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Would You Kindly Consider the Consequences?
Get PDFThis article seeks to introduce the application of laws to the plot lines of videogames as a source of legal scholarship and reflexive social critique through an analysis of the legal liability for the killing of Big Daddies in Bioshock
Media Literacy: Using a Game to Prompt Self-Reflection on Political Truth Biases
Get PDFIn this paper we examine how games can both capture player biases around truthfulness and facilitate self-reflection on such patterns of biases as a pedagogical approach to media literacy. Our focus is on the study of a game called Fibber, conducted with 344 participants online. The gameplay entails guessing whether statements made by presidential candidates are mostly factual and receiving aggregate feedback on their judgment patterns and potential truth biases. Specifically we sought to answer the questions: 1) how can the game prompt self-reflection in players, 2) what player characteristics are linked to self-reported acts of self-reflection and biases, and 3) how can the study inform future designs of media literacy and self-reflection games? Our results suggest that efforts to promote self-reflection in truth biases – a useful media literacy technique – may be facilitated through aggregation of in-game decisions that can serve as en end-of-game self-reflection prompt. Furthermore, self-reflection on potential political truth biases may be supported by specific in-game behaviors and player characteristics such as gender and political orientation. Future work includes a more experimental comparison of specific game mechanics and qualitative data to better understand the self-reflection process and possible subsequent changes in behavior as a result of self-reported acts of self-reflection.
Parasocial and Social Player-Avatar Relationships: Social Others in Thomas Was Alone
Get PDFThe nature of the relationship between the player and a video game avatar has been the cause of much academic discussion and debate. While in the past most studies focused on parasocial relationships, the new Banks-Bowman social categorization system provides a beneficial and enlightening new framework with which to examine how the player relates to the avatar. The interactive mediums through which players relate with playable characters separate such relationships from those created with film or literary protagonists. This interactivity allows for social player-avatar relationships, including the avatar-as-social-other relationship exemplified in the game Thomas Was Alone, and creates new possibilities important for game designers to consider. This article first briefly explores the academic discussions surrounding the player-avatar relationship in light of the new Banks-Bowman categories, then turns attention to the ways in which the avatar-as-social-other relationship and its corresponding emotionally intense gameplay are exemplified in the game Thomas Was Alone.
Nintendo Creators Purgatory: Why YouTubers should think twice before registering for the Nintendo Creators Program
Get PDFRecently, Nintendo launched the Nintendo Creators Program, designed to share profits generated from YouTube advertising revenue with YouTube creators using copyrighted Nintendo content. While the program is an insightful response to the problems many content rights holders face in policing YouTube for copyright infringement and submitting take down notices, it as has several pitfalls for creators including exposure to censorship, bureaucracy and content use and abuse
Insight: Exploring Hidden Roles in Collaborative Play
Get PDFThis paper looks into interaction modes between players in co-located, collaborative games. In particular, hidden traitor games, in which one or more players is secretly working against the group mission, has the effect of increasing paranoia and distrust between players, so this paper looks into the opposite of a hidden traitor – a hidden benefactor. Rather than sabotaging the group mission, the hidden benefactor would help the group achieve the end goal while still having a reason to stay hidden. The paper explores what games with such a role can look like and how the role changes player interactions. Finally, the paper addresses the divide between video game and board game interaction modes; hidden roles are not common within video games, but they are of growing prevalence in board games. This fact, combined with the exploration of hidden benefactors, reveals that hidden roles is a mechanic that video games should develop into in order to match board games’ complexity of player interaction modes
Conjuring the Ideal Self: an Investigation of Self-Presentation in Video Game Avatars
