scholarly journals On the Publishing Methods of Our Time: Mobilizing Knowledge in Game Studies

2015 ◽  
Vol 6 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steve Wilcox
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
First Person ◽  
Academic Interest ◽  
Middle State ◽  
The University

There is a considerable amount of academic and non-academic interest in the production and reception of video games. At the same time game scholars encounter questions such as, “are video game academics irrelevant?” In this article I connect questions of relevancy in game studies with the need to develop forms of publishing capable of asserting that relevancy more broadly. As the co-founder and editor-in-chief of First Person Scholar (FPS), a middle-state publication based in the Games Institute at the University of Waterloo, I detail how FPS has attempted to reach beyond the traditional scope of game studies to engage a wider audience and assert a new degree of relevancy for the game scholar.

scholarly journals Art and technology: archiving video games for humanities research in university libraries

2018 ◽  
Vol 43 (4) ◽  
pp. 185-195 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelli Wood ◽  
David S. Carter
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Film Studies ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Cultural Objects ◽  
Art And Technology ◽  
Past Half Century ◽  
Critical Issues ◽  
The University

AbstractOver the past half-century video games have become a significant part of our cultural environment, in part, by leading advances in both technology and artistic innovation. In recent years librarians and researchers have recognized these games as cultural objects that require collection and curation. Developing and maintaining collections of this fast moving and somewhat ephemeral media, however, poses challenges due to constantly advancing technology and a corresponding lack of consistent terminology. This article addresses the literature and critical issues surrounding collections of video games within libraries and presents a case study of the University of Michigan’s Computer and Video Game Archive (CVGA), one of the largest academic archives of its kind. Moreover, video games are situated in a humanistic approach to the field of game studies as the article draws on the relevance of methods from art history and film studies.

Genre Differences in Soft Skills Perception and Video Game Usage in the University of Extremadura

2022 ◽  
pp. 28-49
Author(s):  
Sergio Alloza Castillo ◽  
Flavio Escribano ◽  
Óscar Rodrigo González López ◽  
María Buenadicha Mateos
Keyword(s):  
Gender Differences ◽  
Academic Performance ◽  
Video Games ◽  
University Students ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Positive Impact ◽  
Soft Skills ◽  
Negative Effects ◽  
Professional Fields ◽  
The University

The preconceived notion concerning negative effects of video games and students' academic performance is a widely known subject. However, some investigations explore the positive impact of video games on academic performance. With a sample of 247 university students, this chapter studies the perception of both gamers and non-gamers about soft skills and their current relevance in academic and professional fields. The possible relationships linking the intensity of the usage of video games, academic performance, and the perception concerning soft skills are investigated. The results expose a generalized positive perception respecting the relation between video games and the development of soft skills, specifically to the video game genre and its relevance and influence on academic performance, as well as gender differences, where women prevail in emotional and social managements, although this influence is not elevated.

Game Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shira Chess
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Specific Approach ◽  
Emerging Media ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Media Objects

As a nascent form of screen culture, video games provide a challenging new lens to think about emerging media. Because video games do not abide by traditional narrative structure and because many different kinds of media objects fall under the purview of video games, they provide particular complications for researchers. In turn, within video game studies, which has been a growing field since the early 2000s, researchers often focus on a specific approach to understanding video games: studying the industry, studying audiences, or studying games as texts. Additionally, many researchers have found it useful to consider “assemblage”-type approaches that look holistically at several aspects of a video game object in order to understand the game from a broader context.

