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Games and Culture
Journal Prestige (SJR): 0.625
Citation Impact (citeScore): 1
Number of Followers: 30  
 
  Hybrid Journal Hybrid journal (It can contain Open Access articles)
ISSN (Print) 1555-4120 - ISSN (Online) 1555-4139
Published by Sage Publications Homepage  [1176 journals]
  • Esports as a Cultural Microcosm for Studying Psycholinguistics

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      Authors: Jeff Coon, Alexander Etz, Gregory Scontras, Barbara W. Sarnecka
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Esports have become increasingly popular as naturalistic experimental settings. In large part, this popularity is due to esports helping researchers balance ecological validity and experimental control; esports provide situations in which people are naturally motivated to learn and act in a complex yet restricted environment. Since players often learn and act collaboratively, many researchers have used esports as a setting in which to study communication. However, most of this research has focused on optimizing team performance or player experience, with less work examining fundamental questions of psycholinguistics. Esports offer unique opportunities in this regard, particularly for studying psycholinguistics in the context of prior knowledge, emergent expertise, and emergent culture. The present paper describes a case study that demonstrates the benefits of using an esport as a microcosm for studying psycholinguistics and points to opportunities for further exploration.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-21T06:04:53Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231164554
       
  • Machphrasis: Towards a Poetics of Video Games in Contemporary Literary
           Culture

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      Authors: Francis Butterworth-Parr
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article develops Kawika Guillermo's ‘machphrasis’ (2016) as a theoretical contribution to discourse considering the deployment of video games in contemporary literary culture. After presenting machphrasis’ academic stakes, I propose that machphrasis can give explanations for some techniques and images endemic to late 20th/21st century writing with regards to video games represented in prose. By appending Guillermo's conceptual work with three additions, I work towards a reproducible poetics of the video game in prose writing. I will show that machphrasis may be used to understand video games in literature as proxies for anticipated technologies, as discursive tools for reckoning with new subjectivities indebted to play, and as the means for generating new ideological positions for those who play games but are excluded from the normative ‘gamer’ group. This contribution prepares current academic discourse for a future literary landscape increasingly beholden to machphrastic themes, ambitions, and language.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-21T06:03:47Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231164087
       
  • Rethinking Remakes: Value and Culture in Video Game Temporalization

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      Authors: Logan Brown
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      As previous generations of players have aged and new generations with new tastes and expectations have emerged, the game industry has increasingly turned to high-profile remasters and remakes to re-valorize old software for new market conditions. To date, scholars and journalists have viewed this development almost entirely through an authenticity-focused lens inherited from preservation discourses, which has led many to dismiss rerelease efforts as simultaneously derivative and ahistorical. But this focus on authenticity has obscured the complex cultural and economic processes which give rise to rereleased games and the heterogeneity of the adaptive strategies that the industry has produced to appeal to varied consumer groups. This paper argues that we should instead view remastering and remaking as sub-practices of what I call temporalization, which, like the more familiar practice of localization, should be viewed as a creatively challenging and politically underdetermined cultural force which demands analysis on its own terms.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-17T06:42:21Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231163655
       
  • Gamification in Education: Why, Where, When, and How'—A
           Systematic Review

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      Authors: Nilüfer Zeybek, Elif Saygı
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Defined as the utilization of game elements in nongame environments, gamification has been frequently used in education in recent years. The aim of the present study is to summarize the studies previously conducted on the use of gamification in education through a systematic literature review. When the studies conducted in 2000–2021 were examined, four main dimensions came to the fore: (i) the aim of gamification studies, (ii) the learning fields where gamification studies were carried out, (iii) the level of education at which gamification studies were carried out, and (iv) how gamification was integrated into the learning environment. The results showed that gamification is used for various educational purposes, at many learning levels in various environments, and in a wide variety of learning fields. In most of the studies, the positive effects of gamification and its potential to solve problems in education were reported.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-17T06:41:42Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231158625
       
  • “You’ve Been Living Here For as Long as You Can Remember”: Trauma in
           OMORI's Environmental Design

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      Authors: Aya Younis, Jana Fedtke
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Developed by Omocat and released in December 2020, OMORI is a surreal psychological horror role-playing game. The game follows the titular protagonist Omori as it examines such sensitive topics as suicide, grief, death, and depression. Such traumatic events are triggered in several planes of existence—White Space, Headspace, and Black Space—leading to anxiety, regression, and resurfacing trauma. In our article, we examine such representations of trauma with particular attention to the role of environmental design. The planes represent different approaches to memory, trauma, and repression, which Omori and the player navigate in non-linear, recursive paths. We analyze how each space seeks to illuminate and explore aspects of trauma in its respective atmosphere. Through environmental design, OMORI provides players with three distinct experiences with escapism and trauma that are representative of the experiences of trauma victims, ultimately elucidating the psychological phenomenon on a larger scale to de-stigmatize trauma.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-16T05:42:00Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231162982
       
  • It's Not a Game! Rules of Notice and Hermeneutics of Suspicion in
           Contemporary FMV Games

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      Authors: Inge van de Ven
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article reflects on the resurgence of Full Motion Video (FMV) games, focusing on Her Story (2015), The Infectious Madness of Dr Dekker (2017), Telling Lies (2019), Contradiction (2015), and The Shapeshifting Detective (2018). Such titles have been derided for their lack of interactivity, and indeed afford the player limited agency in terms of concrete actions. They rely on the player's imagination in suturing the images together and in forming an empathetic understanding of the main characters’ actions and motivations. By virtue of this lack, FMV games challenges players’ analytical and hermeneutic abilities and further cognitive patience. An absence of “rules of notice” by which the details in a narrative are hierarchically organized, including editing and other attention-guiding devices, is part of these games’ procedural rhetoric. Priming the player to obtain a vigilant player attitude, such games foreground the mechanics dis/trust in our reception of fictional narrative.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-14T09:02:03Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231161180
       
  • Animating a Plausible Past: Perceived Realism and Sense of Place Influence
           Entertainment of and Tourism Intentions From Historical Video Games

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      Authors: Nicholas David Bowman, Alexander Vandewalle, Rowan Daneels, Yoon Lee, Siyang Chen
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Historical video games set in famous places in the world history have grown in popularity. The current study extends prior work in analyzing how social realism (a dimension of perceived realism focused on regarding game characters and events as authentic) is related to entertainment outcomes, assessing the extent to which sense of place further contributes to these outcomes, and examining how these experiences encourage tourism. As an internal replication, we surveyed international fans of the Assassin's Creed franchise about their experiences with one of four different games set in modern history (Unity, Syndicate) or antiquity (Origins, Odyssey). For modern historical games, increased social realism was correlated with enjoyment and increased sense of place was correlated with appreciation. For all games, sense of place was positively associated with tourism intentions. These findings are discussed in relation to the role of perceived realism in the experience and influence of playing historical video games.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-14T07:34:18Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231162428
       
