Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p>Despite the importance that the dimension of genre holds in media studies, its very definition in the field of video games is still a matter without consensus. This study intends to outline the logic that lies within the constitution of videoludic genres, understanding them as formal devices configured as per the different thought functions stated by Piaget’s cognitive psychology theory. This project will propose a formalist approach from a cybersemiotic perspective. It seeks to establish a cardinal set of relations to understand the compatibilities and incompatibilities traceable in the syntactic functional order of the different video game genres. Furthermore, a corpus of 43 genres is used to prove the solidity of this theoretical approach, oriented to establish foundations for a praxis of the human–machine ludic relation in fields such as game design and media studies, with the performative character of function as a guiding principle.</jats:p>

<jats:p> The Stanley Parable uses metafiction and elements borrowed from the “Theatre of the Absurd” to reveal a didactic, pedagogical, and despotic voice that lies below many of the choices found within gamebooks, literary games, and interactive narratives. The satirical character of the “narrator,” coupled with the game’s use of paradoxes, makes choosers aware of the catechistic structure that many didactic choices employ. This pedagogic choice structure has its roots in the TutorText series of programmed learning novels—a structure repeated (and hidden) by the Choose Your Own Adventure-style gamebooks that followed and that is subsequently parodied in The Stanley Parable. The Stanley Parable itself provides players with choices that lack a solution, with choices such as the “two doors” embodying a juxtaposition between the closed choices of TutorText and the open choices presented by the game. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The 21st century has given rise to gaming industry technologies that drive a new type of learner in the classroom. This article draws data from four case studies that were conducted as part of a sequential mixed-model study. The study explored the 21st-century skills students reported learning through their video game consumption and creation of intellectual property. The qualitative data analysis led to the development of five major findings: (1) the strategist: accomplishing the mission, (2) the creator: the art of gameplay, (3) the communicator: building relationships and communities, (4) the hero: to be the hero of a great adventure, and (5) I am an “elite”: a digital native. These findings attempt to create a profile of the 21st-century classroom gamer based on the data. They represent and support research trends that explore the gaming phenomenon, gamer traits, and 21st-century skills learned through playing video games. </jats:p>

<jats:p>There are diverse segmentations of online players in the literature. Most of them are proposed a priori, and there are no segmentations based on the acceptance of technology and the personal values of the players. The foremost purpose of this study is to obtain a posteriori segmentation of online video games’ players, founded on unified theory of acceptance and use of technology model, and to describe the subsequent segments consistent with the personal values of Schwartz. The measurement model and the structural model were analyzed with partial least squares (PLS). Subsequently, the PLS-prediction-oriented segmentation technique has been devoted to inspecting unobserved heterogeneity and to find players’ segments. Four segments are obtained from the statistical analysis, and data analysis shown that in each of the segments, the explained variance of both use and behavioral intention (which are the endogenous variables of the model) is significantly improved by comparing the results of the global sample.</jats:p>

<jats:p> Baseball is a rich mélange of tradition, spectatorship, evaluation, and fandom. Statistical fandom is presented as a cultural infrastructure, which influences how all fans perceive the game including what is valued in the game, how the game itself is played, and Major League Baseball as an industry. In building off of Halverson’s conception of a fantasy plane of baseball fandom, this research theorizes an additional statistical plane. Sabermetrics serve as a microcosm for a larger statistical turn in sports and reporting. The labor of saberfans builds a cultural algorithm through statistical analysis that shapes all fan engagement. Sabermetric inputs become an infrastructure of expertise through which the larger sporting public understands and evaluates baseball and culture. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article illustrates a gap between popular narratives of game development in design texts and the reality of day-to-day development, drawing from an ethnographic account of intern developers to highlight the potential contributions of studio studies to Game Studies. It describes three takeaways. The first is that the difficulty developers have in articulating their work to others has implications for how we learn, teach, and talk about development, including how we share knowledge across domains. The second is that, at least for newer developers, negotiation with technology rather than mastery characterizes daily work, and the third is that problems frequently arise in articulating and aligning the normally black-boxed work of individual developers. Resolution of these issues commonly depends on “soft” social skills; yet external pressures on developers mean they tidy up and professionalize accounts of their daily practice, thus both social conflict and soft skills have a tendency to disappear. </jats:p>

<jats:p> In 2014, the developers of The Vanishing of Ethan Carter revealed that the stunning settings in the game were created using photogrammetry, a modeling technique up to then generally disregarded as being too cumbersome for the technical limitations of game engines. Shortly after, EA DICE announced that its 2015 flagship title Star Wars Battlefront would be adopting photogrammetry extensively not only to capture key props and costumes but also to recreate key locations beloved to Star Wars fans. Since then, the games industry has been flooded with articles, tutorials, and new software dedicated to the use of photogrammetry to create 3-D game assets. This article examines the key developments in the field since 2014, how the technique is being adopted by game studios, what are the current and future trends, and how the use of photogrammetry is likely to disrupt the well-established game development pipelines. </jats:p>

<jats:p> 4A Games’s Metro Redux (2014) plays at the intersection of literature and video games. The suite consists of two games, the first of which ( Metro 2033) was based on the self-published novels of Dmitry Glukhovsky: Mempo 2033 (2005) and Mempo 2034 (2009). The games, like the novels, are set in the metro system of Moscow some 20 years after a nuclear apocalypse. Remnant communities, forced underground, congregate in stations that function as nascent city-states. Some stations are independent and unaligned, while others have formed factions (the mercantile “Hanza,” the communist “Red Line,” and the fascist “Fourth Reich”). A powerful central coalition, “Polis,” through the agency of its “Spartan” field agents, seems alone in its attempts to bring order to the metro and recolonize the ruined city above. But Polis and the Spartans are not the only such elements in Metro Redux, and players are quickly immersed in a landscape of Soviet neoclassicism, itself a polyvalent and highly politicized 20th-century Reception. This article will begin to explore what such receptions of Reception might mean. Does the Classical pulse, transmitted across multiple media, degrade to a point of white noise, meaningless and unintelligible? Or can we still find significance in the variation of reflection and transmission? </jats:p>

<jats:p> Video game streaming platforms have reached high popularity within the last years. As one of these popular platforms, Twitch provides users with the opportunity to participate in several gaming situations: They can simultaneously watch in-game actions, the streamer playing the game, and additionally, they can interact with the streamer and other viewers by using the chat. In an online survey, the current study explored how individuals ( N = 548) experience media enjoyment when using Twitch. Findings indicate that social aspects of using Twitch predominantly contribute to enjoyment. Approaches toward the phenomenon of video game streaming as well as implications for research on the usage of second screens and Social TV are discussed. </jats:p>

<jats:p> While the most popular forms of organized competitive digital gaming, also known as eSports, have begun finding their place within and in relation to both mainstream entertainment culture and the field of traditional sports, their history is one of struggling to be accepted as “true sports.” Partly because of this history, great effort has been put into the sportification of eSports by presenting competitions in familiar ways adapted from traditional sports. In this article, we examine the process of sportification of eSports in the context of tournament broadcasts. We analyze the Overwatch World Cup 2016 tournament, comparing its final broadcast to the 2014 FIFA World Cup’s final broadcast, looking for similarities and differences in the areas of broadcast structure, commentary and expertise, game presentation, game highlights and acknowledgments, teams and players, and audience. </jats:p>