britânicos e estadunidenses, esses sendo os personagens que serão controlados pelo jogador, em uma cruzada contra uma aliança formada por russos e árabes, rivais históricos dos Estados Unidos, que agora eram reunidos em um mesmo contexto, como símbolo de uma ameaça à paz e a ordem no mundo. Tendo em vista essas questões supracitadas, o objetivo da pesquisa é, além de historicizar brevemente a indústria dos games, também analisar de que forma os russos e os árabes foram representados no competitivo que nos serve de fonte, bem como quais foram os fatores que levaram a tal tipo de representação, traçando um paralelo com eventos contemporâneos a criação do jogo, que possam ter servido de inspiração aos criadores. Para isso nos ampararemos em estudos que discutem identidades nacionais na contemporaneidade, relações internacionais e globalização, além de utilizarmos também de teóricos que se dedicam às áreas da Narratologia e da Ludologia.

The multiplatform Ni no Kuni (Bandai Namco, 2010/2013) represents anime studio Studio Ghibli's first dedicated video game project. Although Japanese video game company Level-5 developed Ni no Kuni, Ghibli contributed to the story and was responsible for its visual design. The game demonstrates not only Ghibli's distinct visual style, but it also shares with the studio's films similar themes (loss of innocence, youth empowerment, the relationship between nature and technology) and storytelling characteristics (a young hero and a synthesis of Eastern and Western elements). Beyond its aesthetic and narrative contributions, Studio Ghibli also provided Level-5 a means of differentiating itself within the contemporary Japanese video game industry, as several companies attempt to expand into the West in response to shifts in the domestic market. Likewise, Ghibli has been adjusting to its own shifts, including co-founder Hayao Miyazaki's retirement from feature films and the studio's subsequent hiatus on film productions. As such, Ni no Kuni represents a particularly significant example of convergence between the anime and video industries, as it suggests paths for both Studio Ghibli and Level-5, as they each look to diversify into new markets and revenue streams.

Desde a primeira narrativa em jogos em eletrônicos, os enredos e jogabilidade ganharam carater cada vez mais imersivo, criando, para o usuário, novas formas de conceber o ambiente digital. Os sandbox games ou open-worlds se caracterizam hoje como uma das principais mudanças nas formas de consumo de jogos por apresentarem cenários abertos, navegáveis e com alto nível de interação ao mesmo tempo em que provocam novas maneiras de fazer fluir a narrativa do game.

Para  Winnicott (2009) lo que causa ese miedo al derrumbe es un hecho pasado escondido en el inconsciente, que se moviliza recurrentemente desafiando la organización defensiva del Yo y su integración, llegando a superar en algún momento las capacidades de este e impidiéndole abarcar esta experiencia dentro de los dominios o control de la omnipotencia personal en el presente. De esta forma, es esa sensación o posibilidad de que lo temido-pasado desborde en el presente las capacidades u organizaciones defensivas para soportarlo, contenerlo o anularlo. Dicho de otro modo, se teme revivir esa experiencia original de agonía primitiva, y la imposibilidad de hacerle frente.

Muitas vezes normalizado dentro dos ambientes de trabalho, o crunch na indústria de games é uma prática que explora desenvolvedores para além do limite de suas horas trabalhadas, causando sérios problemas na vida dessas pessoas como doenças mentais, desestabilizações familiares e abandono da carreira profissional. Entretanto, no decorrer dos anos, tal prática vem sendo cada vez mais visibilizada pelos veículos de comunicação, o que está gerando um sentimento de injustiça pelas comunidades de games e pressão pela mudança dessa cultura. Este artigo, portanto, aborda como o jornalismo especializado em videogames vem demonstrando um papel importante na denúncia do crunch e como sua atuação vem causando resultados significados, observáveis por meio de pesquisas de órgãos que tratam sobre a satisfação dos desenvolvedores.

Computer- und Videospiele sind mittlerweile so vielfältig, dass sich aus ihnen viel lernen lässt: über unsere eigene Wahrnehmung, über unseren Umgang mit Erwartungen und Enttäuschungen, über Geduld und Ungeduld, über Vorurteile und Weltbilder, über menschliche Kommunikation und Kooperation und vieles mehr.

