Category: readings

Game Research Methods book out (for download)

ETC Press is excited to announce the release of “Game Research Methods: An Overview,” by Petri Lankoski & Staffan Björk, et al.
Games are increasingly becoming the focus for research due to their cultural and economic impact on modern society. However, there are many different types of approaches and methods than can be applied to understanding games or those that play games. This book provides an introduction to various game research methods that are useful to students in all levels of higher education covering both quantitative, qualitative and mixed methods. In addition, approaches using game development for research is described. Each method is described in its own chapter by a researcher with practical experience of applying the method to topic of games. Through this, the book provides an overview of research methods that enable us to better our understanding on games.
For more information, and to purchase or download a copy, visit:

 

Well played volume 4, number 1

For your theoretical pleasure:

ETC Press is excited to announce the release of the first issue of the fourth volume of
Well Played: a journal on video games, value and meaning, co-edited by Sean Duncan and Caro Williams
http://press.etc.cmu.edu/content/volume-4-number-1

PART ONE: DiGRA
Sean Duncan, Guest Editor

Where’s BattleTech in MechWarrior Online? A Case Study in Game Adaptation
Hans-Joachim Backe

One Click at a Time: Playing Porpentine’s howling dogs
Hanli Geyser

Cause No Trouble: The Experience of “Serious Fun” in Papers, Please
Oscar Moralde

Playing for the plot: Blindness, agency, and the appeal of narrative organization in Heavy Rain
Fanny A. Ramirez

Spore’s Playable Procedural Content Generation
Gillian Smith

PART TWO: Games Learning Society

Elder Scrolls Online: How ESO encourages group formation and cooperative play
Michelle Aubrecht, Jeff Kuhn, Justin Eames

Acting in the Light and on Fayth: Ritualized Play in Journey and Final Fantasy X
Kyrie Eleison H. Caldwell

Well Played & Well Watched: Dota 2, Spectatorship, and eSports
Chris Georgen

Magic the Gathering: A Learning Game Designer’s Perspective
Dan Norton

For the Records – Understanding Mental Illness Through Metaphorical Games
Doris C. Rusch

Gaming a Non-Game? A Long Term (Self)-Experiment about FarmVille
Heinrich Söbke

The Stanley Parable
Phil J. Dougherty III

*These essays were part of the Well Played Sessions at GLS 10, the 2014 Games+Learning+Society Conference in Madison, WI, as well as the Well Played Sessions at the 2014 DiGRA conference in Salt Lake City, UT.
http://www.glsconference.org/
http://www.digra.org/

¿Qué es exactamente lo que hace que los videojuegos sean tan diferentes, tan atractivos?

¿Qué es exactamente lo que hace que los videojuegos sean tan diferentes, tan atractivos?

Spanish translation of my 2005 “Just what is it that makes computer games so different, so appealing?” article.

 

Translated by Mike Morell (Miguel Bernardo Olmedo Morell). Thanks!

Games Studies 14/02 is out

For your theoretical pleasure, Game Studies 14/02.

Ability, Disability and Dead Space
by Diane Carr
How does the horror game Dead Space use the idea of disability? How are able bodies represented in the game? What is the relationship between disability as threat, and the various sensations and pleasures offered by the game? In this essay these questions are explored using textual analysis.

“Take That, Bitches!” Refiguring Lara Croft in Feminist Game Narratives
by Esther MacCallum-Stewart
Tomb Raider’s 2013 reboot enabled a re-consideration of Lara Croft and the gender politics of representing her. This paper re-evaluates Tomb Raider ten years after Game Studies first addressed it.

Battle on the Metric Front: Dispatches from Call of Duty’s Update War
by David Murphy
This article analyzes the controversy over a software update applied to Call of Duty: Black Ops II (Treyarch, 2013) using assemblage theory (Deleuze & Guattari, 1987). By combining information posted by players with a critical investigation of reward systems, the conflict is contextualized within a neoliberal climate of player/industry mistrust.

A Too-Coherent World: Game Studies and the Myth of “Narrative” Media
by Edward Wesp
This article revisits Jesper’ Juul’s oft-cited argument about video games’ “incoherent” fictional worlds to argue for a more open relationship between the study of video games and other media, based on the recognition that all media have complex relationships with the narratives and fictions they convey.

Book Reviews

De Koven’s “The Well-Played Game”by Gonzalo Frasca
The Well-Played Game. A Player’s Philosophy (2013) by Bernard De Koven. Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262019170. 176 pp.
Review of Karlsen’s A World of Excesses: On-line Games and Excessive Playingby Joyce Goggin
A World of Excesses. Online Games and Excessive Playing (2013) by Faltin Karlsen. Farnham, UK: Ashgate. ISBN-13: 978-1409427636. 178 pp.[more]

New issue of Eludamos: Vol 8, No 1

New issue of Eludamos: Vol 8, No 1, special issue on Digital Seriality.

