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Author: Monica Evans
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1848880596
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
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Book Description
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2011. Videogame Studies: Concepts, Cultures, and Communication explores the ever-expanding field of game studies. Included in this volume is the research and insights of experts in multiple interdisciplinary fields, focused on the construction of new frameworks for understanding games as narrative artifacts, technological systems, cultural indicators, social communities, educators, and works of art. Games and game-structures permeate every aspect of our lives, and provide more than simple entertainment to the millions of players immersed and engaged in games on a daily basis. The sixteen authors in this volume provide new thoughts on the rapid expansion of both the game industry and game academia, and cover a wide range of topics, including the rise and fall of in-game communities; the place of digital versus analog games in current methodology; the particular relationship between player, avatar, and identity; the design of educational and serious games; the social structures, needs, and desires of social game players; the performance aspect of interactive media; and the economic consequences of game production. This collection aims to inspire further research in numerous areas of game studies, and is a valuable addition to the growing discourse of a rapidly evolving field of study.
Author: Monica Evans
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 1848880596
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 160
Get Book Here
Book Description
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2011. Videogame Studies: Concepts, Cultures, and Communication explores the ever-expanding field of game studies. Included in this volume is the research and insights of experts in multiple interdisciplinary fields, focused on the construction of new frameworks for understanding games as narrative artifacts, technological systems, cultural indicators, social communities, educators, and works of art. Games and game-structures permeate every aspect of our lives, and provide more than simple entertainment to the millions of players immersed and engaged in games on a daily basis. The sixteen authors in this volume provide new thoughts on the rapid expansion of both the game industry and game academia, and cover a wide range of topics, including the rise and fall of in-game communities; the place of digital versus analog games in current methodology; the particular relationship between player, avatar, and identity; the design of educational and serious games; the social structures, needs, and desires of social game players; the performance aspect of interactive media; and the economic consequences of game production. This collection aims to inspire further research in numerous areas of game studies, and is a valuable addition to the growing discourse of a rapidly evolving field of study.
Author: Frans Mäyrä
Publisher: SAGE
ISBN: 1473902924
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 415
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Book Description
An Introduction to Game Studies is the first introductory textbook for students of game studies. It provides a conceptual overview of the cultural, social and economic significance of computer and video games and traces the history of game culture and the emergence of game studies as a field of research. Key concepts and theories are illustrated with discussion of games taken from different historical phases of game culture. Progressing from the simple, yet engaging gameplay of Pong and text-based adventure games to the complex virtual worlds of contemporary online games, the book guides students towards analytical appreciation and critical engagement with gaming and game studies. Students will learn to: - Understand and analyse different aspects of phenomena we recognise as ′game′ and play′ - Identify the key developments in digital game design through discussion of action in games of the 1970s, fiction and adventure in games of the 1980s, three-dimensionality in games of the 1990s, and social aspects of gameplay in contemporary online games - Understand games as dynamic systems of meaning-making - Interpret the context of games as ′culture′ and subculture - Analyse the relationship between technology and interactivity and between ′game′ and ′reality′ - Situate games within the context of digital culture and the information society With further reading suggestions, images, exercises, online resources and a whole chapter devoted to preparing students to do their own game studies project, An Introduction to Game Studies is the complete toolkit for all students pursuing the study of games. The companion website at www.sagepub.co.uk/mayra contains slides and assignments that are suitable for self-study as well as for classroom use. Students will also benefit from online resources at www.gamestudiesbook.net, which will be regularly blogged and updated by the author. Professor Frans Mäyrä is a Professor of Games Studies and Digital Culture at the Hypermedia Laboratory in the University of Tampere, Finland.