Das Buch ist ein Reiseführer durch die Welt der Spiele und richtet sich nicht nur an alle, die mit Computerspielen aufgewachsen sind, sondern auch an jene, die Spielen nach wie vor skeptisch gegenüberstehen.

Auf unseren Touren wird deutlich, wie vielfältig und anregend Computerspiele heute sind – dass sie nicht nur bloße Konsumprodukte einer viele Millionen Euro schweren Unterhaltungsindustrie sind, sondern buntes Zeugnis menschlicher Kreativität. Das Buch zeigt Ihnen, wie Spiele uns allen Möglichkeiten zur kreativen Entfaltung bieten – oft in einem viel weiteren Sinne, als Spiele-Entwicklerinnen und -Entwickler selbst vorhersehen können.

Neste artigo apresentamos as reflexões iniciais de uma pesquisa, ainda em andamento, acerca das representações de gênero em videogames e seu papel na constituição de identidades sexuais e de gênero entre os adolescentes no espaço escolar. A pesquisa faz parte de um projeto de Iniciação Científica Júnior e está sendo desenvolvida no Colégio Pedro II, no Rio de Janeiro. Dela fazem parte 16 pesquisadores, sendo dois professores dos departamentos de Geografia e Línguas Anglo-Germânicas e 14 alunos do Ensino Médio e Fundamental II, entre bolsistas e pesquisadores voluntários. A geração de dados dar-se-á por meio de grupos focais e entrevistas estruturadas, além de análise dos jogos propriamente dita. Com base nos dados gerados, pretende-se realizar um mini-documentário com roteiro desenvolvido pelos estudantes. Essa é uma pesquisa de cunho interpretativista e a discussão acerca dos temas em tela será feita por meio de sessões exploratórias (AOPEs) .

Twitch.tv is one of the most successful online live streaming platforms in the world, with 200 million viewers, 2 million regular “streamers,” and a market value of over $1billion. In this paper, we offer a first conceptualization of streamers as social media influencers, and how effectively they can perform strategic communication for sponsors. We draw on extensive ethnographic research and over a hundred semi-structured interviews with streamers to address two questions: first, how does Twitch operate as a platform for strategic communication; second, what skills do streamers need to be successful influencers? In the first case, we show Twitch is well suited to influencing, in large part due to its integration of data analytics, while streamers are using these tools to adopt a business-oriented mindset; in the second case, we show the importance of authenticity to both streamers and clients, and how channels of different sizes offer strategic communication opportunities. The article contributes to the emerging literature on Twitch, developing insights from influencing and strategic communication, but given the increasing scope of live streaming, we also argue the phenomenon – particularly when combined with the economic dynamics of influencing – is just as important for making sense of the wider media landscape today.

Simulation video games (SVGs) are extremely wide category of modern video games, which provide innovative educational possibilities for personal and professional development. SVGs represent practically all forms of human activities, which in turn may raise sophisticated ethical issues. In terms of methodology, most of the educational vehicle SVGs can be studied within the framework of ludology. The typological features of hybrid social SVGs can be investigated by means of narratological methodology and non-reductionist approach (I. Bogost). It is possible to identify two problematic ethical aspects of SVGs: "internal" and "external". The "internal" aspect investigates ethical issues within the virtual worlds of SVGs. The "external" aspect focuses on the problem the use of SVGs experience for the violation of moral and legal norms in society. The main objective of the paper is to identify key educational possibilities of SVGs and reveal their ethical dimension. Civil vehicle SVGs (car, bus, truck, train, racing games) provide outstanding educational possibilities for training driver skills, but may provoke traffic offense. Flight SVGs allow training pilots of civil airlines, but can be used by terrorists. Military aviation, tank, navy and submarine SVGs train combat vehicles control and raise ethical issues of violence against virtual/real civilians. Sports SVGs allow skills training and actualize the problem of cheating/doping. More complicated social SVGs represent the models of social behaviour as well as the problems of deviant behavior and virtual harassment. Business simulators are relevant in the context of gamification, but raise the ethical issues of capitalist exploitation. Medical SVGs can help to rehearse a surgical operation and at the same time represent medical errors. Educational combat SVGs actualize the problems of the virtual violence and its influence on social behavior. Construction and management SVGs raise moral dilemmas in city management ("SimCity"). Government SVGs besides the educational aspects of public administration may represent the violation of legal norms. God games actualize the problems of moral choices in the discourse of religious ethics. The findings of the paper can be useful for the study of game based learning and modern ethical research.

