Game jockey as an intermediary between DJ practice and video games


Sohier Rémy
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

The game jockey is a new practice between DJing and video gaming. This suomen parhaat nettikasinot study underlines the difficulty to hybridize these two creative cultures. Game jockey implies a person, who will mix games during a live performance, by adapting to the players’ feelings. We will present key concepts of the DJ practice and the similarities to the game universe. Based a Jockey – Game – Players triangle, we offer a creation research that tries to evaluate the possible figure of the jockey and the use of game samples. Our triangle model opens on cultural practices that are to invent.

 

Civic and political transgressions in videogames: the views and experiences of the players


Santos Hugo Saldanha Lucinda Pinto Marta Ferreira Pedro
2018 DiGRA Nordic '18: Proceedings of 2018 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

Video games are commonly considered transgressive for providing the context for excessive violence, hypersexualized imaginaries, cheating, bullying and other sorts of inadequate behavior. Transgressions can be linked to struggles for social change, and video games present and represent ideological materializations, and therefore it is possible to look politically at the transgressions that different video games challenge players to negotiate. To explore the civic dimensions of video games, data was collected in a series of ten workshops involving 73 participants, in mixed groups of students, researchers and lecturers of various fields of study. Analyses allowed us to identify four types of transgression - i) the transgression of linear narratives; ii) the transgression of the ideologically aseptic idea of truth; iii) the transgression of the idea of free choice and merit and iv) transgression of individualism and the myth of “Other” - that were present in the experience of players, and that can contribute to understand how video games can contribute to the promotion of meaningful civic learning experiences.

 

Paralysing Fear: Player Agency Parameters in Horror Games


Boonen Casper S. Mieritz Daniel
2018 DiGRA Nordic '18: Proceedings of 2018 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

The horror video game genre is dedicated to building suspense and scaring its players. One of the ways in which it achieves this goal is through the manipulation of the player’s agency. With this paper, we seek to examine and identify elements used to manipulate the agency of the player in horror video games, to see how they can be used to evoke horror and dread within the player. To this purpose, a qualitative humanistic approach has been applied, through the analysis of six horror games. Our results indicate several common themes, found in the elements used to manipulate player agency. Based on these themes, we have developed an Agency Parameter Model, illustrating a hierarchical relationship between different categories used to manipulate agency. At the core of the model are three overarching categories: Player Character Parameters, System Parameters, and Player Parameters.

 

Contextualizing Pathological Gaming – A Proof-of-Concept Study


Boonen Casper S. Christiansen Mikkel V. Ilsøe Agnete W. Staunstrup Marie M. Lundedal Nielsen Rune Kristian
2018 DiGRA '18 - Proceedings of the 2018 DiGRA International Conference: The Game is the Message

In 2013, “Internet Gaming Disorder” (IGD) was proposed as a formal disorder, by the American Psychiatric Association (APA). We present the results of a qualitative interview study wherein we apply a screening tool to “gaming professionals”. We compare our subjects’ perception of their own gaming habits, with how they are scored by a questionnaire and discuss where and how they differ or overlap. Our results indicate that screening tools designed to measure game addiction may not measure what they are intended to measure. Questionnaire items that are not properly contextualized may over-pathologize otherwise healthy players without appropriate context. The context of the individual’s everyday life is crucial to understanding and evaluating their relationship to gaming. We argue, that de-contextualized questionnaire items are insufficient to gauge whether a given behaviour is problematic and if those problems are best understood as an addiction or something else.