scholarly journals Creativity and playability in the localisation of video games

2018 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 74-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Á. Bernal-Merino
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Analytical Tool ◽  
Functional Requirements ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Complex Process ◽  
Interactive Entertainment ◽  
Entertainment Products

Abstract Creativity is one of the most highly debated topics in translation not only because of how it relates to authorship but also because of the unavoidable cultural ramifications and the business implications for all the parties involved. Identifying the parameters within which creative translation operates in entertainment media requires a complex process that comprises a large amount of variables beyond the linguistic ones. Semiotics is suggested as a robust analytical tool to study the layering of meaning-making in entertainment products, in other words, their polysemioticity. Multimedia interactive entertainment software (MIES), a. k. a. video games, adds levels of complexity never seen before in translation due to their functional requirements. In order to identify the features that separate other entertainment products from MIES, this article analyses also the translation of novels, comics and films. The concept of playability is utilised as a way of isolating the pragmatic challenges of video game localisation.

Non-religious Players Asking Big Questions: Video Game Worlds Affording Affinities of Meaningful Encounters

2021 ◽  
pp. e20200012
Author(s):  
Heidi Rautalahti
Keyword(s):  
Popular Culture ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Qualitative Interview ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Interview Method ◽  
Search For Self ◽  
Game Players

The article examines player narratives on meaningful encounters with video games by using an argumentative qualitative interview method. Data gathered among Finnish adult video game players represents narratives of important connections in personal lives, affinities that the article analyzes as further producing three distinctive themes on meaningful encounters. Utilizing a study-of-religion framework, the article discusses meaning making and emerging ways of meaningfulness connected to the larger discussion on the “big questions” that are asked, explored, and answered in popular culture today. Non-religious players talk about intricate and profound contemplations in relation to game memories, highlighting how accidental self-reflections in mundane game worlds frame a continuing search for self.

Comic Books, Video Games, and Transmedia Storytelling

2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
pp. 34-42 ◽  
Author(s):  
Charlie Ecenbarger
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Additional Information ◽  
Transmedia Storytelling ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Book World ◽  
Walking Dead

This article illuminates the transmedia storytelling techniques in The Walking Dead comic book and video game. Telltale Games' The Walking Dead localizes itself within the comic book world of The Walking Dead by acting as a transmedia storytelling device and using intertextuality comics to assist game players with meaning-making. By participating in the game, Telltale rewards players with additional information about The Walking Dead universe, as well as creating a contingent but separate narrative that expands upon the existing Walking Dead world. This exploration of The Walking Dead offers insights into the specific methods that are being employed by creators to further engage the audience in the transmedia storyworld.

Carceral horror: Punishment and control in Silent Hill

2017 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 265-287 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kevin F Steinmetz
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Cultural Criminology ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Modern Media ◽  
And Control ◽  
Public Imagination ◽  
Late Modern

Prisons have become regular fixtures in late modern media. Despite this ubiquity, little research has been conducted examining representations of prisons and punishment within one of the most popular forms of contemporary entertainment media: video games. Drawing from cultural criminology and Gothic criminology, the current study examines punitive and carceral elements in the horror video game franchise of Silent Hill. Eight games within the series are analyzed through a combination of ethnographic content analysis and autoethnography to reveal two dominant themes evident throughout the series: retribution and confinement. As argued in this study, Silent Hill—like many horror productions—revels in ambiguity and expresses cultural anxieties stemming from the paradoxical vertiginous sentiments of insecurity amidst increasing securitization and prisonization of society and everyday life. Survival horror, including Silent Hill, is a product of both Japanese and American cultural formations. This analysis therefore argues that Silent Hill reveals an American-Japanese public imagination that clamors for respite from insecurity while also becoming horrified by the carceral apparatus it created.

scholarly journals Manufacturing Consent in Video Games—The Hegemonic Memory Politics of Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (2015)

Nordlit ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emil Lundedal Hammar
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Mass Culture ◽  
Phantom Pain ◽  
Memory Politics ◽  
Propaganda Model ◽  
Colonial Histories ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Entertainment Products