O artigo versa de forma ensaística sobre uma tríade formulada pelos seguintes pilares teórico-metodológicos: 1) a cultura BDSM e games; 2) a personagem Lady Dimitrescu de Resident Evil: Village, de 2021; e 3) os memes e seu impacto na sociedade pós-moderna sob ótica da Memética. Parte-se do sentido de que a conexão entre essas frontes resulta na massificação e compartilhamento de uma cultura de nicho que parte do underground para o mainstream, tendo um game e uma personagem como força-motriz desse processo. Como metodologia, emprega-se um estudo de caso clássico ao mesmo tempo em que traz os holofotes à uma perspectiva teórico-ensaística de Observação-Participante. Evidencia-se, portanto, uma intimidade vivencial entre consumir a cultura pop pelos games ao mesmo tempo em que se massifica uma cultura de nicho, justificando essa mídia como uma tecnologia da imagem e do imaginário.

The article aims at the theoretical-methodological triad formulated by: 1) the BDSM culture and games; 2) the character Lady Dimitrescu from Resident Evil: Village, of 2021; and 3) memes and their impact on the post-modern society under the Memetics perspective. It starts from the connection between these references resulting on the massification and sharing of a niche culture that leads the underground to mainstream, pointing out a game and a character as driving force of this process. As methodology, it carries out a classic case study as well as highlights a Participation Observation. It demonstrates how a way between consuming pop culture throughout games and a massification of a niche culture is able to justify this media as an image and imaginary technology.

As soon as the first videogame was invented, its creators had to imagine a way to interact with their virtually composed world, a way to make it playable for all and not just for avid programmers. Even though, the game could be functional by itself (AI versus AI), the activity of human play could only take place if and only if an individual could properly interact in-game through a virtually human controlled thing. Whether it was a virtual character, vehicle, animal, human, society, robot or else. Our means to its control and enjoyment of its use in a playable universe takes often place via a videogame controller. Therefore, we would tend to argue that the gaming experience is essentially the result formed through interactions between the use of control and their repercussions in-game.

    Today, we are interested in explaining how videogames controllers and in particular the GameCube one became a culturally symbolic object throughout the evolution of the gaming industry and its physical/virtual use. We will study in what ways this culturally significant object was shaped in the gaming culture by its supporters and developers. In other words, we are going to study how the interactions between players and their controllers have been influenced by an evolution in the cultural and practical knowledge of gaming. Hopefully, we will prove that the controller is the key towards a unique play experience as well as a way of understanding the sociological and cultural significance of gaming. However, our main focus will be to try to sketch the evolution of the social and cultural use of controllers and study the reasons behind the ‘unique’ design of the GameCube controller...

The role of playful innovations in the Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) genre has become a hugely important, contested and under studied activity. Through a case study of the ‘fountain hook’ and an exploration of exploitative and emergent notions of play, this paper explores how the dynamics of co-creativity function in online play spaces such as the MOBA genre. In what ways these co-creative dynamics impact different stakeholders of the play space and open up critical questions similar to that of wider participatory platforms is a particular focus here. Informed by online ethnographic research that forms part of a wider PhD project this paper also touches upon specific themes related to the unexplored genre of MOBAs such as why they are so appealing and what it is that makes them so challenging to study.

The present study argues against the deterministic view that professional gaming should be constructed as a sport (Taylor, 2012; Voorhees, 2015). The stereotypical male gamer is examined against the user representations created for esports; i.e. athletic masculinity and geek technology user. How does this sit with individuals’ performance of gender, work and sport? Using a framework of game studies and science and technology studies, 10 females and males involved in esports were interviewed. Irrespective of gender, competition was a high motivation to develop skills in professional gaming. Individuals in esports view gaming as fun, first and foremost. They usually refer to their ‘day jobs’ and potential future careers derived from university studies. It was found that in general, those who have a past of practicing organised sports more readily accept the label of athlete. Discussions about the toxic environment in esports were explicit with female gamers but only implicit with male ones. Women in the lower ranks affirmed it is ubiquitous and two strategies to deal with it were mentioned; ignore and mute voice chat to silence toxic players, or confront and retaliate. Men implicitly spoke about hostility between competitors and the need to rapidly obtain skills to surpass them.

