scholarly journals Video Games as Objects and Vehicles of Nostalgia

Humanities ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Péter Makai
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Generation X ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Computer Gaming ◽  
The Past ◽  
Player Experience ◽  
Video Gamers ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
A Site

Barely 50 years old, video games are among the newest media today, and still a source of fascination and a site of anxiety for cultural critics and parents. Since the 1970s, a generation of video gamers have grown up and as they began to have children of their own, video games have become objects evoking fond memories of the past. Nostalgia for simpler times is evident in the aesthetic choices game designers make: pixelated graphics, 8-bit music, and frustratingly hard levels are all reminiscent of arcade-style and third-generation console games that have been etched into the memory of Generation X. At the same time, major AAA titles have become so photorealistic and full of cinematic ambition that video games can also serve as vehicles for nostalgia by “faithfully” recreating the past. From historical recreations of major cities in the Assassin’s Creed series and L. A. Noire, to the resurrection of old art styles in 80 Days, Firewatch or Cuphead all speak of the extent to which computer gaming is suffused with a longing for pasts that never were but might have been. This paper investigates the design of games to examine how nostalgia is used to manipulate affect and player experience, and how it contributes to the themes that these computer games explore. Far from ruining video games, nostalgia nonetheless exploits the associations the players have with certain historical eras, including earlier eras of video gaming. Even so, the juxtaposition of period media and dystopic rampages or difficult levels critically comment upon the futility of nostalgia.

scholarly journals Attitudes and practices of medical students regarding video-games: should community medicine educationists get serious about serious games

2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 729 ◽  
Author(s):  
Varun M. Malhotra ◽  
Pratyush R. Kabra ◽  
Ritika Malhotra
Keyword(s):  
Medical Students ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Community Medicine ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Undergraduate Medical Students ◽  
Learning Tool ◽  
Attitudes And Practices ◽  
Video Gamers ◽  
Teaching Learning

Background: Present medicos belong to a generation called ‘Millennials’ or ‘Net Generation’. They spend less time reading, and are more comfortable in image-rich environments provided by New Media.  The objective of the study is to identify knowledge, attitudes and practices of medical students regarding video-games, with the aim of prompting community medicine teachers to consider serious games as a teaching-learning tool.Methods: The study was conducted among undergraduate medical students who self-administered a structured questionnaire eliciting their practices and attitudes regarding video-games, perceptions regarding impact of video-gaming on their academic performances and acceptability of serious games as a learning tool in community medicine.Results: A total of 255 medical students participated in the study, out of which 242 (94.9%) were current video-gamers. The students started playing video-games at a mean age of 11.72+3.63 years. Mobile phones were the commonest platform for video-gaming. The median duration of video-gaming was 150 minutes/week, with semi-inter-quartile range of 255 minutes.  57.4% of students reported that video-games helped them relax, while 26% felt that video-gaming increased their skills.  The study revealed that 43.6% students were aware of serious games and 22.7% had used them as a learning tool in last three months. Moreover, about 95% of medicos welcomed learning of community medicine through serious games.Conclusions: The study reveals that contemporary medical students are spending considerable time playing video-games. It also shows that the learner is willing to learn community medicine through serious games. The study prompts community medicine educationists to consider serious games as a teaching-learning tool.

scholarly journals IMPACT OF COMPUTER GAMES ON STUDENTS

2020 ◽  
Vol 5 (6) ◽  
pp. 24-29
Author(s):  
Vishal Thelkar
Keyword(s):  
High School Students ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Social Contact ◽  
Antisocial Behaviour ◽  
Computer Gaming ◽  
School Students ◽  
Interactive Nature ◽  
The Impact

Computer and video game has gain enough popularity among teenagers also in children which is alarming and raised concern about the impact it may have on the youngsters. The games have violent themes, coupled with their interactive nature, have led to accusations that they may be worse than televised violence in affecting children's antisocial behaviour. Addiction is one of the reason it might hamper the effect on health. Other allegations are that they have an addictive quality and that excessive playing results in a diminished social contact and poorer school performance. But how bad are video games? There are strong methodological reasons for not accepting the evidence for video games effects at face value This research focuses on what are the views of people towards the computer gaming and to identify the actual effects of computer games on high school students. This paper covers earlier studies on the same topic and their findings in literature survey To reach to the objective, responses from significant no of people taken with systematic design of questionnaire. At the end it covers and conclude the relation of different variables & the effect of games on students.