Introduction

Introduction: Ludic Seriality, Digital Seriality HTML PDF
Shane Denson, Andreas Jahn-Sudmann 1 – 5

Articles

From NES-4021 to moSMB3.wmv: Speedrunning the Serial Interface HTML PDF
Patrick LeMieux 7 – 31
“Tap, tap, flap, flap.” Ludic Seriality, Digitality, and the Finger HTML PDF
Till A. Heilmann 33 – 46
Prolonging the Magic: The political economy of the 7th generation console game HTML PDF
David B. Nieborg 47 – 63
Finishing the Fight, One Step at a Time: Seriality in Bungie’s Halo HTML PDF
Jens Bonk 65 – 81
“Did you shoot the girl in the street?” – On the Digital Seriality of The Walking Dead HTML PDF
Maria Sulimma 83 – 100
Seriality’s Ludic Promise: Film Serials and the Pre-History of Digital Gaming HTML PDF
Scott Higgins 101 – 113
Types and Bytes. Ludic Seriality and Digital Typography HTML PDF
Lisa Gotto 115 – 128
Digital Seriality as Structure and Process HTML PDF
Dominik Maeder, Daniela Wentz 129 – 149
The Eternal Recurrence of All Bits: How Historicizing Video Game Series Transform Factual History into Affective Historicity HTML PDF
Tobias Winnerling 151 – 170
Gandalf on the Death Star: Levels of Seriality between Bricks, Bits, and Blockbusters HTML PDF
Rikke Toft Nørgård, Claus Toft-Nielsen

ToDiGRA, vol 3, issue 1 on “Physical and Digital in Games and Play”.

This is a special issue on “Physical and Digital in Games and Play”. The issue editors are Frans Mäyrä, Katriina Heljakka, and Anu Seisto.  A big thanks to the issue editors and all authors for your work!

Content

  • Frans Mäyrä, Katriina Heljakka, Anu Seisto: Editors’ Introduction to the Special Issue
  • Stephanie de Smale: Building Material: Exploring Playfulness of 3D Printers
  • Paul Coulton, Dan Burnett, Adrian Gradinar, David Gullick, Emma Murphy:  Game Design in an Internet of Things
  • Mark Lochrie: From the board to the streets: a case study of Local Property Trader
  • Frederika A Eilers: SimCity and the Creative Class: Place, Urban Planning and the Pursuit of Happiness
  • Inger Ekman: “That’s not a secure area”– physical-digital sound links in commercial locative games
  • Karl Bergström, Staffan Björk: The Case for Computer-Augmented Games
  • Marcus Carter: The Roll of the Dice in Warhammer 40,000
Transactions of the Digital Games Research Association (ToDIGRA) is a quarterly, international, open access, refereed, multidisciplinary journal dedicated to research on and practice in all aspects of games. ToDIGRA is published in print as well as electronically. ToDIGRA does not currently accept unsolicited submissions. Submissions must be directed towards a specific call for paper and conform to the specific focus of that call.

Game Studies 14/01 is out

Game Studies: The International Journal of Computer Game Research has just published its latest issue (Volume 14, Issue 1, July 2014).

www.gamestudies.org/1401

Articles

Game Definitions: A Wittgensteinian Approach

by Jonne Arjoranta

This article looks at how games have been constantly redefined in game studies without reaching an agreement. It is argued that such an agreement is not necessary, and a Wittgensteinian approach to game definitions is preferable. This approach sees the cycle of redefinition as a hermeneutic circle that advances the understanding of games.

The Heuristic Circle of Real-Time Strategy Process: A StarCraft: Brood War Case Study

by Simon Dor

The heuristic circle of real-time strategy process is a summary of key ideas about the cognitive and perceptive processes in StarCraft competitive play. It describes the way strategy in the game relies on the inference of three levels of game states and on the use of three kind of strategic plans at the same time.

Magic Nodes and Proleptic Warfare in the Multiplayer Component of Battlefield 3

by Johan Höglund

This article explores the construction of ludic spaces in the multiplayer map Grand Bazaar in Battlefield 3. It observes that this map constitutes a “magic node” that encircles a ludic space where only certain activities are possible. It concludes that the map Grand Bazaar represents a civilian Middle-Eastern locale as a permanent battleground.

Bioshock: Complex and Alternate Histories

by Ryan Lizardi

This article performs a close reading on the Bioshock series and determines that it encourages a comparative and contemplative look at the historical, cultivated through counterfactual and alternative experiences of accepted histories and reinforced through both ludic and narrative elements.

A Practiced Practice: Speedrunning Through Space With de Certeau and Virilio

by Rainforest Scully-Blaker

Through a discussion of Michel de Certeau and Paul Virilio, this article puts forth a language to discuss speedrunning, the practice of beating a game as fast as possible without cheating, as it relates to games as spatial narratives. A new set of terms for discussing game rules as they relate to speedruns is also applied to the analysis.

Play and Possibility in the Rhetoric of the War on Terror: The Structure of Agency in Halo 2

by Gerald Voorhees

This essay contends that Halo 2 helps attitudinally position players in relation to the War on Terror. It considers a range of possible, potentially-overlapping affective responses to Halo 2, foregrounding both the rhetorical efficacy of digital games and the player’s agency to determine their rhetorical effect.

Book Reviews

Sound in a Participatory Culture
by Kristine Jørgensen

Playing with Sound. A Theory of Interaction with Sound and Music in Video Games. (2013) by Karen Collins. Cambridge. Mass.: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262312288 .

Play Redux is Solo-Play

by Hanna Wirman

Play Redux: The Form of Computer Games. (2010) by David Myers. University of Michigan Press. ISBN: 978-0472050925