Qu'est-ce que le texte d'un jeu vidéo? Comment l'étudier en études littéraires? A quoi ça sert? Voilà les trois grandes questions auxquelles tente de répondre ce mémoire de M1, pour ce qui est de la partie recherche.

Plan:

Ce mémoire se développera en trois parties, en suivant une certaine chronologie imitative des péripéties du travail de recherche. Dans un premier temps, nous approfondirons la question de l’unité du texte d’un jeu vidéo afin de souligner la nécessité de l’approcher d’abord dans son ensemble, puis dans ses sous-ensembles, pour saisir les enjeux majeurs de son rapport au récit. Dans un second temps nous tenterons d’élaborer une première typologie des textes du jeu vidéo, pour circonscrire davantage ces sous-ensembles de textes vidéoludiques et leurs spécificités. Dans cette perspective, nous nommerons deux types de textes, respectivement « intradiégétiques » et « extradiégétiques ». Enfin, cette tentative de typologie illustrée d’exemples nous confrontera à un certain nombre de problèmes qu’il s’agira de dépasser dans une dernière partie. Dans celle-ci, nous étudierons plus spécifiquement le rôle du texte dans la construction du « récit vidéoludique » (d’après la notion de D. Arsenault) en mettant l’accent sur les intrications possibles entre parcours de jeu et parcours interprétatif. Cette démarche nous amènera à compléter la typologie précédemment établie, en y ajoutant deux autres types de textes, complémentaires des premiers : les textes « constants » et les textes « variables ».

La deuxième partie de ce mémoire correspond à un travail de création littéraire: créer un jeu vidéo, écrire un jeu vidéo, ou peut-être une "fiction interactive"? Cette partie est composée d'un journal de création et d'extraits de textes qui seront implémentés (ou pas) dans le jeu.

In this paper we articulate an empirical approach to the study of social action in digitallymediated contexts. Our approach extends Carl Couch’s theory of cooperative action, which is based on a set of “elements of sociation”: acknowledged attentiveness, mutual responsiveness, congruent functional identities, shared focus, and social objective. Three additional elements of sociation, adapted from studies of jazz performance, are added to the list of elements that characterize coordinated action: a formal theory of task performance, an informal theory of task performance, and synchronicity of individual actions. Using audio-visual recordings of gameplay, the minutiae of social action were captured and subjected to repetitive, reflexive and collaborative analysis in order to identify these patterns, including their potential causes and consequences. We use data from two games—the single-player real-time strategy game Eufloria and the massively multiplayer online game World of Warcraft...

Expressive and narrative features of Video Games (VG) are bread and butter of Video Games Art. In my articles I often make implicit comparison between artistic evolution of Cinema and VG's. Here I want to clarify such comparison; the degree of detail cannot be high, so forgive the essentiality of certain passages that otherwise would require very articulated dissertations. I trust in readers to have a basic knowledge of the history of Cinema; usually followers of Video Games Art are quite educated! In the end you can find an unprecedented comparison with Comics, another important medium established in the 20th century, whose evolution has several common points with VG's. Even in this case I count on readers to have a basic knowledge of Comics history.

Trabalho de Conclusão de Curso (TCC) que investiga como se dá a relação dos jogadores com os jogos através de um Estudo de Caso do League of Legends. Com isso, busca-se entender as práticas de consumo dos jogadores e entender como a relação de jogador-consumidor pode evoluir para uma relação de jogador-fã.

