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"Hey! Listen!": Video Game Dialogue, Integrative Complexity and the Perception of Quality
Get PDFAs a research variable, integrative complexity has a long, well-documented history as a predictor and correlate for real-world phenomenon (for examples, see Suedfeld et al., 2005 or Conway, Suedfeld, & Clements, 2003). Recently, McCullough & Conway (2017a) and McCullough & Conway (2017b) displayed the variable’s viability in the understanding of pop cultural domains. The present study builds upon this previous research and explores potential complexity differences between winning and losing video games at the Spike Video Game Awards. It compared the integrative complexity of a sample of video game dialogue for three categories (Best Shooter, Best RPG and Best Action/Adventure). Originally, individual ANOVAs revealed significant main effects for only the integrative and dialectical complexity for the Best Shooter category. An ad-hoc ANOVA of all three categories revealed similar results; however, across all analyses a consistent mean pattern emerged: The winning games averaged lower complexity scores than the losing games. These findings suggest a general association between simplistic dialogue and high-quality video games, providing keen insight into the underlining psychology of video games, and establishes a strong foundation for future research
From Zelda to Stanley: Comparing the Integrative Complexity of Six Video Game Genres
Get PDFProponents of the walking simulator genre laud it for itscomplex storytelling. As Gohardani (2017) explains, walking simulators are “about dropping the player into an experience packed with ... a compelling narrative” (para. 5). In order to more fully understand why this genre is so closely associated with storytelling and to provide insight into the underlying psychology of genre in video games, this article linguistically evaluates the narratives of walking simulators. It uses integrative complexity, a linguistic variable with an established research history, to compare the complexity of the writing in walking simulators to the writing in five mainstream video game genres (RPGs, shooters, action/adventure games, fighting games, and strategy games). Randomly sampling dialogue from 30 video games, a one-way ANOVA (analysis of variance) revealed no statistically significant linguistic differences between the genres. These results indicate that compelling and complex writing can be found in any genre and is likely not a function of any individual genre, contrary to popular opinion. This study provides a foundation for future researchers to build upon and continue the linguistic evaluation of walking simulators
Domesticating the First-Person Shooter: The Emergent Challenge of Gone Home’s Homely Chronotope
Get PDFThis article argues that—due to their lack of conformity to key characteristics of dominant videogame paradigms, particularly the violent competitiveness of “agonistic” play—the walking simulator is at the heart of a struggle over changing definitions and material realities of videogame consumption and production, linked to the emergence of disruptive female and queer player and creator identities (Anthropy, 2012; Chess, 2017; Juul, 2012; Shaw, 2015). The genre thus provides a valuable alternative space within what has been referred to as the “hegemonic” limits of the game industry, which privileges—through various historically embedded mechanisms—a white, male, cis-gendered, and heteronormative audience (Fron,Fullerton, Morie, & Pearce, 2007). Such progressive gains have been hotly contested by so-called hardcore gamers (Dymek, 2012; Gursoy, 2013; Kagen, 2017), who view them as a threat to the prevailing orthodoxy of game production that has historically served their interests.
Furthermore, by uncritically adopting the dominant and normative industry-oriented paradigm, game studies has served to further reify this hegemonic player through the replication of its values in rigidly formalist definitions of play constructed around agonistic values (Aarseth, 1997; Juul, 2003). I call this tendency “orthodox game studies,” a position that has bled into wider discourses wherein walking simulators are constructed as “not real games.” I argue that Gone Home (Fullbright, 2013), a prominent example of the genre, challenges industry hegemony and orthodox game studies by enacting a subversive appropriation of first-person shooter (FPS) mechanicsand a radical decentring of the hegemonic gamer—constructing a domestic space as the ground for the development of new subjectivities of play (Fullerton, Morie, & Pearce, 2007). To articulate this, I draw on Bakhtin’s (1981b) notion of the chronotope, demonstrating the critical relevance of this theoretical tool to game studies
Editorial: March 2019 (Vol. 5, Issue 1)
No full textOver the past year, we’ve had a change of hands from our founder, Matt Barr, to our new editor-in-chief, Mahli-Ann Butt. We’ve taken some extra time to put together this issue with great pride and care.
Through a friendly double-open peer-reviewing process, for this open-call issue we’ve published 7 excellent game studies student articles:
Dennis Jansen’s ‘The Environment at Play: Confronting Nature in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and the “Frostfall” Mod,’ argues that the natural environment in the base game of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) is devoid of agency and power in the face of the player’s colonialist endeavours to explore, conquer and master that environment. Jansen thus discusses how the “Frostfall” counteracts the destructive and oppositional relationship between the player and nature in Skyrim.
Brianna Dym’s ‘The Burden of Queer Love,’ explores attempts by game development studio Bioware to create video games that are inclusive of gay, lesbian, and bisexual players by writing in queer romantic narrative subplots into their games. While Bioware’s attempts are certainly not malicious, they fail time and time again, game after game, to break free of the hypermasculine and heterocentric culture dominant in the gaming industry. Instead, Bioware appropriates queer experiences and construes them as a burden to the player so as not to displace the fantasies of male, heterosexual gamers.
