A Framework for Classification and Criticism of Ethical Games

2011 ◽  
pp. 36-55 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jamey Stevenson
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Helpful Tool ◽  
The Subject

For those seeking an entry point into the complex topic of ethical games, a framework for classification and criticism can be a helpful tool, if only to provide a more gentle and coherent introduction to the subject. This chapter provides one such framework, based on identifying the overarching trends in contemporary ethical game design. It provides descriptions and examples of three different categories of ethical games, each of which are then considered within the context of the most prevalent critical flashpoints currently being debated by ethical game designers and detractors alike. By understanding the distinctions between the primary types of ethical games, readers will gain the ability to more effectively delineate which design decisions are likely to make a particular game susceptible to each of the critical pitfalls outlined.

Will Love Tear Us Apart: Adapting the Lyrical to the Ludic

CounterText ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
pp. 217-235
Author(s):  
Gordon Calleja
Keyword(s):  
Design Process ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Digital Games ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
The Core ◽  
Lyrical Poetry ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Made In

This paper gives an insight into the design process of a game adaptation of Joy Division's Love Will Tear Us Apart (1980). It outlines the challenges faced in attempting to reconcile the diverging qualities of lyrical poetry and digital games. In so doing, the paper examines the design decisions made in every segment of the game with a particular focus on the tension between the core concerns of the lyrical work being adapted and established tenets of game design.

Dissecting the Dragon: GUR for Dragon Age™: Inquisition

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Berg
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Ui Design ◽  
Game World

This chapter describes challenges involved in the development of Dragon Age™: Inquisition, in particular, problems arising from the size of the game world, as well as combat mechanics and player classes and playstyles. It shows how GUR directly contributed to game design decisions, for example, in terms of menu and UI design.

scholarly journals On the Subject of Objects: Four Views on Object Perception and Tool Use

1970 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 6-19 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tarja Susi ◽  
Tom Ziemke
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Science ◽  
Tool Use ◽  
Theoretical Biology ◽  
Object Perception ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Human Cognition ◽  
Subject And Object ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Von Uexküll ◽  
Functional Tone

This paper addresses the relation between an agent and its environment, and more specifically, how subjects perceive object/artefacts/tools and their (possible) use. Four different conceptions of the relation between subject and object are compared here: functional tone (von Uexküll), equipment (Heidegger), affordance (Gibson), and entry point (Kirsh). even as these concepts have developed within different disciplines (theoretical biology, philosophy, psychology, and cognitive science) and in very different historical contexts, they are used more or less interchangeably in much of the literature, and typically conflated under the label of ‘affordance’. However, at closer inspection, they turn out to have not only similarities, but also substantial differences, which are identified and discussed here. Given that the relation between subjects and their objects is crucial to understanding human cognition and interaction with tools and technology, as well as robots’ interaction with their environment, we argue that these differences deserve some more attention than they have received so far.

Values between Systems

2010 ◽  
pp. 1-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Miguel Sicart
Keyword(s):  
Cognitive Dissonance ◽  
Analytical Model ◽  
Computer Games ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Design Method ◽  
Design Decisions

In this chapter the authors define ethical gameplay as a consequence of game design choices. The authors propose an analytical model that defines ethical gameplay as an experience that stems from a particular set of game design decisions. These decisions have in common a design method, called ethical cognitive dissonance, based on the conscious creative clash between different models of agency in a game. This chapter outlines this method and its application in different commercial computer games.

The subject that won't go away But perhaps we are ahead of the game. Design as research

2002 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 109-114 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan Lawson
Keyword(s):  
Game Design ◽  
Design Processes ◽  
Robert Venturi ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Uk ◽  
The University ◽  
Denise Scott Brown

Design is central to the discipline of architecture. Despite this, the question as to whether design constitutes a form of research seems to raise more questions and strong feelings than any other aspect of the UK Government's research assessments of university architecture schools (arq 6/1, p5). No one is better fitted to set out the arguments than Bryan Lawson: an architect and psychologist, he has acted as an assessor for the last two exercises, has extensive knowledge of the university sector and has undertaken research on the design processes of such influential designers as Robert Venturi and Denise Scott Brown, Herman Hertzberger and Ken Yeang. (See also leader, p99, and letters, pp101–106 in this issue.)

scholarly journals Research of the Attractiveness Factors of Tactical Competitive Shooting Mobile Games Based on Evaluation Grid Method

2020 ◽  
Vol 179 ◽  
pp. 02037
Author(s):  
Shen Qi ◽  
Chen Chun-Chih ◽  
Wu Shu-Ming
Keyword(s):  
Qualitative Research ◽  
Research Methods ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Grid Method ◽  
Qualitative Research Methods ◽  
Quality Factors ◽  
Mobile Games ◽  
Mobile Game ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Competitive Shooting

