scholarly journals Drawing Video Game Mental Maps: From Emotional Games to Emotions of Play

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hovig Ter Minassian
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Everyday Life ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Mental Maps ◽  
Emotional Meaning ◽  
Video Game Studies

By exploring emotions at play in video game experiences, we sought to analyze how people interact with digital spaces in everyday life. Taking a somewhat different view than much of the literature in the field of video game studies, we examined emotions that were created from users’ experience of games, rather than focusing on game design and gameplay. To that end, we based our analysis on 38 video game mental maps drawn by 26 people. We successively analyzed the topic, the structure, and the experiential and emotional meaning of each of the mental maps. Thus, we explored the diversity of emotions that participants linked to video games, and examined the mental maps in relation to what the respondents said about how and why they chose to draw a particular video game. Our work shows the importance of looking beyond the analysis of affects and gameplay, and of examining the emotions produced by the video game experience, along with what they can tell us about the role of games in individual and collective spatial experiences and sociability. Everything doesn’t happen on the screen, and what is lived within the game also depends on what is lived in the physical space of the player. In other words, video games aren’t emotional in themselves, but there are significant video game experiences that contribute to the structuration of individuals. 

Game Studies

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Shira Chess
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Narrative Structure ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Specific Approach ◽  
Emerging Media ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Media Objects

As a nascent form of screen culture, video games provide a challenging new lens to think about emerging media. Because video games do not abide by traditional narrative structure and because many different kinds of media objects fall under the purview of video games, they provide particular complications for researchers. In turn, within video game studies, which has been a growing field since the early 2000s, researchers often focus on a specific approach to understanding video games: studying the industry, studying audiences, or studying games as texts. Additionally, many researchers have found it useful to consider “assemblage”-type approaches that look holistically at several aspects of a video game object in order to understand the game from a broader context.

scholarly journals Interfejsy intymności. Tendencje intymistyczne we współczesnych grach wideo

2021 ◽  
pp. 215-239
Author(s):  
Piotr Kubiński
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Necessary Condition ◽  
Final Conclusion ◽  
Contemporary Culture ◽  
Video Game Design ◽  
The Individual ◽  
Media Form

The article concentrates on a specific tendency that can be observed in some video games created in recent years. This trend is that more and more video games present an intimate perspective and focus on the individual experience of the protagonist. The author of the article approaches the phenomenon in question mainly from the interpretative and genological perspective, since video games are not a media form commonly identified with the expression of intimate, formative or identitycreating experiences. The author starts with an analysis of the reasons why video games and intimistic texts are commonly perceived as very distant genre forms. Then he analyzes those video games that represent the intimistic tendency: Bury me, my Love (The Pixel Hunt, 2017), A Normal Lost Phone (Accidental Queens, 2017) and Wanderlust: Travel Stories (Different Tales, 2019). The analysis leads to the following conclusions: what is common for all the three discussed games is i.a. a particularly important role of the text as the basic semiotic material in which the game is realized. Even though Interfejsy intymności this concentration on the word is not a necessary condition of intimistic poetics – it definitely helps introducing such a dimension into the work. What is more, two of the three discussed games use the strategy of remediating a smartphone. In both cases, the creators designed new interfaces modeled on the real ones and turned navigating on the phone screen into basic game mechanics. This, in turns, means that intimistic tendencies in video games stimulate reaching for new genre forms. This process of remediation is possible mainly because modern intimacy has shifted very clearly towards the digital, and smartphones have become its basic tool. This phenomenon, which the author of the article calls ‘intimacy 2.0’, is a result of the fact that: (a) contemporary culture is deeply anchored in the digital and its interfaces, and (b) the importance of smartphones in everyday communication and media consumption has been growing enormously in recent years. The final conclusion of the paper is as follows: all the discussed games use an intimate perspective to evoke empathy, which was not a typical video game design goal. This is especially interesting, given the fact, that all the analyzed games remain primarily commercial products that are driven by the laws of the market.

scholarly journals The expressive power of the Possible Worlds Theory in video games: when narratives become interactive and fictional spaces

2015 ◽  
Vol 27 ◽  
pp. 289-302
Author(s):  
Antonio José Planells de la Maza
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
Possible Worlds ◽  
Expressive Power ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Fictional World ◽  
Philosophical Concept ◽  
Interactive Nature ◽  
The Relationship

The philosophical concept of possible worlds (Lenzen, 2004; Lewis, 1986) has been used in literary studies and narratology (Dolezel, 1998; Eco, 1979) to define the way in which we conceive different narrative possibilities inside the fictional world. In Game Studies, some authors have used this concept to explore the relationship between game design and game experience (Kücklich, 2003; Maietti, 2004; Ryan, 2006), while Jesper Juul (2005) has studied the fictional world evoked by the connection between rules and fiction. In this paper we propose a new approach to video games as ludofictional worlds - a set of possible worlds which generates a game space based on the relationship between fiction and game rules. In accordance with the concepts of minimal departure (Ryan, 1991) and indexical term (Lewis, 1986), the position of the player character determines his/her actual world and the next possible or necessary world. Lastly, we use this model to analyse the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and show that the possible worlds perspective provides a useful, flexible and modular framework for describing the internal connections between ludofictional worlds and the interactive nature of playable game spaces.