  • Interpreting Dwarf Fortress: Finitude, Absurdity, and Narrative

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      Authors: James Cartlidge
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article interprets the influential colony management simulator “Dwarf Fortress” existentially, in terms of finitude, absurdity, and narrative. It applies Aarseth/Möring's proposed method of game interpretation, adopting their definition of “cybermedia” as a generalized game ontology, then providing a specialized ontology of “Dwarf Fortress” which describes its genre and salient gameplay features, incorporating Ian Bogost's concept of “procedural rhetoric.” It then gives an existentialist interpretation of “Dwarf Fortress” which centers on “finitude,” “absurdity,” and “narrative,” showing that “Dwarf Fortress” is a game about the existential tensions involved in being human. We live knowing our lives and civilizations are finite, that there are radical limits on what we can know and do. There is no meaning inherent in the world, or in history, so it is up to us to create our own, and one of our most powerful ways of doing this is narrative.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-08T07:03:58Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231162418
       
  • Chippin’ In: An Analysis of the Criminological Concepts Within
           Cyberpunk 2077

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      Authors: Morgan James Steele
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The cyberpunk genre dominates much of our popular culture, from how we think of cyber- and white-collar crime, to our understanding of how technology influences the criminal justice system. This article explores the common criminological themes prevalent within the recent video game Cyberpunk 2077 as an example of popular criminology. Specifically, it explores the game's story and environment by examining key characters’ responses to structural inequalities through an anomie theory lens. Key characters and groups within the game exemplify Merton's (1938) different responses to rampant poverty and socioeconomic inequality. This is then extended to the “cyberpsycho” problem within the game, incorporating General Strain Theory to discuss why specific individuals develop the problem within Cyberpunk 2077.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-08T07:03:18Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231161042
       
  • Replaying Wartime Résistance' Studying Ludic Memory-Making in the
           Open World Game The Saboteur

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      Authors: Pieter J.B.J. Van den Heede
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Ever since the emergence of digital gaming as a popular pastime, the Second World War has been one of its major sources of inspiration. This article contributes to the study of the memory-making potential of historical digital entertainment games, by offering an analysis of The Saboteur, an American game that is set in France during the Second World War and that offers a depiction of an explorable open game world occupied by the Nazi regime. Through an analysis of a game's paratextual positioning, its ludic social discourse, and instances of perceived ludonarrative dissonance from a historical and cultural memory perspective, the article concludes that the game offers a romanticized representation of male violent resistance against the Nazi occupier who is depicted as Manichaeistically evil and a-historically violent. This representation equally reconfirms the dominant cultural memory narratives formulated in France and the United States during and immediately after the war.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-08T07:02:39Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231160904
       
  • Dates, Carpets, and Pearl Necklaces: The Case of Anno 1404s Exotic
           Orientalism

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      Authors: Ömer Kemal Buhari
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Since a few decades, digital games have become an area deemed worthy of studying for academics of multifarious fields. Numerous articles and books are being written on the topic of games and culture. Anno 1404 is an economic simulation with a medieval setting that deploys various Orientalist stereotypes. Some scholars, leaning on Said's seminal work Orientalism, have analyzed Orientalist aspects in various digital games. The scope of this article consists of such an analysis of Anno 1404. The game's setting, religious context, view of Muslims, mechanism, narrative, characters, representations, gamescape, geopolitics, and stereotypes are pertinent to this analysis. Anno 1404 proves to carry the characteristics of colonialism, imperialism, and exotic Orientalism.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-03-01T06:12:35Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231158241
       
  • “Fear the Old Blood”: The Gothicism of Bloodborne

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      Authors: Hiranya Mukherjee
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Gothic studies and Game studies are beginning to be explored in connection with each other to find various configurations of Gothic elements in the cybertext of games. In this article, I explore various Gothic elements in Bloodborne. My methodology incorporates the analysis of the manifestation of Gothicism in the game through the interplay between the figure of the player character, miseen-scène, and the presence of psychologically affective states pertaining to the experience of playing the game. The role and aspects of player participation, performativity, and in-game mechanics are also examined with respect to the particular function they serve in the realization of the Gothic experience. The presence of Gothic and Lovecraftian tropes, symbolism, and elements of horror within the narrative are also explored.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-13T05:52:46Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231155325
       
  • Angel Anxiety: Alice Angel as the Uncanny Presence in Bendy and the Ink
           Machine

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      Authors: Ashley P. Jones
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Exploring the roles of gender performance through the experience of digital gaming provides an arena for discussing the power of fear and anxiety as cultural tools for counterhegemonic forces. The power and function of gender performativity in its varied and multiplicitous forms is a newer branch of game studies research. In this article, fear and anxiety are explored as a game procedure and cultural tool used by the character Alice Angel in Kindly Beast's Bendy and the Ink Machine. By enacting Barbara Creed's uncanny gaze and the monstrous-feminine, Alice Angel calls attention and visibility to the function of the abject as a form of visibility for the oppressed. The monstrous-feminine as a theoretical concept for horror media texts provides a framework to explore the posing, behaviors, and actions of game characters and their relationships to the player and culture at large.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-10T06:27:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231153711
       
  • Professional Gaming and Pro-Gamers: What Do We Know So Far' A
           Systematic Review

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      Authors: Isha Bihari, Debashis Pattanaik
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Professional gaming is organized competitive digital gameplay supported by advertisers and businesses. With its rising popularity and spectatorship, virtual gaming as a profession is now a reality. The aim of this paper is to evaluate peer-reviewed articles from the past two decades that empirically examine gaming as a profession or the myriad facets of being a professional gamer published in scholarly journals. The themes that emerge from the results of the included studies (n = 32) are (a) the socio-cultural appeal of gaming as a profession, (b) socio-psychological elements of pro-gamers’ everyday lives, and (c) the health and physiology of pro-gamers. It is found that the literature on health and physiology (n = 14) overshadows other dimensions of pro-gaming in academic research. In conclusion, studies must reflect on gamers’ legal status as working professionals, their organizational contracts, and the legality of the industry country by country to fill the research gap.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-07T10:36:52Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231154058
       
  • How Accessible is This Video Game' An Analysis Tool in Two Steps

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      Authors: María Eugenia Larreina-Morales
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Game accessibility aims to ensure that every player has a chance to interact with a video game and overcome its challenges. This paper presents a game analysis tool in two steps that identify accessibility achievements and pitfalls to improve current practice. First, a game's accessibility features are reviewed through a checklist that integrates guidelines developed by users, industry, and academia. Second, user reviews are analysed to determine the suitability of the game's accessibility features. As a pilot study, the analysis tool is applied to The Last of Us Part II, released by Naughty Dog in 2020. The checklist shows that the game offers a great number of accessibility features, although users clarify in their reviews that not all interaction barriers are prevented. In that sense, the analysis tool emphasises the key role of users with disabilities in designing and assessing accessibility features so that video games may be enjoyed by all.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-07T09:13:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231154710
       