The purpose of this paper is to explore the game player’s experience and preference for tactical competitive shooting mobile games, and to identify the attractiveness quality factors that affect the tactical competitive shooting mobile game design. In this paper, Game For Peace is the subject of discussion and research; qualitative research methods are adopted to go deeper into interviews involving deeper gamers; the attractiveness of the tactical competitive shooting mobile game is summarized; the evaluation grid is constructed and analyzed, which provides a reference for the subsequent tactical competitive shooting mobile game design and improvement.

scholarly journals ‘Thinking Through’ Games in the Classroom: Using Discursive Game Design to Play and Engage with Historical Datasets

2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
René Glas ◽  
Jasper Van Vught ◽  
Stefan Werning
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Heritage ◽  
Subject Matter ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Software Tool ◽  
Design Framework ◽  
Card Game ◽  
Simple Games ◽  
Student Groups ◽  
Educational Framework ◽  
The Subject

In this contribution, we outline Discursive Game Design (DGD) as a practice-based educational framework, explain how to use this design framework to teach game historiography, and report on findings from a series of in-class experiments. Using Nandeck, a freely available software tool for card game prototyping, we created sets of playing cards based on two game-historical datasets. Students were then asked to prototype simple games with these card decks; both playtesting and co-creating each other’s games in an ongoing quasi-conversational process between different student groups fostered discussions on, and produced alternative insights into, the complex notion of (Dutch) game history, canonization/selection and games as national cultural heritage. The article shows how DGD can be implemented to allow for students with little or no design background to actively ‘think through’ games about the subject matter at hand.

How Does Games Critique Impact Game Design Decisions? A Case Study of Monetization and Loot Boxes

2019 ◽  
Vol 15 (8) ◽  
pp. 1004-1025
Author(s):  
Matthew E. Perks
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Theoretical Framework ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Video Game Industry ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Pragmatic Sociology ◽  
Game Developers

Games critics arguably influence the form games take, identities of players, and identities of game developers. However, very little work in Game Studies examines how critical games journalism, games, developers, and independent actors intersect. This article argues that pragmatic sociology of critique, developed by Luc Boltanski, can act as a theoretical framework to aid in understanding these processes of critique. Utilizing a theoretical lens such as this helps us better understand the function of games critique within the video game industry. Applying this framework to a case study of monetization and “loot boxes,” this article emphasizes the role and power of journalistic critique in shaping gaming cultures, and the consumption and production of media more generally.

Turning Words into Sounds

2018 ◽  
pp. 141-161
Author(s):  
Angela Frattarola
Keyword(s):  
Magnetic Tape ◽  
Tape Recorder ◽  
Entry Point ◽  
Radio Station ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Musique Concrete ◽  
Internal Effect

Chapter 6 investigates the auditory narrative that is created through Samuel Beckett’s repetition. As Beckett started to repeat and loop phrases in his second novel, Watt (1953), the French radio technician Pierre Schaeffer started experimenting with splicing and looping magnetic tape recordings in the studios of the Paris radio station, Radio Television Français (RTF). Building on the geographical and historical coincidence of these events, this chapter argues that the magnetic tape art of musique concrète can serve as an entry point to analyze the repetition of Beckett’s fiction. The tape recorder, famously used in Krapp’s Last Tape, can aid us in appreciating Beckett’s linguistic loops throughout his novels and short prose pieces. The recorder’s storing and replaying of speech exemplifies Beckett’s repeated suggestion in his fiction that the subject is spoken and alienated through language. Paradoxically, while his repetition empties words of meaning, bringing the reader’s attention to the sounds of words rather than their content, this same repetition, through the course of his fiction, generates its own internal effect and meaning.

scholarly journals Designing Musical Games for Electroacoustic Improvisation

2021 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
pp. 78-88
Author(s):  
Christos Michalakos
Keyword(s):  
Real Time ◽  
Performance Practice ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Music Composition ◽  
Live Electronics ◽  
Design Decisions ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Game Engines ◽  
And Performance

This paper describes the background and motivations behind the author’s electroacoustic game-pieces Pathfinder (2016) and ICARUS (2019), designed specifically for his performance practice with an augmented drum kit. The use of game structures in music is outlined, while musical expression in the context of commercial musical games using conventional game controllers is discussed. Notions such as agility, agency and authorship in music composition and improvisation are in parallel with game design and play, where players are asked to develop skills through affordances within a digital game-space. It is argued that the recent democratisation of game engines opens a wide range of expressive opportunities for real-time game-based improvisation and performance. Some of the design decisions and performance strategies for the two instrument-controlled games are presented to illustrate the discussion; this is done in terms of game design, physical control through the augmented instrument, live electronics and overall artistic goals of the pieces. Finally, future directions for instrument-controlled electroacoustic game-pieces are suggested.

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