In this article I argue that the structural conditions of global capitalism and postcolonialism encourage game developers to rearticulate hegemonic memory politics and suppress subaltern identities. This claim is corroborated via an application of Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky’s propaganda model to the Japanese-developed video game Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain. This case study highlights that the hegemonic articulations of colonial histories are not exclusive to Western entertainment products where instead modes of production matter in the ‘manufacturing of mnemonic hegemony’. I also propose that the propaganda model, while instructive, can be improved further by acknowledging a technological filter and the role of the subaltern. Thus, the article furthers the understanding of the relation between production and form in contemporary technological phenomena like video games and how this relation motivates hegemonic articulations of the past in contemporary mass culture.

scholarly journals From Voxel Vistas: Place-Making in Minecraft

2015 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Tyler Quiring
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Social Constructions ◽  
Place Making ◽  
Space And Time ◽  
Ideal Framework ◽  
Digital Or

The concept of place informs much of human meaning-making in both space and time. This paper seeks to bridge gaps between the literature on place and research on video games and virtual worlds by finding points of intersection between each field. I analyze the immensely successful independently-developed video game Minecraft through my own experience and an analysis of gameplay videos uploaded to YouTube. The game serves as an ideal framework within which to study place-making due to three core qualities that illuminate intersections in place and video game/virtual worlds literature: (a) alteration/change, (b) proximity, and (c) conflict/cooperation. I problematize dichotomies between “actual” and “virtual” versions of reality as well as “physical” and “social” constructions of place. Through this study, I use Minecraft as an example of the consistency of human place-making across environments, whether digital or physical.

Interactive Works and Gameplay Emotions

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (7-8) ◽  
pp. 856-874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan Frome
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Mainstream Media ◽  
Close Relationship ◽  
Player Experience

Video games differ from films, books, and other mainstream media both in their interactive capabilities and in their affordances for gameplay. Interactivity and gameplay are closely related, as interactivity is necessary for gameplay. Unfortunately, this close relationship has led many video game scholars to conflate these two concepts when discussing player experience. In this article, I argue that, when discussing emotional responses to video games, gameplay and interactivity should be understood as distinct concepts: Gameplay involves both interactive and noninteractive elements, and interactive works do not always involve gameplay. I propose that there are significant drawbacks to overlooking this distinction and that highlighting it is important for understanding player experience, player emotion, and the ways video games differ from other entertainment media.

scholarly journals Commercial Video Games in School Teaching: Two Mixed Methods Case Studies on Students’ Reflection Processes

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marco Rüth ◽  
Kai Kaspar
Keyword(s):  
Mixed Methods ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Case Studies ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Educational Settings ◽  
Digital History ◽  
Entertainment Media ◽  
Popular Entertainment ◽  
Media Criticism ◽  
School Teaching

Commercial video games are popular entertainment media and part of students’ media reality. While commercial video games’ main purpose is not learning, they nonetheless could and should serve as objects of reflection in formal educational settings. Teachers could guide student learning and reflection as well as motivate students with commercial video games, but more evidence from formal educational settings is required. We conducted two mixed methods case studies to investigate students’ reflection processes using commercial video games in regular formal high school teaching. In a double lesson, 29 students of a 10th-grade biology course (Study 1) and 17 students of a 12th-grade advanced course on history (Study 2) played and discussed a commercial video game related to the current curricular topic. We examined the reflection processes of students in terms of their reactions to the teachers’ game-related statements and questions. Regarding teachers’ statements, students discussed several topics related to game enjoyment and the games’ representation of topic-related content. Regarding teachers’ questions, students discussed multiple goals in each game, how the games represented topic-related content, and how the games could be appropriate for learning. In Study 2, students additionally discussed emotions, stereotypes, violence, and the narrative related to the digital history game. We found that the discussions provided students opportunities to reflect on their game experiences and the current curricular topic as well as to practice media criticism. We further provide quantitative results on students’ perceived topic knowledge, on several facets of their learning motivation, and on their acceptance of video games. Overall, our findings illustrate the educational value of using commercial video games as objects of reflection.