  • “Protecting our female gaze rights”: Chinese Female Gamers’ and Game
           

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      Authors: Zishan Lai, Tingting Liu
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article applies the Foucauldian concept of practiced freedom to examine how Chinese female gamers work hand in hand with game developers to negotiate government restrictions on in-game erotic material. Game developers have redesigned certain visual and textual game elements and used sexy dubbed voices to comply with state censorship while maintaining a game's appeal. Female gamers have meanwhile aligned themselves with the game developers by spending significant money on games and creating fan fiction, demonstrating their financial and sexual agency. This article explores how the practice of sexual freedom can serve as a useful lens for understanding the alliance between game developers and players, providing a glimpse into the everyday, conditioned, leisure-driven micro-resistance by engaging with existing scholarship that criticizes the commercial nature of digital games. Instead of overthrowing the conservative political framework, the goal of such gaming micro-resistance is to increase the profits of game developers and the sexual, consumptive rights of women gamers.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-07T09:13:01Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231151300
       
  • The ‘First Person Shooter’ Perspective: A Different View on First
           Person Shooters, Gamification, and First Person Terrorist Propaganda

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      Authors: Sam Andrews
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      During the 2019 Christchurch attack, the perpetrator livestreamed footage from a helmet-mounted camera. The aesthetic similarity of the attack footage to first-person shooter (FPS) videogames has led to speculation that this might have somehow ‘gamified’ the attack. Generally, the argument for this is that the attack footage (1) imitates or resembles FPS games, gamifying attacks (2) increasing the affective appeal of propaganda by presenting it as play and thereby (3) increasing the salience of these attacks within gaming communities. This article challenges these notions. It argues that the FPS genre should not be associated with such footage due to visual similarity and is better considered in relation to film. The idea that such footage was purposefully shot to look like an FPS is unsupported, and more likely the result of practical considerations. While the framework of gamification might be useful, it should rest on interactivity, rather than aesthetic similarity.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-03T08:12:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231153789
       
  • Thought Experiments in Video Games: Exploring the (Un)Ethics of Motherhood
           in Frictional Games’ Amnesia: Rebirth

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      Authors: Atėnė Mendelytė
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The essay explores the philosophical potential of Frictional Games’ Amnesia: Rebirth (2020), a survival science-fiction horror game, which heavily focuses on story elements and deeply explores the idea of motherhood—a subject matter rarely encountered in this medium. By offering the semblance of control over space and time, suturing the player to the first-person perspective of a character only to gradually problematize the very notion of acting and suspending choice via highlighting any option as an ethical impasse—revealing a neither/nor nature of gamic choice—the game transforms itself from a Deleuzian action-image to a time-image, from an image favoring action to the one that problematizes time. What is more, the game functions as a thought experiment, juxtaposing epistemology and ethics via the idea of motherhood, which is shown to be an ethical choice from the perspective of individual action but unethical from the perspective of temporality.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-02-03T08:11:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231153715
       
  • Becoming Bayek: Blackness, Egypt, and Identity in Assassin's Creed:
           Origins

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      Authors: Katrina HB Keefer
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article is an exploration of one of the bestselling single player RPGs from the Assassin's Creed series, 2017's Origins, as understood through a framework of cultural race and identity theory. This article relies on theories of identity and how we experience gameworlds as players, and how our sense of self is represented in virtual bodies. The article also considers and closely analyzes the game on its historicity—the franchise is one which is often touted as being extremely accurate, but as the article shows, there are inherent flaws and longstanding tropes which remain. This approach is an interdisciplinary one, using cultural history drawn from both an Africanist and a Classicist perspective alongside more recent theories, in particular those of Stuart Hall, to interpret the power of the immersive single player game.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-30T06:55:22Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120231152755
       
  • Reshaping the Battlefield: The International Committee of the Red Cross,
           Video Games, and Public Relations

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      Authors: Jolene Fisher
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Although the use of video games to achieve public relations (PR) goals is not new, there is limited extant research that analyzes such projects using PR theory or that takes into account organizations’ roles in their development. This study addresses this gap through an examination of the International Committee of the Red Cross's (ICRC) development of a creative mode called LifeRun within the global gaming phenomenon Fortnite. I argue that LifeRun must be analyzed as a strategic communication game and draw on critical PR theory to examine its use to reshape narratives of war in gaming. Using in-depth interviews, organizational documents, and media interviews, I analyze the organization's motivations and goals for developing LifeRun, the ways in which PR considerations shaped the project, and its implications for practical and scholarly work in this area.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-20T05:57:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221149576
       
  • Space Rednecks, Robot Butlers, and Feline Foreigners: Language Attitudes
           Toward Varieties of English in Videogames

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      Authors: Simon David Stein
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Speakers hold evaluative attitudes toward different varieties of language (e.g., toward accents, dialects, or sociolects). Individual linguistic markers, like a particular sound, can point to a whole range of perceived socio-cultural attributes, such as intelligence, education, likeability, or trustworthiness. This has potential implications for linguistic character design in the media, including games. This paper examines how game designers instrumentalize varieties of English by making use of social-indexical variation. An empirical study of 10 characters and groups of characters from five AAA games is presented that combines three different methods—a stylistic reading, an analysis of online discourse, and a player survey. It is demonstrated how developers capitalize on ideologies and stereotypes surrounding linguistic varieties for characterization and worldbuilding purposes. The analysis lays an empirical and methodological foundation for future sociolinguistically informed readings of videogames.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-17T01:26:48Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221150156
       
  • Desert Bus: Abusive Game Design, The Martyrdom Effect, and Fan Activism on
           Twitch.tv

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      Authors: Megan Condis
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Desert Bus began as vaporware. A decade after it was initially shelved, it was rediscovered and became a way for gamers to show off their insider knowledge of rare and hard-to-find bits of gaming history. A few years later, its reputation for being one of the least fun video games ever made it the centerpiece of a long-running charity event. In this essay, I will conduct a textual analysis of Desert Bus and argue that the uniquely painful gaming experience that the game provides players makes it a perfect vehicle for charity streaming, providing both a sense of gamer authenticity and credibility to the Desert Bus for Hope event and an emotional incentive for viewers to give. This research stands to benefit scholars working on cult media, a field in which work on video games is relatively rare in comparison to work on television and film.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-17T01:11:46Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221150564
       
  • Geek Cuisine: Extending the Narrative of a Junk Food Gamer

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      Authors: Tapani N. Joelsson, Henna Syrjälä, Harri Luomala, Tuomas Mäkilä
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      In this article, we argue that the pervading hegemonic narrative on gamers’ eating culture emphasizing hedonistic and fast foods is a one-sided storyline that highlights a potentially harmful gamer stereotype. To that end, we reveal the variety of gamers’ food consumption and broaden the narrative depicting the relationship between gamers and eating. Our literature review shows the dominance of the Junk Food Gamer narrative in extant research. However, by using a social constructionist narrative approach to analyze ethnographic observations and interviews, we show the emergence of an alternative, yet interrelated narrative: the Home Food Gamer. In addition, we utilize the idea of the Rubik's Cube to illustrate the actualization of multifaceted and contextually-bound gamer narratives that enable expanding the prevailing understanding of geek cuisine by shedding light on the variety of gamers’ food consumption. In this way, we participate in the ongoing discussion to unravel stereotypical assumptions about gamer culture.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-11T06:41:14Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221150348
       
