This study evaluated five early cases in which esport developer Riot Games made rulings regarding... more This study evaluated five early cases in which esport developer Riot Games made rulings regarding activities and infractions by members of various institutions related to its product, League of Legends. The findings of this study support future theoretical exploration of other esports in seeking a fuller understanding of issues related to consent, power differentials, and roles and behaviors expected of the institutional activities of players and teams in competition. Increased investigation of these-and other-issues from an ethical standpoint could lead to a framework that not only would facilitate future study but also bring opportunities for improvements in practices in concert with necessary policy changes.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2020
Challenge is a key motivation for videogame play. But what kind of challenge types videogames inc... more Challenge is a key motivation for videogame play. But what kind of challenge types videogames include, and which of them players prefer? This article helps to answer the above questions by developing and validating Videogame Challenge Inventory (CHA), a psychometrically sound measurement for investigating players' challenge preferences in videogames. Based on a review of literature, we developed a 38-item version of CHA that was included in a social media user survey (N = 813). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed a latent structure of five challenge types: Physical, Analytical, Socioemotional, Insight, and Foresight. CHA was amended in another EFA with USA-based survey data (N = 536). The second EFA suggested a four-factor structure similar to the first EFA. A confirmatory factor analysis was executed after an item screening process with a 12-item version of CHA via UK-based survey data (N = 1,463). The 12-CHA had an acceptable fit to the data, and the model passed construct, convergent, and discriminant validity tests. The usefulness of the validated 12-CHA is shown by connecting the discovered challenges and their preferences to known videogame play motivations and to habits of playing specific videogame genres.
This article discusses the "computer game" as a pragmatic concept. A dual nature of the computer ... more This article discusses the "computer game" as a pragmatic concept. A dual nature of the computer game as both a pragmatic idea and a pragmatic meaning is introduced. Practical meanings of the computer games correspond with the concrete effects that engaging with computer games produces in an individual. Practical ideas of the computer game correspond with the subjectively constituted conceptual families concerning the computer game's assumed practical meaning. Individual computer games can be considered flat or round depending on the range of their practical meanings. Thus, the article contributes to the study of cultural objects in general by offering a framework for examining the evolution and existence of such objects as cross-cultural practical entities; less in terms of communication, media, and materiality, and more in terms of concrete actions and events that individuals across societies commence and conceptualize.
We bring attention to a notable unreported “gaming addiction” or “problem gaming” prevalence data... more We bring attention to a notable unreported “gaming addiction” or “problem gaming” prevalence data set that adds to both the DSM-5′s call for further Internet Gaming Disorder research as well as many other scientific encouragements for more wide-ranging reports on the topic.
This article presents a study on the characteristics of Canadian, Finnish, and Japanese core game... more This article presents a study on the characteristics of Canadian, Finnish, and Japanese core gamers by comparing their videogame preferences and habits. Via statistical analyses of three large samples (Finland n=1053, Canada n=1500, Japan n=1500) collected between 2016 and 2017, the article maps out cultural core gaming differences in terms of play time, expenditure, choice of genres, motivations, and perceptions of a good videogame. As a result, we suggests that the Finnish core gamer is a person who enjoys playing alone with a personal computer in particular – spending relatively little money on the activity, with a preference for titles that provide affordances, autonomy, and interactive mechanics over story and graphics.
In this paper, we provide a new perspective on esports as gamified play by mapping out the means ... more In this paper, we provide a new perspective on esports as gamified play by mapping out the means of their ludic customization with a reflection on ethics. We start by systematizing purchasable customizations in esport games by their effects: cosmetic in-game purchases, functional in-game purchases, and out-game purchases. Subsequently, we situate purchasable customizations within the five demands that contemporary esport games set for their players: money, time, skill, luck, and occasion. Ultimately, we show that some effect-demand combinations may result in ethical conflicts when perceived through of the sport-philosophical frame of athletic superiority.
