Catálogo de publicaciones - revistas

<jats:p> The frequent absence of culturally specific, figurative, or decorative markings in abstract board games has challenged theorizations that assume a meaningful representation in the study of games. In accepting this challenge, this article theorizes the historical phenomenon of abstract board games whose nonrepresentational board design and formal rules have transmitted with little change over millennia and across vast expanse. A theoretical framework is outlined for understanding abstract board games—a modular ontology of abstract board games and a typology of player meaning-making in abstract board games. It is argued that the reproducibility and transferability of abstract board games as self-sufficient and reliable formal systems that players share independently from culturally specific meanings and materials may contribute to their dispersal. It is in this interaction between the cross-cultural/reliable and local/variable semantic structures of abstract board games that game studies from a historical or archaeological perspective may meet literary and social science perspectives. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Video games present incredibly rich visual environments that can be studied from a variety of perspectives including those germane to the visual arts. The medium has evolved to such a degree that evaluation should not rest on whether an individual game can be considered art, but what types of aesthetic engagement the medium affords. A key figure in the study of the visual arts is aesthetic contemplation, in which extended attention reveals aesthetic differences. Although the video game presents many sites and scenes worthy of such contemplation, this mode of spectatorship requires sufficient time and space to attend to a visual object. In order to open up a space for aesthetic engagement, many of the ludological and narrative demands of the game must recede. In this article, we will investigate the degree to which players have choice in how, or how long, they attend to a game’s visual environment. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article considers how folklorism (i.e., artistic representations of folk culture) is aesthetically coded in the soundtrack of the commercially and critically successful The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt video game. Using the tripartite model developed by French musical semiotician Jean-Jacques Nattiez, I consider how the player encounters music and its attendant folklorism in the game (neutral level), how folklorism is embedded in the text through composer activities (poiesis), and how that folklorism can be interpreted by the game’s primarily Western Anglophone player-base (esthesis). The soundtrack’s folklorism as a stylistic musical phenomenon is also related to relevant ethnomusicological scholarship and considered within the larger cultural industry surrounding the game. In doing so, it is shown not only how The Witcher 3’s musical folklorism contributes to the game’s spatiotemporal aesthetics but also how creative musical intentions are transmitted, received, and mediated through the video game medium and its surrounding cultural discourses. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Gamification redefines news reading activity by turning it into a playful experience. The shift from a reading mode to a playing mode marks a shift in news semogenesis strategies that need to be investigated to provide a better understanding of the emerging genres of news gamification and to build some reflections on the ongoing changes in journalistic practices and news values. This article takes a case study of the Al Jazeera gamified news, #Hacked-Syria’s Electronic Armies. The article aims to account for the semogenic resources employed by #Hacked and the resulting aesthetic and immersive experience of interactivity. It is found that #Hacked makes sense through the medium of aesthetics of interactivity. Studied through the lens of systemic functional linguistics, aesthetics in the context of the current study is not reduced to a mere attention to style; rather it describes a different and unique digital process of meaning making based on the participant’s immersive interactivity and choices. It is the semogenic power of choice and the immersive aesthetics of interactivity that mainly create #Hacked news value. The analysis yields that #Hacked reconfigures traditional notions of readers, news, and news values. </jats:p>

<jats:p> With technological advancement, digital play is increasingly popular as digital games appeal to all ages but are particularly attractive to youths and children. It is useful to develop a deeper understanding of digital play and to explore ways in which caregivers can guide young people in their play to recognize and develop different types of learning. This article attempts to address these issues through proposing a metalanguage for digital play. The theoretical orientation adopted in this article is that of social semiotics and critical multiliteracies. Our focus is on harnessing the affordances of digital play for learning by systematizing them into a metalanguage based on social semiotic theory that models the meaning potential of semiotic resources into the representation, engagement, and organization functions. From the metalanguage, the pedagogical implications or a set of principles of using digital play for learning in the classroom context are discussed. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Research suggests that gaming can play an important role in dealing with life difficulties, but few studies have examined this directly. Building on recent research, the current study set out to develop a measure of gaming in difficult life situations (GDLS) and explored the role of emotion regulation and coping self-efficacy as predictors of this behaviour. A total of 667 gamers completed the online survey. Initial analyses demonstrated validity and reliability of the GDLS scale (α = .92), with players turning to gaming as a distraction from life difficulties, to feel a sense of achievement, to connect with others, and for in-game connection and simulation. Multiple regression analysis showed that younger age, more time spent gaming in general, and lower coping self-efficacy predicted GDLS, but emotion regulation was non-significant. The study presents novel insights and a new measure for future research in this area. </jats:p>

<jats:p> Games often encourage players to feel empathy for characters or scenarios by design. However, the term ‘empathy’ is often misunderstood and used in a variety of contexts as a substitute for feelings of sympathy, pity and compassion. This article defines a distinction between these similar terms and uses their definitions to describe how players emotionally engage with a game. This helps define an empathy spectrum, ranging from pity to compassion, that can be used to subjectively classify different games. To show the spectrum in use, the article discusses a variety of video games that can be placed at the spectrum’s key points, before discussing how games might reach the spectrum’s furthest point: compassion. The research hopes that modelling these abstract psychological concepts on this spectrum can help game designers, players and scholars better understand the range of emotional responses present in games. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This article will argue that the current literature on retrogaming as a practice and the retrogamer as a subject has been lacking in fully describing the variety of practices and subjects that engage with old games. Based on data collected by interviewing nine self-described Danish retrogamers, three motivations for engaging with old games, besides nostalgia, are identified. These motivations are typologized into three player types: amateur archaeologists, amateur art historians, and techno-historians. Following the analysis, it will be argued that retrogaming might be an imprecise term to encompass the many different ways that individuals engage with old games. The concepts historical play and nostalgic play are presented to alleviate this. </jats:p>

<jats:p> The fantasy sport industry has seen tremendous changes in the past five years, thanks in large part to increased participation, media acceptance, easing of legal pressure, and the proliferation of daily fantasy sport. Similarly, sports gambling recently moved further into the spotlight with a 2018 U.S. Supreme Court ruling striking down a 1992 law allowing Nevada to be the only state to legally house sports betting. Having once been advised to steer clear of each other, gambling and fantasy sport interests are now becoming increasingly intertwined. Utilizing quantitative data from a national survey of 519 fantasy sport participants, this study explores attitudes of and participation in alternative forms of fantasy sport and sports betting. Insights can be gleaned regarding familiarity in the activities, reluctance in participation, sport consumption, future participation, and connection points between fantasy sport and sports gambling cultures. </jats:p>

<jats:p> This project evaluates the current state accessibility of video games, specifically in terms of designing for disability. We evaluate 50 games chosen for their sales data, critical reception, awards won, and other criteria to examine the widest possible sample of the most prominent games released in 2019. This approach to selecting games allows for identifying design trends as they emerge from the most widely played or influential games. The results highlight design pitfalls and innovations regarding accessibility in four key areas: auditory, visual, motor, and difficulty. As a feed-forward project, the aim is not simply to catalog what games include which accessibility features, a nearly impossible feat considering how varied the design features are, depending on the game. This report also attempts to point to future directions for how games can continue to innovate in accessibility. </jats:p>