  • The Beautiful Rule: Thinking the Aesthetics of Game Rules

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      Authors: Miguel Sicart
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This paper introduces a model for analyzing the aesthetic value of game rules. Drawing on Nguyen's theory of agential aesthetics, this paper argues that the aesthetic value of a rule is related to the ways in which it contains modalities of agency. Using football's (soccer) offside rule as a case study, this article provides a way of thinking about the aesthetics of game rules.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-11T06:39:55Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221149532
       
  • Background Checks: Disentangling Class, Race, and Gender in CRPG Character
           Creators

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      Authors: Michael Iantorno, Mia Consalvo
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Character backgrounds are one of many elements players use to customize their protagonists in fantasy computer role-playing games. By documenting the narrative trappings, mechanical benefits, and hierarchical availability of character backgrounds in Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura (2001) and Dragon Age: Origins (2009), this paper considers how real-world socioeconomic class markers and racial stereotypes have been repeatedly associated with fictitious races such as orcs, dwarves, and elves. Class is an understudied axis of identity in media studies and this research scrutinizes how developers construct socioeconomic class, particularly through character-creator interfaces. We begin by building a theoretical repertoire for studying identity in digital game interfaces while also scrutinizing long-established discourses of race and gender in the fantasy genre. We then analyze the hierarchies embedded in both games’ character creators, connecting them with broader gameplay and narrative themes and contextualizing them in established media stereotypes and existing scholarship.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-06T05:53:26Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221150342
       
  • Share the Experience, Don’t Take it: Toward Attunement With
           Neurodiversity in Videogames

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      Authors: Lisanne E. Meinen
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Videogames increasingly focus on marginalized experiences such as neurodivergence. Specifically, the immersive and embodied aspects of videogames allow neurodivergent people to better explain their experiences. However, current research is limited to instrumentalization, by specifically looking for the therapeutic or educational benefits of videogames. I reflect on ethical questions that arise if we try to communicate the embodied experiences related to neurodiversity through videogames. I argue that videogames with the explicit goal to create empathy or care for neurodivergence can also be restrictive. Instead, I put forward attunement as an intersubjective and nonhierarchic mode of affective engagement with neurodiversity through gaming. An analysis of the videogames Unravel and Celeste helps me to illustrate what attunement in a videogame could look like. I conclude that better understanding neurodiversity through play, means “letting it be” instead of (re)shaping it to be easily consumable in videogames.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-05T06:35:12Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221149538
       
  • “Community” in Video Game Communities

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      Authors: Lucinda Saldanha, Sofia Marques da Silva, Pedro D. Ferreira
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The concept and experience of community have been changing in contemporary societies, from a traditional concept in an idealistic, homogeneous context, characterized by union, to the exploration and experience of new forms of organization and participation. The specific characteristics and dynamics of emerging video game (VG) communities can help us better understand the importance of game cultures. Based on an ethnographic study of five game jams and data from eight focus group discussions with game jam and VG community participants, this study explores five analytic and emerging dimensions of the VG community: meanings and perceptions associated with the VG community, feelings of belonging, issues of access, structure, and organization, and contexts of participation. These results improve our understanding of the ways participants in VG communities can be seen as creators of game culture and how VG communities are recreating the concept and experience of community in contemporary societies.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-04T06:44:23Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221150058
       
  • The Future of Games Scholarship: An Interview With James Paul Gee

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      Authors: Luis E. Pérez Cortés, Taylor M. Kessner
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      James Gee's work at the intersection of literacy, education, and game studies has explored how videogame affinity spaces are examples of how good teaching and learning often occur outside of schooling. His work can be safely characterized as influential in these fields. For instance, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy helped catalyze a lasting surge of interest in videogame studies. Game studies currently represent a diverse group of scholars that continually push the field into promising spaces. With our eyes on these promising spaces, we interviewed Gee on the topic of what is—and should be—the future of game studies. Gee discussed how the future of game studies would be well-advised to explore ways to network multiple experiences and technologies—including the real world—to focus on how to make people healthier, more prosocial, and better able to collaborate. This interview has been edited for conciseness and clarity.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2023-01-04T06:43:25Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221149277
       
  • The Orc—Playing the “Wholly Other”: Investigations of Kant's Sublime
           and The Technological Sublime in Blizzard Entertainment's Massive
           Multiplayer Online Game World of Warcraft

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      Authors: Bo Kampmann Walther, Lasse Juel Larsen
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      While the complicated scheme of the philosophical sublime may at first hand seem mere platitude when brought to life in computer games, this article claims that the action/adventure game World of Warcraft wedges open a space in which to operate the sublime and navigate radically “other” subjectivities. The hypothesis is that the assembly of fantastic elements in World of Warcraft duplicates the Kantian sublime while at the same time commenting upon and even radicalizing it. The Romantic tradition of the sublime as it unfolds in Immanuel Kant's third Critique is outlined followed by an attempt to topologize elements of the fantastic in Blizzard's game design philosophy leading to a clarification of what we call “the knotted point of play” where game object, game interaction, and game subject intervene. Finally, we explore how the notion of the technological sublime relates to World of Warcraft and beyond.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-12-06T05:11:12Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221139217
       
  • Level Design Processes and Challenges: A Cross Section of Game Development

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      Authors: Tobias Karlsson, Jenny Brusk, Henrik Engström
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines level design processes and challenges at professional game studios. Thematic analysis of data, recorded through field studies and semi-structured interviews, identify four key themes: level design as an interdisciplinary effort; who is the level designer; the role of narrative in level design; and challenges of managing creativity in the level design process. Results indicate that while the role called level designer is often assigned to specific disciplines, the process of level design is usually highly interdisciplinary. Furthermore, this interdisciplinary collaboration requires management to maintain both creativity and efficient pipelines, by distributing ownership and facilitating communication and planning. The level design process seems particularly vulnerable to suboptimal interdisciplinary communication and planning, due to significant reliance on narrative design, game design, art, sound design, and tool development. While this article addresses level design specifically, most observations are comparable to previous findings on game development in general.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-11-21T05:41:05Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221139229
       
  • Chinese Gold-Farming in the 2000s: Worker Empowerment and Local
           Development Through Video Games-Based Digital Labor

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      Authors: Matthew Ming-tak Chew
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This study investigates how gold-farming contributed to worker empowerment and local development in China in the 2000s. Adopting a critical development studies perspective, I appraise the positive social impact of gold-farming but also explicate how it is constrained by the capitalist economic and authoritarian political contexts. I find that gold-farming offered workers informational mobility and low-overhead entrepreneurship opportunities and that it created employment and enhanced social order in marginalized localities. But it provided only slightly better wages and work conditions than the average Chinese factory. A major reason was exploitation by global capitalist corporations and local officials. My primary dataset was collected between 2005 and 2008 from participant observation and interviewing in three gold farms, multiple and in-depth interviews of over 40 insiders, and online documentary sources.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-11-18T06:54:38Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221134459
       
