Disciplinary Identity of Game Scholars: An Outline

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Mäyrä Frans Van Looy Jan Quandt Thorsten
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

There has been academic research work directed at games and play for decades, but the field has been somewhat scattered, and around the turn of the millennium the idea of establishing a new discipline, dedicated to the study of games in their own right gained prominence. The conference, journal and other publication activity in games research has expanded during the last decade, but it remains unclear how many contemporary academics working on games could be seen to represent a unified group, sharing a common disciplinary identity. This paper reports the first results from an international survey (valid n = 544), carried out among the DiGRA mailing list subscribers, as well as among the members of ECREA and ICA games research groups, aimed at probing the background education, orientation and academic practices of games researchers. The findings highlight the great diversity of educational backgrounds and of the current self-identified research fields, but also the dynamic interdisciplinary changes from one field to another, and how strong the identification as a “digital games researcher” is among the survey respondents.

 

Doing It Themselves! A Mixed-Method Study into the Motivations of Players to ‘Create’ in the Context of Gaming

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Van Den Bosch Frederik Ribbens Wannes Van Looy Jan
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

The idea of digital games being a space for creativity is as old as the medium itself (Sotamaa, 2003). Not only can the interaction of players within the virtual world of a digital game be seen as an act of creation (Juul, 2005), the digital nature of those worlds is often perceived as an invitation for alteration and modification (Jansz & Theodorsen, 2009). Player creation manifests itself on multiple levels: players can create their own rules (Myers, 2008), adjust the look of game characters (Ducheneaut, Wen, Yee, & Wadley, 2009), and build new objects or construct new virtual environments (Postigo, 2007). In this paper we explore how user-generated content in digital games can be conceived within the conventional knowledge of player motivations and uses. In this study we focus on players of two particular games: Spore (PC, Mac) and LittleBigPlanet (PS3). Both titles have consistently been promoted as creative game experiences and have introduced several popular user-generated content principles into mainstream gaming. By consequence, we can ask ourselves if and how these new game mechanics have an impact on players’ uses and gratifications. Our data has been collected through a multi-method approach, combining in-depth interviews (N = 8) and an online survey (N = 97). As such, both qualitative and quantitative research was carried out to examine the motivations to play games which allow for the creation and the exchange of game content. In our in-depth interviews, respondents indicate playing almost all game genres and multiple motivations are put forward. The possibility to create is mentioned by all interviewees, but not always in the same manner. Some are involved in the actual production of user-generated content. Their main motivation for purchasing the game is to create new game content. Playing the content created by the developers is merely a way of becoming inspired and unlocking new build options. Others appreciate the create option for its direct effect on the available content. These players enjoy the contributions of more creative players, but are not interested in building new content themselves. Three main reasons are provided for not using the level-editor: a lack of spare time, the degree of effort it requires and the perceived pressure to produce high quality content. This last threshold touches upon a social and utilitarian dimension of creativity. Participants automatically compare their own creative potential to the quality of available user-generated content. Building new levels needs to be justified in the ecology of existing user-created material; it needs to add a worthwhile new game experience. Likewise, interviewees using the level-editor mention the importance of user-input in the course of the design process. Building user-generated content is perceived as a challenge which needs to be on par with an implicit, socially constructed standard. This threshold for succeeding results from the quality level of other user-created content and/or the feedback from other players. In the online survey, motivations to play “creative games” are measured using an extended version of the uses and gratifications scale developed by Sherry & Lucas (Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, & Lachlan, 2006). The twenty items measuring motivations for Fantasy (α = .78), Arousal (α =.67), Competition (α = .58), Challenge (α = .73), Diversion (α = .88) and Social Interaction (α = .76) are supplemented by a new Create construct (α = .65) consisting of four items (“I play games because they allow me to create new things”, “Video games stimulate my creativity”, “I sometimes play games with my own rules or I ignore the rules of the game” and “I often seek alternative ways of playing”). Challenge scores highest with a mean of 3.79 (SD = 0.81), followed by Arousal with a mean of 3.43 (SD = 0.72) and Create with a mean of 3.28 (SD = 0.81). In general, all seven motivations score relatively high, which is in line with participants’ high scores on most genre preference questions. This comes as no surprise, as games such as LittleBigPlanet, and to a lesser extent Spore, allow for multiple forms of play. Furthermore, Create correlates with challenge (r = 0.64, p < 0.01) which supports the hypothesis raised during the interviews that creation is challenge-related. Finally, when asked about participants’ past creative game experiences, results reveal a strong orientation towards game creation. In the past, 81% of the participants used a level-editor, 56% built an entire level and 15.5% participated in making a mod. 20.2% even indicated having contributed, at least once, to the development of a game. These last two activities require in most cases specialized knowledge on coding or graphical computing, revealing a strong willingness to create in at least a subset of our sample. In sum, this study shows that the appeal of user-generated content gaming lies in a mixture of traditional gaming motives and the will to create new gaming experiences.

