Global Influences on Regional Industries; Game development in Nordic countries, China, and India


Toftedahl Marcus Marklund Björn Engström Henrik Backlund Per
2016 Chinese DiGRA '16

The game development industry has historically been strongly associated with a few particularly dominant actors, namely Japan and the US. As a result, video game development processes and game content that have originated from these actors are often used as a benchmark for what game development is and can be. Discussing the games industry from these perspectives can, however, gloss over important nuances that make other game development regions unique. With this in mind, this paper intends to discuss the ways in which different cultural and regional contexts are reflected in the structure of local game development industries and, to some extent, in produced game content. To inform this discussion, the authors use the foundation and growth of game development practices in three different regions: the Nordic region, India, and China. These three regions serve as specific exemplifying cases of how video game industries and praxis can take different shapes depending on what resources and components they have available. The paper concludes that all regional games industries and game development practices are heavily influenced by the precedent set by historically dominant actors. This results in game content and development practices that often mimics pre-established standards. But, over time, the conditions surrounding the formation of regional industries manifest themselves in more locally unique content and development processes.

 

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


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.

 

Out of Context – Understanding the Practicalities of Learning Games


Marklund Björn
2014 DiGRA '14 - Proceedings of the 2014 DiGRA International Conference

The aim of this paper is to highlight the lack of studies examining the contexts in which learning games are used. Learning game research tends to focus heavily on the game artefact by examining how different types of designs foster both engagement and learning and how well the axiomatic definitions of good game design correspond to sound learning principles. While the dissection of the anatomy of games is important, there is an overabundance of studies on learning games as isolated systems at the expense of examinations of the constraints, possibilities, and requirements imposed by their real-world context of use. Learning games that are intended to work in formal settings like K-12 classrooms constitute systems that significantly differ from the traditional game scenarios between game artefacts and their players. As of yet few researchers have set out to survey these systems in their entirety. This paper presents a small literature review of learning game research that highlight the absence of studies focused on understanding the practicalities of the development and use of learning games. The paper also juxtaposes the results of the review with outcomes of a study conducted “within” the identified gap to present arguments for why the current lack of practical research is problematic.