Chris Alton’s ‘Aya of the Beholder: An Examination of the Construction of Real-World Locations in Parasite Eve,’ uses the foundational example of Square’s Parasite Eve (1997) to examine the ways in which real-world locations and approximations of such are represented within video game worlds. Alton examines the methods through which videogames can create spaces which evoke the conceptual idea of a given place, both through audio/visual and interactive means, without constructing a one-to-one simulacrum of the location. Thus, the player actively contributes in the transformation of an actionable virtual space into an actualized lived place.
Anna Maria Kalinowski’s ‘Silent Halls: P.T., Freud, and Psychological Horror,’ draws from Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny to address how the psychological concepts surface within the never-ending hallway of P.T. (2014) and create a deeply psychologically horrifying experience.
Sean Pellegrini’s ‘And How Does That Make You Feel?: A Psychological Approach to a Classic Game Studies Debate – Violent Video Games and Aggression,’ investigates the claim that violent video games can cause aggression. The findings of this study suggest that people highly correlated with the Dark Triad of personality are a high-risk group for aggression, but that this aggression is unrelated to video games.
Daniel Odin Shaw’s ‘Ideology in BioShock: A Critical Analysis,’ analyses the Bioshock series, with a particular focus on the treatment of ideology. By examining the games, with a particular reference the use of procedural rhetoric, this paper argues that this series presents a critique of extreme ideology itself.
Hayley McCullough’s ‘“Hey! Listen!”: Video Game Dialogue, Integrative Complexity and the Perception of Quality,’ explores potential complexity differences between winning and losing video games at the Spike Video Game Awards. It compared the integrative complexity of a sample of video game dialogue for three categories (Best Shooter, Best RPG and Best Action/Adventure). Across all analyses a consistent mean pattern emerged: The winning games averaged lower complexity scores than the losing games. These findings suggest a general association between simplistic dialogue and high-quality video games, providing keen insight into the underlying psychology of video games, and establishes a strong foundation for future research.
As this issue demonstrates, Press Start is always delighted to be publishing the best new work by early career researchers from a wide variety of disciplinary fields.
The Press Start Journal team also welcomed many new members to our editorial board. During this transition period, we’ve begun a mentoring program for our senior members to share their knowledge of the editorial process. This spirit of mentorship, guidance, and support is something we hope to continue into our journal’s future as it reflects our larger goal of encouraging game studies students to share their work and take part in a lively, academic community.
Once again, we’re seeking new members to replace our outgoing board, who are graduating and moving on to other things. Board members of Press Start serve as key stakeholders and decision-makers for developing the journal and actively work to support student scholarship in game studies. Current students and graduates within one year of their graduation date are eligible to apply. Our deadline to apply to be on the editorial board this year has just past, but if you are interested in working with Press Start in the future, you can find more information on the responsibilities of an editor here.
In 2018, we saw some of our editors present on a panel at DiGRA in Turin, Italy. This was an exciting opportunity for our new members to sit down with established members and discuss our hopes, expectations, and advice regarding the publishing process in general, and with Press Start in particular. While everyone has a wide range of backgrounds and experiences, some commonalities emerged. Fostering an open, supportive, caring – in other words, overtly feminist – atmosphere for editors, reviewers, and contributors has been our most important goal. Reaching out to, and encouraging, junior scholars, new graduate students, upper year undergraduate students, and scholars whose first language is not English are also central goals for Press Start. Given the often intimidating, daunting, and confusing process of academic publishing, we hope to make Press Start an appealing home for exciting, innovative, unusual, and social justice-oriented games research.
As students and emerging academics, we believe Press Start should embody the kinds of practices that we want to see become standards for academia. Thus, in order to see a greater diversity in game studies scholarship, we have introduced an initiative to translate our calls for papers into as many languages as we can find volunteers: http://tinyurl.com/yblfxkk4. Press Startencourages submissions from ESL writers, especially if they are not yet fully confident of their ability to write academically in English but want to learn and improve.
Press Start Journal is a labour of love and we thank you for your continued support of our journal.
