This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2013. This volume brings together perspectives on videogames and interactive entertainment from film and media studies, Russian studies, health, philosophy and human-computer interaction, among others. It includes theoretically and practically-informed explorations of the nature of games, their design and development, and their communities and culture.
Animal Crossing is an innovative virtual world with a global audience beyond traditional online gamers. The book is the first major study, offering an interdisciplinary exploration of copyright and other laws, user creativity and sociability, psychology, the virtual world’s economic and technological basis, uptake during COVID-19, gamification of offline brands, relationships with past/contemporary computer games, and Animal Crossing as an example of the Japanification of online popular culture. The book provides insights for students, researchers and non-specialist readers.
Professor Craig Caldwell’s Story Structure and Development offers a clear approach to the essentials of story. It lays out the fundamental elements, principles, and structure for animators, designers, and artists so they can incorporate these concepts in their work. As a practical guide it includes extensive insights and advice from industry professionals. Readers will learn the universal patterns of story and narrative used in today’s movies, animation, games, and VR. With over 200 colorful images, this book has been designed for visual learners, and is organized to provide access to story concepts for the screen media professional and student. Readers will discover the story fundamentals referred to by every director and producer when they say "It’s all about story". Key Features Consolidates into one text universal story structure used across the digital media industry Includes enormous visuals that illustrate and reinforce concepts for visual learners Organizes content for faculty to use sections in a non-linear manner Includes chapter objectives, review questions, and key terms to guide the reader
A defining fixture of our contemporary world, video games offer a rich spectrum of engagements with the past. Beyond a source of entertainment, video games are cultural expressions that support and influence social interactions. Games educate, bring enjoyment, and encourage reflection. They are intricate achievements of coding and creative works of art. Histories, ranging from the personal to the global, are reinterpreted and retold for broad audiences in playful, digital experiences. The medium also magnifies our already complicated and confrontational relation with the past, for instance through its overreliance on violent and discriminatory game mechanics. This book continues an interdisciplinary conversation on game development and play, working towards a better understanding of how we represent and experience the past in the present. Return to the Interactive Past offers a new collection of engaging writings by game creators, historians, computer scientists, archaeologists, and others. It shows us the thoughtful processes developers go through when they design games, as well as the complex ways in which players interact with games. Building on the themes explored in the book The Interactive Past (2017), the authors go back to the past to raise new issues. How can you sensitively and evocatively use veterans' voices to make a video game that is not about combat? How can the development of an old video game be reconstructed on the basis of its code and historic hardware limitations? Could hacking be a way to decolonize games and counter harmful stereotypes? When archaeologists study games, what kinds of maps do they draw for their digital fieldwork? And in which ways could we teach history through playing games and game-making?
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2011. Videogame Studies: Concepts, Cultures, and Communication explores the ever-expanding field of game studies. Included in this volume is the research and insights of experts in multiple interdisciplinary fields, focused on the construction of new frameworks for understanding games as narrative artifacts, technological systems, cultural indicators, social communities, educators, and works of art. Games and game-structures permeate every aspect of our lives, and provide more than simple entertainment to the millions of players immersed and engaged in games on a daily basis. The sixteen authors in this volume provide new thoughts on the rapid expansion of both the game industry and game academia, and cover a wide range of topics, including the rise and fall of in-game communities; the place of digital versus analog games in current methodology; the particular relationship between player, avatar, and identity; the design of educational and serious games; the social structures, needs, and desires of social game players; the performance aspect of interactive media; and the economic consequences of game production. This collection aims to inspire further research in numerous areas of game studies, and is a valuable addition to the growing discourse of a rapidly evolving field of study.
"This book examines the complexity of World of Warcraft from a variety of perspectives, exploring the cultural and social implications of the proliferation of ever more complex digital gameworlds.The contributors have immersed themselves in the World of Warcraft universe, spending hundreds of hours as players (leading guilds and raids, exploring moneymaking possibilities in the in-game auction house, playing different factions, races, and classes), conducting interviews, and studying the game design - as created by Blizzard Entertainment, the game's developer, and as modified by player-created user interfaces. The analyses they offer are based on both the firsthand experience of being a resident of Azeroth and the data they have gathered and interpreted.The contributors examine the ways that gameworlds reflect the real world - exploring such topics as World of Warcraft as a "capitalist fairytale" and the game's construction of gender; the cohesiveness of the gameworld in terms of geography, mythology, narrative, and the treatment of death as a temporary state; aspects of play, including "deviant strategies" perhaps not in line with the intentions of the designers; and character - both players' identification with their characters and the game's culture of naming characters." -- BOOK JACKET.
This volume was first published by Inter-Disciplinary Press in 2014. Engaging with Videogames focuses on the multiplicity of lenses through which the digital game can be understood, particularly as a cultural artefact, economic product, educational tool, and narrative experience. Game studies remains a highly interdisciplinary field, and as such tends to bring together scholars and researchers from a wide variety of fields and analytical practices. As such, this volume includes explorations of videogames from the fields of literature, visual art, history, classics, film studies, new media studies, phenomenology, education, philosophy, psychology, and the social sciences, as well as game studies, design, and development. The chapters are organised thematically into four sections focusing on educational game practices, videogame cultures, videogame theory, and the practice of critical analysis. Within these chapters are explorations of sexual identity and health, videogame history, slapstick, player mythology and belief systems, gender and racial ideologies, games as a ‘body-without organs,’ and controversial games from Mass Effect 3 to Raid over Moscow. This volume aims to inspire further research in this rapidly evolving and expanding field.
Video games are becoming culturally dominant. But what does their popularity say about our contemporary society? This book explores video game culture, but in doing so, utilizes video games as a lens through which to understand contemporary social life. Video games are becoming an increasingly central part of our cultural lives, impacting on various aspects of everyday life such as our consumption, communities, and identity formation. Drawing on new and original empirical data – including interviews with gamers, as well as key representatives from the video game industry, media, education, and cultural sector – Video Games as Culture not only considers contemporary video game culture, but also explores how video games provide important insights into the modern nature of digital and participatory culture, patterns of consumption and identity formation, late modernity, and contemporary political rationalities. This book will appeal to undergraduate and postgraduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers, interested in fields such Video Games, Sociology, and Media and Cultural Studies. It will also be useful for those interested in the wider role of culture, technology, and consumption in the transformation of society, identities, and communities.