Paratext

2016 ◽  
pp. 274-296
Author(s):  
Daniel J. Dunne
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Active Element ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Primary Focus

This chapter examines paratext as an active element within video games. Paratext, as taken from Gérard Genette's works has often been cited within the context of video games, but not examined in detail. Current scholarship focuses on epitext, but not peritext, which is Genette's primary focus. Mia Consalvo and Peter Lunenfeld's work discuss the epitextual importance of paratext within video games, with only a hint towards the importance of peritext. Through a brief exploration of paratext's history in both literature and games, this chapter will reveal a need for deeper analysis within video game studies. Focusing on in-game, in-system and in-world types of paratexts this paper will attempt to formalise the unaddressed issue of paratext in video games.

scholarly journals Ludology and narratology: Legend about the battle

Kultura ◽  
2020 ◽  
pp. 263-280
Author(s):  
Biljana Mitrović
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Academic Community ◽  
The State ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Academic Disciplines ◽  
Game Mechanics ◽  
Video Game Studies

The paper provides an overview and an analysis of the narratological and ludological approach to the study of video games and a review of the establishment of the fledgling field of game studies. The starting points of both theoretical positions, derived from the same literary theoretical corpus, are presented. The state of this discipline and the academic tensions in this field also indicate the ways in which academic community functions, as well as the mechanisms of their division or complication in the organizational and methodological plan. The ludological approach, which reduces the study of video games to the description and classification of rules and game mechanics, is regarded as reductionist, but also useful and applicable for understanding the specifics of video games. It is concluded that ludology, together with narratology and other academic disciplines in the field of humanities, forms a complete corpus of video game studies.

scholarly journals The Alert Collector: Game On to Game After: Sources for Video Game History

2019 ◽  
Vol 59 (1) ◽  
pp. 7
Author(s):  
Kristen J. Nyitray
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Public Library ◽  
Game Studies ◽  
Professional Career ◽  
Special Collections ◽  
Video Game Studies ◽  
Support Research

Kristen Nyitray began her immersion in video games with an Atari 2600 and ColecoVision console and checking out games from her local public library. Later in life, she had the opportunity to start building a video game studies collection in her professional career as an archivist and special collections librarian. While that project has since ended, you get the benefit of her expansive knowledge of video game sources in “Game On to Game After: Sources for Video Game History.” There is much in this column to help librarians wanting to support research in this important entertainment form. Ready player one?—Editor

Gaming the gamer? – The ethics of exploiting psychological research in video games

2016 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 106-123 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johnny Hartz Søraker
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Social Relations ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Design ◽  
User Behavior ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Psychological Research ◽  
Rating Systems ◽  
Content Type ◽  
Ethical Implications

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the ethical implications of video game companies employing psychologists and using psychological research in game design. Design/methodology/approach The author first argues that exploiting psychology in video games may be more ethically problematic than familiar application domains like advertising, gambling and political rhetoric. Then an overview of the effects particular types of game design may have on user behavior is provided, taking into account various findings and phenomena from behavioral psychology and behavioral economics. Findings Finally, the author concludes that the corresponding ethical problems cannot – and should not – be addressed by means of regulation or rating systems. The author argues instead that a more promising countermeasure lies in using the same psychological research to educate gamers (children in particular) and thereby increase their capacity for meta-cognition. Originality/value The importance of this lies in the tremendous effect these behavior-modifying technologies may have upon our self-determination, well-being and social relations, as well as corresponding implications for the society.

scholarly journals Choices and Consequences: The Role of Players in The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series

2017 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 350-358 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Genovesi
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Comic Books ◽  
Active Role ◽  
Interactive Approach ◽  
Transmedia Storytelling ◽  
The Walking Dead ◽  
Walking Dead

Abstract One of the most important features in a transmedia structure, as Max Giovagnoli argues in his book Transmedia: Storytelling e Comunicazione [Transmedia: Storytelling and Communication], is the development of the user’s decision-making power, defined by the author as “choice excitement.” In this, every choice of the user should have a consequence in the fictional universe of a specific franchise. Consequently, a narrative universe that wants to emphasize choice excitement and the active role of people can focus on video games, where the interactive approach is prominent. This essay will discuss a specific video game, based on the famous franchise of The Walking Dead. This brand, which appears in comic books, novels, TV series, Web episodes and video games, is analysable not only as an exemplary case of transmedia storytelling, where every ramification of the franchise published in different media is both autonomous and synergistic with the others, but also by focusing on the choice excitement of users in the first season of the video game The Walking Dead: A Telltale Game Series.

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