The growth in the populations of Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) has stopped growing since 2009. The arguments for why this has happened typically focus on the humans that play them whether that be psychological, financial, or lifestyle factors. However, these previous enquiries have failed to address MMORPG players as both a result of not just the human and social, but also of technological actants. Through the semi-structured interviews of sixteen participants obtained through a snowball sampling strategy within the MMORPG of Final Fantasy XIV, this thesis uses a novel application of Actor Network Theory to trace their MMORPG play. This led to the uncovering of important non-human, technological actants, that formed an important part of the construct of MMORPG play and the player itself, and, have been underserved by previous research. The first finding is that humans, more specifically, those who study participants considered as “friends” throughout MMORPG play were actually found to be fragile and non-essential to sustaining that play; the second finding is that humans do not hold as privileged a position within the sphere of MMORPG play and development, and that non-human, technologies often have as dramatic an effect on play; thirdly, this thesis finds that the way in which MMORPG play occurred and MMORPG players came to be could not be classified with rudimentary taxonomies as had been attempted previously, rather each occurrence of play and each player construct was unique through formation; and, finally, the fourth finding is that how one eventually comes to be an MMORPG player is the realisation of a complex tapestry of potentialities, sometimes years in the making. These findings through the application of Actor Network Theory alter the current understanding of the MMORPG player and allow us to answer the thesis question of “how have we misunderstood MMORPG play?”

RÉSUMÉ :

Ce présent travail de fin d’études a pour thématique l’architecture du paysage et le level design dans une approche sensorielle au travers du médium vidéoludique.

En parcourant les prochaines pages, nous mettrons en avant des notions théoriques permettant de mieux comprendre ce qu’est le level design, ainsi que divers éléments qui gravitent autour de la conception dans les jeux vidéo, dans le but de construire une base commune de connaissances pour une bonne compréhension du reste du travail.

A la suite de la définition de l’axe de recherche, nous nous attarderons sur la construction d’une clef d’analyse regroupant un ensemble de neuf patterns. Cette grille d’analyse s’inspire de différentes théories comme celle de l’Image de la Cité de Lynch (1960), de l’analyse séquentielle de Panerai (1999), ou bien encore de la narration environnementale de Jenkins (2011).

Après l’élaboration de ces patterns suivra l’étude sensorielle proprement dite sur une sélection de jeux qui forme notre corpus. Des synthèses critiques et des évaluations paysagères formeront notre discussion avant de nous conduire au dénouement de la thématique lors de la conclusion.

ABSTRACT :

The present master's thesis focus on a sensitive approach of landscape architecture and level design through the video game medium.

During the next few pages, we will put forward theoretical concepts to better understand what the level design is, as well as the various elements that concern the design from video games, in order to build a common grounding necessary for a good understanding of the rest of this work.

After defining an area of research, we will focus on the building of an analytical key comprising a set of nine patterns. This analytical grid is inspired by different theories such as the Image of the City of Lynch (1960), the Sequential analysis of Panerai (1999) and the Environmental storytelling of Jenkins (2011).

After the development of these patterns comes the sensitive study itself based on a selection of games that forms our corpus. Critical reviews and landscape assessments will feed our discussion before leading us to the outcome of this theme with the conclusion.

Almost all high schools require the reading of Jose de la Cruz’s “Korrido and Life Lived by the Three Princes, Children of King Fernando and Queen Valeriana in the Kingdom of Berbanya”, more popularly known as “Ibong Adarna”. The story seems to promote, however, family values that are rife with jealousy and betrayal, as shown in how the protagonists’ older brothers violently turn on him when he just effectively rescued them from certain doom. This paper describes a video game project, Adarna, as it re-imagines Filipino sibling rivalry that evolves from intense competition to brotherly coopetition. The project aims to be a point of discussion in universities and colleges’ game development classes, in particular those that involve the study of the socio-cultural impact of games.

Keywords: Philippine literature, culture, games, family

Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer brings together thought leadership in romance and affection games to explain the past, present, and possible future of affection play in games. The authors apply a combination of game analysis and design experience in affection play for both digital and analog games. The research and recommendations are intersectional in nature, considering how love and affection in games is a product of both player and designer age, race, class, gender, and more. The book combines game studies with game design to offer a foundation for incorporating affection into playable experiences.

The text is organized into two sections. The first section covers the patterns and practice of love and affection in games, explaining the patterns and practice. The second section offers case studies from which designers can learn through example. Love and Electronic Affection: A Design Primer is a resource for exploring how digital relationships are offered and how to convey emotion and depth in a variety of virtual worlds.

This book provides:

• A catalog of existing digital and analog games for which love and affection are a primary or secondary focus.