  • Designing the Future' The Metaverse, NFTs, & the Future as Defined
           by Unity Users

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      Authors: Ryan Scheiding
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The “metaverse” and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), though not necessarily “new” terms or technologies, have risen to mainstream prominence post-2020. This paper, based on survey data obtained from Unity Technologies, examines the metaverse, NFTs, and the future of development within the Unity engine from the perspective of current Unity users. Specifically, the paper examines how users define the metaverse, their goals in metaverse and NFT development, and their future questions and concerns concerning these concepts. This data is then used to place the metaverse and NFTs into broader historical, present, and future contexts. The paper ultimately argues: (1) the metaverse and NFTs follow previous historical trends in communication technology development, (2) development within Unity will continue to be split between game development and non-game development, and (3) arguments of the “newness,” “uniqueness,” or “future-facing” of the metaverse and NFTs help to obfuscate legitimate concerns about these technologies.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-11-16T05:57:43Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221139218
       
  • “Go. Just take him.”: PTSD and the Player-Character Relationship in
           The Last of Us Part II

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      Authors: Stephen Michael Johnson
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The Last of Us Part II is an unrelenting examination of the effects of trauma and violent cycles of revenge. The game's complex narrative structure, its use of the player-character (PC) relationship, and the PC-switch near the game's midpoint have prompted strong reactions (both negative and positive) from players. These elements come together to confront players with their own understandings of trauma, revenge, empathy, and acceptance in powerful and effective ways, ultimately forcing players to choose between a flexible, adaptable, and complex interpretation of their relationship to the characters of The Last of Us Part II, or a rigid, inflexible one that does not allow for growth or change.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-11-15T07:05:55Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221139216
       
  • A Virtual Reality Educational Game for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage
           Repatriation

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      Authors: James Hutson, Ben Fulcher
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The technology of virtual reality and the gamification of education has had proven educational benefits and has the ability to immerse students in a participatory learning experience. To capitalize on the strengths of the new digital medium, including immersion, engagement, and presence, a new educational game aims to teach the ethics of cultural heritage repatriation through the lens of art history. The use of games to address current issues and conceptualize a framework for understanding the complexities of geopolitics is not new but aligning these considerations with the pressing need to protect cultural heritage as seen in modern-day Ukraine is. This study investigates the process of game design and development from preproduction to postproduction. The final version of The Museum of the Lost provides a model for other institutions with game design and art history departments to collaborate and create educational experiences that optimize the user experience and learning outcomes.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-10-18T06:53:10Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221131724
       
  • “She's Built Like a Tank”: Player Reaction to Abby Anderson in
           The Last of Us: Part II

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      Authors: Sian Tomkinson
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The depiction of female characters in video games is highly contentious. The pushes for increased diversity following Gamergate have heralded more varied representations of women in both independent and Triple A games. One particularly interesting video game in this context is Naughty Dog's 2020 action-adventure title The Last of Us: Part II. The game received extremely divisive criticism in part due to Abby Anderson and her functions in the game. Many players were outraged at her muscular, “masculine” build, considering it inaccurate for a woman living in a post-apocalyptic setting, and a form of virtue-signalling. In this paper I examine these players’ complaints regarding Abby and consider how they fit within gaming discourses of realism, immersion, and escapism. I explore what elements players consider to be acceptable as ‘realism' in the context of a post-apocalyptic action-horror video game, considering a prevalent discourse that video games are being increasingly politicised.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-30T06:48:25Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221123210
       
  • The Voices of Game Worlds: A Sociolinguistic Analysis of Disco Elysium

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      Authors: Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen, Míša Hejná
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article examines how vocal performances of characters can contribute to sociocritical storytelling in video games. We argue that the vocal performances of video game characters–and in particular their accents–can “fill in” the fictional story worlds of video games through associations with real people and places. These associations allow video games to evoke such social themes as are connected with accent, including privilege, conflict, class, and ethnicity. So evoked, these themes can then be critically examined. We apply this perspective in a sociolinguistic analysis of Disco Elysium, an expansive role-playing game in which the characters' vocal performances come to support the player's sociomoral orientation in the game world. Finally, we discuss a result of our analysis that runs counter to previous scholarship, namely that vocal stereotyping can serve to enhance, rather than to undermine, the player's critical apprehension of game worlds.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-22T07:19:02Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221115396
       
  • Remediating Video Games in Contemporary Fiction: Literary Form and
           Intermedial Transfer

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      Authors: Marco Caracciolo
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Game scholars have discussed both the ways in which video games structurally differ from literary fiction and the ways in which they remediate motifs and narrative strategies from it. In this article, I reverse the direction of that exchange, arguing that video games are disclosing new perspectives on both literary writing and literary interpretation. My focus is on how literature can integrate ludic strategies on a formal level, rather than by merely thematizing games (as genre fiction does extensively). I thus discuss three formal devices—multimodality, present-tense narration, and loop-like repetitions—that evince considerable literary interest in gaming culture. Through these formal experimentations, literature participates in a media environment that is significantly shaped by games. I argue that this intermedial transfer also offers an opportunity for a literary scholarship to enrich its conceptual and interpretive toolbox through dialogue with both game studies and gaming culture.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-11T06:31:51Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221119980
       
  • Top Shelf Drinks, Bottom Line Play: Examining Representations of Class in
           Bartending and Mixology Games

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      Authors: Scott DeJong, Courtney Blamey
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      There is an emerging body of games that simulate the labor of drink making and serving at the forefront of play through the role of a bartender or artisanal mixologist. Both are working class but the creative variance between them challenges how economic precarity is understood. The authors ask how this translates to video games when these positions are foregrounded. How do play, poverty, and precarity interconnect in drink making and serving games' Through the qualitative analysis of four games that put the player in the position of bartender or mixologist, this paper shows how creative labor and precarity are illuminated or obfuscated through mechanics and narrative. In doing so, it argues how games, as one form of media, obscure or make visible labor and precarity to players and simultaneously reinforce the romanticization of often exploited creative labor. These findings prompt further questions and research directions on representations of working-class labor.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-11T06:31:27Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221119962
       
  • Videogames as an ‘Unheroic’ Medium: The Child Hero's Journey

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      Authors: Emma Reay
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      In this article, I examine two contemporary videogames that engage critically and imaginatively with conventional definitions of heroism. In Röki (Polygon Treehouse) and Knights and Bikes (Foam Sword Games), the child-avatars loosen the connection between maturity and self-reliance by framing interdependence as both an inevitable and a desirable condition of human society. Furthermore, by emphasizing children's supposed malleability, these games insist on the relationality of identities: they suggest that one's identity depends on the interactions one has with individuals and institutions. I suggest that by centering cooperation, these games destabilize myths of independence and autonomy that surround the lone hero of hyper-individualism and thereby challenge assumptions about the kinds of heroism videogames can portray.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-11T06:31:17Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221115395
       
