scholarly journals The economics of free

Author(s):  
Elizabeth Evans

The gaming industry has seen dramatic change and expansion with the emergence of ‘casual’ games that promote shorter periods of gameplay. Free to download, but structured around micropayments, these games raise the complex relationship between game design and commercial strategies. Although offering a free gameplay experience in line with open access philosophies, these games also create systems that offer control over the temporal dynamics of that experience to monetize player attention and inattention. This article will examine three ‘freemium’ games, Snoopy Street Fair, The Simpsons’ Tapped Out and Dragonvale, to explore how they combine established branding strategies with gameplay methods that monetize player impatience. In examining these games, this article will ultimately indicate the need for game studies to interrogate the intersection between commercial motivations and game design and a broader need for media and cultural studies to consider the social, cultural, economic and political implications of impatience.

2016 ◽  
Vol 40 (2) ◽  
pp. 101-114
Author(s):  
Laureline Chiapello

At a time when the video game industry is booming in Canada and game studies departments begin to emerge in universities, this article assesses the evolution of video game design theories. These can be considered as the combination of two worlds, design theories and video game studies, a union that seems largely under-examined. Using a theoretical model drawn from design theory, namely “the eclipse of the object,” this article reveals similarities between design and video game design theories. It argues that the parallels that can be drawn between these theories constitute the basis for a shared theoretical outlook. Building on this commonality, this paper concludes with some suggestions concerning research, pedagogy, and the video gaming industry that aim at unifying these two domains.


2018 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 119-138 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mark R. Johnson

This article examines “paper puzzle games”—crosswords, Sudoku, Kakuro, word searches, and so forth—in order to historicize and contextualize “casual games,” complicate our notions of “casual” play, and open up paper puzzle games to game studies consideration for the first time. The article begins by identifying the dearth of literature on paper puzzle games and offers an initial examination of these games through the lens of casual games, play, and players. It focuses on six traits in casual game design: appealing themes, ease of access, ease of learning, minimal required expertise, fast rewards, and temporal flexibility. It demonstrates that—from a perspective of mechanics, demographics, and contexts of play—paper puzzle games are excellent examples of casual games and therefore important to fully study. It also shows the complexity of paper puzzles as a topic in their own right, opening them up for future examination.


2006 ◽  
Vol 3 (1) ◽  
pp. 15-25 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffrey H. Cohen ◽  
Bernardo Rios ◽  
Lise Byars

Rural Oaxacan migrants are defined as quintessential transnational movers, people who access rich social networks as they move between rural hometowns in southern Mexico and the urban centers of southern California.  The social and cultural ties that characterize Oaxacan movers are critical to successful migrations, lead to jobs and create a sense of belonging and shared identity.  Nevertheless, migration has socio-cultural, economic and psychological costs.  To move the discussion away from a framework that emphasizes the positive transnational qualities of movement we focus on the costs of migration for Oaxacans from the state’s central valleys and Sierra regions.   


Professare ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 109
Author(s):  
Claudemir Aparecido Lopes

<p class="resumoabstract">O professor Giorgio Agamben tem elaborado críticas à engenhosa estrutura política ocidental moderna. Avalia os mecanismos de controle estatal, nos quais os denomina ‘dispositivos’, cuja força está na imbricação às normas jurídico-teológicas com seus similares ritos e liturgias. Suas ocorrências e legitimidade preponderam no tecido social cuja organização sistêmica se põe quase como elemento natural e não cultural. O texto tem por objetivo explorar a concepção política de Agamben sobre a política contemporânea, especialmente considerando seu livro: ‘Estado de Exceção’, cuja investigação apresenta a possibilidade de atenuação dos direitos de cidadania e o enfraquecimento da prática da liberdade política e o processo de relação dos indivíduos no meio social através da redução das subjetividades ‘autênticas’. Analisamos ainda a transferência do mundo sacro elaborado pelos teólogos católicos presente na modernidade à política cuja democracia moderna faz do homem (sujeito) tornar-se objeto do poder político. Faz também, reflexão dos conceitos de subjetivação e dessubjetivação relacionando-os às implicações políticas do homem moderno. A pesquisa é bibliográfica com ênfase na análise dos conceitos elaborados por Agamben, especialmente quanto ao ‘dispositivo’. Conclui que o indivíduo ocidental, de modo geral, sofre o processo de dessubjetivação e está ‘nu’, indefeso e alienado politicamente. Ele precisa voltar-se ao processo de ‘profanação’ dos dispositivos para libertar-se das vinculações orientadoras que forçosamente o descaracteriza enquanto ser ativo e livre.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Palavras-chave</strong>: Política. Liberdade. Subjetivação.</p><h3>ABSTRACT</h3><p class="resumoabstract">Professor Giorgio Agamben has been criticizing the ingenious modern Western political structure. It evaluates the mechanisms of state control, in which it calls them 'devices', whose strength lies in the overlap with legal-theological norms with their similar rites and liturgies. Its occurrences and legitimacy preponderate in the social fabric whose systemic organization is almost as a natural and not a cultural element. The text aims to explore Agamben's political conception of contemporary politics, especially considering his book 'State of Exception', whose research presents the possibility of attenuating citizenship rights and weakening the practice of political freedom and the individuals in the social environment through the reduction of 'authentic' subjectivities. We also analyze the transfer of the sacred world elaborated by the Catholic theologians present in the modernity to the politics whose modern democracy makes of the man - subject - to become object of the political power. It also reflects on the concepts of subjectivation and desubjectivation, relating them to the political implications of modern man. The research is bibliographical with emphasis in the analysis of the concepts elaborated by Agamben, especially with regard to the 'device'. He concludes that the Western individual, in general, suffers the process of desubjectivation and is 'naked', defenseless and politically alienated. He must turn to the process of 'desecration' of devices to free himself from the guiding bindings that forcibly demeanes him while being active and free.</p><p class="resumoabstract"><strong>Keywords</strong>: Politics. Freedom. Subjectivity. </p><p> </p>


