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Author: Timothy Rowlands
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2016-06-16
Total Pages: 202
ISBN-13: 1315416042
DOWNLOAD EBOOKTimothy Rowlands brings a diverse mix of ethnographic, semiotic, and analytical approaches to analyze the massively multiplayer online game Everquest.
Author: Claus Pias
Publisher: Diaphanes
Published: 2017
Total Pages: 0
ISBN-13: 9783035800135
DOWNLOAD EBOOKComputer games have become ubiquitous in today's society. Many scholars have speculated on the reasons for their massive success. Yet we haven't considered the most basic questions: Why do computer games exist? What specific circumstances led to the creation of this entirely new type of game? What sorts of knowledge facilitated the requisite technological and institutional transformations? With Computer Game Worlds, Claus Pias sets out to answer these questions. Tracing computer games from their earliest forms to the unstoppable commercial and cultural phenomena they have become today, Pias then provides a careful epistemological reconstruction of the process of playing games, both at computers and by computers themselves. The book makes a valuable theoretical contribution to the ongoing discussion about computer games.
Author: Seth Giddings
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
Published: 2016-05-19
Total Pages: 193
ISBN-13: 1501318292
DOWNLOAD EBOOKGame studies is a rapidly developing field across the world, with a growing number of dedicated courses addressing video games and digital play as significant phenomena in contemporary everyday life and media cultures. Seth Giddings looks to fill a gap by focusing on the relationship between the actual and virtual worlds of play in everyday life. He addresses both the continuities and differences between digital play and longer-established modes of play. The 'gameworlds' title indicates both the virtual world designed into the videogame and the wider environments in which play is manifested: social relationships between players; hardware and software; between the virtual worlds of the game and the media universes they extend (e.g. Pokémon, Harry Potter, Lego, Star Wars); and the gameworlds generated by children's imaginations and creativity (through talk and role-play, drawings and outdoor play). The gameworld raises questions about who, and what, is in play. Drawing on recent theoretical work in science and technology studies, games studies and new media studies, a key theme is the material and embodied character of these gameworlds and their components (players' bodies, computer hardware, toys, virtual physics, and the physical environment). Building on detailed small-scale ethnographic case studies, Gameworlds is the first book to explore the nature of play in the virtual worlds of video games and how this play relates to, and crosses over into, everyday play in the actual world.
Author: Miguel Sicart
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 2011-08-19
Total Pages: 273
ISBN-13: 0262261537
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWhy computer games can be ethical, how players use their ethical values in gameplay, and the implications for game design. Despite the emergence of computer games as a dominant cultural industry (and the accompanying emergence of computer games as the subject of scholarly research), we know little or nothing about the ethics of computer games. Considerations of the morality of computer games seldom go beyond intermittent portrayals of them in the mass media as training devices for teenage serial killers. In this first scholarly exploration of the subject, Miguel Sicart addresses broader issues about the ethics of games, the ethics of playing the games, and the ethical responsibilities of game designers. He argues that computer games are ethical objects, that computer game players are ethical agents, and that the ethics of computer games should be seen as a complex network of responsibilities and moral duties. Players should not be considered passive amoral creatures; they reflect, relate, and create with ethical minds. The games they play are ethical systems, with rules that create gameworlds with values at play. Drawing on concepts from philosophy and game studies, Sicart proposes a framework for analyzing the ethics of computer games as both designed objects and player experiences. After presenting his core theoretical arguments and offering a general theory for understanding computer game ethics, Sicart offers case studies examining single-player games (using Bioshock as an example), multiplayer games (illustrated by Defcon), and online gameworlds (illustrated by World of Warcraft) from an ethical perspective. He explores issues raised by unethical content in computer games and its possible effect on players and offers a synthesis of design theory and ethics that could be used as both analytical tool and inspiration in the creation of ethical gameplay.
Author: Johannes Fromme
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-06-14
Total Pages: 694
ISBN-13: 9400727771
DOWNLOAD EBOOKDigital gaming is today a significant economic phenomenon as well as being an intrinsic part of a convergent media culture in postmodern societies. Its ubiquity, as well as the sheer volume of hours young people spend gaming, should make it ripe for urgent academic enquiry, yet the subject was a research backwater until the turn of the millennium. Even today, as tens of millions of young people spend their waking hours manipulating avatars and gaming characters on computer screens, the subject is still treated with scepticism in some academic circles. This handbook aims to reflect the relevance and value of studying digital games, now the subject of a growing number of studies, surveys, conferences and publications. As an overview of the current state of research into digital gaming, the 42 papers included in this handbook focus on the social and cultural relevance of gaming. In doing so, they provide an alternative perspective to one-dimensional studies of gaming, whose agendas do not include cultural factors. The contributions, which range from theoretical approaches to empirical studies, cover various topics including analyses of games themselves, the player-game interaction, and the social context of gaming. In addition, the educational aspects of games and gaming are treated in a discrete section. With material on non-commercial gaming trends such as ‘modding’, and a multinational group of authors from eleven nations, the handbook is a vital publication demonstrating that new media cultures are far more complex and diverse than commonly assumed in a debate dominated by concerns over violent content.