  • “After All, They Don’t Know Me” Exploring the Psychological
           Mechanisms of Toxic Behavior in Online Games

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      Authors: Yansheng Liu, Colin Agur
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Toxic behavior is commonplace in online games and has negative consequences for players. Although previous studies have illustrated common types and features of in-game toxic behavior, it remains unclear what psychological mechanisms can explain why toxic behavior emerges and evolves in gaming environments. To fill this research gap, guided by Online Disinhibition Effect theory, this study applies a qualitative interview approach to understand when, how, and why people engage in toxic behavior in online games. Specifically, by interviewing players of the game Honor of Kings (a popular Chinese mobile multiplayer online battle arena game), this study illustrates the evolving processes of both verbal and behavioral in-game toxic behavior and identifies six major motivations for players’ toxic behavior and three theoretical explanations for how the online gaming environment facilitates players’ toxic behavior. Implications of this study on future research are also discussed.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-08T06:58:34Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221115397
       
  • Behind the Scenes at ApertureScience.com: Portal and Its Paratexts

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      Authors: Alan Galey
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Portal (2007) presents an unusually complex example for the study of video game paratexts. This article uses the case of the game’s promotional website ApertureScience.com to consider how paratextuality and the associated concepts of ephemerality and materiality may be further refined to open up new dimensions of video games as objects of interpretation and play. The article draws from the field of textual studies, which specializes in the particularities of media, and in the entanglement of technical detail with interpretation and meaning. The first part re-evaluates the nature of the book as an analogy for the materiality of video games, and critiques Gérard Genette’s conception of bookish paratexts and its applicability to video games. The article then offers a detailed analysis of ApertureScience.com as a paratext, including its satirical critiques of positivism and corporate research, and concludes with a discussion of the materiality of digital paratexts.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-04T05:03:15Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221106927
       
  • Enjoying My Time in the Animus: A Quantitative Survey on Perceived Realism
           and Enjoyment of Historical Video Games

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      Authors: Alexander Vandewalle, Rowan Daneels, Emma Simons, Steven Malliet
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This study investigates players’ perceived realism of historical video games. Perceived realism is understood as a multidimensional concept, going beyond the more traditional use of ‘realism’ in historical game studies, where it often refers to the plausibility or accuracy of historical reconstructions. The study further examines how perceived realism relates to players’ enjoyment of historical games. Specifically, this study analyses Assassin's Creed, Assassin's Creed Unity and Assassin's Creed Odyssey. Through an online survey among 1,317 respondents, this study found that the five-dimensional structure of perceived realism holds for historical games. The three games differed in their perceptions of social realism, perceptual pervasiveness, freedom of choice and enjoyment. Finally, perceptual pervasiveness and character involvement were identified as strong predictors of enjoyment in historical games. This study contributes towards further validation of the perceived realism scale across game genres and pleads for a systematic use of the multidimensional term ‘realism’ in historical game research.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-08-02T07:11:21Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221115404
       
  • Social Realism in Red Orchestra 2 (2011)

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      Authors: Maxim Tvorun-Dunn
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This research seeks to add to recent critical reevaluations of Alexander Galloway’s seminal “Social Realism in Gaming” through a closer analysis of the texts by Andre Bazin and Gilles Deleuze which inform Galloway’s initial conceptions of social realism. The present work emphasizes social criticism in this esthetic movement and finds the medium specificity of games limits applicability of cinematic terms like neorealism. Procedural rhetoric and effective Brechtian alienation tactics emphasizing player-character subjectivity, can be used to effectively convey the philosophical and ideological tenants of neorealism and broader social realism. This is expanded upon using the World War Two (WWII) game Red Orchestra 2 as a case study. Ultimately this work argues against Galloway’s “congruence requirement” between players real-world contexts and game interactions, rather finding social realism in games as dependent on convergence between a game’s functional and visual rhetoric.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-06-25T12:47:37Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221109128
       
  • Virtual Empire: Performing Colonialism in the MMORPG Runescape

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      Authors: Shayan S. Lallani
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article argues that advancement in the MMORPG Runescape is connected to virtual performances of colonial exploitation. It places in geographic and temporal context various societies represented in Runescape by historicizing in-game cultural representations. Thereafter, it is asserted that players partake in virtual iterations of colonialism to advance their accounts. Analysis is grounded in four case studies exploring the themes of exploitative archaeology, colonial cartography, imperial diplomacy, and resource extraction. Each example represents opportunities for in-game progress. In connecting the virtual advancement of user accounts to performances of colonialism, it is argued that Runescape reproduces historic colonial projects in which European powers commodified other societies to advance their own economic and cultural agendas. Through this analysis, the article seeks to develop a guiding framework for the study of MMORPGs as replicating Eurocentric colonial encounters.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-06-16T10:30:45Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221109130
       
  • Newsgames: The Use of Digital Games by Mass-Media Outlets to Convey
           Journalistic Messages

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      Authors: Salvador Gómez-García, Teresa de la Hera Conde-Pumpido
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This study explores the way mass-media outlets make use of digital games to convey journalistic messages. Newsgames have been defined by several scholars in the intersection between digital journalism and game studies. However, because of the heterogeneity of this phenomenon, there is still a lack of clarity of what could be considered, or not, a newsgame. This study aims to shed light into this question by exploring how newsgames are used in practice by journalists. We therefore approach the understanding of this phenomenon from a bottom-up perspective to give an answer to the following research question: How are journalistic messages structured within newsgames published by online mass-media outlets' A grounded theory approach is used to analyze 75 games published in a total of 47 mass-media digital outlets from 17 countries. The results of this study have led to the proposal of a more systematic identification and analytical approach for newsgames.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-06-09T06:11:30Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221105461
       
  • Undertale’s Loveable Monsters: Investigating Parasocial Relationships
           with Non-Player Characters

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      Authors: Gabriel Elvery
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Interaction with non-player characters (NPCs) that simulates one-sided social interaction is a common feature of many role-playing video games (RPGs). This kind of interaction may be described as parasocial. Parasocial phenomena have been identified across media, but there are few studies which detail how they function within specific video games. This article marries close analysis of the video game Undertale with theories of parasocial phenomena to examine how effective parasocial relationships (PSRs) are created with its cast of quirky, loveable monsters. The article uses players’ reception of the game in the form of Steam reviews and Let’s play content to evidence players’ attachments to NPCs and uses the concept of parasociality coupled with close reading to explore why. The paper concludes by considering what insights analysis of PSRs in video games can provide regarding both our relationships with the technology that facilitates them, and our off-screen relationships.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-29T11:55:44Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221105464
       
  • The Collector, the Glitcher, and the Denkbilder: Toward a Critical
           Aesthetic Theory of Video Games