Author(s):  
Mohamed Ahmed

In the late 1950s, Iraqi Jews were either forced or chose to leave Iraq for Israel. Finding it impossible to continue writing in Arabic in Israel, many Iraqi Jewish novelists faced the literary challenge of switching to Hebrew. Focusing on the literary works of the writers Shimon Ballas, Sami Michael and Eli Amir, this book examines their use of their native Iraqi Arabic in their Hebrew works. It examines the influence of Arabic language and culture and explores questions of language, place and belonging from the perspective of sociolinguistics and multilingualism. In addition, the book applies stylistics as a framework to investigate the range of linguistic phenomena that can be found in these exophonic texts, such as code-switching, borrowing, language and translation strategies. This new stylistic framework for analysing exophonic texts offers a future model for the study of other languages. The social and political implications of this dilemma, as it finds expression in creative writing, are also manifold. In an age of mass migration and population displacement, the conflicted loyalties explored in this book through the prism of Arabic and Hebrew are relevant in a range of linguistic contexts.


Author(s):  
Janet O'Shea

This section contends with a central irony: Americans are among the most competitive people in the world, and yet we are among the least likely to play competitive sports in adulthood. This exercise gap is usually treated as a public health problem; the goal of this section is to treat it as a social and cultural concern. The conclusion therefore investigates the social and political implications of an American tendency to outsource physical play to experts: higher levels of fear, increased preoccupation with success at all costs, decreased creativity, and increasing rigidity of perspective and position. Specifically, the conclusion maintains that a neglect of fair play has dire consequences for democracy, a suggestion born out by the recent swing toward right-wing populism in politics.


2014 ◽  
Vol 35 ◽  
pp. 95-110 ◽  
Author(s):  
Linda J. Skitka ◽  
G. Scott Morgan

2012 ◽  
Vol 14 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Coretta Phillips

This article explores recent concerns about the emergence of gangs in prisons in England and Wales. Using narrative interviews with male prisoners as part of an ethnographic study of ethnicity and social relations, the social meaning of ‘the gang’ inside prison is interrogated. A formally organized gang presence was categorically denied by prisoners. However, the term ‘gang’ was sometimes elided with loose collectives of prisoners who find mutual support in prison based on a neighbourhood territorial identification. Gangs were also discussed as racialized groups, most often symbolized in the motif of the ‘Muslim gang’. This racializing discourse hinted at an envy of prisoner solidarity and cohesion which upsets the idea of a universal prisoner identity. The broader conceptual, empirical and political implications of these findings are considered.


2016 ◽  
Vol 8 (10) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
Shahram Habibzadeh ◽  
Farhad Poufarzi ◽  
Mohammad Mehrtak ◽  
Saied Sadeghiyeh-Ahari ◽  
Mehdi Jafari-Oori ◽  
...  

<p><strong>Introduction:</strong> In all human societies, domestic violence is known as a threat. Violence is imposing one's will on others through mental pressure and physical damage then can cause a feeling of anxiety and insecurity in them, especially for the weaker and more vulnerable groups such as women, children, elderly and minority groups who are the victims of oppression and socioeconomic inequalities. According to statistics, Ardabil, in comparison with other Iran’s provinces, has the most number of violent crimes. This qualitative research was conducted with the aim of exploring pathological phenomena of social violence in Ardabil province.</p><p><strong>Methods:</strong> this qualitative study was conducted with expert panel. Eighteen participants were selected with targeted sampling method from professors and the heads of the administrative offices who were linked to the phenomenon of social violence and have rich experiences with the social violence issues. After obtaining an informed consent from the participants, expert panel were conducted in two sessions of 150 minutes. At each session all discourse was recorded and after that, immediately transcribed verbatim. Then, the codes, sub-themes and the themes were obtained.</p><p><strong>Results:</strong> The five main extracted themes included: social, historical and anthropological, cultural, economic and regional factors and 13 sub-themes were classified.</p><p><strong>Conclusion:</strong> Social, economic, cultural and regional structure, which have been formed and institutionalized in the society over the years, can be influenced and changed by government policies and a variety of programs.</p>


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