Whether or not gaming causes addiction continues to be debated in the scholarly literature. The A... more Whether or not gaming causes addiction continues to be debated in the scholarly literature. The American Psychiatric Association has proposed " Internet gaming disorder, " a non-substance addictive disorder, in order to encourage further research on the subject. We suggest that competitive gaming, better known as esports, might provide a unique platform on which to discuss the validity of the proposed disorder.
This article starts with a literary review of the conceptual frames through which esport has been... more This article starts with a literary review of the conceptual frames through which esport has been labeled academically. It shows how the concept of 'electronic' has been taken as the core term for labeling esport, often accompanied by a strong emphasis on 'professionalism.' The literary review is followed by the submission of an alternative conceptual frame based on the economic notion of executive ownership, which provides a theoretical grounding for esport as a cultural phenomenon. In accordance with the above, the article concludes with a reframed look at the history of esport and suggests commercial analog gaming (especially Magic: The Gathering) as its point of origin.
This article offers possibly the first peer-reviewed study on the training routines of elite e-at... more This article offers possibly the first peer-reviewed study on the training routines of elite e-athletes with special focus on the subjects' physical exercise routines. The study is based on a sample of 115 elite e-athletes. According to the responses, e-athletes train approximately 5.28 hours every day around the year on the elite level. Approximately 1.08 hours of that training is physical exercise. More than half (55.6%) of the elite e-athletes believe that integrating physical exercise in their training programs has a positive effect on esport performance; however, no less than 47.0% of the elite e-athletes do their physical exercise chiefly to maintain overall health. Accordingly, the study indicates that elite e-athletes are active athletes as well, those of age 18 and older exercising physically more than three times the daily 21-minute activity recommendation given by World Health Organization.
This article examines the functions of prank performance and troll performance for the aesthetics... more This article examines the functions of prank performance and troll performance for the aesthetics of personal live-streaming, i.e. the practice of live-streaming one's personal performance via platforms such as Twitch.tv. The study is based on a close analysis of personal esport live-streamer Ali Larsen, aka Gross Gore, via a 12-month observation period. With help of Goffmanian frame theory the notions of interview frame and play frame are introduced as the basic cognitive tools for organizing personal esport live-stream experiences. The study concludes by proposing three factors that are vital for the aesthetics of personal live-streaming in general: (1) the feeling of affecting live-streams, (2) the suspense that derives from expecting something unexpected to happen in live-streams, and (3) the sharing of dramatic developments that occur in live-streams.
Simulation. The concept of simulation has been contested in academia since its proliferation in t... more Simulation. The concept of simulation has been contested in academia since its proliferation in the 1960s. This is hardly the case in videogame research, the subject of which is commonly discussed as a simulation or something that simulates with little analytical consideration of the term’s other scientific roles. Comparison. The article compares the simulation of videogame research to the ways in which other scientific sectors utilize the term. Problematic science communication. It turns out that videogame research has found an eccentric use for simulation with none or little relation to the term’s scientific (knowledge-driven) and etymological (imitational) predecessors. This becomes a problem in cross-scientific communication. Intentional philosophy. In order to overcome the problem, the article encourages scholars to adopt an intentional philosophy of simulation according to which videogames and their components may be structured as computerized simulators or simulations if functional evidence for a reference system exists. For those cases that lack functional evidence, the article (re)proposes the conceptual framework of virtuality.
Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 7 (1)
This article presents an ontological theory of the narrative work in order to identify the stor... more This article presents an ontological theory of the narrative work in order to identify the storygame (videogame with high narrativity) as a postclassical narrative phenomenon. The theory is demand-based, meaning that it perceives narrative works through the demands they set for their progression, progression demands. In the postulated ontological theory the article identifies the storygame primarily as an extrademanding narrative work: a narrative work whose progression entails input that is either strategic (constrained by indeterminacy) or time-critical (constrained by time limits). Observing that not all artifacts currently considered ‘storygames’ set strategic or time-critical progression demands leads to the suggestion that
some narrative works labeled as such might be better studied, in a very classical sense, as narrative literature.