Author: Nick Montfort
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 0262261529
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 193
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Book Description
A study of the relationship between platform and creative expression in the Atari VCS, the gaming system for popular games like Pac-Man and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. The Atari Video Computer System dominated the home video game market so completely that “Atari” became the generic term for a video game console. The Atari VCS was affordable and offered the flexibility of changeable cartridges. Nearly a thousand of these were created, the most significant of which established new techniques, mechanics, and even entire genres. This book offers a detailed and accessible study of this influential video game console from both computational and cultural perspectives. Studies of digital media have rarely investigated platforms—the systems underlying computing. This book, the first in a series of Platform Studies, does so, developing a critical approach that examines the relationship between platforms and creative expression. Nick Montfort and Ian Bogost discuss the Atari VCS itself and examine in detail six game cartridges: Combat, Adventure, Pac-Man, Yars' Revenge, Pitfall!, and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back. They describe the technical constraints and affordances of the system and track developments in programming, gameplay, interface, and aesthetics. Adventure, for example, was the first game to represent a virtual space larger than the screen (anticipating the boundless virtual spaces of such later games as World of Warcraft and Grand Theft Auto), by allowing the player to walk off one side into another space; and Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back was an early instance of interaction between media properties and video games. Montfort and Bogost show that the Atari VCS—often considered merely a retro fetish object—is an essential part of the history of video games.
Author: Christopher Hanson
Publisher: Indiana University Press
ISBN: 0253032830
Category : Games & Activities
Languages : en
Pages : 275
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Book Description
Pausing, slowing, rewinding, replaying, reactivating, reanimating . . . Has manipulating video game timelines altered our experience of time? “Compelling.” —Choice Video game scholar Christopher Hanson argues that the mechanics of time in digital games have presented a new model for understanding time in contemporary culture, a concept he calls “game time.” Multivalent in nature, game time is characterized by apparent malleability, navigability, and possibility while simultaneously being highly restrictive and requiring replay and repetition. When compared to analog tabletop games, sports, film, television, and other forms of media, Hanson demonstrates, the temporal structures of digital games provide unique opportunities to engage players with liveness, causality, potentiality, and lived experience that create new ways of experiencing time. Features comparative analysis of key video games titles—including Braid, Quantum Break, Battle of the Bulge, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Passage, The Legend of Zelda: The Ocarina of Time, Lifeline, and A Dark Room. “The text is well-researched, and the introduction is an excellent, focused overview of video game studies.” —Choice
Author: Arthur Asa Berger
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351299948
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 163
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Book Description
From their inception, video games quickly became a major new arena of popular entertainment. Beginning with very primitive games, they quickly evolved into interactive animated works, many of which now approach film in terms of their visual excitement. But there are important differences, as Arthur Asa Berger makes clear in this important new work. Films are purely to be viewed, but video involves the player, moving from empathy to immersion, from being spectators to being actively involved in texts. Berger, a renowned scholar of popular culture, explores the cultural significance of the expanding popularity and sophistication of video games and considers the biological and psychoanalytic aspects of this phenomenon.Berger begins by tracing the evolution of video games from simple games like Pong to new, powerfully involving and complex ones like Myst and Half-Life. He notes how this evolution has built the video industry, which includes the hardware (game-playing consoles) and the software (the games themselves), to revenues comparable to the American film industry.
Author: Astrid Ensslin
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0230357083
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 219
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Book Description
This innovative text examines videogames and gaming from the point of view of discourse analysis. In particular, it studies two major aspects of videogame-related communication: the ways in which videogames and their makers convey meanings to their audiences, and the ways in which gamers, industry professionals, journalists and other stakeholders talk about games. In doing so, the book offers systematic analyses of games as artefacts and activities, and the discourses surrounding them. Focal areas explored in this book include: - Aspects of videogame textuality and how games relate to other texts - the formation of lexical terms and use of metaphor in the language of gaming - Gamer slang and 'buddylects' - The construction of game worlds and their rules, of gamer identities and communities - Dominant discourse patterns among gamers and how they relate to the nature of gaming - The multimodal language of games and gaming - The ways in which ideologies of race, gender, media effects and language are constructed Informed by the very latest scholarship and illustrated with topical examples throughout, The Language of Gaming is ideal for students of applied linguistics, videogame studies and media studies who are seeking a wide-ranging introduction to the field.