Author: Mark J.P. Wolf
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
Published: 2023-06-19
Total Pages: 832
ISBN-13: 1000886026
DOWNLOAD EBOOKA definitive guide to contemporary video game studies, this second edition has been fully revised and updated to address the ongoing theoretical and methodological development of game studies. Expertly compiled by well-known video game scholars Mark J. P. Wolf and Bernard Perron, the Companion includes comprehensive and interdisciplinary models and approaches for analyzing video games, new perspectives on video games both as an art form and cultural phenomenon, explorations of the technical and creative dimensions of video games, and accounts of the political, social, and cultural dynamics of video games. Brand new to this second edition are chapters examining topics such as preservation; augmented, mixed, and virtual reality; eSports; disability; diversity; and identity, as well as a new section that specifically examines the industrial aspects of video games including digital distribution, game labor, triple-A games, indie games, and globalization. Each essay provides a lively and succinct summary of its target area, quickly bringing the reader up-to-date on the pertinent issues surrounding each aspect of the field, including references for further reading. A comprehensive overview of the present state of video game studies that will undoubtedly prove invaluable to students, scholars, and game designers alike.
Author: John Richard Sageng
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2012-07-10
Total Pages: 281
ISBN-13: 9400742495
DOWNLOAD EBOOKComputer games have become a major cultural and economic force, and a subject of extensive academic interest. Up until now, however, computer games have received relatively little attention from philosophy. Seeking to remedy this, the present collection of newly written papers by philosophers and media researchers addresses a range of philosophical questions related to three issues of crucial importance for understanding the phenomenon of computer games: the nature of gameplay and player experience, the moral evaluability of player and avatar actions, and the reality status of the gaming environment. By doing so, the book aims to establish the philosophy of computer games as an important strand of computer games research, and as a separate field of philosophical inquiry. The book is required reading for anyone with an academic or professional interest in computer games, and will also be of value to readers curious about the philosophical issues raised by contemporary digital culture.
Author: Ashad Mukadam
Publisher: Lulu.com
Published: 2014-08-20
Total Pages: 243
ISBN-13: 0993803806
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn February 2013, Ronald Charlton was laid off from his job at Pacific IT and Consulting in Calgary, Alberta, Canada. Soon after, he decided to start playing video games, initially as a way to just let out some steam. However, it is now August, and he has still not stopped playing. He only seems to get off of the couch when he goes to eat, sleep, and work out. This is now starting to affect the relationships he has with his parents, Monica and Harold, and his brother Mitch, and especially with his girlfriend, Dawna Langston. Then, on a rainy day in August 2013, a major thunderstorm hits Calgary. Ronald, who has been playing throughout the storm, is just about to hit a new high score on his video game when lightning strikes the console, causing an electrical current to travel down the wire to his controller, which then surrounds him, and transports him to the video game world. He soon finds out from the government of the video game world, commonly called The VGG, that he must physically play and complete a number of games in a certain order only known to them in order to get home. Ronald, along with his guide Pixie, then embark on a journey to return Ronald home. Will he make it back to the real world, or is Ronald doomed to stay in the video game world forever?
Author: William Gibbons
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2024
Total Pages: 977
ISBN-13: 0197556167
DOWNLOAD EBOOKBringing together dozens of leading scholars from across the world to address topics from pinball to the latest in virtual reality, The Oxford Handbook of Video Game Music and Sound is the most comprehensive and multifaceted single-volume source in the rapidly expanding field of game audio research.
Author: Tiffany Funk
Publisher: Amherst College Press
Published: 2022-04
Total Pages: 91
ISBN-13: 1943208433
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThe inaugural issue of VGAR celebrates video game culture as inclusive and global. Opening with an interview with the art director of the first independent Cuban video game, Savior, while the following essays from art historians, literary theorists, game designers, artists, educators, museum curators, and programmers all engage with video games as an important part of the global art landscape. Each engages with what makes good game art with special attention to the transnational cadre of gamers that play them. Contributions by Jesse de Vos, Jacob Euteneuer, Monica Evans, Tiffany Funk, René Glas, Eddie Lohmeyer, Evan Meaney, Kieran Nolan, Josuhe Pagliery, Sercan Şengün, Teresa Silva, Christopher W. Totten, and Jasper van Vught.
