Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p>The critically and commercially successful first-person shooter Bioshock is widely considered to be one of the greatest digital games of all time. This article traces its canonization by critically examining its marketing and popular reception as a blockbuster “prestige game” that demonstrates the aesthetic potential of games as a medium. In particular, far-reaching discussions of the relationship between narrative and gameplay mechanics in Bioshock have reinforced its canonical status as required playing among critics and scholars. The article concludes by comparing the reception of Bioshock and its “spiritual successor” Bioshock Infinite, showing how popular, critical, and industrial attitudes toward big-budget prestige titles have shifted in recent years.</jats:p>

<jats:p>EVE Online grants individuals the anonymity and freedom to act in any way they wish, going so far as to encourage and reward in-game criminal behavior toward other players. This design might lead some to expect anarchy within this digital universe. Instead, this virtual world is highly ordered, containing large organizations led by powerful leaders. To gain understanding of how such social structures operate, this project observes speeches made by heads of organizations in EVE Online to determine the categorization tools used to maintain order in a potentially chaotic environment. It finds that by focusing on group identity, leaders emphasize their role and responsibility for creating and maintaining organizational culture. Additionally, by crafting a narrative of territorial conflict and their own role as a warlord and military leader, they encourage ruthlessness on the part of their membership and establish a social system based upon the individual leader.</jats:p>

<jats:p> The “fortress simulator” game Dwarf Fortress (Bay 12 Games, 2006-present) allows players the space to conduct experiments in economics. The player is not granted an avatar in the world, but this does not mean the player is granted the role of a transcendent deity either. Instead, the player operates on the relational level—completely managing all economic interactions and assigning social codes to different spaces. Lacking a “win” condition, players are free to engage with the game however they wish, including allowing for the immediate and unsympathetic demise of the community. As play continues, Dwarf Fortress ceases to be a fortress and becomes what the autonomists describe as a “laboratory.” The social relations of the fortress are upturned and become the site for experiments in production. The fortress too becomes the site for thought experiments on alternative economies, containing not one but many social laboratories. </jats:p>

<jats:p>Establishing genres is the first step toward analyzing games and how the genre landscape evolves over the years. We use data-driven modeling that distils genres from textual descriptions of a large collection of games. We analyze the evolution of game genres from 1979 till 2010. Our results indicate that until 1990, there have been many genres competing for dominance, but thereafter sport-racing, strategy, and action have become the most prevalent genres. Moreover, we find that games vary to a great extent as to whether they belong mostly to one genre or to a combination of several genres. We also compare the results of our data-driven model with two product databases, Metacritic and Mobygames, and observe that the classifications of games to different genres are substantially different, even between product databases. We conclude with discussion on potential future applications and how they may further our understanding of video game genres.</jats:p>

<jats:p> This paper describes research and development around two gameful courses that reimagined their assessment systems to better support student autonomy and promote engagement. We present results from an ongoing classroom-based research study that signals the success of these designs and, in so doing, explore key elements of what we call gameful design: the process of redesigning core elements of a learning environment to better support intrinsic motivation. We describe this process and discuss a set of promising practices for the design of gameful courses. Results from three studies indicate that gameful course design is positively related to students working harder and feeling more in control of their class performance. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article discusses ARMA 3 (2013), a military simulation game from Bohemia Interactive. Through the prominent placement of visual representations of renewable power generation the game offers a compelling vision of the future in which current resistance to low-carbon and renewable economies have been overcome. I argue that the potential of this vision to challenge cultural futures and imaginaries is dependent on its presentation aesthetically and not, as is often suggested, on game mechanics operating in a “persuasive” mode. Instead, I argue that ARMA 3’s aesthetic vision can skirt around the ideological resistances players may have against accepting more didactic modes of engagement with the highly charged and ideologically contested reality of anthropogenic climate change. In this way, I suggest ARMA 3 offers a compelling challenge to current theories about games ability to persuade or influence players. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article examines the Japanese action puzzle game Catherine, arguing that the game presents a social narrative that comments on Japan’s pressing issue of a declining birthrate and aging population. It also theorizes a strategy for player involvement based on “distanced” (self-reflexive and meta) engagement. Through an examination of the narrative, characters, and gameplay, supplemented with national fertility survey data from Japan, the article argues that Catherine subverts classic game tropes and fosters player engagement with a socially relevant diegesis. Simultaneously, the unique meta-gameplay elements utilize what I term “distanced engagement” to encourage the player to critically self-reflect on both the game scenario and their role as a player. In this way, the article considers how the unique relationship between story and distanced engagement allows video games like Catherine to function as impactful and interactive social narratives. </jats:p>

<jats:p>World of Warcraft ( WoW) is one of the most successful and longest running multiplayer online games in gaming. Over time, Blizzard Entertainment’s approach to multiplayer activities in WoW has changed. During the past decade, in-game world events, group matchmaking systems, and phasing technologies have been used to increasingly emphasize individual achievement rather than collaborative effort. The game is shifting away from sociable activities in favor of ones that situate players as powerful, atomized characters. WoW’s governmentality now encourages players to see each other as obstacles to success and to see themselves as entrepreneurial subjects. These neoliberal strategies have the potential to impact our ability to collectively imagine and create alternative forms of social interaction and organization.</jats:p>

<jats:p> The headshot burst into the cultural imaginary with the assassination of John F. Kennedy in 1963, and it has been remediated from historical anxieties about execution and brain death to the eye-popping spectacle of the exploding head to video games, where it has entered a regime that holds virtuosic reflexes as the highest form of capital. By examining the textual and technological history of the headshot, this article develops a theory of mechropolitics: a way of thinking about political death worlds as they operate in the mechanics of video games and digital simulations. Moving beyond questions of whether violence in video games has a direct effect on aggression, mechropolitics mobilizes aesthetic and social justice critique to unmask the affective structures operating within digital death worlds. These prioritize twitch reflexes and offer few consequences—precisely the scenarios that render events like police shootings both legible and likely. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This is a study on the aesthetics and embodied spatial experiences of running. Investigated here are questions on how bodies navigate local terrain through the practice of running, and how running bodies are made visible as networked and gendered agents moving in their public space. It is a qualitative study of networked movement, a feel of running, where the footwork of women in particular is located. To consider such textures of movement, this research works from a phenomenologically inspired sociology of running with a specific playful app in hand, Zombies, Run! This work suggests how playfulness tied to the very basic action of forward movement can cultivate new understandings of being in the world through other kinds of running body practices, prompting new attentions to movement, public space, and one’s position and mobility within it as a gendered body on the run. </jats:p>