This article introduces the concept of ludocriticism as a practice for evaluating videogame art... more This article introduces the concept of ludocriticism as a practice for evaluating videogame artifacts. The primary method of this practice is hermeneutics. If the reader chooses to enter the main article, she or he will find out how the concept of hermeneutics has been previously used in game and videogame research, and how it can also be used to explain and perhaps even cultivate the evaluation of videogame artifacts. If the reader has the endurance to reach the last section, she or he will discover one of the key outcomes of the discussion; the notion of hermeneutic play, which refers to a mode of playing videogames for the sake of understanding their ludo-generic identities.
In this article we present the hermeneutic method as a tool for analyzing game studies discourses... more In this article we present the hermeneutic method as a tool for analyzing game studies discourses. We use Markku Eskelinen’s profusely interpreted “The Gaming Situation” (2001) as a case study. Our premise is that whereas the hermeneutic method is academically well-established, its conscious application is not. It is suggested that with conscious application of the hermeneutic method the persistent and problematic questions in game studies, like those related to narrative, definition, and art, gain potential to be treated with increased sophistication.
This article looks into the mostly unexplored difference between kinesthetic and nonkinesthetic v... more This article looks into the mostly unexplored difference between kinesthetic and nonkinesthetic videogame challenge. The difference is refined into a challenge-based theory for understanding the videogame and its peculiar rhetorical character.
Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies., 2013
By analyzing ontological differences between two contested concepts, the puzzle and the game, the... more By analyzing ontological differences between two contested concepts, the puzzle and the game, the paper aims at constructing a structural framework for understanding the videogame and its challenges. The framework is built on three basic challenge structures: the puzzle, the strategic challenge, and the kinesthetic challenge. The argument is that, unlike the latter two, the puzzle cannot constitute a game.
Philosophy & Technology 27 (2), pp. 201–220. , 2014
This paper surveys the ontological and aesthetic character of puzzles in worlds with storytelling... more This paper surveys the ontological and aesthetic character of puzzles in worlds with storytelling potential, storiable worlds (potential storyworlds). These puzzles are termed fiction puzzles. The focus is on the fiction puzzles of videogames, which are accommodated to John Dewey’s pragmatist framework of aesthetics to be examined as art products capable of producing aesthetic experiences. This leads to an establishing of analytical criteria for estimating the value of fiction puzzles in the pragmatist framework of aesthetics.
Context Matters! Exploring and Reframing Games in Context. Mitgutsch K., Huber S., Wagner M., Wimmer J. & Rosenstingl, H. (eds.), pp. 301–307. New Academic Press, Vienna. 2013., 2013
This article shows how the single player videogame is by its very nature in conflict with the ins... more This article shows how the single player videogame is by its very nature in conflict with the institution of art, and paradoxically, because of that cannot avoid becoming art itself. First, the article shows that the defining aesthetic of the videogame⎯its kinesthetically charged ludic rhematic⎯has very little in common with the meaning-centered aesthetic norms that dominate the art world. Second, the article shows how the secluded nature of expressive videogame play contravenes the concept of art reception. These conflicts force art to reinvestigate itself through the videogame. That makes the videogame avant-garde, for a moment.
The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of 'virtuality' and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s conc... more The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of 'virtuality' and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s concept of 'suspension of disbelief' to the context of modern story forms. The primary focus will be on the videogame. The premise is that suspending disbelief at narrative improbabilities is a skill required to construct narrative coherence. Constructing narrative coherence of stories that contain virtual elements entails supplementary suspension of disbelief at virtual improbabilities, suspension of virtual disbelief. Since increasing the degree of virtuality often increases the requisite traversal effort, virtuality can be said to set increased demands on story traversal as well. This results in the dilemma of 'virtual balance:' while virtuality has the potential to strengthen diegesis, it on the other hand sets heightened demands on story traversal and narrative coherence. The concluding argument is that these heightened demands may be turned into rhetorical tools.