“TO HELP THE NATION TO SAVE ITS SOUL”: MUSEUM PURPOSES IN JAMES'S THE PRINCESS CASAMASSIMA

2010 ◽  
Vol 38 (1) ◽  
pp. 239-254
Author(s):  
John Pedro Schwartz
Keyword(s):  
Social Order ◽  
British Museum ◽  
Historical Record ◽  
The Past ◽  
Explicit Statement ◽  
State Apparatus ◽  
The Social ◽  
Political Activist ◽  
The Aesthetic ◽  
A Site

In a 1927 lecture the Director of the British Museum Sir Frederic Kenyon countered the futurist leader F. T. Marinetti's calls for the destruction of museums by arguing that “in times of upheaval . . . salvation is to be found in adherence to tradition” rather than in “break[ing] loose from” it. Kenyon explained the museum's role in promoting this salvation: A visit to a museum will not by itself quench a revolution. It would have been useless to invite the pétroleuses of the Commune to an official lecture in the Egyptian Gallery at the Louvre; but if they had been brought up to respect the past, there might have been a revolution without pétroleuses. Every form of instruction or experience which teaches men to link their lives with the past makes for stability and ordered progress. Hence the value of history and hence also the value of those institutions which teach history informally and without tears. (24–25) This is perhaps the most explicit statement of the British Museum's ideological function in early twentieth-century museum discourse. The museum acts as an ideological state apparatus that calls out to museum-goers to identify with, rather than agitate against, the social order symbolized in the “examples of great men” and the “monuments of the past” (23–24). Though not without critics, much of the new museology since the 1980s draws on this historical record and poststructuralist theory to argue that the modern museum operates as a site for the reflection or reinforcement of existing power relations. Critics have associated the museum, for example, with racism and sexism (Haraway), with classism (Bourdieu and Darbel), with imperialism and colonialism (Barringer and Flynn), with mechanisms of social control (Sherman and Rogoff), and with the consecration of state authority (Duncan and Wallach). Whereas Kenyon's defense of the museum suggests a reactionary position, the cultural destruction he combats amounts to a revolutionary act, whether accomplished by the “gay incendiaries with charred fingers” exhorted by Marinetti in his movement-founding manifesto of 1909 or the communardes accused of torching the French capital during the semaine sanglante in 1871 (43). For cultural destruction is inescapably political, as Antonio Gramsci argued in “Marinetti the Revolutionary” (1916). The Italian theorist and political activist identified the futurist discourse against the museum and the aesthetic tradition it perpetuates with the Marxist task of destroying “spiritual hierarchies, prejudices, idols and ossified traditions” to make way for the creation of a new, proletarian civilization (Gramsci 215).

scholarly journals The Music of Tomorrow, Yesterday! Music, Time and Technology in BioShock Infinite

2014 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Andra Ivănescu
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Time Travel ◽  
Pop Music ◽  
David Lynch ◽  
The Third ◽  
The Past ◽  
Player Experience ◽  
One Step ◽  
Player Experiences

Filmmakers such as Kenneth Anger, David Lynch and Quentin Tarantino have taken full advantage of the disconcerting effect that pop music can have on an audience. Recently, video games have followed their example, with franchises such as Grand Theft Auto, Fallout and BioShock using appropriated music as an almost integral part of their stories and player experiences. BioShock Infinite takes it one step further, weaving popular music of the past and pop music of the present into a compelling tale of time travel, multiverses, and free will. The third installment in the BioShock series has as its setting the floating city of Columbia. Decidedly steampunk, this vision of 1912 makes considerable use of popular music of the past alongside a small number of anachronistic covers of more modern pop music (largely from the 1980s) at crucial moments in the narrative. Music becomes an integral part of Columbia but also an integral part of the player experience. Although the soundscape matches the rest of the environment, the anachronistic covers seem to be directed at the player, the only one who would recognise them as out of place. The player is the time traveller here, even more so than the character they are playing, making BioShock Infinite one of the most literal representations of time travel and the tourist experience which video games can represent.

scholarly journals Online Gamers, Lived Experiences, and Sense of Belonging: Students at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (4) ◽  
pp. 122-137
Author(s):  
André J. Pietersen ◽  
Jan K. Coetzee ◽  
Dominika Byczkowska-Owczarek ◽  
Florian Elliker ◽  
Leane Ackermann
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
South African ◽  
Online Communities ◽  
Sense Of Belonging ◽  
Daily Basis ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Online Video ◽  
Video Gamers ◽  
The University ◽  
Depth Interviews

