The Unintended Consequences of Using Twitch as a University Professor

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Brown Ashley
2019 DiGRA '19 - Abstract Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

 

Animal Crossing: New Leaf and the Diversity of Horror in Video Games

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Brown Ashley Marklund Björn
2015 DiGRA '15 - Proceedings of the 2015 DiGRA International Conference

This paper explores the diverse ways horror can be conveyed in games by investigating how games that are not associated with the horror genre can produce unsettling or scary experiences. To conduct this exploration, this study uses interaction mapping, as outlined by Consalvo and Dutton (2006), to examine a game that has thoroughly pleasant and cutesy trappings: Animal Crossing: New Leaf (Nintendo 2013). The interactions were analysed according to three themes prevalent within literature on horror and horror games: the loss of agency, the Freudian uncanny, and the Heideggerian uncanny. Ultimately, this paper demonstrates that a game which is not explicitly scary is occasionally made so through its rudimentary simulation of human behaviour and societal constructs as well as its autonomous functions and inclusion of real-world time, showing that games have very diverse means of conveying unsettling or horrifying experiences. The paper also shows how frameworks used to analyse games in the horror genre can be applicable to critical readings of non-horror games in order to understand the unexpected player reactions they can evoke.

 

Players and the Love Game: Conceptualizing Cheating with Erotic Role Players in World of Warcraft

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Brown Ashley
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Using data complied over 9 months of fieldwork, this paper aims to explore how erotic role play in World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) has, in some cases challenged and in other cases reinforced, traditional Western concepts of monogamy and fidelity. Data was collected through the use of in-game interviews with self-identified erotic role players on a heavily populated role play server located in the United States. Discussions and analysis aim to revisit and redefine old diametric binaries; from what constitutes cheating and what constitutes fidelity, to when erotic play leaves the screen and enters the biological body. Particularly, the themes to be discussed relate to how players negotiate real life romantic relationships alongside ones in game and how engaging in sex online conflates traditional notions of fidelity.