Author: Amanda C. Cote
Publisher: NYU Press
ISBN: 1479802204
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 274
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Book Description
Interviews with female gamers about structural sexism across the gaming landscape When the Nintendo Wii was released in 2006, it ushered forward a new era of casual gaming in which video games appealed to not just the stereotypical hardcore male gamer, but also to a much broader, more diverse audience. However, the GamerGate controversy six years later, and other similar public incidents since, laid bare the internalized misogyny and gender stereotypes in the gaming community. Today, even as women make up nearly half of all gamers, sexist assumptions about the what and how of women’s gaming are more actively enforced. In Gaming Sexism, Amanda C. Cote explores the video game industry and its players to explain this contradiction, how it affects female gamers, and what it means in terms of power and gender equality. Across in-depth interviews with women-identified gamers, Cote delves into the conflict between diversification and resistance to understand their impact on gaming, both casual and “core” alike. From video game magazines to male reactions to female opponents, she explores the shifting expectations about who gamers are, perceived changes in gaming spaces, and the experiences of female gamers amidst this gendered turmoil. While Cote reveals extensive, persistent problems in gaming spaces, she also emphasizes the power of this motivated, marginalized audience, and draws on their experiences to explore how structural inequalities in gaming spaces can be overcome. Gaming Sexism is a well-timed investigation of equality, power, and control over the future of technology.
Author: Souvik Mukherjee
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319548220
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 126
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Book Description
This book focuses on the almost entirely neglected treatment of empire and colonialism in videogames. From its inception in the nineties, Game Studies has kept away from these issues despite the early popularity of videogame franchises such as Civilization and Age of Empire. This book examines the complex ways in which some videogames construct conceptions of spatiality, political systems, ethics and society that are often deeply imbued with colonialism. Moving beyond questions pertaining to European and American gaming cultures, this book addresses issues that relate to a global audience – including, especially, the millions who play videogames in the formerly colonised countries, seeking to make a timely intervention by creating a larger awareness of global cultural issues in videogame research. Addressing a major gap in Game Studies research, this book will connect to discourses of post-colonial theory at large and thereby, provide another entry-point for this new medium of digital communication into larger Humanities discourses.
Author: James Paul Gee
Publisher: Macmillan
ISBN: 1466886420
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 233
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Book Description
Cognitive Development in a Digital Age James Paul Gee begins his classic book with "I want to talk about video games–yes, even violent video games–and say some positive things about them." With this simple but explosive statement, one of America's most well-respected educators looks seriously at the good that can come from playing video games. This revised edition expands beyond mere gaming, introducing readers to fresh perspectives based on games like World of Warcraft and Half-Life 2. It delves deeper into cognitive development, discussing how video games can shape our understanding of the world. An undisputed must-read for those interested in the intersection of education, technology, and pop culture, What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy challenges traditional norms, examines the educational potential of video games, and opens up a discussion on the far-reaching impacts of this ubiquitous aspect of modern life.
Author: Vít Šisler
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315518317
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 319
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Book Description
Game studies has been an understudied area within the emerging field of digital media and religion. Video games can reflect, reject, or reconfigure traditionally held religious ideas and often serve as sources for the production of religious practices and ideas. This collection of essays presents a broad range of influential methodological approaches that illuminate how and why video games shape the construction of religious beliefs and practices, and also situates such research within the wider discourse on how digital media intersect with the religious worlds of the 21st century. Each chapter discusses a particular method and its theoretical background, summarizes existing research, and provides a practical case study that demonstrates how the method specifically contributes to the wider study of video games and religion. Featuring contributions from leading and emerging scholars of religion and digital gaming, this book will be an invaluable resource for scholars in the areas of digital culture, new media, religious studies, and game studies across a wide range of disciplines.