Individuals who partake in video games are often regarded with prejudice. It is an activity that is perceived to be mainly related to senseless leisure and teenage entertainment. However, many diverse people make video games such an important part of their lives that they become passionately engaged in it. Video games and online video gaming offer the player immersive experiences unlike any other forms of media. A phenomenological and interpretive exploration is undertaken in order to gain a deeper understanding of the narratives of online gamers and their experiences of a sense of belonging to the associated online communities. Through the use of in-depth interviews, the article explores various aspects of the life stories of a group of eight South African university students. It attempts to show how online gaming has become a part of their lifeworlds. The aim of this article is to present the narratives of online gamers as rich and descriptive accounts that maintain the voices of the participants. Various aspects of the lifeworlds of online gamers are explored. Firstly, an exploration is undertaken to gain an understanding of what it means to be a gamer. It focuses on how a person can become involved with gaming and how it can evolve into something that a person is engaged with on a daily basis. Secondly, it explores how video games influence the perception of reality of gamers. Immersion in video games can transfer a player into an alternative reality and can take the focus away from the real world. This can lead to feelings of joy and excitement, but can also lead to escapism. Lastly, the article shifts attention towards how online video gamers experience online communities. Players can have positive experiences with random strangers online, but because of the anonymous nature of the online environment, it can also lead to negative and isolating experiences.

scholarly journals Between two worlds: Exploring esports betting in relation to problem gambling, gaming, and mental health problems

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Loredana Marchica ◽  
Jérémie Richard ◽  
Devin Mills ◽  
William Ivoska ◽  
Jeffrey Derevensky
Keyword(s):  
Mental Health ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Mental Health Problems ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Mediation Analyses ◽  
The Past ◽  
Externalizing And Internalizing Problems ◽  
Video Gamers ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Gambling Activities

AbstractBackground and aimsEsports betting is an emerging gambling activity where individuals place bets on an organized video gaming competition. It represents only one of several gambling activities commonly endorsed by adolescents. To date, limited research has explored the relationship between esports betting and mental health among adolescents and its convergence with both problem gambling (PG) and problem video gaming (PVG). The present study examined the relation between esports betting, PG and PVG, and both externalizing and internalizing problems among adolescents while accounting for adolescents' video gaming intensity (i.e., how often they play 2 h or more in a day) and engagement in other gambling activities.MethodsData was collected from 6,810 adolescents in Wood County, Ohio schools. A subset of 1,348 adolescents (Mage = 14.67 years, SD = 1.73, 64% male) who had gambled and played video games during the past year were included in the analyses.ResultsApproximately 20% (n = 263) of the included sample had bet on esports during the past year. Esports betting was positively correlated with other forms of gambling, both PG and PVG, and externalizing behaviors. Mediation analyses revealed esports betting was associated to both internalizing and externalizing problems through PVG and not PG.ConclusionsEsports betting may be particularly appealing to adolescents who are enthusiastic video gamers. As such, regulators must be vigilant to ensure codes of best practices are applied to esports betting operators specifically for underaged individuals.

Gamer women - 'tourists' or 'citizens'?

2021 ◽  
pp. 116-128
Author(s):  
Kitti F. Arnold-Ferencz ◽  
Klára Tarkó
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Gender Gap ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Physical Appearance ◽  
Online Gaming ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Online Questionnaire ◽  
The Past ◽  
Digital World ◽  
Female Presence

Abstract Video and computer games have become an increasingly popular form of leisure over the past three decades. While the digital world is traditionally thought of as a masculine space, the number of female online gamers continues to increase. In the online gamer subculture, however, female gamers are often invisible, primarily because the famous gamers and the main characters of video games are typically male. Video games tend to focus on female characters' physical appearance, rather than their skills, thus widening the gender gap, as well as relegating women to secondary, supporting roles. This chapter addresses the primary question of whether women are 'tourists' in this currently masculine space, or if they are already full members of the gaming world. By looking at online female gamers in Hungary and through analysis of an online questionnaire, it was determined that the female presence in online gaming is increasing, in spite of misogyny and harassment.

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.

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

Gamification ◽  
2015 ◽  
pp. 2005-2021
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.

Perspectives from Multiplayer Video Gamers

2011 ◽  
pp. 150-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jonathan B. Beedle ◽  
Vivian H. Wright
Keyword(s):  
Problem Solving ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Higher Order Thinking ◽  
Thinking Skills ◽  
Higher Order ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Educational Value ◽  
Higher Order Thinking Skills ◽  
Video Gamers ◽  
Multiplayer Video Games

The purpose of this study is to determine whether multiplayer video gamers perceive that playing video games can increase higher order thinking skills such as motivation, problem-solving, communication, and creativity. Multiplayer video gaming allows participants the opportunity to collectively discuss problems with other players, find solutions and accomplish objectives. This study was used as a barometer to determine if multiplayer gamers perceived that playing multiplayer games had educational value. This research specifically sought to verify whether multiplayer video gamers perceived that higher-order thinking skills such as motivation, communication, problem-solving, and creativity were increased by playing multiplayer video games. The bulk of respondents reported that they somewhat felt there was learning occurring in all of these areas.

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