Eludamos. Journal for Computer Game Culture
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Types and Bytes. Ludic Seriality and Digital Typography
No full textEver since the invention of movable letters and the introduction of the typewriter, technical writing tools have been considered as a means of serialization and standardization, characterized by a linear way of ordering things and thoughts. More importantly, as a cultural technique they fostered and furthered a sharp distinction between print and image. While the advent of the comic book in the industrial age was already instrumental in blurring the line between textual and visual practices, digital games now restructure this terrain to expand it through their own specific potential.This essay concentrates on the interrelation of text and icon in videogames. The first section focuses on the medial quality of writing and textuality as a formal system, the second discusses the dimension of the image as an iconic extension of the textual format, and the third brings together both lines of thought to debate the operational efficiency of digital games as a way of constituting new forms of ludic literacy.
On the Validity of Metacritic in Assessing Game Value
No full textThe website Metacritic, which aggregates published reviews of various entertainment media into single “metascores,” has in recent years become highly influential in the area of video games, both with respect to consumers and industry members. This has resulted in an increase both in the attention paid to Metacritic and the level of criticism leveled at the institution. The present work examines the scientific validity of Metacritic as a measure of game quality and value, from both a qualitative and a quantitative perspective. Evidence for a strong correlational link between game sales and Metacritic metascores is presented, along with a detailed analysis of a number of threats to validity identified in the metascore production process. The present work concludes that while Metacritic suffers from a number of serious threats to validity, it remains an important tool for the industry if used correctly
Making Sense of Play in Video Games: Ludus, Paidia, and Possibility Spaces
No full textThis article synthesizes the work of video game theorists such as Gonzalo Frasca (2003), Katie Salen and Eric Zimmerman (2003), Ian Bogost (2008), and Steven E. Jones (2008) in order to build on academic and interdisciplinary discussions of play and its effect on PC- or console-based video games. Examples are used to elucidate the potentially problematic categories of “paidic” and “ludic” games, as well as to explore further the ways in which uninhibited play, “metagaming,” and the inevitable influence of socio-cultural factors gradually transform—and become codified within—the landscape of digital games. Finally, the article offers Mikhail Bakhtin’s notions of opposing “centripetal” and “centrifugal” forces as analytical tools according to which the connections between in-game activities and out-of-game social and cultural contexts can be usefully examined by future critics
Played and Designed Sociality in a Massive Multiplayer Online Game
No full textThis empirical study focuses on online collaboration and social interaction in temporary group formations. A case study of a massive multiplayer online game World of Warcraft explores these issues. Within this context little attention has been paid to temporary collaboration groups. The phenomenon is analyzed using interaction data complemented with interview data, forum data and consideration of game design. We found two main types of interaction, sociable and instrumental, but investment in the social situation was exceedingly little. We conclude that the low levels of social interaction observed are the result of a game design that makes the cost of social play high and restricts the available space for players to act within the designed architecture of the game, thus limiting the possibilities for played sociality. The connection between designed and played sociality is crucial for understanding online collaboration as it shapes online social worlds and therefore users’ experiences within this social context
Digital Seriality: On the Serial Aesthetics and Practice of Digital Games
No full textIn this paper we are concerned to outline a set of perspectives, methods, and theories with which to approach the seriality of digital games and game cultures – i.e. the aesthetic forms and cultural practices of game-related serialization, which we see unfolding against (and, in fact, as a privileged mediator of) the broader background of medial and socio-cultural transformations taking place in the wake of popular media culture’s digitalization. Seriality, we contend, is a central and multifaceted but largely neglected dimension of popular computer and video games. Seriality is a factor not only in explicitly marked game series (with their sequels, prequels, remakes, and other types of continuation), but also within games themselves (e.g. in their formal-structural constitution as an iterative series of “levels” or “worlds”) as well as on the level of transmedial relations between games and other media (e.g. expansive serializations of narrative worlds across the media of comics, film, television, and games, etc.). Particularly with respect to processes of temporal “collapse” or “synchronization” that, in the current age of digitization and media convergence, are challenging the temporal dimensions and developmental logics of pre-digital seriality (e.g. because once successively appearing series installments are increasingly available now for immediate, repeated, and non-linear consumption), computer games are eminently suited for an exemplary investigation of a specifically digital type of seriality. In the following, we look at serialization processes in digital games and game series and seek to understand how they relate to digital-era transformations of temporally-serially structured experiences and identifications on the part of historically situated actors. These transformations range from the microtemporal scale of individual players’ encounters with algorithmic computation processes (the speed of which escapes direct human perception and is measurable only by technological means) all the way up to the macrotemporal (more properly “historical”) level of collective brokerings of political, cultural, and social identities in the digital age. To account for this multi-layered complexity, we argue for a decidedly interdisciplinary approach, combining media-aesthetic and media-philosophical perspectives with the resources of discourse analysis and cultural history. We approach the seriality of digital games both in terms of textual and aesthetic forms as well as in the broader context of serialized game cultures and popular culture at large
Analysing God of War: A Hero’s Journey
No full textThis paper is the result of an attempt to carry out a close reading ofthe videogames series God of War (GOW). The purpose of thisstudy was to scrutinise the structure of the plot in such as way asto better understand how game developers use this medium todeliver stories. The tool used to undertake this task was JosephCampbell’s monomyth (Hero’s journey) as adapted by ChristopherVogler in his ‘Writer’s Journey’. The analysis was mostlyconcerned with the type of narrative components and structurespresent in the game/s. The researcher position in this study is thesame one used by Carr (2002); that is from the perspective of an‘academic fan’. Ultimately this work’s ontology was inductivelydeveloped from data collected from different sources; including fieldnotes of personal gaming sessions and documents associated withthe game such as game manuals, reviews, articles and otherrelated content
Designscape – A Suggested Game Design Prototyping Process Tool
No full textIn this work the prototyping process of game design is analysed and a model, the designscape, is suggested. The analysis is based on empirical data consisting of interviews with game designers; at leading positions in ten game companies and at two educational programs focusing on game design. The prime perspective presented as basis for the model is rhetoric in relation to the prototyping process. The intended value of the designscape is to provide deepened information and knowledge about the design process.
Skin Games: Fragrant Play, Scented Media and the Stench of Digital Games
No full text@font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Arial"; }@font-face { font-family: "Cambria"; }@font-face { font-family: "MS Mincho"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 12pt; font-family: Cambria; }.MsoChpDefault { font-size: 10pt; font-family: Cambria; }div.WordSection1 { page: WordSection1; } This study presents an argument in favor of using multiple theory triangulation (Mäyrä 2009) as a means of generating design heuristics and gameplay scenarios for engaging the sense of smell in games. The disciplines that are drawn upon include sensory psychology, sensory anthropology, literature, interaction design and HCI research, and game studies. The physical and historical context of smell in games is sketched by considering the challenges of designing for the sense of smell, examining how different cultures have integrated smell into their lives and entertainment, analyzing the failures of scented filmic media, and surveying games in which smell has played a role: Leather Goddesses of Phobos (Infocom Inc. 1986) and Leisure Suit Larry 7: Love for Sail! (Sierra On-Line Inc. 1996). Rather than naïve immersion, in which smell merely confirms what is seen onscreen, this study seeks to root the future development of scented gameplay in Ermi and Mäyrä’s SCI model of immersion (2007), and draws upon design discourses related to the bodily and spatial uses of scent: perfume and incense. We can learn about how to effectively engage smell in games by examining the ways in which people have organized play around perfume and incense, from games that incorporate perfume themes (ranging from board games to Axe cologne advergames), to the playful behaviors of an online fragrance community (Basenotes.net). The results of this study include general design heuristics for smell in games, as well as specific gameplay concepts for an existing digital game genre (survival horror), and a physical Scratch-and-sniff party game