Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> Over the past several years, video game studies have benefited from attention to important tools in the discipline of rhetoric. Most notably, Ian Bogost has introduced the concept of procedural rhetoric. Although Bogost defined rhetoric primarily as persuasion, there is no such definitional harmony among rhetoricians. In this article, I explore possibilities for a rhetorical understanding of video games beyond persuasion. The 2014 iOS and Android game First Strike is an example of the repetition compulsion as a means of compensating for the perceived traumatic Real. In examining this game, I hope to show that the intersection of psychoanalysis and rhetoric allows a productive account of simulation and suggests a way forward beyond the impasse of contingency and structure, attending the formal aspects of trope that make certain procedures durable sites of affective investment and enjoyment. </jats:p>

<jats:p> A study ( N = 1,995) is presented that investigated whether the Big Five Inventory personality types—agreeableness, conscientiousness, extroversion, neuroticism, and openness—can be used in explaining mobile game play. The study is predicated on research suggesting that relationships exist between certain personality types and willingness to embrace technology and mobile phone ownership. The same might be argued between personality and certain mobile apps, to include games. Little research, however, has examined personality and mobile games. This is unfortunate, as these games lend themselves naturally to problem-solving challenges and are believed to aid with learning. Findings revealed that agreeableness was the most significant personality type in predicting frequency and number of hours spent playing mobile games, while openness was the most consistent predictor of mobile gaming as a whole. However, overall strength of associations was weak, suggesting care in using personality, as it may be a poor predictor. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article presents the idea of ludefaction as the negative underside of ludification. The project of transforming human practices into games to “enhance” their performance is related to new management and technology design practices that have been dominant since the 1980s. Studies suggest that this is an ambivalent process through which work comes to seem more attractive even as it makes more intense and invasive demands on its human subject. Beyond this, however, ludefaction grasps the way in which gamification intensifies exploitation in the, probably unprecedented, development of allowing power to tap into the radical imaginary, that is, the facility we have for creating an alternative, better world. A comparison of games with relational art is presented to clarify the stakes and suggest negative principles for progressive game design. </jats:p>

<jats:p>In the last decade, the maturation of the first generation of gamers has underpinned growing discussion of nostalgia for and in videogames. This article considers how the search for a connection to our past can be satisfied through consumption of the richly remediated memories represented in nostalgic videogames. Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon and Gone Home are analyzed framed by Baudrillard’s theories of consumer objects and simulation. These videogames make extensive use of 1980s and 1990s cultural referents. In particular, they embed references to media (such as music, film, and television) that epitomize memories of these periods. The aim of the article is to discuss the ways in which the videogames commodify nostalgia to fulfill a consumer need for retrospection, and to examine the extent to which they provide a simulation of cultural memory that blurs historical reality with period modes of representation.</jats:p>

<jats:p> Although evidence has shown that video games portray women as hypersexualized objects, video game magazines have received little study. Using the theory of Hegemonic Masculinity, an in-depth review of six video game magazines (three print and three online) revealed that the magazines consistently treat digital women as vacant pinups to be ogled or irrelevant sidekicks to be tolerated, and real women as annoying interlopers to be bullied. </jats:p>

<jats:p>From the very first days of digital gaming, sport-themed videogames have been a constant and ever-popular presence. However, compared with many other genres of games, sports-themed videogames have remained relatively underresearched. Using the case of “sports videogames,” this article advocates a critical and located approach to understanding videogames and gameplay. Unlike many existing theorizations of gameplay, such as the “magic circle,” which theorize play as a break from ordinary life, this article argues for a consideration of play as a continuation of “the control of the established order.” It argues that many videogames, and in particular sports videogames, can be understood as “themed” spaces which share similarities to other themed locations, such as fast-food restaurants and theme parks. These are “nonplaces” themed to provide a sense of individuality, control, and escape in a society that increasingly offers none.</jats:p>

<jats:p> Frustration is an everyday experience for many users of game media. Distinct from related sensations such as difficulty, frustration is perhaps best characterized as when the agency of the player becomes obstructed. This can lead to the feeling of an ambivalent, uncooperative relationship with the game machine. This article will focus on two examples to demonstrate some of the possible manifestations of frustration in game media. The first, “Steel Battalion: Heavy Armor,” will deal with motion control gestures that are misinterpreted by the game in a way that obstructs the player’s ability to interact with the game. The second, “Papers, Please,” will consider repetitive gameplay that limits the player’s actions. Drawing on recent scholarship in animation studies, both cases will be approached as a form of what Sianne Ngai describes as “animatedness,” the feeling of becoming an automaton and of having one’s agency frustrated by technology. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Digital games are increasingly an integral part of daily life for people of all ages and genders. Based on a Foucauldian notion of power and discourse, the central question discussed here is how people above the age of 60 and their engagement with digital games are constituted within existing research. The available literature can be separated into two distinct themes focusing on shaping and maintaining the player and the player’s relation to games. A highly functionalistic approach to the use of digital games runs through much of the research due to its preoccupation with social, mental, and bodily health or with the needs of the game industry. This tendency is linked to notions of economical productivity, a theme that is analyzed on the basis of theory formations from cultural gerontology as well as in relation to power and discipline. </jats:p>

<jats:p> As playing digital games has become a popular pastime among older adults, the study of the older audience of digital games would do well to exchange exploratory research for more specialist and focused areas. This article follows this reasoning and focuses on game enjoyment in later life. This topic is explored through two qualitative studies with actively playing older adults. The first study ( n = 35, aged between 49 and 73) took place in Flanders (the Dutch-speaking part of Belgium), while the second study ( n = 40, aged between 44 and 77) was held in the U.S.A. (Virginia and Kentucky). Using the principles of Grounded Theory, three interpretations of game enjoyment in later life were identified, namely, telic, hedonic, and eudaimonic enjoyment. The article offers a number of design recommendations based on its findings and discusses how the interpretations are influenced by context and player gender, and are subject to change throughout the life span of an aging player. </jats:p>