This study evaluated five early cases in which esport developer Riot Games made rulings regarding... more This study evaluated five early cases in which esport developer Riot Games made rulings regarding activities and infractions by members of various institutions related to its product, League of Legends. The findings of this study support future theoretical exploration of other esports in seeking a fuller understanding of issues related to consent, power differentials, and roles and behaviors expected of the institutional activities of players and teams in competition. Increased investigation of these-and other-issues from an ethical standpoint could lead to a framework that not only would facilitate future study but also bring opportunities for improvements in practices in concert with necessary policy changes.
International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 2020
Challenge is a key motivation for videogame play. But what kind of challenge types videogames inc... more Challenge is a key motivation for videogame play. But what kind of challenge types videogames include, and which of them players prefer? This article helps to answer the above questions by developing and validating Videogame Challenge Inventory (CHA), a psychometrically sound measurement for investigating players' challenge preferences in videogames. Based on a review of literature, we developed a 38-item version of CHA that was included in a social media user survey (N = 813). An exploratory factor analysis (EFA) revealed a latent structure of five challenge types: Physical, Analytical, Socioemotional, Insight, and Foresight. CHA was amended in another EFA with USA-based survey data (N = 536). The second EFA suggested a four-factor structure similar to the first EFA. A confirmatory factor analysis was executed after an item screening process with a 12-item version of CHA via UK-based survey data (N = 1,463). The 12-CHA had an acceptable fit to the data, and the model passed construct, convergent, and discriminant validity tests. The usefulness of the validated 12-CHA is shown by connecting the discovered challenges and their preferences to known videogame play motivations and to habits of playing specific videogame genres.
This article discusses the "computer game" as a pragmatic concept. A dual nature of the computer ... more This article discusses the "computer game" as a pragmatic concept. A dual nature of the computer game as both a pragmatic idea and a pragmatic meaning is introduced. Practical meanings of the computer games correspond with the concrete effects that engaging with computer games produces in an individual. Practical ideas of the computer game correspond with the subjectively constituted conceptual families concerning the computer game's assumed practical meaning. Individual computer games can be considered flat or round depending on the range of their practical meanings. Thus, the article contributes to the study of cultural objects in general by offering a framework for examining the evolution and existence of such objects as cross-cultural practical entities; less in terms of communication, media, and materiality, and more in terms of concrete actions and events that individuals across societies commence and conceptualize.
We bring attention to a notable unreported “gaming addiction” or “problem gaming” prevalence data... more We bring attention to a notable unreported “gaming addiction” or “problem gaming” prevalence data set that adds to both the DSM-5′s call for further Internet Gaming Disorder research as well as many other scientific encouragements for more wide-ranging reports on the topic.
This article presents a study on the characteristics of Canadian, Finnish, and Japanese core game... more This article presents a study on the characteristics of Canadian, Finnish, and Japanese core gamers by comparing their videogame preferences and habits. Via statistical analyses of three large samples (Finland n=1053, Canada n=1500, Japan n=1500) collected between 2016 and 2017, the article maps out cultural core gaming differences in terms of play time, expenditure, choice of genres, motivations, and perceptions of a good videogame. As a result, we suggests that the Finnish core gamer is a person who enjoys playing alone with a personal computer in particular – spending relatively little money on the activity, with a preference for titles that provide affordances, autonomy, and interactive mechanics over story and graphics.
In this paper, we provide a new perspective on esports as gamified play by mapping out the means ... more In this paper, we provide a new perspective on esports as gamified play by mapping out the means of their ludic customization with a reflection on ethics. We start by systematizing purchasable customizations in esport games by their effects: cosmetic in-game purchases, functional in-game purchases, and out-game purchases. Subsequently, we situate purchasable customizations within the five demands that contemporary esport games set for their players: money, time, skill, luck, and occasion. Ultimately, we show that some effect-demand combinations may result in ethical conflicts when perceived through of the sport-philosophical frame of athletic superiority.
Whether or not gaming causes addiction continues to be debated in the scholarly literature. The A... more Whether or not gaming causes addiction continues to be debated in the scholarly literature. The American Psychiatric Association has proposed " Internet gaming disorder, " a non-substance addictive disorder, in order to encourage further research on the subject. We suggest that competitive gaming, better known as esports, might provide a unique platform on which to discuss the validity of the proposed disorder.
