Games Culture

Mystic Messenger is a real-time mobile dating simulator and otome game that simulates how people fall in love online. In this essay, I will look at significant parallels between casual games and otome games and point out the ways in which both define women as players and consumers of games. By focusing on Mystic Messenger, I examine the ways in which the game’s real-time simulation of emotional labor becomes a way of policing women’s desires, a way of reinforcing nurturing roles over women’s desires, and a way of literally commodifying the assumedly female player’s leisure time. Furthermore, I also examine player practices and discussions of cheating within the player community, tagging these as light forms of resistances and ways in which various individuals in the community assert their identity and their agency over their own time.

The 21st century has given rise to gaming industry technologies that drive a new type of learner in the classroom. This article draws data from four case studies that were conducted as part of a sequential mixed-model study. The study explored the 21st-century skills students reported learning through their video game consumption and creation of intellectual property. The qualitative data analysis led to the development of five major findings: (1) the strategist: accomplishing the mission, (2) the creator: the art of gameplay, (3) the communicator: building relationships and communities, (4) the hero: to be the hero of a great adventure, and (5) I am an “elite”: a digital native. These findings attempt to create a profile of the 21st-century classroom gamer based on the data. They represent and support research trends that explore the gaming phenomenon, gamer traits, and 21st-century skills learned through playing video games.

Digital games historically hold a spotty record on gender depictions. The lack of depth in female characters has long been the norm; however, an increasing number of female protagonists are headlining games. This study used narrative theory to examine depictions of four female protagonists in four 2013 Design, Innovate, Communicate, Entertain Award-Winning Digital Games: The Last of Us, Bioshock Infinite, Tomb Raider, and Beyond: Two Souls. Studying these media depictions provides context for how women’s stories are recorded in society. Stereotype subversions largely occur within familiar game narratives, and the female protagonists were still largely limited and defined by male figures in the games.

Comparison of user experience between multiplayer digital games and board games is largely unexplored in the literature, with no instrument found to suitably measure user experience across game formats. This study explores the use of the Social Presence module of the Games Experience Questionnaire to measure user experience in a multiplayer board game involving 12 participants across 3 separate sessions. Scale analysis and correlation with semistructured interviews held with the participants suggest that the instrument is reliable and valid and can thus be used for measurement and comparison of user experience across game formats. The Games Experience Questionnaire can therefore be used to scale-up board game research by diminishing reliance on interviews as well as to assist in the choice between digital and nondigital implementation of gameplay forming part of an overarching story, such as in transmedial productions

Scholars, educators, and media designers are increasingly interested in whether and how digital games might contribute to civic learning. However, there are three main barriers to advancing understanding of games’ potential for civic education: the current practices of formal schooling, a dearth of evidence about what kinds of games best inspire learning about public life, and divergent paradigms of civic engagement. In response, this article develops a conceptual framework for how games might foster civic learning of many kinds. The authors hypothesize that the most effective games for civic learning will be those that best integrate game play and content, that help players make connections between their individual actions and larger social structures, and that link ethical and expedient reasoning. This framework suggests an agenda for game design and research that could illuminate whether and how games can be most fruitfully incorporated into training and education for democratic citizenship and civic leadership.

The present article brings game studies into dialogue with cultural memory studies and argues for the significance of computer games for historical discourse and memory politics. Drawing upon the works of Robert Rosenstone and Astrid Erll, we develop concepts and theories from film studies and adapt them to respond to the media specificity of computer games. Through a critical reading of the first chapter of the history-based first-person shooter Call of Duty: Black Ops, the article demonstrates how the game’s formal properties frame in-game experiences and performances, and this way predisposes the emergence of certain memory-making potentials in and through constrained practices of play. Subsequently, an analysis of the serious game Czechoslovakia 38-89: Assassination shows the potentials of game design to facilitate meta-historical reflections and critical inquiries.

