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Gotta Catch Em' All: The Compelling Act of Creature Collection in Pokemon, Ni No Kuni, Shin Megami Tensei, and World of Warcraft
Full text linkSince the release of the first Pokémon video game(s) in 1996, the need to "catch 'em all" has captivated players around the world. While the collection of objects, coins, experience, and points has played a significant role in many main stream video games over the years, Pokémon took the concept to a whole new level by enticing players to gather a massive collection of "pocket monsters", each with their own unique abilities and aesthetics. This paper attempts to answer what makes this form of collection so compelling through an investigation of four different games where the collection of trainable creatures, used to do battle on behalf of the player's main character, plays a central role: Pokémon X/Y (2013), Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch (2010), Shin Megami Tensei IV (2013), and World of Warcraft: Mists of Pandaria (2012). Four common themes surrounding creature collection are identified: Immortality, exploration, organization, and specialized knowledge. These themes are uncovered through a close reading of the four above mentioned games through the theoretical lenses of Azuma’s (2009) “Database Animals”, Greenberg et al’s (1986) Terror Management Theory, and McIntosh & Schmeichel’s (2004) social psychological perspective on collectors and collecting. The paper concludes with a discussion of McIntosh & Schmeichel’s (2004) eight steps of the collection process, and argues that the medium of the video game allows for the elimination of half of those steps, partially explaining the popularity of creature collection video games in our postmodern world
Défense, négociation et subversion de la thèse de l’ordre naturel dans les jeux de rôle participatifs en environnement virtuel : Le cas de la communauté goréenne de Second Life
No full textCet article porte sur les stratégies et tactiques mises en œuvre par les joueurs dans le cadre des jeux de rôle participatifs en environnement virtuel (JRPEV) goréens organisés dans Second Life, qualifiés de « jeux à thèse subvertie » et constituant une transfictionnalisation des romans de science-fiction The Chronicles of Gor, de John Norman. Sept types d’actions stratégiques et tactiques ont été mises au jour, soit la clôture herméneutique, la clôture sociotechnique, la clôture légale, la clôture narrative, la clôture scénaristique, l’acculturation formelle et l’acculturation informelle, reposant toutes sur le concept de « signification privilégiée », de Stuart Hall (1989), et de « clôture discursive », de Stanlez Deetz (1991). Ces stratégies et tactiques sont alimentées par des textes exogènes que les joueurs font circuler dans l’écosystème transtextuel goréen, des intertextes aux métatextes, en passant par les para-, hyper-, auto- et archi- textes
Procedural Elaboration: How Players Decode Minecraft
Full text linkMinecraft play practices reveal a type of analytic play in which significant work is invested in discovering esoteric details about the game, without necessarily providing practical prescriptions for optimizing play. This paper proposes the term “procedural elaboration” to describe such activities and the knowledge thereby produced. In contrast to the existing concept of theorycrafting, the products of procedural elaboration are primarily descriptive rather than prescriptive. However, this knowledge is far from trivial or banal. I argue that these knowledge-making activities can be explained through two functions of procedural elaboration. First, it provides players with a tool for dealing with the threatening inscrutability of some procedural game systems. Second, it acts as a ritual form of communication that helps to solidify a coherent Minecraft player community, while also establishing a social order within that community. Subsequently, I consider why players persist in using specifically experimental methods in procedural elaboration, even though the online availability of decompiled Minecraft source code means that the rules are not fully hidden as they are in most other games. I argue that the experimental method persists for these reasons: because it does not require specialized programming skills; because the gameplay already casts scientific experimentation as play; and because the iterative nature of Minecraft’s development has produced source code that is structured in a way that resists direct deciphering
Using Big Data Tools and Techniques to Study a Gamer Community: Technical, Epistemological, and Ethical Problems
Full text linkThis paper discusses an exploratory approach taken by researchers in the fields of semiotics and communications in order to not only share a specific research experience, but also help build a research sector that combines game analytics with social sciences. The main objective of our research was to define parameters of digital identity within the framework of the study of an online video game player community. To this end, we examined several constitutive elements of digital identity, namely the effects of the “avatar” apparatus on the identity of users, online interactions, and the meaning of “living together” in the digital world. We used both qualitative and quantitative methodologies: a semiotic analysis of the game, a discursive analysis of the forum, semi-structured interviews, and an automated analysis of big data sets. In this paper we will focus on the automated analysis of big data sets, addressing two key points: the working method developed by the research team, and the achievement of the research objectives by merging quantitative and qualitative perspectives together. Following a summary of the research approach, this article will present the methodological, epistemological, and ethical difficulties that may be encountered in studying a player community with this type of research approach
Experience, 60 Frames Per Second: Virtual Embodiment and the Player/Avatar Relationship in Digital Games
Full text linkFrom the earliest days of video game studies as a field, and before - with discussions of virtual reality - a debate has endured over the nature of virtual embodiment. From Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck in 1997, to Edward Castronova’s foundational examination of the phenomenon of MMOGs, to Valtin, Pietschmann, Liebold, and Ohler’s examination of online social immersion in 2014, the concern over how embodiment is configured in virtual spaces is ongoing. Further, questions of whether such embodiment is possible, and if the experience should be called ‘embodiment’, continue to be omnipresent. Several of the theories put forth about virtual embodiment are, at best, not fully explored or followed through to their logical conclusion. At worst, some of these theories paint a troubling, dehumanizing picture of the perception of virtual embodiment and the player/avatar relationship. The continued focus on the phenomenology of the experience is understandable, however, as the synthesis of player/user and in-game avatar is the locus of most, if not all, video game and virtual environment experiences.
