Digital Library Publication Archives

Search results for: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/11312.13136.pdf

- 1506 articles or papers

 

In Perpetual Beta? On the Participatory Design of Facebook Games

Jacobs Melinda Sihvonen Tanja
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This paper proposes a new way of looking into the ‘sociality’ of social (network) games. On the basis of looking closely at the development of Frontierville, a popular Facebook game, and more abstractly at the development of its fellow Zynga Facebook-based games (such as Farmville or Cityville), we argue that various network-based forms of participatory design are increasingly becoming both influential and indispensable in social (network) based game design than ever before. Although participatory design in gaming is not new, the way in which participatory design is being used in social (network) games is new, giving the player a greater and more immediate role in the game design than ever before. Whether this is for better or worse, this form of participation fostered by the structure of social networks has allowed social (network) game players to become much more powerful than previous in their relationship to the game industry.

 

Return to Darkness: Representations of Africa in Resident Evil 5

Geyser Hanli Tshabalala Pippa
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Darkest Africa, the imagining of colonial fantasy, in many ways still lives on. Popular cultural representations of Africa often draw from the rich imagery of the un-charted, un-knowable ‘other’ that Africa represents, fraught with post-colonial tensions. When Capcom made the decision to set the latest instalment of its Resident Evil series in an imagined African country, it was merely looking for a new, unexplored setting, and they were therefore surprised at the controversy that surrounded its release. The 2009 game Resident Evil 5 was accused of racially stereotyping the black zombies and the white protagonist. These allegations have largely been put to rest, as this was never the intention of Capcom in developing the game or selecting the setting. However, the underlying questions remain: How is Africa represented in the game? How does the figure of the zombie resonate within that representation? And why does this matter?

 

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

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.

 

How to Say Things with Actions I: a Theory of Discourse for Video Games for Change

Rao Valentina
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This paper proposes the interpretation of video games as discourse (in the explanation of discourse commonly used in linguistics and studies of natural language, not as understood in semiotics or cultural studies) to explore further the dynamics through which video games can propose structured meaning and articulate an argument. Such topic is especially relevant for video games with an agenda, whose goal is not just to produce an engaging game experience, but also to convey a message and have some control over the desired outcome (persuasion, information, expression, aesthetic experience). The notion of discourse can help classify serious games according to their specific aim, and can help understand how meaning production in procedural rhetoric takes place.

 

Danger Close: Contesting Ideologies and Contemporary Military Conflict in First Person Shooters

Van Zwieten Martijn
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

More and more military first-person shooters situate their action in contemporary conflicts, with some claiming to various degrees to realistically depicted that conflict. Using the recently released game Medal of Honor as an example, this paper shows that such realism is made impossible by the presence of three ideological constructs found in military shooters: the FPS apparatus, the military-entertainment complex and neo-Orientalism. These constructs respectively naturalize violent intervention, frame the U.S. military as just heroes, and present Afghanistan and its inhabitants as fundamentally terrorist. Each of these constructs thus works to strip elements of military conflict of context, and reinforces the others’ tendency to turn a complex war into a simple case of good vanquishing evil.

 

Players and the Love Game: Conceptualizing Cheating with Erotic Role Players in World of Warcraft

Brown Ashley
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Using data complied over 9 months of fieldwork, this paper aims to explore how erotic role play in World of Warcraft (Blizzard, 2004) has, in some cases challenged and in other cases reinforced, traditional Western concepts of monogamy and fidelity. Data was collected through the use of in-game interviews with self-identified erotic role players on a heavily populated role play server located in the United States. Discussions and analysis aim to revisit and redefine old diametric binaries; from what constitutes cheating and what constitutes fidelity, to when erotic play leaves the screen and enters the biological body. Particularly, the themes to be discussed relate to how players negotiate real life romantic relationships alongside ones in game and how engaging in sex online conflates traditional notions of fidelity.

 

“To Get Help, Please Press X” The Rise of the Assistance Paradigm in Video Game Design

Therrien Carl
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

The first generation of video games are known to be tremendously challenging. On top of the classic “easy to learn, hard to master” arcade games, the development of the domestic market saw the rise of more expansive and varied game worlds, in computer RPGs or adventure games. This added complexity is often synonym with a more steep difficulty curve due to the amount of information to assimilate early on. In this paper, we will try to understand how game designers have organised the challenge and complexity of their games through the development of assistance systems: tutorials, check points, adjustable difficulty, etc. The historical evolution of these systems supposes a major change in the way players are addressed by the medium, from the highly competitive environment of early days to the seemingly more cooperative attitude of contemporary games.

 

Exploring anonymity in cooperative board games

Linderoth Jonas
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This study was done as a part of a larger research project where the interest was on exploring if and how gameplay design could give informative principles to the design of educational activities. The researchers conducted a series of studies trying to map game mechanics that had the special quality of being inclusive, i.e., playable by a diverse group of players. This specific study focused on designing a cooperative board game with the goal of implementing anonymity as a game mechanic. Inspired by the gameplay design patterns methodology (Björk & Holopainen 2005a; 2005b; Holopainen & Björk 2008), mechanics from existing cooperative board games were extracted and analyzed in order to inform the design process. The results from prototyping and play testing indicated that it is possible to implement anonymous actions in cooperative board games and that this mechanic made rather unique forms of gameplay possible. These design patterns can be further developed in order to address inclusive educational practices.

 

The End of the Rainbow: In search of crossing points between organizations and play

Van Bree Jeroen
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This research report covers an ongoing project that explores the crossing points between organization & management theory and the study of games & playfulness.

 

Diversity of Play

Fuchs Mathias Palmer Karen Ensslin Astrid Krzywinska Tanya Rautzenberg Markus
2015 DiGRA Books

Based on the keynote lectures held at DiGRA2015, the publication "Diversity of Play" provides a critical view on the current state of digital games from theoretical, artistic, and practical perspectives. With an interview with Karen Palmer and essays by Astrid Ensslin, Mathias Fuchs, Tanya Krzywinska, and Markus Rautzenberg, Diversity of Play explores the uncanny in games, the power of “unnatural” narratives, and the exceptions and uncertainties of digital ludic environments. See also: http://meson.press/books/diversity-of-play/