Get PDFSelf-presentation in online spaces has recently attracted a significant amount of attention in psychological literature. Video games allow players to create a detailed, unique character to represent themselves in the online social world. Research has found that there is a relationship between self-esteem and online self-presentation. However, little research has examined gender differences within this topic. The study aimed to address this gap in the literature by specifically examining gender differences in avatar creation, plus how this extends to gameplay choices, while confirming the previously noted effects of self-esteem on avatar creation. 40 participants created an avatar in The Elder Scrolls Online and completed questionnaires on General Self-Esteem, Body Self-Esteem plus an evaluation of their avatar. Results found that self-esteem predicted perceived avatar similarity, males and females engaged in the same amount of self-presentation, and gender affected class choice. Limitations and directions of future research are discussed
Editorial
Get PDFWhile preparing this issue of Press Start for publication, I finally conceded that the word "Gamergate" probably belonged in my spellchecker\u27s dictionary. Certainly, one could view the proliferation of this term – and its legitimatisation, implicit in my decision to stop having my word processor complain about its use – as a grim indictment of contemporary gaming culture. However, that a student journal of game studies can begin to address the issues surrounding Gamergate – however indirectly, in this case – demonstrates a laudable maturity in our discipline\u27s approach to the phenomenon
Brechtian Alienation in Videogames
Get PDFImmersion is constantly being broken in video games via the intrusion of mechanics and features that cause no end of distraction, breaking the player’s engagement in both the game’s narrative and in the gameplay. Yet these breaks are an integral part of games, whether through loading, saving or any other mechanical system that detracts from the playing the core game. These aren’t analysed as thoroughly as they could be in current game academia. However Bertolt Brecht’s “Verfremdungseffekt”, or distancing effect, provides a much needed foundation in the analysis of these sections within games that provoke a feeling of alienation
An Analysis of Open World PvP in LOTRO\u27s PvMP as a Case Study for PvP Games
No full textoai:ojs.pkp.sfu.ca:article/2This article focuses on the analysis of emergent gameplay, based on a case study of the author\u27s subjective gameplay experience of Player versus Monster Player (PvMP) in The Lord of the Rings Online (LOTRO). The argument presented here is that although there is a core system of Player versus Player (PvP) which LOTRO shares with other online games, each type of online game has a specific kind of PvP system which attracts players to engage in the gameplay. For instance, the open world sandbox type of PvP attracts certain players to play in LOTRO\u27s PvMP. One of the main aims of this study is thus to investigate some of the core systems of PvP gameplay in open world sandbox PvP. In this article, LOTRO is shown to offer unique opportunities for studying emergent gameplay in open world games, with particular relevance to PvP studies. Two of the core systems of PvP discussed include the design of the simple gameplay rules to support emergent gameplay, and the community\u27s attitudes towards player\u27s behaviours. The types of emergent gameplay discussed include free play versus negotiated fair play, the players\u27 utilisation of strategies in open world PvP to support collaborative and competitive gameplay, and the changing dynamics of open ended gameplay. It is hoped that the analysis provided in this article would form the basis of future work on a more general framework for understanding PvP in other online games
Compassionate Play in The Ludic Century
Get PDFIn 2013 game designer Eric Zimmerman wrote a provocative manifesto entitled ‘Manifesto for a Ludic Century’ (2013a), in which Zimmerman declares the 21st Century’s dominant cultural form to be games. Consequently, Zimmerman proposes that the individual occupant of the century is therefore in a continuous state of game engagement. As such, this re-contextualisation of game space and play, indefinitely articulates the individual as a constant player and character, and thusly challenges the notions of selfhood. Importantly it should be noted, the state of a ludic century is explicitly assumed as a truth, however superficial it may appear. Accordingly, this paper is then afforded to be an extended hypothesis of the proposed ludic century, rather than a critical dissection and response to Zimmerman’s manifesto. This enables a hermeneutic framing of the questions: ‘What does it mean to live in a ludic century?’and ‘in what capacity may the self exist in the ludic century?’ These questions will attempt to distinguish play as an inherent cultural logic that extends beyond the limitations of explicit ‘gamification’ or instrumental play (Stenros et al., 2009; Zichermann, 2010). Concluding, it is claimed that the ludic century elicits a sustained delusion of self, as the player is confined to the designed game structure, which inhibits authentic engagement and interaction with environment and self. It is proposed that this evokes a form of suffering, the compassionate play within the ludic century