Press Start

Since the onset of E-sports we have seen the development from casual players to professional players who push the boundary of game mastery to new heights via coordinated team play. In this short paper I explore how a group of video game players adopt military-style communication methods and strategies to coordinate their actions in the popular tactical First Person Shooter (FPS) video game DayZ (Bohemia Interactive, 2014).  Utilising the key components of team interaction in the context of distributed and ad-hoc military teams (Pascual et al., 1997), I show how a group of players evolved their interactions from team play to squad play. I argue that squad play is an advancement of the strategic and tactical thinking embodied in team play through the adoption of real-world military interaction and communication strategies

Duell, Adam

English

From Team Play to Squad Play: The Militarisation of Interactions in Multiplayer FPS Video Games

Modern game scholarship in the past two decades has known two dominant, yet paradoxical, tendencies in theorizing the subject of play: an interpellationary account and a deconstructivist one. Going from Miguel Sicart\u27s concept of the ethical player as an initial compromise between the two, this article argues for an ideological subject of play that is a split subject. While a \u27playing subject\u27, as a phenomenologically present Foucaultian subject constructed by the governing structure of rules, we must recognize the parallel subjectivity of the fixed \u27played subject\u27, inherent to – and narrativized by – the game as an avatar, visual narrator or sheer content. In this constellation, the player shows to have a merely precarious position over the played, ready to lose control at the whim of the game

de Wildt, Lars A.W.J.

Precarious Play: To Be or Not to Be Stanley

Right now, video games are being discussed, dissected and developed by students from a huge range of disciplines. With some notable exceptions, the overwhelming majority of higher education institutions lack a dedicated game studies department. As evidenced by the continued success of respected institutions such as DiGRA and ground-breaking publications such as Game Studies, however, our discipline is thriving. It just happens to be thriving in some unlikely places

Barr, Matthew

Press Start  Editorial 
 
Press Start 2014 | Volume 1 | Issue 1 
ISSN: 2055-8198 
URL: http://press-start.gla.ac.uk 
Press Start is an open access student journal that publishes the best 
undergraduate and postgraduate research, essays and dissertations from across 
the multidisciplinary subject of game studies. Press Start is published by HATII 
at the University of Glasgow. 
 
 
Editorial 
Matthew Barr 
University of Glasgow 
 
 
Right now, video games are being discussed, dissected and developed 
by students from a huge range of disciplines. With some notable 
exceptions, the overwhelming majority of higher education institutions 
lack a dedicated game studies department. As evidenced by the 
continued success of respected institutions such as DiGRA and ground-
breaking publications such as Game Studies, however, our discipline is 
thriving. It just happens to be thriving in some unlikely places. 
The study of games is a truly multidisciplinary endeavour. Students the 
world over are producing work that draws on their passion for video 
games, regardless of whether their essay, dissertation or thesis is – 
administratively speaking – grounded in another discipline. Increasingly, 
students studying subjects as diverse as psychology, art history, 
education, literature, philosophy, and computer science opt to explore or 
document some game-related phenomenon within the context of their 
chosen subject.  
The current state of play may be characterised, then, not by the study 
of games being colonised by more established disciplines, but by game 
studies infiltrating other subjects from within. Indeed, this grassroots 
growth is encouraging evidence of the discipline’s excellent health, and 
Press Start exists to encourage these multifarious beginnings in game 
studies. The journal is intended to provide students from any discipline 
with an outlet for their games-related work, as well as offering a peer-
driven environment in which students and recent graduates may 
develop confidence in their writing. Our authors, reviewers and Editorial 
Board are comprised entirely of students and recent graduates: there 
are opportunities here for anyone with a burgeoning academic interest 
in video games. 
In this first issue, the range and complexity of the work being carried 
out by game studies students – regardless of their ascribed discipline – 
is revealed. We offer our congratulations to the authors whose work is 
featured here: Lars de Wildt, James Dyer, Toh Weimin, Adam Duell, and 
Daniel Dunne. Ranging from Brechtian alienation in video games to the 
militarisation of gameplay, a great deal of ground is covered in these 
Barr  Editorial 
Press Start   2014 | Volume 1 | Issue 1 
ISSN: 2055-8198  ii 
URL: http://press-start.gla.ac.uk 
 
five papers. I must also extend a personal thanks to our reviewers and 
Editorial Board for the tremendous effort they have poured into Press 
Start. It has been a learning experience for us all, and I am grateful for 
their patience and hard work. 
This is only the beginning: as sure as the subterranean brickwork of 
World 1-2 follows the blue skies and fluffy clouds of World 1-1 in Super 
Mario Bros., there will be a second issue of Press Start. If you have an 
idea for a paper, or have been working on an essay or other piece of 
work that relates to video games, we warmly invite you to consider 
publishing your work with us. 
 


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From Team Play to Squad Play: The Militarisation of Interactions in Multiplayer FPS Video Games

Precarious Play: To Be or Not to Be Stanley

Editorial

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