The Contributions of Perceived Graphic and Enactive Realism to Enjoyment and Engagement in Active Video Games

2015 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 1-16 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jih-Hsuan Lin ◽  
Wei Peng
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Perceived Realism ◽  
Active Video Games ◽  
Video Game Playing ◽  
Active Video Game ◽  
Active Video ◽  
Movement Intensity ◽  
Practical Implications

How perceived realism in a video game contributes to game enjoyment and engagement is a theoretically important and practically significant question. The conceptualization and operationalization of perceived realism in previous video game studies vary greatly, particularly regarding the dimensions of perceived graphic realism and perceived external realism. The authors argue that it is important to examine perceived enactive realism, particularly for interactive and participatory media such as video games. This study examines the contribution of two types of perceived realism—perceived graphic realism and perceived enactive realism—to enjoyment and engagement as manifested by the level of physical movement intensity in an active video game playing context. It was found that perceived enactive realism was a significant predictor of enjoyment and engagement in playing active video games. However, perceived graphic realism was not found to be a significant predictor of enjoyment or engagement. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

scholarly journals Beyond Rules and Mechanics: A Different Approach for Ludology

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (6) ◽  
pp. 587-608 ◽  
Author(s):  
Juan J. Vargas-Iglesias ◽  
Luis Navarrete-Cardero
Keyword(s):  
Signal Processing ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Total Sample ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Empirical Validity ◽  
Fundamental Part ◽  
System Order ◽  
Do So

Due to its affiliation with formalism, ludology, the scientific perspective prioritized in game studies, considers the rule–mechanic binomial to be an essential principle of any scholarly approach to video games. Nevertheless, the limitation of the game system order implies that, as a fundamental part of this epistemological approach, the empirical validity of its methodology is already being rejected. As such, this article attempts to shift the focus away from the rule–mechanic relation, and from a cybersemiotic perspective, to refocus it on a conceptualization of the human–machine relationship. In order to do so, the concept of convolution regarding said relation is defined, including both parts of the video game system in terms of signal processing. Likewise, this model is contrasted with a randomized total sample of 1,200 games ( N = 1,200, n = 300) in order to arrive at a set of conclusions about the behavior of the distinct video game genres in the indicated terms.

scholarly journals Always Already Monsters—BioShock’s (2007) ‘Splicers’ as Computational Others

Nordlit ◽  
2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaroslav Švelch
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Political Power ◽  
Social Bonds ◽  
Computational Algorithms ◽  
First Person ◽  
First Person Shooter ◽  
Game Representation ◽  
Embedded Narrative

The article explores the manufacturing of monsters in video games, using the case of the influential 2007 first-person shooter BioShock, and ‘splicers’—its most numerous, zombie-like enemies. I combine two methodological perspectives on the ‘manufacturing’ of splicers by analyzing [a] the title’s developer commentary and other official paratexts to trace the design of splicers, and [b] the game’s embedded narrative to reconstruct the diegetic backstory of splicers. I argue that video game enemies, including splicers, are ‘computational others’, who may appear human on the level of representation, but whose behavior is machinic, and driven by computational algorithms. To justify the paradoxical relationship between their human-like representation and machinic behavior, BioShock includes an elaborate narrative that explains how the citizens of the underwater city of Rapture were dehumanized and transformed into hostile splicers. The narrative of dehumanization, explored following Haslam’s dehumanization theory (2006), includes [a] transforming splicers into atomized creatures by depriving them of political power and social bonds, [b] creating fungible and interchangeable enemies through splicers’ masks and bodily disintegration, [c] justifying splicers’ blindness to context and their simplistic behavior by portraying them as mentally unstable addicts. The article concludes that all video game enemies are inherently monstrous, and that critique of video game representation should focus on how games fail to make monsters human, rather than how games render humans monstrous or dehumanized.

scholarly journals Games of Drones: The Uneasy Future of the Soldier-Hero in Call of Duty: Black Ops II

2014 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 360-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carrie Elizabeth Andersen
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
First Person ◽  
Combat Experience ◽  
Logical Conclusion ◽  
The Future ◽  
First Person Shooter ◽  
The U.S