Frustration and Violence in Mobile Video Games

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Petr Květon ◽  
Martin Jelínek
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Self Determination Theory ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
Basic Psychological Needs ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Mobile Video ◽  
Violent Content ◽  
Before And After

Abstract. This study tests two competing hypotheses, one based on the general aggression model (GAM), the other on the self-determination theory (SDT). GAM suggests that the crucial factor in video games leading to increased aggressiveness is their violent content; SDT contends that gaming is associated with aggression because of the frustration of basic psychological needs. We used a 2×2 between-subject experimental design with a sample of 128 undergraduates. We assigned each participant randomly to one experimental condition defined by a particular video game, using four mobile video games differing in the degree of violence and in the level of their frustration-invoking gameplay. Aggressiveness was measured using the implicit association test (IAT), administered before and after the playing of a video game. We found no evidence of an association between implicit aggressiveness and violent content or frustrating gameplay.

Only problem gamblers spend less money when loot boxes are removed from a game: A before and after study of Heroes of the Storm

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zendle
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
Complex Pattern ◽  
Problem Gamblers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Gambling Severity ◽  
Reliable Correlation ◽  
Before And After Study

Loot boxes are items in video games that may be paid for with real-world money, but which contain randomised contents. There is a reliable correlation between loot box spending and problem gambling severity: The more money gamers spend on loot boxes, the more severe their problem gambling tends to be. However, it is unclear whether this link represents a case in which loot box spending causes problem gambling; a case in which the gambling-like nature of loot boxes cause problem gamblers to spend more money; or whether it simply represents a case in which there is a general dysregulation in in-game spending amongst problem gamblers, nonspecific to loot boxes.The multiplayer video game Heroes of the Storm recently removed loot boxes. In order to better understand links between loot boxes and problem gambling, we conducted an analysis of players of Heroes of the Storm (n=112) both before and after the removal of loot boxes.There were a complex pattern of results. In general, when loot boxes were removed from Heroes of the Storm, problem gamblers appeared to spend significantly less money in-game in contrast to other groups. These results suggest that the presence of loot boxes in a game may lead to problem gamblers spending more money in-game. It therefore seems possible that links between loot box spending and problem gambling are not due to a general dysregulation in in-game spending amongst problem gamblers, but rather are to do with specific features of loot boxes themselves.

Gambling-like video game practices: A cross-sectional study of links with problem gambling and disordered gaming

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zendle
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Streaming Services ◽  
Clinically Significant

A variety of practices have recently emerged which are related to both video games and gambling. Most prominent of these are loot boxes. However, a broad range of other activities have recently emerged which are also related to both gambling and video games: esports betting, real-money video gaming, token wagering, social casino play, and watching videos of both loot box opening and gambling on game streaming services like Twitch.Whilst a nascent body of research has established the robust existence of a relationship between loot box spending and both problem gambling and disordered gaming, little research exists which examines whether similar links may exist for the diverse practices outlined above. Furthermore, no research has thus far attempted to estimate the prevalence of these activities.A large-scale survey of a representative sample of UK adults (n=1081) was therefore conducted in order to investigate these issues. Engagement in all measured forms of gambling-like video game practices were significantly associated with both problem gambling and disordered gaming. An aggregate measure of engagement was associated with both these outcomes to a clinically significant degree (r=0.23 and r=0.43). Engagement in gambling-like video game practices appeared widespread, with a 95% confidence interval estimating that 16.3% – 20.9% of the population engaged in these activities at least once in the last year. Engagement in these practices was highly inter-correlated: Individuals who engaged in one practice were likely to engage in several more.Overall, these results suggest that the potential effects of the blurring of lines between video games and gambling should not primarily be understood to be due to the presence of loot boxes in video games. They suggest the existence of a convergent ecosystem of gambling-like video game practices, whose causal relationships with problem gambling and disordered gaming are currently unclear but must urgently be investigated.

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