The Collective Unconscious as Culprit

2016 ◽  
pp. 129-155
Author(s):  
Beat Suter
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
New Media ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Conceptual Development ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
Joseph Campbell ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Visual Approach

This chapter shows the attempt to use narrative projections of the unconscious in video games (and film) for transgressing into a virtual world. It demonstrates the conceptual development from C.G. Jung's theories via Joseph Campbell and Hollywood's screenwriters to Video Game mythologies. It shows that a visual approach by game artists often leads to stereotypical implementation of archetypes and archeplot in video games that illustrates a lack of reflection and flexibility of mind and creativity. It further shows that a conscious implementation of individual patterns and archetypes as seen in Adventure Games and recent Indie Games may obtain narrative depth for a game and contribute to exploring the collective unconscious in new media. Gaming is rapidly changing and aims towards the ideal of a Holodeck. New Virtual Reality experiments and gadgets prepare the ground for new ways to engage in imagined (conscious and unconscious) realities. The chapter concludes with an example of an attempt to build a virtual dream world with the project Birdly (2014) and Oculus Rift.

scholarly journals A Survey of Graphic Novel Collection and Use in American Public Libraries

2014 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 68 ◽  
Author(s):  
Edward Francis Schneider
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
New Media ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Adult Literacy ◽  
Public Libraries ◽  
Graphic Novels ◽  
Comic Book ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Similar Data ◽  
Marketing Tool

Abstract Objective – The objective of this study was to survey American public libraries about their collection and use of graphic novels and compare their use to similar data collected about video games. Methods – Public libraries were identified and contacted electronically for participation through an open US government database of public library systems. The libraries contacted were asked to participate voluntarily. Results – The results indicated that both graphic novels and video games have become a common part of library collections, and both media can have high levels of impact on circulation. Results indicated that while almost all libraries surveyed had some graphic novels in their collections, those serving larger populations were much more likely to use graphic novels in patron outreach. Similarly, video game collection was also more commonly found in libraries serving larger populations. Results also showed that young readers were the primary users of graphic novels. Conclusion – Responses provided a clear indicator that graphic novels are a near-ubiquitous part of public libraries today. The results on readership bolster the concept of graphic novels as a gateway to adult literacy. The results also highlight differences between larger and smaller libraries in terms of resource allocations towards new media. The patron demographics associated with comics show that library cooperation could be a potential marketing tool for comic book companies.

Reducing Outgroup Bias through Intergroup Contact with Non-Playable Video Game Characters in VR

2020 ◽  
Vol 27 (3) ◽  
pp. 257-273 ◽  
Author(s):  
Priska Breves
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Black People ◽  
Negative Consequences ◽  
Racially Diverse ◽  
Virtual Reality Technology ◽  
Explicit Bias ◽  
Research Gap ◽  
The Impact

Video games are one of the most popular media forms in today's society, but are often criticized for various reasons. For instance, mainstream video games do not incorporate enough racially diverse game characters or are often connected to adolescents’ levels of aggression and have thus been the focus of many debates. While the negative consequences of video games have been analyzed by many academic studies, research on the prosocial effects of video games is scarce. To address this research gap and support the ongoing call for more diverse video game characters, this study used a 3 × 1 between-subjects design ( N = 86) to test the impact of racially diverse non-playable characters (NPCs). The parasocial contact hypothesis was used as the theoretical foundation, incorporating virtual reality technology as an intensifier of effects. The results showed that helping a Black NPC did not reduce implicit bias, but reduced explicit bias towards Black people. This improvement was stronger when the video game was played using virtual reality technology than when using a traditional two-dimensional gaming device.

Virtual Psyche in Play and Tending the Collective Unconscious

2016 ◽  
pp. 156-179
Author(s):  
Susan Marie Savett
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Archetypal Psychology ◽  
Collective Unconscious ◽  
The Unconscious ◽  
Pivotal Point ◽  
James Hillman ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
Insight Into

Knowingly or unknowingly, games manifest archetypal forces from the unconscious. Through play and fantasy, unconscious content of the psyche is able to express its deep longings. Hypnogogic landscapes of videogames provide immersive realms in which players enact psychological dramas. Game designers reside on a unique axis from which their work with the imaginary realm can create profound psychic containers. At this pivotal point in our culture, digital games hold tremendous influence over the creation of new myths, lore, and possibilities. This chapter investigates archetypal psychology concepts of Carl Jung and James Hillman for insight into 21st century realm of virtual play and its relationship to the collective unconscious. It focuses on how games provide a means for bringing individual and cultural unconscious impulses into consciousness through personification, pathologizing and meaning making within virtual play. It aims to introduce an alternative lens to bridge psychological dynamics with the video game design.