• A catalog of the uses of affection in games, to add depth and investment in both human-computer and player-to-player engagement.

• Perspective on affection game analyses and design, using case studies that consider the relationship of culture and affection as portrayed in games from large scale studios to single author independent games.

• Analysis and design recommendations for incorporating affection in games beyond romance, toward parental love, affection between friends, and other relationships.

• Analysis of the moral and philosophical considerations for historical and planned development of love and affection in human–computer interaction.

• An intersectionality informed set of scholarly perspectives from the Americas, Eurasia, and Oceania.

Gameplay is a performance in which the player both acts in and is audience to an ongoing game experience. Performance theory is influenced by feminism and performance art, which offer a rich site of feminist expression. What could be gained if this approach was applied to both the creation of and theoretical approach to digital games? The generational bonds between the rise of performance and the maturing of feminism are tightly interwoven: politically, theoretically, practically, and expressively. Perhaps the application of approaches drawn from performance theory and feminism could be a productive way to deepen the dialogue around gender and games? This chapter will explore both these questions in more depth in order to develop and deepen the use of performance theory in game studies.

Book cover description (full version of this book is available in Amazon.com):
The nature of the video game industry is extremely dynamic and many of the technologies that were studied here are already reaching their plateau. The stories of the Filipino women social gamers, however, are still very much relevant even though many of them had already transferred to different gaming platforms. Gameplay is a manifestation of one's identity, regardless of what platform one is using.

This book is about Filipino women players and their usage of social games, focusing specifically on social games on Facebook. The research looks at how Filipino women social gamers co-create images of identity and empowerment through play. Some of their communication practices can be expressed not only in the games, but also through the virtual communities provided by game development companies. These virtual communities exist via official social networking pages or fora, wherein players discuss game features that they like and how they could interact with these features. These are the places where the game co-creation among developers and players take place.

Since the release of Pokémon Go (2016), new attention has been given to the increasing overlap of virtual and real space where new media ecologies of collectable creatures have been superimposed on walkable terrain. The interaction of players and monsters in real space raises questions about the nature of monstrous accumulation and harks back to earlier explorations of Pokémon and capital. This paper challenges the novelty of Pokemon Go by identifying earlier trends of media ecologies in the franchises of Pokémon and Yo-Kai Watch. Through close readings of the central games of these franchises, it argues that ethnographic rather than capitalist accumulation defines the processes of collection, trade, and knowledge-making that comprise these worlds. Moreover, by focusing on play-ethnography, this paper sheds light on how monsters mediate the relationship between players and the countryside, and how these media ecologies reinforce existing conceptions of national and regional character.

The aim of this essay is to explore the game space in Assassin’s Creed: Revelations (2011). The game takes place in 1511 in three cities: Constantinople, Cappadocia and Masyaf. This essay will only address Constantinople through an analysis of Henri Lefebvre’s and Edward W. Soja’s triad of spatiality. The game’s one of the most important elements is the virtual reality device Animus, and its function will be questioned within Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia. In addition to the analysis of the game, several works regarding video games and game spaces will be cited within the context.

This article addresses the issue of world-building as related to the strategies of delimiting the openness of the gameworld. Specifically, it treats of the role of a borderline that restricts both the range of exploration and the gaming experience. By using tools supplied by cognitive and transmedial narratology and by referring to empirical studies in thermal mapping of explorable game space, Krzysztof M. Maj inquires whether the use of focalization and of the knowledge of the narrative field of view can offer deepened immersive exploratory experi-ences and a greater freedom of choice – aspects crucial for the full enjoyment of a genuinely open world. Maj supports his theses with world-centered analyses of selected video games (Cyberpunk 2077, Skyrim, Total War: Warhammer II, Divinity II: Ego Draconis and others). His goal is to emphasize the most crucial aspects of an open gameworld and, most importantly, to decide what this “open-ness” actually refers to.

