Above the Action: The Cultural Politics of Watching Dota 2

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jessica Elam ◽  
Nick Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Live Streaming ◽  
First Person ◽  
Game Play ◽  
Optical Media ◽  
Competitive Game ◽  
Active Camera

Abstract The rise of live-streaming platforms, and the related surge in popularity of esports, remind us that there is a politics of watching play. This article extends intensified scholarly interest in game spectatorship, offering a materialist consideration of the embodied work involved in spectating competitive game play. Most readily associated with the discursive alignments between competitive gaming and/as sport, the active camera mode used by esports competitors and “shoutcasters” facilitates analyzing the highly kinetic action of team-based combat in first-person shooters and multiplayer online battle arenas. Here, we draw from microanalyses of audio-visual recordings taken as individual participants spectated a Dota 2 match. Examining the cognitive and perceptual competencies they draw from, we argue that participants are incorporated into apparatuses of perception associated with militarized optical media. While at a discursive level esports spectators may be watching sports, at a material level they are playing with the logics of drones.

Multichannel Gaming and the Aesthetics of Interactive Surround

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark Kerins
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Mixing Rules ◽  
First Person ◽  
Game Play ◽  
Sound Track ◽  
Surround Sound ◽  
Game World ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Technical Factors ◽  
The Relationship

This article appears in theOxford Handbook of New Audiovisual Aestheticsedited by John Richardson, Claudia Gorbman, and Carol Vernallis. This chapter examines multichannel sound—specifically 5.1-channel surround sound—in video games, using gaming genres to explore the varying ways that games structure the three-way relationship among a multichannel sound track, onscreen visuals, and the game play itself. This approach uncovers distinct strategies of multichannel usage in platformers, first-person shooters, third-person 3D games, and rhythm games, and shows how these differ from traditional cinematic multichannel uses, especially in the way they problematize the relationship between image and sound. These differing approaches to game aesthetics illustrate different ways of conceiving the relationship among players, their in-game avatars, and the game world, with the sound mixing “rules” programmed into a game revealing the type of immersion and interactivity the game can promote. For example, some strategies reinforce the player–avatar connection, whereas others increase the distance between them. The chapter concludes by considering how industrial and technical factors unique to gaming impact multichannel sound usage.

scholarly journals Gender Differences in Emotional Responses to Cooperative and Competitive Game Play

PLoS ONE ◽  
2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (7) ◽  
pp. e100318 ◽  
Author(s):  
J. Matias Kivikangas ◽  
Jari Kätsyri ◽  
Simo Järvelä ◽  
Niklas Ravaja
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Emotional Responses ◽  
Game Play ◽  
Competitive Game

Longer you play, the more hostile you feel: examination of first person shooter video games and aggression during video game play

2007 ◽  
Vol 33 (6) ◽  
pp. 486-497 ◽  
Author(s):  
Christopher P. Barlett ◽  
Richard J. Harris ◽  
Ross Baldassaro
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
First Person ◽  
Game Play ◽  
Video Game Play ◽  
First Person Shooter

scholarly journals Locating the ‘Radical’ in Shoot the Messenger

2013 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
pp. 187-205 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarita Malik
Keyword(s):  
Mental Illness ◽  
Social Inequality ◽  
Cultural Politics ◽  
Black Male ◽  
Black People ◽  
Black Culture ◽  
First Person ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Politics Of Race

The 2006 BBC drama Shoot the Messenger is based on the psychological journey of a Black schoolteacher, Joe Pascale, accused of assaulting a Black male pupil. The allegation triggers Joe's mental breakdown which is articulated, through Joe's first-person narration, as a vindictive loathing of Black people. In turn, a range of common stereotypical characterisations and discourses based on a Black culture of hypocrisy, blame and entitlement is presented. The text is therefore laid wide open to a critique of its neo-conservatism and hegemonic narratives of Black Britishness. However, the drama's presentation of Black mental illness suggests that Shoot the Messenger may also be interpreted as a critique of social inequality and the destabilising effects of living with ethnicised social categories. Through an analysis of issues of representation, the article reclaims this controversial text as a radical drama and examines its implications for and within a critical cultural politics of ‘race’ and representation.

scholarly journals The impacts of live streaming and Twitch.tv on the video game industry

2018 ◽  
Vol 41 (5) ◽  
pp. 670-688 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R Johnson ◽  
Jamie Woodcock
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Consumer Choice ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Qualitative Interviews ◽  
Live Streaming ◽  
Online Ethnography ◽  
Competitive Game ◽  
Production And Consumption ◽  
Game Industry

This article explores the growing importance of live streaming, specifically on website and platform Twitch.tv, to the games industry. We focus not on live streaming as a form of media production and consumption, but instead explore its newly central role in the contemporary political economy of the whole video games ecosystem. We explore three cases: streaming newly released games and the attendant role of streaming in informing consumer choice; the visibility and added lifespan that streaming is affording to independent and niche games and older games; and the live streaming of the creation of games, shedding light on the games industry and subverting ordinarily expensive or highly competitive game-design courses, training and employment paths. To do so, we draw on empirical data from offline and online fieldwork, including 100 qualitative interviews with professional live-streamers, offline ethnography at live-streaming events, and online ethnography and observation of Twitch streams. The article concludes that live streaming is a major new force in the games industry, creating new links between developers and influencers and shifting our expectations of game play and game design, and is consequently a platform whose major structural effects are only now beginning to be understood.

“Just watching”: A qualitative analysis of non-players’ motivations for video game spectatorship

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482198935
Author(s):  
Stephanie Orme
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Qualitative Analysis ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Live Streaming ◽  
Structured Interviews ◽  
Game Play ◽  
Traditional Media ◽  
Video Game Play ◽  
Gaming Culture

This study explores the phenomenon of video game spectatorship from the perspective of a population I refer to as “just watchers.” Previous studies have tended to focus on game spectatorship from turn-taking “non-players” or live-streaming audiences, specifically. “Just watchers” are individuals who express no desire to play video games themselves, yet are avid spectators of others’ video game play, both virtually and in-person. Drawing on semi-structured interviews with 27 participants, this study explores their motivations for gaming spectatorship, as well as their aversion to playing games themselves. Findings suggest the “work” of playing games, lack of skill, access to games, and toxic online communities are deterrents to playing games. Participants expressed that games spectatorship offers them narrative engagement that is distinct from traditional media, and that despite “just watching,” they tend to consider themselves as part of gaming culture.

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