This article starts with a literary review of the conceptual frames through which esport has been... more This article starts with a literary review of the conceptual frames through which esport has been labeled academically. It shows how the concept of 'electronic' has been taken as the core term for labeling esport, often accompanied by a strong emphasis on 'professionalism.' The literary review is followed by the submission of an alternative conceptual frame based on the economic notion of executive ownership, which provides a theoretical grounding for esport as a cultural phenomenon. In accordance with the above, the article concludes with a reframed look at the history of esport and suggests commercial analog gaming (especially Magic: The Gathering) as its point of origin.
This article offers possibly the first peer-reviewed study on the training routines of elite e-at... more This article offers possibly the first peer-reviewed study on the training routines of elite e-athletes with special focus on the subjects' physical exercise routines. The study is based on a sample of 115 elite e-athletes. According to the responses, e-athletes train approximately 5.28 hours every day around the year on the elite level. Approximately 1.08 hours of that training is physical exercise. More than half (55.6%) of the elite e-athletes believe that integrating physical exercise in their training programs has a positive effect on esport performance; however, no less than 47.0% of the elite e-athletes do their physical exercise chiefly to maintain overall health. Accordingly, the study indicates that elite e-athletes are active athletes as well, those of age 18 and older exercising physically more than three times the daily 21-minute activity recommendation given by World Health Organization.
This article examines the functions of prank performance and troll performance for the aesthetics... more This article examines the functions of prank performance and troll performance for the aesthetics of personal live-streaming, i.e. the practice of live-streaming one's personal performance via platforms such as Twitch.tv. The study is based on a close analysis of personal esport live-streamer Ali Larsen, aka Gross Gore, via a 12-month observation period. With help of Goffmanian frame theory the notions of interview frame and play frame are introduced as the basic cognitive tools for organizing personal esport live-stream experiences. The study concludes by proposing three factors that are vital for the aesthetics of personal live-streaming in general: (1) the feeling of affecting live-streams, (2) the suspense that derives from expecting something unexpected to happen in live-streams, and (3) the sharing of dramatic developments that occur in live-streams.
Simulation. The concept of simulation has been contested in academia since its proliferation in t... more Simulation. The concept of simulation has been contested in academia since its proliferation in the 1960s. This is hardly the case in videogame research, the subject of which is commonly discussed as a simulation or something that simulates with little analytical consideration of the term’s other scientific roles. Comparison. The article compares the simulation of videogame research to the ways in which other scientific sectors utilize the term. Problematic science communication. It turns out that videogame research has found an eccentric use for simulation with none or little relation to the term’s scientific (knowledge-driven) and etymological (imitational) predecessors. This becomes a problem in cross-scientific communication. Intentional philosophy. In order to overcome the problem, the article encourages scholars to adopt an intentional philosophy of simulation according to which videogames and their components may be structured as computerized simulators or simulations if functional evidence for a reference system exists. For those cases that lack functional evidence, the article (re)proposes the conceptual framework of virtuality.
Storyworlds: A Journal of Narrative Studies, 7 (1)
This article presents an ontological theory of the narrative work in order to identify the stor... more This article presents an ontological theory of the narrative work in order to identify the storygame (videogame with high narrativity) as a postclassical narrative phenomenon. The theory is demand-based, meaning that it perceives narrative works through the demands they set for their progression, progression demands. In the postulated ontological theory the article identifies the storygame primarily as an extrademanding narrative work: a narrative work whose progression entails input that is either strategic (constrained by indeterminacy) or time-critical (constrained by time limits). Observing that not all artifacts currently considered ‘storygames’ set strategic or time-critical progression demands leads to the suggestion that
some narrative works labeled as such might be better studied, in a very classical sense, as narrative literature.
