The Routledge Companion to Video Game Studies

2014 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Video Game Studies

scholarly journals Social capital in video game studies: A scoping review

2021 ◽  
pp. 146144482110547
Author(s):  
Henry Korkeila
Keyword(s):  
Social Capital ◽  
Scoping Review ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Quantitative Method ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Sphere Of Influence

This study explored how social capital has been utilized in video-game studies by conducting a scoping review. In total, 74 peer-reviewed publications were analysed from three different databases. The following aspects pertaining to social capital were analysed: definition, methodology, game or genre as stimulus, its utilization inside or outside the stimulus, whether it was the sole concept or variable, how it was utilized, whether social capital was used to predict variables or whether variables were used to predict it, and what where the predicted or predicting variables. The results of the analysis show that Putnam’s research, the quantitative method and Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games were most commonly combined. Social capital was predominantly utilized in binary form. It was utilized almost equally inside and outside the video games’ sphere of influence. The study then presents the main findings and discusses future research avenues.

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.

Paratext

2016 ◽  
pp. 274-296
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Dunne
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Active Element ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Primary Focus

This chapter examines paratext as an active element within video games. Paratext, as taken from Gérard Genette's works has often been cited within the context of video games, but not examined in detail. Current scholarship focuses on epitext, but not peritext, which is Genette's primary focus. Mia Consalvo and Peter Lunenfeld's work discuss the epitextual importance of paratext within video games, with only a hint towards the importance of peritext. Through a brief exploration of paratext's history in both literature and games, this chapter will reveal a need for deeper analysis within video game studies. Focusing on in-game, in-system and in-world types of paratexts this paper will attempt to formalise the unaddressed issue of paratext in video games.

scholarly journals Drawing Video Game Mental Maps: From Emotional Games to Emotions of Play

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hovig Ter Minassian
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Mental Maps ◽  
Emotional Meaning ◽  
Video Game Studies

By exploring emotions at play in video game experiences, we sought to analyze how people interact with digital spaces in everyday life. Taking a somewhat different view than much of the literature in the field of video game studies, we examined emotions that were created from users’ experience of games, rather than focusing on game design and gameplay. To that end, we based our analysis on 38 video game mental maps drawn by 26 people. We successively analyzed the topic, the structure, and the experiential and emotional meaning of each of the mental maps. Thus, we explored the diversity of emotions that participants linked to video games, and examined the mental maps in relation to what the respondents said about how and why they chose to draw a particular video game. Our work shows the importance of looking beyond the analysis of affects and gameplay, and of examining the emotions produced by the video game experience, along with what they can tell us about the role of games in individual and collective spatial experiences and sociability. Everything doesn’t happen on the screen, and what is lived within the game also depends on what is lived in the physical space of the player. In other words, video games aren’t emotional in themselves, but there are significant video game experiences that contribute to the structuration of individuals. 

scholarly journals The Alert Collector: Game On to Game After: Sources for Video Game History

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Kristen J. Nyitray
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Professional Career ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Support Research

Kristen Nyitray began her immersion in video games with an Atari 2600 and ColecoVision console and checking out games from her local public library. Later in life, she had the opportunity to start building a video game studies collection in her professional career as an archivist and special collections librarian. While that project has since ended, you get the benefit of her expansive knowledge of video game sources in “Game On to Game After: Sources for Video Game History.” There is much in this column to help librarians wanting to support research in this important entertainment form. Ready player one?—Editor

scholarly journals Ludology and narratology: Legend about the battle

Kultura ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 263-280
Author(s):  
Biljana Mitrović
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
The State ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Game Mechanics ◽  
Video Game Studies

The paper provides an overview and an analysis of the narratological and ludological approach to the study of video games and a review of the establishment of the fledgling field of game studies. The starting points of both theoretical positions, derived from the same literary theoretical corpus, are presented. The state of this discipline and the academic tensions in this field also indicate the ways in which academic community functions, as well as the mechanisms of their division or complication in the organizational and methodological plan. The ludological approach, which reduces the study of video games to the description and classification of rules and game mechanics, is regarded as reductionist, but also useful and applicable for understanding the specifics of video games. It is concluded that ludology, together with narratology and other academic disciplines in the field of humanities, forms a complete corpus of video game studies.

scholarly journals Ludotopia. O granicy świata gry

2021 ◽  
pp. 347-364
Author(s):  
Krzysztof M. Maj
Keyword(s):  
Video Game ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Game Mechanics ◽  
Video Game Studies

The essay presents an overview of the possible meanings and applications of the newly-coined term ‘ludotopia’, i.e. a “dialectical entanglement of game and space” – which challenges the boundaries of two neighbouring worlds: storyworld and gameworld. Seeking to trace the limitations of a thus defined gaming space, the author proceeds by reflecting upon the end of the game, or, more precisely, the endgame, in order to reconcile it with a notion of horismós (ὁρισμός) popular in more hermeneutically aligned video game studies. While doing so, the paper delivers an analysis of Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey showing three distinct stages in which a ludotopia can be opened towards more advanced world-building: (1) exploration and map reveal; (2) synchronisation of intelligible tags; and (3) renewal of narrative motivation. Thanks to a world-centered approach to the interpreted video game, the essay addresses how players inhabit, traverse, explore, and understand the surrounding ludic reality, rather than focusing on video game mechanics or procedures that affect their gameplay. In the end, a precise distinction between the storyworld and gameworld is introduced in order to reevaluate the ways both terms overlap with the aforementioned interpretation of ludotopia.

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