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      Authors: Jan Cao
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      To examine the aesthetics of video games, this paper proposes to consider games as a contemporary multi-media version of the so-called “Denkbild,” or “thought-image,” an experimental genre of philosophical writing employed by members of the Frankfurt School that takes literary snapshots of philosophical, political, and cultural insights that interrupt and challenge the enigmatic form of traditional philosophical thinking. While previous scholarship tends to examine the aesthetics of video game as a homogenous, self-contained genre that can be clearly defined and understood within the framework of a variety of dichotomies, thinking of video game through the lens of the Denkbild allows us to understand the diversity, conditionality, and incommensurability of game as a multimedia aesthetic object. By presenting two snapshots of video game players, the collector and the glitcher, this paper argues that the concept of Denkbild allows us to better understand the relationships between game, gamers, and the socio-political context in terms of unexpected bonds, accidental breakthroughs, and moments of absolute freedom.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-26T08:18:40Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221097411
       
  • Last Man Standing: Battle Royale Games Through the Lens of
           Self-Determination Theory

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      Authors: Martha Fernandez de Henestrosa, Joël Billieux, André Melzer
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The highly popular video game genre of Battle Royale (BR) games is characterized by survival and exploration elements that feature a last-man-standing gameplay, thus, motivating players to be the final contestant in the game. Drawing on the Self-Determination Theory the present study investigated the role of personal values, psychological needs and well-being in a self-selected sample of 303 BR gamers recruited online. The association between players’ value orientation and well-being was found contingent on players’ BR gaming experience and their need for relatedness. Whereas frequent interaction with this game genre was associated with the basic psychological need satisfaction of autonomy and relatedness, player preference for BR games was related to their need of competence and autonomy. The present study supports the importance of exploring player motives and provides initial insights into the association between BR gaming and basic psychological needs.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-21T03:51:06Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221101312
       
  • Developing Meaning: Critical Violence and Eudaimonic Entertainment in the
           Seventh Console Generation

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      Authors: Evan Jules Maier-Zucchino
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Violence in videogames has been a controversial topic since the medium’s inception, but how videogames depict violence has changed dramatically over time. During the seventh console generation, several development studios implemented similar design mechanisms that allowed players to engage in ethically challenging virtual violence through morally compromised characters, contexts, and systems. Fourteen AAA games released between the years of 2007 and 2013 encouraged critical reflection on the ethical qualities of that violence, resulting in a phenomenon I term “critical violence”. Following an overview of the ethics of videogames and a brief history of changes in the industry, this paper performs a comparative analysis of four games, two that engage in critical violence and two that do not, elucidating the techniques used to generate such criticality: defamiliarization, narrative character studies, systemic design, and aesthetic style. These approaches demonstrate that violence in videogames can be a useful element for communicating meaningful experiences.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-19T06:51:55Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221100817
       
  • “What are you Bringing to the Table'”: The Something Awful Let’s
           Play Community as a Serious Leisure Subculture

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      Authors: Brian McKitrick, Melissa Rogerson, Martin Gibbs, Bjørn Nansen
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Within the last decade, Let’s Plays, recordings of gameplay with commentary by the person playing, have grown in popularity and attention. The current research examining Let’s Plays has focused on the contemporary popularity of the phenomenon on YouTube. However, the origins of Let’s Plays as an influential media practice have not been fully investigated. In order to address this gap, we conducted a series of interviews with 34 creators from the Something Awful LP subforum—commonly identified to have originated the media form. Transcripts of these interviews were analyzed using concepts of serious leisure studies and cultural/subcultural capital. As a form of serious leisure culture, the members of the Something Awful LP community displayed motivations related to extrinsic and intrinsic rewards, such as increased sense of self-worth and recognition. The analysis of this Serious leisure culture highlights how this subculture was subsequently adopted by larger YouTube communities.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-16T06:16:26Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221101310
       
  • Seeking a Sense of Control or Escapism' The Role of Video Games in
           Coping with Unemployment

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      Authors: Yu-Hao Lee, Mo Chen
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Unemployment can have devastating effects on people’s psychological and social wellbeing. The effects of unemployment can be exacerbated during the COVID-19 pandemic due to the lack of control over one’s life and the loss of social connectedness. Through a survey of 480 unemployed workers, this study examined how emotion-focused coping using video game can affect the workers’ wellbeing and reemployment. The findings showed that escapism was associated with decreased wellbeing, which reduced job-search efficacy and behaviors. However, when video game playing was viewed as a source of self-determination, it can support the unemployed workers’ intrinsic needs of autonomy and relatedness, which improved their wellbeing, their job-search efficacy, and job-search behaviors. Further comparison of effects between gender, age, race, and income found that unemployed workers who made lower to medium income were more likely to seek escapism through games compared to female unemployed workers.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-12T06:34:44Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221097413
       
  • The Doors of Perception: Horror Video Games and the Ideological
           Implications of Ludic Virtual Reality

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      Authors: David Christopher, Aidan Leuszler
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      With the ‘perfect marriage’ between horror and video games has come a concomitant cultural studies discourse surrounding these games. Previously, while Carol Clover insisted that identification through the perspectival screen is poorly understood, she seminally argued that slasher horror in particular allows for more progressive gender identifications. More broadly, and somewhat conversely, Carly Kocurek observes the most reactionary effects of the horror genre’s reduction of cultural ‘others’ to monsters and the problem with their prurient dispatch in video games. Lastly, Tammy Lin argues that the experience of virtual reality (VR) significantly heightens the experience of horror. In concert, these imply that VR should heighten the ideological effects and gender identifications identified by both Kocurek and Clover, for better or for worse. This paper examines the ways in which both ostensibly reactionary and progressive ideological elements have migrated into horror video games and the implications of VR on this phenomenon.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-11T11:42:20Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221097414
       
  • Why do We Play' Towards a Comprehensive Player Typology

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      Authors: Benjamin Fritz, Stefan Stöckl
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The video games industry has been growing constantly for the past several decades, but there is no empirically validated industry standard for measuring motivation of play. Although there have been a number of player typologies, they display sizable deviations in the player types described, many of which are insufficiently supported by validation studies. The literature thus far lacks an attempt to test these deviations by bringing differences in the specifics on the same scale. A survey (n = 1090) across 440 different games using an 80-item questionnaire found eleven motivations of play: Social, Social Competition, Challenge, Escapism, Role-Playing, Power Fantasy, Creation, Exploration, Completion, Griefing, and Competitive Team-Play. These results map onto some established types, add some new ones that are not as embedded in the literature, and re-contextualize others such as immersion which, while highly present in the literature, were not found to be distinct motivations of play.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-05-05T05:17:50Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221094844
       
  • Slow Motion in Videogames—Gameplay Over Style'

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      Authors: Håvard Andreas Vibeto
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This article explores a commonly used feature of many different videogame genres, namely slow motion. It discusses the origins of slow motion, its ontological qualities and why it is important to analyze a game mechanic’s audiovisual elements when doing game studies research. Slow motion in videogames can be divided into two broad categories: cinematic slow motion and bullet time. The focus in this article is on bullet time, which allows the player interactive control and an advantage in overcoming enemies and obstacles found in the gameplay. This retooling of slow motion to suit interactive use has consequences for the aesthetic qualities of the effect. Bullet time takes advantage of slow motion’s intrinsic qualities to highlight player control, feedback, and audiovisual spectacle. Bullet time is a good example of how videogames’ gameplay mechanics have a strong focus on rules while also offering an audiovisual experience that creates aesthetic pleasure.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-24T09:21:11Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221090974
       