In this article, I argue that the first-person shooter video game, Call of Duty: Black Ops II, reflects the U.S. military‟s transition as it reimagines the soldier‟s role in war. In the age of drone technology, this role shifts from a position of strength to one of relative weakness. Although video games that feature future combat often “function as virtual enactments and endorsements for developing military technologies,” Black Ops II offers a surprisingly complex vision of the future of drones and U.S. soldiers (Smicker 2009: 107). To explore how the game reflects a contemporary vision of the U.S. military, I weave together a close textual reading of two levels in Black Ops II with actual accounts from drone pilots and politicians that illuminate the nature of drone combat. Although there are moments in Black Ops II in which avatars combat enemies with first-hand firepower, the experience of heroic diegetic violence is superseded by a combat experience defined by powerlessness, boredom, and ambiguous pleasure. The shift of the soldier from imposing hero to a banal figure experiences its logical conclusion in Unmanned, an independent video game that foregrounds the mundane, nonviolent nature of drone piloting. Instead of training soldiers to withstand emotionally devastating experiences of death and violence first-hand (or to physically enact such violence), games like Black Ops II and Unmanned train actual and potential soldiers to tolerate monotony and disempowerment.

Video game dynamic in unplugged mode for innovative and inclusive teaching

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Martina De Castro ◽  
Martina Marsano ◽  
Umberto Zona ◽  
Fabio Bocci
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Educational Opportunities ◽  
Educational Technologies ◽  
Educational Objective ◽  
Future Teachers ◽  
Digital Devices ◽  
Game Dynamic ◽  
Game Environment ◽  
The University

The authors of this essay analyze the educational opportunities offered by video games by experimenting with an unplugged design, carried out within the framework of a Laboratory of Educational Technologies at the Degree Course in Primary Education Sciences at. The aim was to enable students, future teachers, to build, in teams, a video game environment that could be reproduced even in the absence of the digital devices on which it is usually implemented and through which it can be reproduced. This last circumstance can occur in many school complexes, unfortunately still lacking adequate structures and instruments. The educational and pedagogical mission of the Laboratory was also to allow future teachers to experiment in a protected environment, the university one, the video game principles applicable even in disadvantaged class contexts. The educational objective was to ensure that the students involved in the design of the game master the philosophy of gamification, so that they could take advantage of it wisely and consciously in their future classes.

Why Video Game Genres Fail

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (5) ◽  
pp. 445-465 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Ivy Clarke ◽  
Jin Ha Lee ◽  
Neils Clark
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Information Science ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Classification Theory ◽  
Library And Information Science ◽  
Practical Applications ◽  
Genre Classification ◽  
Family Resemblances ◽  
Faceted Classification

This article explores the current affordances and limitations of video game genre from a library and information science perspective with an emphasis on classification theory. We identify and discuss various purposes of genre relating to video games, including identity, collocation and retrieval, commercial marketing, and educational instruction. Through the use of examples, we discuss the ways in which these purposes are supported by genre classification and conceptualization and the implications for video games. Suggestions for improved conceptualizations such as family resemblances, prototype theory, faceted classification, and appeal factors for video game genres are considered, with discussions of strengths and weaknesses. This analysis helps inform potential future practical applications for describing video games at cultural heritage institutions such as libraries, museums, and archives, as well as furthering the understanding of video game genre and genre classification for game studies at large.

scholarly journals A Data-Driven Approach for Video Game Playability Analysis Based on Players’ Reviews

Information ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 129
Author(s):  
Xiaozhou Li ◽  
Zheying Zhang ◽  
Kostas Stefanidis
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Binary Classification ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Data Driven ◽  
Software Products ◽  
Data Driven Approach ◽  
Definition Of

Playability is a key concept in game studies defining the overall quality of video games. Although its definition and frameworks are widely studied, methods to analyze and evaluate the playability of video games are still limited. Using heuristics for playability evaluation has long been the mainstream with its usefulness in detecting playability issues during game development well acknowledged. However, such a method falls short in evaluating the overall playability of video games as published software products and understanding the genuine needs of players. Thus, this paper proposes an approach to analyze the playability of video games by mining a large number of players’ opinions from their reviews. Guided by the game-as-system definition of playability, the approach is a data mining pipeline where sentiment analysis, binary classification, multi-label text classification, and topic modeling are sequentially performed. We also conducted a case study on a particular video game product with its 99,993 player reviews on the Steam platform. The results show that such a review-data-driven method can effectively evaluate the perceived quality of video games and enumerate their merits and defects in terms of playability.

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