scholarly journals Autonomy and nomadic Relativism of Digital Identity

2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
pp. 0
Author(s):  
Dmitriy Yumartov
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Significant Feature ◽  
Digital Identity ◽  
Social Categories ◽  
Artificial Society ◽  
Artificial Environment ◽  
Game Designer ◽  
Digital Spaces

The article examines identity in such digital spaces as video games and virtual reality. These digital spaces are defined as interactive artificial environment, autonomous from reality, with its own ontology, scenario, narrative and mythological context. Video games have an immersive experience that is enhanced in virtual reality due to the ability to integrate into the embodiment of the game's model.  The type of digital identity that is defined by the video game designer in accordance with narrative and artistic goals is what we call a character. The opposite type is an avatar, it reflects strategies of self-presentation of an individual (user). Digital identity interests us primarily because of the ability to be independent (autonomous) from human physiology and from social categories that are attributed to the user in the real world. Digital identity can be constructed by the individuals in accordance with their preferences, which makes it possible to solve many gender, racial, and age problems. The possibility to integrate into an avatar embodiment and interact with in-game items it reinforces the distance from real embodiment. Moreover, in multiplayer games with the civil roleplay, it can exist in an artificial society and have introspective meaning for another members of the society. Another significant feature of digital identity is the relativism. Digital identity can be relativistic due to the which allow one to have different identities in different games or change the appearance of an avatar in one game during a play time. Autonomy and relativism can be the strategy for the implementation of projects of nomadic identity by Rosi Braidotti and Donna Haraway, in which subject is not sticked to any constants, but constantly defines and redefines oneself through performative acts.

scholarly journals Virtual Reality Games and the Role of Body Involvement in Enhancing Positive Emotions and Decreasing Anxiety: Within-Subjects Pilot Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Pallavicini ◽  
Alessandro Pepe
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
State Anxiety ◽  
Positive Emotions ◽  
Negative Emotions ◽  
Traditional Concept ◽  
High Body ◽  
Within Subjects

BACKGROUND In the last few years, the introduction of immersive technologies, especially virtual reality, into the gaming market has dramatically altered the traditional concept of video games. Given the unique features of virtual reality in terms of interaction and its ability to completely immerse the individual into the game, this technology should increase the propensity for video games to effectively elicit positive emotions and decrease negative emotions and anxiety in the players. However, to date, few studies have investigated the ability of virtual reality games to induce positive emotions, and the possible effect of this new type of video game in diminishing negative emotions and anxiety has not yet been tested. Furthermore, given the critical role of body movement in individuals’ well-being and in emotional responses to video games, it seems critical to investigate how body involvement can be exploited to modulate the psychological benefits of virtual reality games in terms of enhancing players’ positive emotions and decreasing negative emotions and anxiety. OBJECTIVE This within-subjects study aimed to explore the ability of commercial virtual reality games to induce positive emotions and diminish negative emotions and state anxiety of the players, investigating the effects of the level of body involvement requested by the game (ie, high vs low). METHODS A total of 36 young adults played a low body-involvement (ie, <i>Fruit Ninja VR</i>) and a high body-involvement (ie, <i>Audioshield</i>) video game in virtual reality. The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory, Form-Y1 (STAI-Y1) were used to assess positive and negative emotions and state anxiety. RESULTS Results of the generalized linear model (GLM) for repeated-measures multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) revealed a statistically significant increase in the intensity of happiness (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) and surprise (<i>P</i>=.003) and, in parallel, a significant decrease in fear (<i>P</i>=.01) and sadness (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) reported by the users. Regarding the ability to improve anxiety in the players, the results showed a significant decrease in perceived state anxiety after game play, assessed with both the STAI-Y1 (<i>P</i>=.003) and the VAS-anxiety (<i>P</i>=.002). Finally, the results of the GLM MANOVA showed a greater efficacy of the high body-involvement game (ie, <i>Audioshield</i>) compared to the low body-involvement game (ie, <i>Fruit Ninja VR</i>), both for eliciting positive emotions (happiness, <i>P</i>&lt;.001; and surprise, <i>P</i>=.01) and in reducing negative emotions (fear, <i>P</i>=.05; and sadness, <i>P</i>=.05) and state anxiety, as measured by the STAI-Y1 (<i>P</i>=.05). CONCLUSIONS The two main principal findings of this study are as follows: (1) virtual reality video games appear to be effective tools to elicit positive emotions and to decrease negative emotions and state anxiety in individuals and (2) the level of body involvement of the virtual video game has an important effect in determining the ability of the game to improve positive emotions and decrease negative emotions and state anxiety of the players.

