Playing as Travelling: At the Border of Leisure and Learning


Bjarnason Nökkvi Jarl
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

The aim of this article is to develop an interpretive framework based on the concept of travel, exploring the limits of play as a meaningful activity. By comparing how the concept of travel has been applied to literature and cinema, it becomes possible to discern how the interest of gameplay and travel can be said to align in novel ways, reconceptualising relatively immobile players as moving travellers and assigning them stake in the transformative properties often attributed to travel. It will be held that modern perspectives on travel share an affinity with the medium of games as a venue for action and that this element of games, in turn, generates a sense of presence relative to travel. Examining this intersection, situates the study of games at the borders of leisure and learning, challenging traditional divisions between leisure and selfcultivation, all the while engaging with games as a part of wide-ranging cultural phenomena.

 

A Recipe for Disaster? The Emerging Ludo Mix and the Outsourcing of Narrative


Bjarnason Nökkvi Jarl
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

Employing The Final Fantasy XV Universe as a case study, this article examines how the changing climate of game development, in tandem with established media mix strategies, contributes to the emergence of the ludo mix as media ecology. Through a comparative analysis of the climate of modern game development and the adoption of media mix strategies, as they relate to the franchise in question, the case is made that these two distinct phenomena intersect to create novel challenges and incentives for a particular kind of game development, wherein the mitigation of mounting production costs has resulted in the strategic outsourcing of Final Fantasy XV’s core narrative, negatively affecting the games critical reception. These findings posit challenges for the future of the ludo mix as the evolving technological, aesthetic and economic climate of game development continues further down the path that has led to this outcome.