Canadian Content in Video Games


Paul Leonard J.
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper investigates the culture being reflected in video games produced in Canada, from the perspective of Canada being one of the world's leading producers of video games. It examines the how Canadian culture is represented in current new media artistic output against the culture, or lack of culture, being represented in video games currently being produced. With the shift of television viewers away from culture-regulated television and onto "culture neutral" video games, is our culture being eroded or expanding to fill a new culture shared with others across borders in virtual space? Canada is one of the fastest-growing countries in broadband usage, so do our rapidly expanding virtual online gaming cultures share our real-world culture? Should we attempt to find our "national identity" in video games, or does culture travel differently through interactive media? In short, this paper a preliminary examination of the impact of the transmission and direction of our national culture through the video games we produce and consume as a cultural product.

 

Liberal Sims?: Simulated Difference and the Commodity of Social Diversity


Curlew A. Brady
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper outlines how representations of gender, sexuality, race and ethnicity intersect with strategies of late capitalism in The Sims, arguably the most popular video game of all time. Within an industry known for its social stereotyping, The Sims has been praised as socially progressive for its liberal views towards same-sex relationships, racial equality, and non-sexualized presentation of women. However, I will argue, using the theory of Stuart Hall, Naomi Klein, Henry Jenkins and others, that below its progressive façade The Sims amounts to an exploitation of diversity initiated by targeting untraditional markets to better tap into the consuming potential of millions of non-white, non-male, non-heterosexual people – what Hall sees as the commercial appropriation of difference. I want to suggest that the spike in social liberalism may not be the result of a socio-cultural change in ideology, but instead reflects a change in how traditionally marginalized people are marketed to in late capitalism. The Sims, in this formation, becomes a hybrid entity, fueling both progressive liberal discourse and the relentless pursuit of profit at the expense to those it (mis)represents.

 

Among pasta-loving Mafiosos, drug-selling Columbians and noodle-eating Triads – Race, humour and interactive ethics in Grand Theft Auto III


Dymek Mikolaj Lennerfors Thomas
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper explores the intersection of race, humour and interactivity in Grand Theft Auto 3. We argue that video games not only diffuse cultural and symbolic meanings, but also provide new loci for reflection and critique of issues of inter alia race. Two different analytical perspectives are juxtaposed when studying racial issues of GTA3. The first perspective is Critical Race Theory (CRT). The second perspective derives from the phthonic and incongruity theory of humour (Morreall 1986). We will argue that the CRT perspective is consistent with the phthonic theory of humour, while the incongruity theory goes beyond CRT presenting a novel way of interpreting games. This theoretical framework is applied when analysing the controversial game GTA3. By presenting stereotypical images of race in GTA3 as humorous, the player is provided with cues for reflecting and evaluating his/her own perspectives on issues of race.

 

Baldur’s Gate and History: Race and Alignment in Digital Role Playing Games


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

Games studies today are characterised by both the novelty of interpreting the unfolding digital revolution, and insecurity about where the discipline stands in terms of other academic fields of inquiry. The ludology/narratology debate exhibits two important features: anxiety about the proximity of the discipline to the games industry, and a formalist bias that dominates the field. Focussing on race and alignment in role playing games, this paper addresses this bias by asserting the relevance of cultural materialist and postcolonial modes of critique to commercially-produced computer games. It is argued that games like Baldur’s Gate I and II cannot be properly understood without reference to the fantasy novels that inform them. When historicised, the genre of fantasy reveals an implicit reliance on notions of race and moral alignment. The ways these notions re-appear in digital role playing games is shown to be relevant to current political and social realities of the West.

 

Game Fiction: Playing the Interface in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Asheron’s Call


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

Videogame play requires the negotiation of multiple synchronic points-of-view enabled through the use of cameras, avatars, interfaces, and vignettes (the cut-scenes, dialogue, and other attributes normally attributed to the “story”). Concurrent mastery of these points-of-view contributes to the game field of play and enables a greater possibility to complete the game’s goals. Using Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Asheron’s Call as examples, this paper examines the interface as one of the various mechanisms that establish and control the player’s point-of-view in videogames. By understanding the use of point-of-view as one of many components that establish game fiction, we can theorize the imaginary inventions that shape games, even those that do not resemble more traditional narrative forms.