  • Postphenomenology, Kill Cams and Shooters: Exploring the Code of Replay
           Sequences

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      Authors: Dragoş M. Obreja
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The kill cams represent a common feature in many shooters, but little is said about their technological and bodily implications in game studies. By examining postphenomenologically the kill cams code, this article highlights the fact that these gamic cams provoke players to a bodily rethinking of death and failure. The way in which kill cams are embedded is an important topic in understanding their functionality, as it is the very code that determines the power that is attributed to these technologies. Conceiving these kill cams is also a matter of technological mediation, so that one’s own visualization after death produces a sort of objectivity-subjectivity inversion. While the gameplay itself encompasses multiple embodiment relationships, it is noticed that the kill cams’ code of some games completely restricts the player’s agency and rather favors a mere hermeneutic interpretation of its own death.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-24T07:31:26Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221090972
       
  • Growing Pains in Esports Associationalism: Four Modes of National Esports
           Associational Development

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      Authors: Emma Witkowski
      First page: 147
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      While million-dollar prize-pools and mega-events dominate esports news, the somewhat elusive entities of national esports associations continue to develop as a critical underbelly. Associations prop up player mobility across all scales of modernisation and play an integral advocacy role for regional esports, providing situated responses to esports governance in society. However, national associations provide sector representation that is often polemic and unwelcome by grassroots, commercial and even state-level representatives. With the continued growth in everyday esports participation and calls for better regulatory frameworks, this article explores the emerging forms and challenges within esports associationalism under the four modes of public, industry, substitute, and early adopter associations. Through qualitative, mixed methods research, these modes are outlined as distinct associational forms with local mobilities, stakeholder pressures and infrastructural challenges involved for associational development and locally tailored esports governance.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-21T07:39:47Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221084449
       
  • Becoming Afflicted, Becoming Virtuous: Darkest Dungeon and the Human
           Response to Stress

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      Authors: James Cartlidge
      First page: 170
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      The developers of Red Hook Studios’ 2016 gothic horror “Darkest Dungeon” said that they wanted to “capture the human response to stress.” This paper analyzes how the game does this with its “stress,” “affliction,” and “virtue” mechanics. With reference to research literature on stress, I show how these mechanics, which could easily have been cheap gimmicks, approach the topic of stress with admirable detail, offering a complex reflection on the various aspects, positive and negative, of several possible human responses to stress. They show how different responses include similar symptoms, how stress impacts the people around the stressed person, and make the case that stress can break people, but also fuel heroism. It is a fantastic example of how video game mechanics can be used to educate people about complex subjects without explicitly saying this is what they are doing.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-16T01:10:23Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221084450
       
  • The Moral Service of Trans Non-Player Characters: Examining the Roles of
           Transgender Non-Player Characters in Role-Playing Video Games

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      Authors: Aiden J. Kosciesza
      First page: 189
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      Before 2020, no big-budget, mainstream video games featured playable transgender characters, relegating them instead to the role of non-player characters (NPCs). Through a textual analysis of Bioware’s 2014 title Dragon Age: Inquisition, Ubisoft’s 2016 Watch Dogs 2, and Naughty Dog’s 2020 The Last of Us Part II—three role-playing games that feature explicitly transgender NPCs—and a discourse analysis of media surrounding the games’ release, this paper examines the narrative roles afforded to transgender characters. Drawing from the “magical Negro” trope in film studies, I propose the term “magical transness” to describe the unique role of transgender supporting characters whose victimization provides the opportunity for cisgender protagonists to act heroically. This paper interrogates transgender representation and its relationship to media discourses about diversity and inclusion and discusses the political implications of transgender NPCs’ placement in roles of moral service.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-28T08:32:42Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221088118
       
  • Horror Video Games and the “Active-Passive” Debate

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      Authors: David Christopher, Aidan Leuszler
      First page: 209
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      In Perron’s edited compendium of essays regarding horror video games subtitled Essays on the Fusion of Fear and Play (2009), much of the argumentation orbits debate regarding the definition and creation of the experience of horror compared between an ostensibly passive cinema reception (from whence the games take most of their conventions) and the ostensibly more active reception of ludological horror. As the argument goes, ludic activity creates greater identification with diegetic characters and therefore heightens the player’s experience of horror. But is this true, or is it a specious contention that does not really account for the complex mechanics of identification with characters in the ostensibly “passive” experience of cinema viewing, nor for the fact that lacking realism and “active” gameplay may actually compromise the experience of “transportation”'
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-27T11:55:56Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221088115
       
  • The COVID Season: U.S. Collegiate Esports Programs’ Material Challenges
           and Opportunities During the 2020–21 Pandemic

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      Authors: Amanda C. Cote, Onder Can, Maxwell Foxman, Brandon C. Harris, Jared Hansen, Md Waseq Ur Rahman, Tara Fickle
      First page: 229
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      During the COVID-19 pandemic, universities were among the first institutions to shift to an online model. As they did so, nascent collegiate esports program lost access to campus spaces and in-person connections, potentially destabilizing this rising industry. Conversely, universities also worked to provide students remote access to resources, and many components of esports already occur online. Therefore, collegiate esports may have adjusted to distancing measures, potentially strengthening their footholds on US campuses. This paper draws on in-depth interviews with collegiate esports players, student employees, program directors, and administrators to address different programs’ reactions to the pandemic, specifically the challenges and opportunities they faced. Overall, interviews reveal how COVID-19 shifted the understandings of and practices around gaming and esports, highlighted the intermittent relationship of online and offline spheres, and presented various possibilities and challenges for different stakeholders during the global pandemic.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-26T07:58:08Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221088116
       
  • Importance of Social Videogaming for Connection with Others During the
           COVID-19 Pandemic

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      Authors: Mary E. Ballard, Michael T. Spencer
      First page: 251
      Abstract: Games and Culture, Ahead of Print.
      This study focused on the importance of social videogame play for remaining connected to others early in the COVID-19 pandemic. While social isolation and loneliness negatively affect well-being, social interaction is important for positive outcomes. During the pandemic, online videogame play has offered a safe outlet for socialization. Participants (n = 45) completed a survey rating the importance of gaming for feeling connected to family, friends, and co-workers, before, during, and after stay-at-home orders. As expected, the results indicate that social videogame play and its importance increased significantly during the stay-at-home period and decreased afterward. The importance of gaming with friends and co-workers increased significantly during the stay-at-home period but did not decrease significantly afterward. Social gaming was more important for remaining connected with friends and co-workers than family. Participants likely had more direct interaction with family members, while more effort was necessary to maintain contact with non-family members.
      Citation: Games and Culture
      PubDate: 2022-04-26T01:22:57Z
      DOI: 10.1177/15554120221090982
       
 
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