Engaging with theories of virtual identity, gender, the player/avatar relationship during gameplay, and the often embattled juxtaposition of narrative and gameplay in video games, this paper explores the ways in which avatars are both characters and embodied experiences. This examination addresses ideas of the avatar as vehicle, the avatar as narrative character, and the avatar as cybernetic embodiment, and strives to find a synthesis between them, in order to come to terms with the unique structure of the player’s interactions with the virtual experience
Playing in Drag: A Study on Gender In Virtual and Non-Virtual Gaming
Full text linkThis project explores hybrid avatar identities and gender through an analysis of how players navigate gender in games that are popularly considered to be “for girls only” or “for men only”. It also considers the choice of avatar gender that players make in game, and their reasons for making that choice. Finally, it looks at the reported experiences of playing characters of both genders in both online visually rich immersive game environments, as well as leaner table-top RPG play. Using Butler’s gender trouble, we analyze how gender in game play can be both like and unlike drag performance. We also use the frame of gender trouble to consider the question of whether players who openly play games contrary to social expectations, or play an avatar of a different gender, are engaging in a transgressive act. Data was collected through a discourse analysis of online forums, participant observation, and autoethnographic reflection.We find that when the act of play itself is transgressive, there are opportunities to reach a community with a message that challenges dominant ideas of gender. However, the reasons why people choose to play a specific game or avatar within that game are very complex, and the content of the game, along with the reasons people choose a gendered avatar, or how they relate to the avatar both support and subvert dominant gender norms
Creating with (Un)Limited Possibilities: Normative Interfaces and Discourses in Super Mario Maker
Full text linkThis paper explores how the creative expression of players is framed within Super Mario Maker (Nintendo, 2015). Dispelling the promises of “endless possibilities” (Nintendo, 2015) with which the game is marketed, this article argues instead that a player’s creativity is oriented, limited, and influenced by the interface of the game (its possibilities, and impossibilities), the paratext supplied by Nintendo (advertising, user guide, and tutorials), the reception, as well as the appraisal of levels by the community of players within the closed social platform of the game. In order to analyze this process of “normativization,” the following article begins by proposing an actualization of theories of participatory culture as defined by Matt Hills (2002), Henry Jenkins (2006), Sam Ford, and Joshua Green (2013). From these remarks, this paper also proposes to locate some of Super Mario Maker’s normative elements that have an influence on players’ creations, using as a starting point McIntyre’s work on creativity (2012), Albera’s concept of “amateur-dispositive” (2011), Kline et al.’s “Three Circuits of Interactivity” (2003), and Consalvo’s gaming capital (2007). Finally, this paper analyzes certain recurring motifs found in Super Mario Maker’s user-generated levels that serve to benefit what I call the “paradigm of difficulty,” a pattern well-known within the video game medium since its infancy
Big Daddies and Broken Men: Father-Daughter Relationships in Video Games
Full text linkThis article discusses the recent trend of father-centred video game narratives and analyses the father-daughter relationships portrayed in four critically acclaimed and commercially successful games which exemplify this trend: BioShock 2 (2010), The Walking Dead (2012), BioShock Infinite (2013), and The Last of Us (2013). The author critiques these games for granting the father-figures agency over their daughter-figures and constructing them as moral barometers, helpful gameplay tools, and means for paternal redemption. The Walking Dead is discussed as the only positive portrayal of a father-daughter bond among this selection of games
Methodological Considerations in the Study of Tandem Play
Full text linkThis paper presents a detailed discussion of the research methods used in the first part of our ongoing study into “tandem play,” which we have defined as “two or more players engag[ing] with a single-player game together, moving through the game with a variety of potential motives.” Tandem play can take many forms, but the emphasis is on a collaborative, shared experience. Although tandem play has always been a part of video games, our research into it is the first, and so we had to design our study from the ground-up. In this paper we discuss four aspects of the study—the choice of game that subjects would play, recruitment strategy, our roles as researchers, and the effects of limited play time on the study—and how these decisions impacted our results
Affective Symmetry: Affect and Networks in Blizzard’s StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void
Full text linkThis paper employs a social network analysis of StarCraft II: Legacy of the Void to examine how the single-player campaign structures a largely non-player character (NPC) community. This analysis, which includes a convergence of social network analysis and affect theory, explores the dynamic interactive gameplay network experience of Legacy of the Void. Additionally, the data visualizations map the complex network of communal interactions that exist even in the single player campaign through the virtual community of NPCs into which a player immerses him or herself