Genesis of a Gaming Culture: a Historical Analysis Based on the Computer Press in Portugal

Each technology is developed within a specific context and related to different social fields. This paper offers a historical analysis of the beginnings of press narratives about computer games in Portugal during the establishment of democracy and its entry into the European Economic Community in the 1980s. It focuses on the narratives created by two specialized computer press publications about the place of digital games in the broader social context and how gender and age group issues were presented in these narratives. It was possible to identify how computer games were directed to an imagined target population, given the worldwide tendency to relate technologies and games as a male “taste.” This helped to distinguish those legitimately interested in gaming culture and exclude all those who did not fit this norm.

Play Arcs: Structuring Player Stories for CoDesign & Content Generation in Persistent Game Worlds

Players of Massively Multiplayer Online games (MMOs) consume content much faster than game designers can produce it. However, they also generate stories through their interaction, which can contribute to adding novel types of content in the game world. We introduce and demonstrate Play Arcs, a design strategy for structuring emergent stories that players can codesign and contribute as unique game content. We develop an MMO with tools for codesign and ‘history game mechanics’ and test as a technology probe with 49 players. We show that Play Arcs successfully structure coherent stories and support players in shaping new, unique content based on their own histories. We found that these stories can inform and guide players’ decisions, and also that, while players often share simpler stories directly, they keep more notable stories to themselves for retelling later. We conclude by discussing design challenges and directions for future work with Play Arcs.

Using Characterization Theory to Study the History of Video Game Characters

On, Off and In the Map: Materialising Game Experiences Through Player Cartography

East Meets South: the creative appropriation of Nintendo and Sega videogames in Brazil

The Uses of Ludobiography: Life Writing and Game Studies

Monetising memory? MMOGs, anniversaries, and ownership of the past

Defence of Chinese state-sanctioned history against perceived attacks from Honor of Kings

Digital games, cultural memory, & hegemony

Past Stories and Future Worlds: History and Popular Imagination in Fallout 4