This article introduces the concept of ludocriticism as a practice for evaluating videogame art... more This article introduces the concept of ludocriticism as a practice for evaluating videogame artifacts. The primary method of this practice is hermeneutics. If the reader chooses to enter the main article, she or he will find out how the concept of hermeneutics has been previously used in game and videogame research, and how it can also be used to explain and perhaps even cultivate the evaluation of videogame artifacts. If the reader has the endurance to reach the last section, she or he will discover one of the key outcomes of the discussion; the notion of hermeneutic play, which refers to a mode of playing videogames for the sake of understanding their ludo-generic identities.
In this article we present the hermeneutic method as a tool for analyzing game studies discourses... more In this article we present the hermeneutic method as a tool for analyzing game studies discourses. We use Markku Eskelinen’s profusely interpreted “The Gaming Situation” (2001) as a case study. Our premise is that whereas the hermeneutic method is academically well-established, its conscious application is not. It is suggested that with conscious application of the hermeneutic method the persistent and problematic questions in game studies, like those related to narrative, definition, and art, gain potential to be treated with increased sophistication.
This article looks into the mostly unexplored difference between kinesthetic and nonkinesthetic v... more This article looks into the mostly unexplored difference between kinesthetic and nonkinesthetic videogame challenge. The difference is refined into a challenge-based theory for understanding the videogame and its peculiar rhetorical character.
Proceedings of DiGRA 2013: DeFragging Game Studies., 2013
By analyzing ontological differences between two contested concepts, the puzzle and the game, the... more By analyzing ontological differences between two contested concepts, the puzzle and the game, the paper aims at constructing a structural framework for understanding the videogame and its challenges. The framework is built on three basic challenge structures: the puzzle, the strategic challenge, and the kinesthetic challenge. The argument is that, unlike the latter two, the puzzle cannot constitute a game.
Philosophy & Technology 27 (2), pp. 201–220. , 2014
This paper surveys the ontological and aesthetic character of puzzles in worlds with storytelling... more This paper surveys the ontological and aesthetic character of puzzles in worlds with storytelling potential, storiable worlds (potential storyworlds). These puzzles are termed fiction puzzles. The focus is on the fiction puzzles of videogames, which are accommodated to John Dewey’s pragmatist framework of aesthetics to be examined as art products capable of producing aesthetic experiences. This leads to an establishing of analytical criteria for estimating the value of fiction puzzles in the pragmatist framework of aesthetics.
Context Matters! Exploring and Reframing Games in Context. Mitgutsch K., Huber S., Wagner M., Wimmer J. & Rosenstingl, H. (eds.), pp. 301–307. New Academic Press, Vienna. 2013., 2013
This article shows how the single player videogame is by its very nature in conflict with the ins... more This article shows how the single player videogame is by its very nature in conflict with the institution of art, and paradoxically, because of that cannot avoid becoming art itself. First, the article shows that the defining aesthetic of the videogame⎯its kinesthetically charged ludic rhematic⎯has very little in common with the meaning-centered aesthetic norms that dominate the art world. Second, the article shows how the secluded nature of expressive videogame play contravenes the concept of art reception. These conflicts force art to reinvestigate itself through the videogame. That makes the videogame avant-garde, for a moment.
The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of 'virtuality' and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s conc... more The paper accommodates Espen Aarseth’s concept of 'virtuality' and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s concept of 'suspension of disbelief' to the context of modern story forms. The primary focus will be on the videogame. The premise is that suspending disbelief at narrative improbabilities is a skill required to construct narrative coherence. Constructing narrative coherence of stories that contain virtual elements entails supplementary suspension of disbelief at virtual improbabilities, suspension of virtual disbelief. Since increasing the degree of virtuality often increases the requisite traversal effort, virtuality can be said to set increased demands on story traversal as well. This results in the dilemma of 'virtual balance:' while virtuality has the potential to strengthen diegesis, it on the other hand sets heightened demands on story traversal and narrative coherence. The concluding argument is that these heightened demands may be turned into rhetorical tools.