Best wishes from the Press Start editorial board,
Mahli-Ann Butt, Landon Kyle Berry, Sarah Stang, Alicia Copeland, Leandro Augusto Borges Lima, Erin MacLean, Reece Thomson, and Dennis Wilson
Walking Simulators and Interactive Fiction in the Composition Classroom: Reading, Writing, and Making
Get PDFIn answer to calls for a 21st century reconsideration of traditional procedures of classroom writing, I offer student-created interactive fiction (IF) as a classroom exercise that blends digital literacy, games-based pedagogy, and writing practice. I find walking simulators like Firewatchand The Stanley Parable serveas effective models of IF games. The walking simulator genre shows that by promoting a sense of immersion, exploration, and letting players take their time, a game can reveal advanced narrativity and literariness, as well as a range of rhetorical possibilities. By workshopping IF platforms such as Twine or InkScript, students can learn to create their own textual walking simulators. In this way,they can engage in an accessible, text-based form of worldbuilding and learn to craft explorable, unfolding narratives that represent their research, point of view, or argument. This article explores the pedagogical potential of interactive fiction, discusses some of the literary possibilities found within walking simulators, offers some ideas about leading a composition classroom in reading and analyzing these games, and provides a brief overview of getting started with worldbuilding in Twine or Ink
And How Does That Make You Feel? A Psychological Approach to a Classic Game Studies Debate – Violent Video Games and Aggression
Get PDFMany media outlets, researchers and organisations claim that violent video games can cause aggression. The present study had participants play violent and non-violent video games and measured aggression after gameplay to investigate this claim. The susceptibility of a personality type called the Dark Triad (individuals high on psychopathic, narcissistic and machiavellian traits) and camera styles (First or Third-Person) of violent games were also investigated. Two-way ANOVAs were used for statistical analysis to compare participants. Participants who were highly correlated with the Dark Triad of personality had a statistically significant higher mean score of aggression. This increase in aggression remained irrespective of the game (violent or non-violent) played during the experiment. Violent video games and video game camera-style did not have any effect on aggression. The findings suggest that people highly correlated with the Dark Triad of personality are a high-risk group for aggression, but that this aggression is unrelated to video games.  
Ideology in Bioshock: A Critical Analysis
Get PDFThis paper will analyse the Bioshock series, with a particular focus on the treatment of ideology within these games. This popular and critically acclaimed series contains deeply political themes, including various controversial ideologies such as Objectivism, and Collectivism. The treatment of these ideologies within the games have been widely contested and interpreted. Writers and critics have tended to focus on Bioshock games as a critique of particular political ideologies. By examining the games, with a particular reference the use of procedural rhetoric, this paper will argue that this series instead presents a critique of extreme ideology itself
The Walking Simulator’s Generic Experiences
Get PDFThis article examines walking simulators through the lens of video game genre study. Following Arsenault’s (2011) thesis which theorized genre as the “temporary crystallization of a common cultural consensus” (pp. 333–334), it maps the shared horizon of expectations of the walking simulator. The first section presents an overview of genre theory in the field of game studies. The second part assembles a corpus of five iconic walking simulators based on a discourse analysis conducted in four gaming communities: scholars, journalists, designers, and Steam users. The third portion builds on this discourse analysis to conceptualize five clusters of “generic resources” (Gregersen, 2014) that synthesize the collective understanding of the walking simulator’s generic experiences, which are then analyzed in the final segment with reference to one exemplar game of the corpus. Each analysis introduces a specific “generic effect” (Arsenault, 2011)—peacefulness, secretiveness, fatalism, everydayness, and self-reflexive distanciation—that contributes to ongoing efforts to outline the experiences of this genre. The conclusion ends witha brief discussion about the importance of transgeneric studies
Silent Halls: P.T., Freud, and Psychological Horror
Get PDF“What is a ghost?”“An emotion, a terrible moment condemned to repeat itself over and over…”-The Devil’s Backbone (Del Toro, 2001)
This paper analyses P.T.(Kojima Productions, 2014), a playable teaser made to demo a planned instalment within the Silent Hill franchise. While the game is now indefinitely cancelled, P.T. has cemented itself not only as a full gaming experience, but also as a juggernaut in genre of psychological horror. Drawing from Sigmund Freud’s concept of the uncanny, the aim of the paper is to address how these psychological concepts surface within the now infamous never-ending hallway of P.T. and create a deeply psychologically horrifying experience
From Walking Simulator to Reflective Simulator: A Practice-Based Perspective
Get PDFThe aim of this paper is to contribute both theoretically and methodologically to discussions on walking simulator video games. We base our reflection on results grounded in a video game design project conducted as part of our master\u27s thesis. Our research perspective is rooted in pragmatist and constructivist theories of design, such as the epistemology of practice (Schön, 1983; 1992) and project-grounded research (Findeli, 2005). To define the player\u27s experience, we relied on John Dewey\u27s (1934) concept of aesthetic experience. In this context, an individual\u27s experience is characterised as reflective, i.e., meaningful, introspective, creative, and situated. Our project consisted in designing a tailored reflective experience for a unique player—the designer\u27s younger sister. This involved creating a playable prototype featuring gameplay characteristics that game theorists and critics might consider elements of a walking simulator. We describe how the player had a reflective experience both during her interaction with the game and thereafter. Adopting a reflective approach allowed us to better describe and appreciate the life-changing potential of simulators and to ultimately shed light on their capabilities, rather than concentrate on their limitations (Clarke, 2017). We therefore propose a new label, namely, “reflective simulator,” as a way to contribute to theoretical discussions about walking simulators. This case study provides a methodological contribution to thefield of game studies by describing and reflecting upon the theoretical anchors underpinning game desig