A humanidade sempre se utilizou de narrativas para se comunicar. Ao longo dos anos, os teóricos perceberam haver nas narrativas uma estrutura e uma formulação básica comum que propiciava que as histórias se perpetuassem e se adaptassem formando novas histórias. As contribuições de Aristóteles, Vladimir Propp e Jung, fundamentadas com base na observação de um corpus variado de contos e de fábulas, possibilitaram ao estudioso Joseph Campbell elaborar uma estrutura narrativa denominada “Jornada do Herói”, um ciclo elíptico e evolutivo no qual o eixo central é o herói (e também suas variações, tal como o anti-herói). Essa estrutura é amplamente utilizada na construção de narrativas contemporâneas e abriu o caminho para que roteiristas como Vogler e Mckee propusessem sua adaptação centrada no protagonista-herói para a literatura e o cinema, Com a evolução das possibilidades interativas, a indústria de entretenimento passou a incorporar, a partir da década de 1970, ainda que modestamente, a narrativa como possibilidade de refinar a imersão nos games utilizando, na maioria das vezes, a Jornada do Escritor (estrutura adaptada por Vogler) como parâmetro para construção das narrativas em games. No entanto, é essencial que se perceba que os games possuem particularidades específicas, além de um alto teor de interação diferenciando-se das outras mídias e, portanto, sua estrutura não pode ser concebida da mesma forma como foi proposto por Vogler, requerendo uma adaptação que contemple tais particularidades. Além disso, geralmente os profissionais que se dedicam à arte narrativa para games ou são roteiristas (que não parece ser o mais adequado, pois a arte narrativa vai além do roteiro), ou são escritores (que em sua maioria não possuem conhecimento e qualificações específicas na área de games). Diante do exposto, defende-se a adoção de Designer de Narrativas (termo criado, em 2006, pelo Game Designer Stephen Dinehart) para designar esse profissional cujo conhecimento envolve múltiplas habilidades – como programação, arte e escrita – combinando as áreas da narratologia, da ludologia e do Game Design. Sendo assim, a proposta desta tese é investigar as estruturas narrativas convencionais e como elas se apresentam nos games, quais são os elementos e as ferramentas que podem auxiliar o designer de narrativas no processo criativo.

Humanity has always used narratives to communicate. Over the years, theorists have realized that there was a common basic structure and formulation in the narratives that allowed stories to perpetuate and adapt in order to form new stories. The contributions of Aristotle, Vladimir Propp and Jung, based on the observation of a varied corpus of tales and fables, enabled the scholar Joseph Campbell to elaborate a narrative structure called “Hero’s Journey”, an elliptical and evolutionary cycle in which the central axis is the hero (and also its variations, such as the anti-hero). This structure is widely used in the construction of contemporary narratives which paved the way for writers such as Vogler and Mckee allowing them to propose it’s adaptation centered on the protagonist-hero for literature and cinema. From the 1970s, with the evolution towards an interactive possibility, the entertainment industry began to incorporate, although modestly, the narrative as a possibility to improve the immersion in games using, most of the time, the Writer’s Journey (structure adapted by Vogler) as a parameter for the construction of narratives in games. However, it is essential to realize that games have specific peculiarities, besides a high content of interaction differing from other media and, therefore, its structure can not be conceived in the same way as it was proposed by Vogler, requiring an adaptation which addresses such particularities. In addition, usually professionals who engage in storytelling for games are screenwriters (which does not seem to be the most appropriate because the art of narrative goes beyond the script), or are writers (who mostly lack specific knowledge and qualification in the games area). Considering what was stated above, we argue for the adoption of a Narrative Designer (term created in 2006 by Game Designer Stephen Dinehart) to designate this professional whose knowledge involves multiple skills – such as programming, art and writing – combining the areas of Narratology, Ludology, and Game Design. Thus, the purpose of this thesis is to investigate conventional narrative structures and how they are presented in games, which are the elements and tools that can help the narrative designer in the creative process.

Le origini dello yoga si perdono nel tempo e si confondo-no con le stesse origini della cultura dell'India antica. La natura dello yoga, l'intenso intreccio di discorsi sul corpo, sulla mente e sullo spirito, lo rendono un universo ricco e profondo, al quale attingere per l'educazione dei bambini. Lo yoga ha inoltre una peculiare valenza pedagogica in quanto presenta profonde affinità con la dimensione ludica. "Yoga significa unione. È l'unione del corpo con la mente e della mente con l'anima". (...)

Articolo pubblicato in Bambini numero di ottobre 2019