Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> Community management is an important but relatively understudied facet of computer game development. This article begins filling this gap by examining how community managers in the computer game industry manage communities of players through the establishment of structures of membership: positions and practices designed to encourage membership hierarchies. Beginning with the construction of an analytical framework through which to understand different subcommunity activities, this article then examines structures of membership at every stage of Kim’s membership life cycle and, ultimately, how those structures help to attract, educate, and retain dedicated community members. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article explores the role of interplayer moral conversation in multiplayer games with three subquestions: how to design and use games for morality research, how advances in moral theory can inform game-based research into morals, and how game-based research can inform moral theory. A long tradition has investigated morals using games such as Ultimatum and Dictator; however, this research often omits interplayer moral dialogue. Further, when moral foundations theory is accounted for, analysis of these games seems to investigate a narrow range of moral reasoning. In this methodological critique, we draw upon data from gameplay of a simulation of climate change debate and find a wide range of moral foundations through analysis of dialogue. Our analysis suggests that in-game player dialogue is a source of rich moral deliberation and potential for using simulation games as grounds for discovering new moral foundations. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Despite the rise of esports over the last decade, to date there is little effort to coordinate research related to the subject. This special issue attempts to address this gap by presenting a diversity of research exemplars from scholars both within and outside the United States The articles included herein were culled from the top peer-reviewed papers presented at the first annual Esports Research Conference ( https://uciesc.org ) held October 2018 at the University of California, Irvine, attended by more than 200 academic researchers and esports industry professionals. Together, the collection of articles represents the range of theoretical, methodological, and thematic perspectives in contemporary esports research. </jats:p>

<jats:p> In this work, we analyze what effect streaming gameplay on Twitch has on players’ in-game behavior and performance. We hypothesized that streaming can act as a form of implicit incentive to boost players’ performance and engagement. To test this hypothesis, we continuously collected data about all Twitch streams related to a popular Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) game, League of Legends (LoL), and data of all LoL matches played during the same time frame, and cross-mapped the two data sets. We found that, counterintuitively, streaming significantly deteriorates players’ in-game performance: This may be due to the burden of carrying out two cognitively intensive activities at the same time, namely, playing the game and producing its commentary for streaming purposes. On the other hand, streaming increases engagement keeping players in significantly longer game sessions. We investigate these two effects further, to characterize how they vary upon individual characteristics. </jats:p>

<jats:p>Accompanying esports’ explosion in popularity, the amount of academic research focused on organized, competitive gaming has grown rapidly. From 2002 through March 2018, esports research has developed from nonexistent into a field of study spread across seven academic disciplines. We review work in business, sports science, cognitive science, informatics, law, media studies, and sociology to understand the current state of academic research of esports and to identify convergent research questions, findings, and trends across fields.</jats:p>

<jats:p> This article takes the definition of a sport as “an institutionalized game” under which both “traditional sports” and “E-sports” fall. It takes a comparative analytical approach that examines the historical documentation and cultural output of these two major categories of sports and their early institutionalization. Given the increasing interest in, engagement with and spectator numbers of E-sports, it is worth considering the key similarities and differences between various institutions. This article examines traditional sports institutions from the mid-19th to late 19th century alongside E-sports institutions that emerged from the mid-1990s to the present day. Firstly, the processes of institutionalization are analyzed with these examples in mind and, secondly, are compared to draw out the significant differences and similarities between the factors affecting early institutionalization. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Live streaming has enabled eSports to become more accessible, ranging from professionally organized tournaments to individuals hosting from their bedroom. While different aspects of eSports have been investigated in separate contexts, in this article, we report findings of two survey studies to explore eSports as a holistic media ecosystem that includes playing, streaming, viewing, and spending. Study 1 looks at cross-platform patterns between playing and spending within the game as well as between viewing, streaming, and spending on live streaming platforms in the context of Fortnite. Study 2 examines the relationships between viewing and spending patterns on live streaming platforms. Results indicate that playing, viewing, and in-game spending are strongly related. Yet none of these behavioral metrics explain why people spend money on live streaming platforms to support streamers. Rather, psychological factors such as emotional attachment to the streamer and appreciation of the streamers’ talents are what drive streamer support. </jats:p>

<jats:p>The use of voice interaction in digital games has a long and varied history of experimentation but has never achieved sustained, widespread success. In this article, we review the history of voice interaction in digital games from a media archaeology perspective. Through detailed examination of publicly available information, we have identified and classified all games that feature some form of voice interaction and have received a public release. Our analysis shows that the use of voice interaction in digital games has followed a tidal pattern: rising and falling in seven distinct phases in response to new platforms and enabling technologies. We note characteristic differences in the way Japanese and Western game developers have used voice interaction to create different types of relationships between players and in-game characters. Finally, we discuss the implications for game design and scholarship in light of the increasing ubiquity of voice interaction systems.</jats:p>

<jats:p>As independent game makers strive to tackle the demands of game production without the help of a traditional publisher, a familiar game production environment has started to evolve. Adopting a game production studies perspective, this article focuses on crowdfunding as a new channel for independent game development and the shifts crowdfunding causes in the game production network. Two successfully crowdfunded case examples— Bloodstained (2018), a digital game, and Conan (2016), a board game—are used to illustrate changes crowdfunding causes in the traditional game production environment. In removing the publisher as an “unnecessary” middleman, crowdfunded productions need to take care of the many tasks that used to belong to publishers, such as marketing, partner sourcing, distribution networks, and customer relationships. As projects turn to emerging production network intermediaries, their significance—as well as that of the crowdfunding backers—provides evidence to classify the crowdfunding model as a new game production logic.</jats:p>

<jats:p> In recent years, the idea of player control, or agency, has become central and explicit in certain video games and genres, affecting many debates concerning the study or definitions of video games. In spite of this, the notion of agency in video games has been rarely explicitly explored or defined in relation to its sociological and political dimensions. Hence, drawing on actor–network theory, (neo-)Foucauldian governmentality studies, and empirical data gathered over a 3-year period, this article expands to our understanding of video game player agency and, moreover, argues that video games provide an important example and perspective to consider the contemporary nature and political basis of agency. </jats:p>