Designing and developing computer games can be a complex activity that may involve professionals from a variety of disciplines. In this article, we examine the use of game theory for supporting the design of gameplay within the different sections of a computer game and demonstrate its application in practice via adapted high-level decision trees for modeling the flow in gameplay and payoff matrices for modeling skill or challenge levels.

Accompanying esports’ explosion in popularity, the amount of academic research focused on organized, competitive gaming has grown rapidly. From 2002 through March 2018, esports research has developed from nonexistent into a field of study spread across seven academic disciplines. We review work in business, sports science, cognitive science, informatics, law, media studies, and sociology to understand the current state of academic research of esports and to identify convergent research questions, findings, and trends across fields.

Combining perspectives from the new science of happiness with discussions regarding “problematic” and “addictive” play in multiplayer online games, the authors examine how player motivations pattern both positive and negative gaming experiences. Specifically, using ethnographic interviews and a survey, the authors explore the utility of Yee’s three-factor motivational framework for explaining the positive or negative quality of experiences in the popular online game World of Warcraft (2004-2012). The authors find that playing to Achieve is strongly associated with distressful play, results that support findings from other studies. By contrast, Social and Immersion play lead more typically to positive gaming experiences, conclusions diverging from those frequently reported in the literature. Overall, the authors suggest that paying attention to the positive as well as negative dimensions of inhabiting these online worlds will provide both for more balanced portraits of gamers’ experi...

The COVID-19 pandemic has affected our lives in many ways, including how we choose to spend our time and deal with unprecedented circumstances. Anecdotal reports suggest that many have turned to playing video games during the pandemic. To better understand how games are being used during the lockdown, we conducted an online survey ( N = 781) that focused on gameplay habits and effects on players’ well-being. We find that time spent playing games has increased for 71% of respondents, while 58% of respondents reported that playing games has impacted their well-being, with the overwhelming majority of responses indicating a positive impact. We identify seven ways that games have affected players, such as providing cognitive stimulation and opportunities to socialise, and a variety of benefits related to mental health, including reduced anxiety and stress. Our findings highlight the sociocultural significance of video games and the potentially positive nature of games’ effects on well-b...

This article examines the Japanese action puzzle game Catherine, arguing that the game presents a social narrative that comments on Japan’s pressing issue of a declining birthrate and aging population. It also theorizes a strategy for player involvement based on ‘‘distanced’’ (self-reflexive and meta) engagement. Through an examination of the narrative, characters, and gameplay, supplemented with national fertility survey data from Japan, the article argues that Catherine subverts classic game tropes and fosters player engagement with a socially relevant diegesis. Simultaneously, the unique meta-gameplay elements utilize what I term ‘‘distanced engagement’’ to encourage the player to criti- cally self-reflect on both the game scenario and their role as a player. In this way, the article considers how the unique relationship between story and distanced engagement allows video games like Catherine to function as impactful and interactive social narratives.

In 2012, MTV explored a new approach to voter engagement through ‘‘Fantasy Election.’ ’ The game had players draft candidates in the congressional and presi-dential elections onto personal teams in order to compete for points and prizes, which were distributed based not only on the candidates ’ actions but also when players themselves took action to become better informed and involved during the campaign. In the end, Fantasy Election drew over 10,000 active participants. This article scrutinizes the design and effect of the game by using data from MTV’s exit survey of Fantasy Election users to explore whether and how games can be used to encourage voter engagement. By considering the self-reported motivations of players, and a broader discussion of the role of play, competition and reward in fos-tering political and civic participation, we consider how gamification strategies have ambivalent effects on developing a more informed and cooperative civil society.

The authors propose the concept of competitive fandom to describe the learning, play, and engagement of fantasy sports. Competitive fandom draws together contemporary research on fan cultures and game design and game communities to describe the interaction present in fantasy sports. Fantasy sports games require a combination of fan culture practices and gamers' skills and habits of mind. Fandom becomes competitive when the knowledge acquired in the fan domain is transformed into strategic information to guide play in a new kind of game. This combination of frames helps describe the kinds of knowledge and motivation required to play fantasy sports and how such participation sparks further learning. Through analysis of individual game play within the context of the league community in which fantasy team owners play, the authors aim to understand what and how people learn from playing in competitive fandom settings and the implications of these findings for the design of learning e...