 

Mise-en-scène Applied to Level Design: Adapting a Holistic Approach to Level Design


Logas Heather Muller Daniel
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

As game developers strive to introduce a stronger sense of emotion into their games, new opportunities are presented to the level designer to imbue their virtual spaces with deeper symbols and meaning. Since the very beginning of film, the exploration of the concept of mise-en-scéne (literally “put in the scene”) has allowed filmmakers to convey sub-text to the viewer by the careful consideration of how each frame looks. A definition of mise-en-scéne is given; its connections to level design are explained and then illustrated by an analysis of Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining and Konami’s Silent Hill 4: The Room.

 

Place Space & Monkey Brains: Cognitive Mapping in Games & Other Media


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

This paper attempts to ground the relationship of architecture to game space, suggest ways in which real world design of places can help the design of game spaces, and distinguish between our experience and recall of episodic space as scene via film and literature, to our experience and recall of sequential and interstitial space in three-dimensional games. The following argument is based on informal feedback of game players, formal observations of navigation in virtual environments, and from discussions with researchers of medical visualization technologies. My hypothesis is that having an ergodically embodied sense of self (such as in computer games) enhances sequential spatial memory over traditional non-ergodic forms of entertainment (such as adventure books with survey maps, or traditional cinematic media). My proposed method of evaluation for analyzing and evaluating spatial cognition in an interactive virtual environment (such as a computer game), is to use brain scanning equipment.

 

Making Right(s) Decision: Artificial Life and Rights Reconsidered


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

With the proliferation of robotics in industry, education and entertainment, artificial intelligent robots challenge the way we think about relationships between humans and machines. This study examines critical issues in artificial life and rights, which are an emergent but, as yet, little understood area of educational inquiry through one of the most popular video game, The Sims. Since The Sims deals with simulated people and relationships, this game introduces important issues about ethics and morals [12, 13]. Drawing from examples through The Sims discussion forums, I will discuss our very notion of rights and what this means for artificial life in order to raise moral questions about social simulation and gaming.

 

Video Games: A Significant Cognitive Artifact of Contemporary Youth Culture


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

Video games are not just an important cultural artifact of youth culture but have considerable cognitive worth. Centered within an information processing theory and mediating processes’ framework, the empirical qualitative study investigated, via stimulated recall methods, the thinking skills and strategies of five teenagers while playing an action-adventure video game. Sixteen types and 600 instances of cognitive skills and 11 types and 155 instances of cognitive strategies were identified. The thinking skills included high engagement with school valued cognitive skills, such as metacognition, and deduction and induction strategies. The findings support the informal educative value of playing recreation video games and their inclusion in schools.

 

What Happens if you Catch Whypox? Children’s Learning Experiences of Infectious Disease in a Multi-user Virtual Environment


Neulight Nina R. Kafai Yasmin B.
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This study investigated students’ understanding of a virtual infectious disease in relation to their understanding of natural infectious diseases. Two sixth grade classrooms of students between the ages 10 to 12 (46 students) participated in a participatory simulation of a virtual infectious disease as part of their science curriculum that took place in a university-laboratory school in Los Angeles, California. The results from our analyses revealed that the immersive components of the simulation afforded students the opportunity to discuss their understandings of natural disease and to compare them to their experiences with the virtual disease. We found that while the virtual disease capitalized on students’ knowledge of natural infectious disease through virtual symptoms, these symptoms and a missing curricular piece of computational viruses may have led students to think of its transfer more as an observable or mechanical event rather than as a biological process. These findings provide helpful indicators to science educators and educational designers interested in creating and implementing such online simulations to further students’ conceptual understanding.