scholarly journals Behavioral Escalation: Video Games as a Tool of Hybrid War

2020 ◽  
Vol V (I) ◽  
pp. 75-89
Author(s):  
Haseeb Ur Rehman Warrich ◽  
Sahrish Jamil ◽  
Fazal Rahim Khan
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Gaming Industry ◽  
Social Unrest ◽  
Procedural Rhetoric ◽  
Unconventional Warfare ◽  
Combat Games ◽  
Hybrid War ◽  
Interactive Medium

Gaming industry in its short span of around forty years has evolved from a hobby to a huge economic industry. However, undeniably, incredible advancement in video game graphics has allowed this virtual world to manipulate and escalate its consumer's behavior. Violent video games, according to Professor Robert Sparrow, have long been used for political contestation and social unrest. The study serves to analyze behavioral escalation through video games. This study has used Ian Bogust's Procedural Rhetoric as a methodology to analyze video games. The results showed that video games are persuasive interactive medium that escalate behavior and have great potential to be used as a tool of Hybrid war. Louis Jones stated that propaganda and unconventional warfare is not a new thing, it dates back to Greeks when they left wooden horse at Troy. Colin Gray, military strategist, described the future warfare as similar to the historical one but with modern means of technology. The new virtual means of warfare have not altered the nature of warfare but have developed its new ways. Combat games are more realistic in sense of its enhanced graphics and presentation. This study points towards the great potential in video games to work as a tool for Hybrid war.

Sideways into Truth

2010 ◽  
pp. 109-124
Author(s):  
Erin Hoffman
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Death Anxiety ◽  
Soren Kierkegaard ◽  
Cultural Anthropology ◽  
Human Experience ◽  
Ethical Concerns ◽  
Violent Content ◽  
Ernest Becker ◽  
Interactive Medium

We often discuss the interactive medium as being possibly the ultimate in “meta” studies, touching virtually every discipline, and yet we rarely discuss it in serious terms of that other most comprehensive of humanities: philosophy. Correspondingly, philosophy and the traditional humanities have historically distanced themselves from games, relegating them to some curious and inconsequential sub-study of cultural anthropology if they are studied at all. Yet it is the very human foundational compulsion to contemplate death—as will be shown through the works of philosophers Søren Kierkegaard and Ernest Becker—that drives much of the violent content that makes the video game medium a lightning rod for cultural scrutiny and controversy. The chapter explores two video games—the controversial Super Columbine Massacre RPG!—through the lens of existential death-anxiety to show how video games represent contemplation of fundamental ethical concerns in the human experience.

scholarly journals Gamecloud - A Platform for Connecting Video Games

2016 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Janne Parkkila ◽  
Kati Järvi ◽  
Timo Hynninen ◽  
Jouni Ikonen ◽  
Jari Porras
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
The Real ◽  
Platform Architecture ◽  
Mobile Market ◽  
Digital Nature ◽  
Interactive Medium

The growing video game markets, especially the mobile market, have caused problems in terms of new game products being found by players. Cross-promotion and in-game advertising have been used to promote video games inside each other. However, the digital nature of video games as an interactive medium enables deeper collaboration between video games, and could be used in a more profound manner. We interviewed Finnish video game companies to understand if they were interested in creating deeper collaboration between their game products, and how such collaboration could take place. Based on the results, we built a platform called Gamecloud for connecting games together. We present the platform architecture and demonstrate it in use, with examples of connecting games with other games and connecting games with the real world, alongside an example of physical exercising.

Dancing with Myself

2014 ◽  
Author(s):  
Derek A. Burrill ◽  
Melissa Blanco Borelli
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ways Of Thinking ◽  
The Relationship

This chapter acts as a video game battle or interaction between the two authors. It discusses how dance video games construct corporeality. It provides an overview of Microsoft Xbox 360Dance Central’srelationship to choreography, choreographers, and dance analysis. It also theorizes how bodies and corporeality function in a virtual world. Finally, the chapter considers how avatar bodies provide new ways of thinking about the relationship between technology and the body.

Imperial Play

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rachel Lara van der Merwe
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Male Gaze ◽  
Procedural Rhetoric ◽  
Game Analysis ◽  
Post Colonial ◽  
Game Player ◽  
Colonial Theory ◽  
Key Participants

Abstract In this article, I propose the theory of imperial play as a tool with which scholars can expose ideologies embedded into video games and video game culture and industry. While representation-oriented theories and methodologies help scholars think about the visual and narrative components of a game, analysis of representation fails scholars when we examine video games as simulations. With imperial play, I reimagine Laura Mulvey's male gaze through the lens of post-colonial theory and through Ian Bogost's concept of procedural rhetoric. While I acknowledge two key participants in the practice of imperial play, the game developer and game player, within this article, I demonstrate the framework by focusing on the experience of the player. Using examples from popular console and PC video games, I analyze embedded colonial attitudes within game missions, within the nature of the avatar, within the construction of the gamescape, and in regard to non-playable characters (NPCs).

Transnational Politics in Video Games

2021 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 112-129
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Military Intervention ◽  
Military Power ◽  
Transnational Politics ◽  
Procedural Rhetoric ◽  
Third Person ◽  
Cultural Status ◽  
International Audience ◽  
Game Industry

Political claims about the real world are abundant in video games, and the medium persuades uniquely through procedural rhetoric, the rules of behavior contained in computational code. The transnational scope of the video game industry makes it productive ground for interrogating how a game’s persuasion might influence international audiences with nationally situated politics. The 2012 third-person shooter Spec Ops: The Line, produced by the German studio Yager Development, depicts the international concern of a fictional conflict in the Middle East and the atrocities of failed military intervention. The game’s core procedural rhetoric, which tasks players to push ahead at all costs, cautions an international audience about the futility of deploying military power abroad, a warning that mirrors particularly German political anxieties. The game’s depiction of extreme violence—and the player’s participation in it—raises further questions about the cultural status of the medium in the country and abroad.