A report on gamedev-oriented higher education in four countries, based on reciprocal study visits... more A report on gamedev-oriented higher education in four countries, based on reciprocal study visits to Kazimierz Wielki University in Bydgoszcz (Poland), Charles University in Prague (Czechia), University of Jyväskylä in Jyväskylä (Finland), and Bahçeşehir University in Istanbul (Turkey). It is an overview of curricula, learning outcomes, collaboration with the game industry, and prospects for development for each institution. It also outlines the country-specific contexts of the national higher-ed system, the game industry, and gamedev organisations and communities.
Within the last few decades, the videogame has become an important media, economic, and cultural ... more Within the last few decades, the videogame has become an important media, economic, and cultural phenomenon. Along with the phenomenon’s proliferation the aspects that constitute its identity have become more and more challenging to determine, however. The persistent surfacing of novel ludic forms continues to expand the conceptual range of ‘games’ and ‘videogames,’ which has already lead to anxious generalizations within academic as well as popular discourses. Such generalizations make it increasingly difficult to comprehend how the instances of this phenomenon actually work, which in turn generates pragmatic problems: the lack of an applicable identification of the videogame hinders its study, play, and everyday conceptualization. To counteract these problems this dissertation establishes a geneontological research methodology that enables the identification of the videogame in relation to its cultural surroundings. Videogames are theorized as ‘games,’ ‘puzzles,’ ‘stories,’ and ‘aesthetic artifacts’ (or ‘artworks’), which produces a geneontological sequence of the videogame as a singular species of culture, Artefactum ludus ludus, or ludom for short. According to this sequence, the videogame’s position as a ‘game’ in the historicized evolution of culture is mainly metaphorical, while at the same time its artifactuality, dynamic system structure, time-critical strategic input requirements and aporetically rhematic aesthetics allow it to be discovered as a conceptually stable but empirically transient uniexistential phenomenon that currently thrivesbut may soon die out.
FDG Conference Workshop: Forgetting & Remembering (in Digital Games), 2020
FDG 2020 Workshop 'Forgetting & Remembering (in Digital Games)', 14 September
Since Zork (Info... more FDG 2020 Workshop 'Forgetting & Remembering (in Digital Games)', 14 September
Since Zork (Infocom, 1979), libraries have been a frequent element of digital game environments. On the one hand, there is a tendency for such libraries to appear in a state of disrepair, forgotten or lost or housing secrets – as in the deserted and half-ruined Library in Myst; the ‘Shattered Library’ holding lost elven knowledge, in Dragon Age: Inquisition (Trespasser DLC [BioWare, 2015]); and the Black Books retrieved from ruins, that transport the player character to the plane of ‘Apocrypha’ (realm of the Daedric Prince of Fate, Knowledge and Memory), in the Skyrim DLC Dragonborn (Bethesda Softworks, 2013) – a reservoir of lost knowledge full of whirling loose pages and haphazard stacks of books. More problematically, the player-character witnesses and participates in the replayed and rewritten destruction of the National University Library of Sarajevo, in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (City Interactive, 2013; see Zarandona et al. 2018). This trend for libraries to be represented in various states of ruin or devastation – as deteriorating archives – may suggest nostalgic fascination with something perceived as a dead or dying medium.
On the other hand, the spatial exploration of these libraries – even of those in decay – gives the lie to the idea of a post-literary medium. The space of these libraries is often labyrinthine or maze-like (even literally) – moreover, commonly evoking Borgesian bewilderment, or Terry Pratchett’s L-space. Following the catalogue trail in Monkey Island II (LucasArts, 1991) finally leads to ‘recursion, See recursion’. In Myst (Cyan, 1993), books are the very means of exploration – they are portals to worlds, and may even be prisons. In both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Skyrim, the player-character’s expectations for movement through space are adjusted. Navigating the inter-dimensional and initially-isolated floating islands (some remaining inaccessible) in Dragon Age: Inquisition to access an upside-down section of the library involves a series of often-spatially-disorientating puzzles. Skyrim’s Apocrypha is a hostile environment, shifting and unstable. In both cases, the player-character moves through maelstroms of words and pages, many unreadable. Libraries in adventure games frequently combine their spatial navigation with following a paper-trail of clues in books or on shelves (for example the vertical ascent up the shelves in Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice [Infogrames, 1995], and the puzzle-solving in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [LucasArts, 1989]).