scholarly journals KinFit: A Factual Aerobic Sport Game with Stimulation Support

2018 ◽  
Vol 13 (12) ◽  
pp. 50 ◽  
Author(s):  
AbdelGhani Karkar ◽  
Somaya AlMaadeed ◽  
Rehab Salem ◽  
Mariam AbdelHady ◽  
Sara Abou-Aggour ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Serious Games ◽  
Overweight And Obesity ◽  
User Studies ◽  
Immersive Virtual Reality ◽  
Health Awareness ◽  
Realistic Scenes

Overweight and obesity is a situation where a person has stacked too much fat that might affect negatively his/her health. Many people skip doing exercises due to several facts related to the encouragement, health-awareness, and time ar-rangement. Diverse aerobic video games have been proposed to help users in do-ing exercises. However, we observe some limitations in existing games. For in-stance, they don’t give correct scores while wearing Arabic traditional suits, they don’t consider showing immersive realistic scenes, and they don’t stimulate users to do exercises and keeping them encouraged to play more. We propose in this paper an aerobic video game that displays real scenes of aerobic coaches and keeps the user notified about doing exercises. It is a kind of serious games that allows users to learn aerobic movements and practice with aerobic coaches. It contains several exercises in which each can be played on normal screen or in fully immersive virtual reality (VR). While the user is playing, he/she can see the playing score with the estimated amount of burned calories. It stores the time when the user plays to remind him/her about doing exercises again. The profound user studies demonstrated the usability and effectiveness of the proposed game.

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.

Epilogue

2019 ◽  
pp. 215-224
Author(s):  
Adam Charles Hart
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Video Games ◽  
New Media ◽  
Specific Aspect ◽  
Horror Film ◽  
Ideal Model ◽  
Marketing Campaign ◽  
Digital Era ◽  
The Future ◽  
The Look

The epilogue takes stock of the current genre by continuing the look at Get Out and The Shape of Water and fellow 2017 horror film blockbuster It. Focusing on the emblematic images of each film’s marketing campaign, the epilogue analyses the different valences and emphases of each: on the visceral provocations of the sensational address (It), on the depiction and exploration of fear and abjection (Get Out), and on the appeal of monsters and monstrosity (The Shape of Water). This allows for the epilogue to chart out the primary forms of horror in a contemporary genre that has been shaped in equal parts by film, television, and video games, with increasing contributions from new media and internet-based forms. The book has focused on convergence of the genre across mediums, and it closes with a suggestion that the future of the genre lies in a convergence of these forms. that, although the marketing for each of these films suggests an emphasis on sensation or a specific aspect of narrative, the films themselves suggest an increasing comfort with balance these different approaches that had once been thought of as mutually exclusive. In the digital era, new mediums increasingly balance direct, often sensational, aims with narrative depth, and so a medium like virtual reality may find horror to be an ideal model.

scholarly journals Video Games as Dating Platforms: Exploring Digital Intimacies through a Chinese Online Dancing Video Game

2017 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tingting Liu
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
New Media ◽  
Empirical Evidence ◽  
Media Studies ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Online Dating ◽  
Leisure Activities ◽  
Digital Culture ◽  
Media Industry ◽  
Digital Products

In the relatively young field of new media studies, both video games and online dating platforms are identified as being important and popular genres of digital products, which are often discussed separately. This article argues that these two genres of digital products are not so much separate but entangled elements of the same processes of technological shifts in media industry, development of people’s online leisure activities, and the convergence of digital genres. To provide empirical evidence, this article examines a Chinese dancing video game, QQ Dazzling Dance (QQ Xuan Wu), which creatively juxtaposes these two genres of participatory digital culture and recognizes the analytical and critical values in doing so.

Factors Influencing the Adoption of Video Games in Late Adulthood

2016 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 35-50 ◽  
Author(s):  
Liliana Vale Costa ◽  
Ana Isabel Veloso
Keyword(s):  
Older Adults ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Older Adult ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Cognitive Effects ◽  
Factors Influencing ◽  
Considerable Research ◽  
Adventure Games ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Insight Into

In the video game industry, older adults tend to be avid consumers. Although considerable research has been devoted to the positive cognitive effects of video games, less attention has been paid to the older adult gamer profile. The aim of this paper is to describe a survey conducted from November 2012 until May 2013, which includes 245 gamers aged 50 and over, about their game preferences. Specifically, the authors examined: (a) what types of video games are played and (b) what leads these players to be engaged by video games. The results indicate that adventure games with problem-solving are preferred, suggesting the skills that participants would like to practise. The study provides insight into a new video gamer profile.

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