Digital Library Publication Archives

Search results for: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.01371.pdf

- 1506 articles or papers

 

Play with me: Exploring the autobiographical through digital games

Poremba Cindy
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

This paper uses two game-based artworks by Mary Flanagan (primarily [domestic] and to a lesser extent [rootings]), to examine autobiography in the form of digital games. Specifically, it explores the ways in which these games construct/represent subjectivity, how they negotiate agency (both within the work and within the realm of cultural production), and how the game form structures selfnarrative. This is framed in relation to theoretical work from both autobiography and game studies.

 

Pricing models and Motivations for MMO play

Nojima Miho
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

The purpose of this study is to investigate and conceptualize the relationship between pricing models and motivations for MMO play. After the review of previous studies, we conduct an empirical research in the Japanese MMO industry to find determinants of pricing models. As a result, we found that (1) relationship between monthly fixed fee, continuous play (play period) and social motivation, (2) relationship between per-item billing, relatively short play period and high immersion.

 

Visiting the Floating World: Tracing a Cultural History of Games Through Japan and America

Consalvo Mia
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

The goal of this paper is to establish a framework for better understanding the relationships between Japanese and American games in relation to that industry, visual styles, and cultural influence. To do that, this paper draws on a larger cultural history of Japan and America, and critiques and questions current and potential uses the concept of Orientalism in relation to digital games. In doing so, my hope is that we can arrive at a more sophisticated, nuanced understanding of that relationship, and use this framework for subsequent critical analysis.

 

Situated Play – Just a Temporary Blip?

Susi Tarja Rambusch Jana
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

In this paper we discuss how cognitive science may contribute to understanding the concepts of situatedness and situated play. While situatedness has become something of a catch-all term, it actually has several different meanings, ranging from “higher” social-cultural forms to “lower” sensori-motoric activities. We also discuss an often overlooked, but crucial aspect of situatedness, which is the use of external resources such as tools and their use. As will become apparent, a more thorough understanding of situatedness and tool use are key to understanding computer games and people’s everyday playing activities.

 

Cross-format analysis of the gaming experience in multi-player role-playing games

Tychsen Anders Newman Ken Brolund Thea Hitchens Michael
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Forming one of the major genres of games, Role Playing Games (RPGs) have proven an extremely portable concept, and the games are situated across various cultural and format-related boundaries. The effect of porting RPGs between formats is however a subject of which very little is known. This paper presents results of an empirical study of multi-player RPGs, evaluating how the transference between formats affects the player experience; including the effect of including a human game master in computer-based RPGs. The tabletop format emerges as the consistently most enjoyable experience across a range of formats, even compared to a computer-based RPG directed by a human game master.

 

Your Second Selves: Resources, Agency, and Constraints in Avatar Designs and Identity Play in a Tween Virtual World

Kafai Yasmin B. Fields Deborah A. Cook Melissa S.
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Avatars in online games and worlds are seen as players’ key representations in interactions with others. It is surprising then that this aspect of game play has not received much attention in research, in particular what concerns playergenerated avatars. In this paper, we investigate the avatar design and identity play within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net with more than 1.5 million registered players ages 8-16. One unique feature of Whyville is the player’s ability to customize one’s avatar with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the expressive resources available for avatar construction, individual tween players’ choices and rationales in creating their avatars, and online postings about avatar design in the community at large. With the growing interest in playergenerated content for online worlds such as Second Life, our discussion will address the role of avatars in identity play and self-representation as well as the social issues that arise within the game world.

 

Waiting for Something to Happen: Narratives, Interactivity and Agency and the Video Game Cut-scene

Cheng Paul
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Since the appearance in 1978 of Adventure on the Atari 2600, the cut-scene (alternatively cutscene or cut scene) has been a key component to many video games. Often, the cut-scene gives narrative shape to the game experience, moving the player along through a series of events culminating in the story's end. Cybertheorists such as Hayles, Murray and Frasca have explored the ways in which digital interactive media and the video game introduce new paradigms of narrative and storytelling, as well new conceptions of interactivity and agency. However, in many ways the inclusion of cut-scenes raises many of the problems concerning the theoretical structures with which to investigate video games. Since cut-scenes often follow cinematic codes of representation, current theory often renders the cut-scene as passive and non-interactive, as opposed to the interactive nature of gameplay. Yet as film theory has shown, especially in the effects of suturing and such, cinema offers a kind of psychic interactivity that blurs the hard boundary often drawn between cinema and gameplay. The cut-scene then becomes the locus of the tension in video games between cinematic representation and gameplay, and subsequently, an investigation of the cut-scene and its role in the video game can offer substantial insight into the nature of agency and interactivity within the video game. Using the release of Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Ubisoft's Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, both of which challenge the traditional definitions and uses of the cutscene, this paper will study the different ways in which the cut-scene operates within the video game. It will not only discuss current conceptions of agency and interactivity within the video game, but also offer an transmedia framework, after the work of Marsha Kinder, with which to explore the relationship between narrative and gameplay, cinema and simulation in the video game.

 

Interaction Manifestations at the Roots of Experiencing Multiplayer Computer Games

Vallius Laura Manninen Tony Kujanpää Tomi
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Today’s computer games offer players stunning audiovisual environments, intense action, adventures, puzzles and crowded worlds with vast amounts of other players to play with. Consequently, play experience is a combination of numerable variables. This study focuses on understanding how interaction manifestations of games participate in the process of experiencing multiplayer game environments. Rich Interaction Model is used as a theoretical framework for analysing experiencing of interaction. Two experimental games are used in the analysis as examples. The results of this study are preliminary guidelines of how interaction manifestations affect experiencing games

 

Growing Complex Games

Glean Nicholas
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Do computer simulation games display emergent behavior? Are they models of complex systems or ‘life’ systems? This paper aims to explore and investigate how games studies can use complexity models and emergent behavior to critical analyzes the computer simulation game. (God Games, Real-Time Strategy Games, and City Building Genre) The developments in and from the natural sciences (Complexity, Emergence, Self-Organization, Non-Linear Dynamic Systems) are important intellectual tools that can aid in the development of this discipline. Computer simulation games have a similar strategy to games like Go or Chess; even though they may have fixed rules they can display unpredictable patterns of play (emergent behavior). This approach is in contrast to current models that are being deployed within the field of games studies. The introduction of complexity and emergence into game studies can allow for computer simulation games not to be dismissed but to be explored and explained, as complex games, rather than just simply simulations.

 

Her own Boss: Gender and the Pursuit of Incompetent Play

Jenson Jennifer de Castell Suzanne
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper examines gender and computer game playing, in particular questions of identity, access and playful engagement with these technologies. Because computer-based media are not only central tools for learning and work, and because games and simulations are increasingly being recruited as educational and instructional genres, it is likewise exceedingly important, from an educational equity standpoint to examine the ways in which rapidly evolving computer game-based learning initiatives threaten to compound and intensify girls’ computer disadvantage, a cumulative dis-entitlement from computer-based educational and occupational opportunities.