FDG 2020 Conference, ACM, 14 September
This presentation explores the associations that cluster around representations and spatial configurations of libraries and archives in digital games, tracing persistent associations and motifs – such as the forgotten and/or ruined archives, the hints of nostalgia, and the library as house of secrets.
Histories of media technologies involve diverse experimentations with erotic, pornographic, and s... more Histories of media technologies involve diverse experimentations with erotic, pornographic, and sexually explicit content. Sexual content was adopted early in photography as it was in visual variations such as the stereoscope, 16mm, 8mm and 35mm film and video-and, later, in networked media from Usenet to the WWW (e.g., Williams 1989; Coopersmith 1999; Paasonen 2018a). The videogame is no exception. While the role of erotic, pornographic, and sexually explicit early videogame development has been cited by historians earlier (often in passing), few case studies chart region-specific functions and roles of such titles. In this article, we do exactly that: our goal is to analyze the independently developed Finnish "fuck games"-playable software typically implying or simulating sexual intercourse-in the 1980s and 1990s in order to identify their fundamental elements as objects produced in specific regional space and time. While these elements can thus be claimed to reflect Finland's computer and media culture during the era, they also provide a perspective from which to better understand the overall development and history of local, pre-internet DIY labor within game design.
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some narrative works labeled as such might be better studied, in a very classical sense, as narrative literature.
some narrative works labeled as such might be better studied, in a very classical sense, as narrative literature.
Since Zork (Infocom, 1979), libraries have been a frequent element of digital game environments. On the one hand, there is a tendency for such libraries to appear in a state of disrepair, forgotten or lost or housing secrets – as in the deserted and half-ruined Library in Myst; the ‘Shattered Library’ holding lost elven knowledge, in Dragon Age: Inquisition (Trespasser DLC [BioWare, 2015]); and the Black Books retrieved from ruins, that transport the player character to the plane of ‘Apocrypha’ (realm of the Daedric Prince of Fate, Knowledge and Memory), in the Skyrim DLC Dragonborn (Bethesda Softworks, 2013) – a reservoir of lost knowledge full of whirling loose pages and haphazard stacks of books. More problematically, the player-character witnesses and participates in the replayed and rewritten destruction of the National University Library of Sarajevo, in Sniper: Ghost Warrior 2 (City Interactive, 2013; see Zarandona et al. 2018). This trend for libraries to be represented in various states of ruin or devastation – as deteriorating archives – may suggest nostalgic fascination with something perceived as a dead or dying medium.
On the other hand, the spatial exploration of these libraries – even of those in decay – gives the lie to the idea of a post-literary medium. The space of these libraries is often labyrinthine or maze-like (even literally) – moreover, commonly evoking Borgesian bewilderment, or Terry Pratchett’s L-space. Following the catalogue trail in Monkey Island II (LucasArts, 1991) finally leads to ‘recursion, See recursion’. In Myst (Cyan, 1993), books are the very means of exploration – they are portals to worlds, and may even be prisons. In both Dragon Age: Inquisition and Skyrim, the player-character’s expectations for movement through space are adjusted. Navigating the inter-dimensional and initially-isolated floating islands (some remaining inaccessible) in Dragon Age: Inquisition to access an upside-down section of the library involves a series of often-spatially-disorientating puzzles. Skyrim’s Apocrypha is a hostile environment, shifting and unstable. In both cases, the player-character moves through maelstroms of words and pages, many unreadable. Libraries in adventure games frequently combine their spatial navigation with following a paper-trail of clues in books or on shelves (for example the vertical ascent up the shelves in Call of Cthulhu: Prisoner of Ice [Infogrames, 1995], and the puzzle-solving in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade [LucasArts, 1989]).
FDG 2020 Conference, ACM, 14 September
This presentation explores the associations that cluster around representations and spatial configurations of libraries and archives in digital games, tracing persistent associations and motifs – such as the forgotten and/or ruined archives, the hints of nostalgia, and the library as house of secrets.