 

Forbidden or Promising Fruit? An experimental study into the effects of warning labels on the purchase intention of digital gamers

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Decock Jan Van Looy Jan
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Using a forced choice paradigm, in a 2 (age: -18, +18) x 4 (label: no label, 18+, violence label, extreme label) x 2 (cover type: soft, hard) mixed factorial design, this study was able to experimentally show the effects of warning labels on the preference of game covers. Warning labels made these game covers more desirable. This effect was only found for subjects of minor age (12 to 17 years old) and not for adult subjects (aged 18 and more). No difference was found in effects of evaluative or descriptive ratings: both age label and content label had the same attracting effect on game covers. Given these results a revision of the process behind the forbidden fruit effect, and the role of reactance in it, seems in order.

 

You Are What You Play? A Quantitative Study into Game Design Preferences across Gender and Their Interaction with Gaming Habits

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Vermeulen Lotte Van Looy Jan De Grove Frederik Courtois Cédric
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Digital games, like 먹튀검증업체, have a history of being seen as boys’ toys (Heeter & Winn, 2008; Bulley, 2009). As an explanation for the gender bias of gaming as a pastime, previous research has pointed to the male dominance in the game industry (Flanagan, 2005; Herrling, 2006; Fullerton et al., 2008), the gender bias of game spaces and culture (Bryce, Rutter & Sullivan, 2006; Taylor et al., 2009), and digital exclusion (Bertozzi, 2008, Linn, 2008). Other studies point to the fact that game content all too often highlights male themes and sexual representations of females in games (Gorriz & Medina, 2000; Ogletree & Drake, 2007; Down & Smith, 2009). Nonetheless, gaming is now rapidly gaining popularity as a pastime among women (Bryce & Rutter, 2002; PIP, 2008; ESA, 2008; Vosmeer, 2010). Moreover, there is a growing interest of the game industry in the female demographic with more and more ‘girl game’ releases (ESA, 2008). This could point to intrinsic differences in game design preferences between female and male gamers. Yet previous research has shown that gender differences in gaming habits and preferences are to a large extent due to issues of access and previous experience (Jenson et al., 2007). The purpose of this study is to shed light on the differences in game design preferences between female and male gamers and their relation to previous game experience. Thus we aim to gain insight into the relationship between gender and type of player as interacting factors. Our hypothesis thereby is that gender differences in game design preferences diminish among core genre players because of more similar interests and experience. For testing this hypothesis we distinguish between ’core’ genre players (CP) and ‘non-core’ genre players (NCP), and between male and female gamers. Respondents who play shooters, fighting, action-adventure, sports, racing, strategy or MMO games at least once a week are considered to be core genre players. Our goal thereby is not to define absolute categories but rather to make an ad hoc distinction between those gamers with extensive experience with core genres and those without for the purpose of this inquiry. By means of a 2*2 between-subjects ANOVA design using an online survey (N=983), we examine the main effects of gender, core genre players (CP/NCP) and the interaction effects between both independent variables. The results show that the game preferences of male CP, female CP and male NCP are often in line with one another, while those of female NCP are different, which confirms our hypothesis. We find that gender differences in the items “I like interaction between virtual characters”, “A good storyline is important to me” and “I love sideline activities” depend on whether the respondents are CP or not. While female NCP are less attracted to those features, male CP like them the most. Women are generally more annoyed by (realistic) violence than men. However, this effect interacts with being a CP, suggesting that female NCP are more exasperated by in-game violence than other players. Although the effect size of gender is largest for elements of violence, there are no gender differences found for whether a player wants to ‘solve a problem’ instead of ‘conquering something’. Only NCP are more interested in solving than in defeating an opponent. Concerning the complexity of games (e.g. easy to handle, manageable controls, logical in-game principles), main effects are found for women and NCP, indicating that they prefer less complicated game play. Moreover, the two independent variables interact indicating that gender differences depend on being a CP or NCP. Furthermore, when exploring the effect of sexual representations of female characters in games, women and NCP have a stronger aversion to stereotypical images than men and CP. There is no interaction effect, however, which indicates that the same gender differences would be seen for both CP and NCP. Nonetheless, more women than men choose to play with an attractive character of the same gender, with no exceptions between NCP and CP. This is not the case for customizing the game character as this depends on the interaction between gender and CP/NCP and indicates that particularly female CP appreciate this. Whereas there is no main effect of gender on preference of imaginative game settings, CP seem to favor this. Remarkably, there is an interaction effect between gender and being a CP/NCP, indicating that female CP prefer fantasy settings the most while female NCP are the least enthusiastic. A similar result is found for the preference of humoristic games, in which female NCP are interested the most and female CP the least.