This article examines the transmedial theme and narrative genre of Bildung (life formation) in relation to video games. It revisits key tenets of life formation theory insofar as they can be applied to a small but growing corpus of games that emphasize spiritual and philosophical maturation and advancement. We argue that Joseph Campbell’s monomyth is an oversimplified and ultimately unsuitable lens through which to analyze character development in games, which restrains rather than stimulates the kind of complexities, diversity, and fluidity of character psychology needed in contemporary video game ecology. The main part of this study is dedicated to a comparative analysis of three indie games that address the life formation theme through allegories of space-in-time. The main focal areas will be character and story patterns; chronotopic mappings onto developmental trajectories; the treatment of mastery, mentorship, and choice; and the spiritual and metacognitive alignment of extra a...

This article will argue that the current literature on retrogaming as a practice and the retrogamer as a subject has been lacking in fully describing the variety of practices and subjects that engage with old games. Based on data collected by interviewing nine self-described Danish retrogamers, three motivations for engaging with old games, besides nostalgia, are identified. These motivations are typologized into three player types: amateur archaeologists, amateur art historians, and techno-historians. Following the analysis, it will be argued that retrogaming might be an imprecise term to encompass the many different ways that individuals engage with old games. The concepts historical play and nostalgic play are presented to alleviate this.

As games, particularly virtual worlds, become increasingly popular and as they begin to approximate large scale social systems in size and nature, they have also become spaces where play and learning have merged in fundamental ways. More important is the idea that the kind of learning that happens in the spaces of these massively multiplayer online games is fundamentally different than what we have come to consider as standard pedagogical practice. The distinction the authors make is that traditional paradigms of instruction have addressed learning as “learning about,” while these new forms of learning deal with knowledge through the dynamic of “learning to be.”It is the authors' contention that the experiences offered within virtual worlds provide a fundamentally different way of thinking about learning that may provide some keys to the development of future pedagogical practice.

This article explores the current affordances and limitations of video game genre from a library and information science perspective with an emphasis on classification theory. We identify and discuss various purposes of genre relating to video games, including identity, collocation and retrieval, commercial marketing, and educational instruction. Through the use of examples, we discuss the ways in which these purposes are supported by genre classification and conceptualization and the implications for video games. Suggestions for improved conceptualizations such as family resemblances, prototype theory, faceted classification, and appeal factors for video game genres are considered, with discussions of strengths and weaknesses. This analysis helps inform potential future practical applications for describing video games at cultural heritage institutions such as libraries, museums, and archives, as well as furthering the understanding of video game genre and genre classification for ...

The goal of this study is to support game designers in the selection and implementation of game mechanisms to promote players’ moral sensitivity (MS). A lack of MS may lead people to behave unethically, without awareness for their actions’ moral implications. In this study, we conduct a theory-based evaluation of 20 distinct game mechanisms in view of their potential to promote MS. MS is thereby operationalized in terms of three learning outcomes (LOs): empathic concern for relevant groups, alertness to values/principles, and awareness for one’s vulnerability to biases. This study suggests that MS is best promoted through a careful combination of game mechanisms, addressing all three LOs.

The designation "gamer" is structurally bound to networked economies of digital play that are rewarded fiscally, socially, and publically, an order of play that is proving difficult to overturn. That girls and women have enjoyed at best marginal positions within video game cultures is by now well recognized, yet at the very same time is too easily dismissed in light of persuasively documented increases in the numbers of women who play. This article traces a large-scale transformation of ludic engagement from participation to spectatorship that parallels the professionalizing and commodifying of traditionally embodied sports, games, and play to demonstrate how new and emerging economies of gameplay, far from opening up the playing field, threaten a further entrenchment of gendered relations.