Homo Aestheticus' Search for Violence

2021 ◽  
pp. 567-591
Author(s):  
Neslihan Yayla
Keyword(s):  
Social Sciences ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Virtual World ◽  
Interdisciplinary Concept ◽  
Scientific Fields ◽  
Aesthetic Preferences

Homo-Aestheticus is a term that describes human art aesthetics and evolution under its effect. When we look at the artworks that came to our date million years ago, the similarities we encounter are the signs that our aesthetic preferences, understanding of beauty, and our tastes are a legacy from our ancestors. Aesthetic is not only an understanding adopted by our cultures; it has been with us for centuries. Similarly, violence appears as a concept that has been part of humanity for ages. It is an interdisciplinary concept that is center of attention of scientific fields particularly social sciences, art, sociology, psychology. As a result of digital developments, virtual reality, anonymous identities and together with the fantasy of the virtual world emerging with uncontrolled digital media eases presentation of the violence in digital medias. In video games, violence is presented to the player in an aesthetic way. This study aims to reveal how the aesthetics of violence in video game are received by the players and fill the gap in the literature.

PROBLEMS OF TRANSLATION ADAPTATION OF ENGLISH-LANGUAGE GAMING AAA PROJECTS

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 (102) ◽  
pp. 143-153
Author(s):  
OLGA V. EPSHTEIN
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
English Language ◽  
Gaming Industry ◽  
Individual Approach ◽  
Free Translation ◽  
Video Game Content ◽  
Problems Of Translation

The article examines the problems of translation adaptation when localizing high-budget AAA-class video games. The author considers the chosen specialized field as a new discursive genre, identifies verbal components of video game content, and classifies denotative, linguistic and pragmatic violations in the translation of the studied video game projects. Based on the results of the study, the solution to the problem of making an error-free translation is seen in an individual approach; the ways to improve the translation localization of the final product of gaming industry are proposed.

Saving Worlds with Videogame Activism

2009 ◽  
pp. 970-988 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Jones
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Visual Media ◽  
Spoken Word ◽  
Original Design ◽  
Procedural Rhetoric ◽  
Civic Duty ◽  
New Form ◽  
Word Writing ◽  
Rule System

Due to its nature as an interactive medium, the video game offers uniquely different approaches to the project of activism. Unlike other audio/visual media like film and TV, video games consist of processes enacted by players. More specific, they contain rules systems known as algorithms that the player navigates to become successful at the game. And through that process of learning that algorithm a new form of rhetoric is born. Ian Bogost labels this unique form as procedural rhetoric: “the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures.” Through gamic actions players internalize not only the rules, but also the rhetoric of that rule system. To demonstrate precisely how procedural rhetoric works through video game technologies, this chapter presents a definition for video game activism as well as three distinct modes: original design, engine appropriation, and machinima. Using three recent case studies, the chapter suggests some of the implications for educators and why they should take video games seriously as means of political expression when teaching students about civic duty.

Making public policy fun: How political aspects and policy issues are found in video games

2021 ◽  
pp. 147821032110330
Author(s):  
Fitrawan Akbar ◽  
Bevaola Kusumasari
Keyword(s):  
Public Policy ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Comparative Case Study ◽  
Political Marketing ◽  
Communication Policy ◽  
Procedural Rhetoric ◽  
Policy Issues ◽  
Policy Practice

The study of video games can be fun, and it is interesting to see what players can explore inside video games. This paper explores public policy practice and its political content or aspects in video games. The very idea itself may sound vague and unclear; can such a thing be found inside a mere video game? To strengthen the argument of what kind of political aspects can be found in video games, the authors use a comparative case study, comparing two games: Animal Crossing: New Horizon and Genshin Impact. By comparing the two games, this paper forms an understanding of how political aspects are found inside each game and their influence on affairs and issues in certain countries. The result of this research shows that video games have become an election-winning strategic political marketing and communication policy. Video games have also used procedural rhetoric, which reveals how game producers promote certain ideologies through legislation and rules in their games.

From the “Damsel in Distress” to Girls' Games and Beyond

2014 ◽  
pp. 1-17 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alyson E. King ◽  
Aziz Douai
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Social Networking ◽  
Gender Stereotypes ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Computer Game ◽  
Computer Gaming ◽  
Gaming Industry ◽  
Method Analysis

In this chapter, the authors critically assess the gendered nature of the products developed by the computer gaming industry. The chapter takes a historiographical approach to examining the nature of children's video and computer games as a type of toy that immerses children into current gender stereotypes even as they hold the potential for social change. New ways of bridging the gap between stereotypes and change is explored through a virtual world for children. In addition to an introductory section, the chapter is organized in three main sections: First, the authors place existing computer and video games into a broad and historical context. Second, the chapter takes into consideration feminist critiques of video games for adults. Third, the authors analyze the case of WebkinzWorld, a toy-based social-networking portal offering less gendered video game environments for kids. The authors argue that this mixed method analysis is important not only for computer game designers and marketers who aim to appeal to broad demographics, but also for educators, parents, and caregivers who need to understand the underlying or hidden messages of games for children.

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