Women and Video Game Modding
Women and Video Game Modding

Author: Bridget Whelan

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2020-02-07

Total Pages: 217

ISBN-13: 1476667438

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The world of video games has long revolved around a subset of its player base: straight, white males aged 18-25. Highly gendered marketing in the late 1990s and early 2000s widened the gap between this perceived base and the actual diverse group who buy video games. Despite reports from the Entertainment Software Association that nearly half of gamers identify as female, many developers continue to produce content reflecting this imaginary audience. Many female gamers are in turn modifying the games. "Modders" alter the appearance of characters, rewrite scenes and epilogues, enhance or add love scenes and create fairy tale happy endings. This is a collection of new essays on the phenomenon of women and modding, focusing on such titles as Skyrim, Dragon Age, Mass Effect and The Sims. Topics include the relationship between modders and developers, the history of modding, and the relationship between modding and disability, race, sexuality and gender identity.

Virtual Identities and Digital Culture
Virtual Identities and Digital Culture

Author: Victoria Kannen

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-28

Total Pages: 275

ISBN-13: 1000843084

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Virtual Identities and Digital Culture investigates how our online identities and cultures are embedded within the digital practices of our lives, exploring how we form community, how we play, and how we re-imagine traditional media in a digital world. The collection explores a wide range of digital topics – from dating apps, microcelebrity, and hackers to auditory experiences, Netflix algorithms, and live theatre online – and builds on existing work in digital culture and identity by bringing new voices, contemporary examples, and highlighting platforms that are emerging in the field. The book speaks to the modern reality of how our digital lives have been forever altered by our transnational experiences – one of those key experiences is the pandemic, but so too is systemic inequality, questions of digital privacy, and the role of joy in our online lives. A vital contribution at a time of significant social and cultural flux, this book will be highly relevant to those studying digital culture within media, communication, cultural studies, digital humanities, and sociology departments.

The Serious Leisure Perspective
The Serious Leisure Perspective

Author: Sam Elkington

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-07-17

Total Pages: 239

ISBN-13: 1317810414

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The "Serious Leisure Perspective" (SLP) is a theoretical framework that can help us understand the complexities of modern leisure as both an activity and an experience. Bringing together the study of serious leisure, casual leisure and project-based leisure, it is an essential component of the Leisure Studies curriculum and an invaluable tool for exploring the significance of leisure in contemporary society. This book is the first of offer a comprehensive introduction to the Serious Leisure Perspective, from fundamental principles and key concepts to in-depth and wide-ranging case studies of serious leisure pursuits. The book introduces the history of the SLP and its position alongside other social theories that attempt to explain the nature and function of leisure. It explores important themes such as consumption, gender relations, social capital and quality of life, and delves deeply into the leisure of amateurs, hobbyists, career volunteers and occupational devotees. Every chapter includes a range of useful pedagogical features, such as review questions and group exercises, to help the student to grasp the importance of understanding leisure as a way of understanding contemporary social life and society. Combining cutting-edge theory and method with an engaging and practical interface, this is an essential text for all Leisure Studies courses and illuminating reading for any student working in Tourism, Events, Sport, Recreation, Sociology or Cultural Studies.

Women in Classical Video Games
Women in Classical Video Games

Author: Jane Draycott

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2022-08-11

Total Pages: 289

ISBN-13: 1350241946

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Despite the prevalence of video games set in or inspired by classical antiquity, the medium has to date remained markedly understudied in the disciplines of classics and ancient history, with the role of women in these video games especially neglected. Women in Classical Video Games seeks to address this imbalance as the first book-length work of scholarship to examine the depiction of women in video games set in classical antiquity. The volume surveys the history of women in these games and the range of figures presented from the 1980s to the present, alongside discussion of issues such as historical accuracy, authenticity, gender, sexuality, monstrosity, hegemony, race and ethnicity, and the use of tropes. A wide range of games of different types and modes are discussed, including platformers, strategy games , roguelikes, MOBA, action RPGs, and story-driven romance mobile games. The detailed case studies presented here form a compelling case for the indispensability of the medium to both reception studies and gender studies, and offer nuanced answers to such questions as how and why women are portrayed in the ways that they are.

The Performance of Video Games
The Performance of Video Games

Author: Kelly I. Aliano

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2022-10-27

Total Pages: 231

ISBN-13: 1476647909

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

When viewed through the context of an interactive play, a video game player fulfills the roles of both actor and spectator, watching and influencing a game's story in real time. This book presents video gaming as a virtual medium for performance, scrutinizing the ways in which a player's interaction with the narrative informs personal, historical, social and cultural understanding. Centering the author's own experiences as both video game player and performance scholar, the book thoroughly applies concepts from theatre and performance studies. Chapters argue that the posthuman player position now challenges what can be contextualized as a lived experience, and how video games can change players' relationships with historical events and contemporary concerns, ultimately impacting how they develop a sense of self. Using the author's own gaming experiences as a framework, the book focuses on the intersection between player and narrative, exploring what engagement with a storyline reveals about identity and society.

Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons
Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons

Author: Premeet Sidhu

Publisher: MIT Press

Published: 2024-05-14

Total Pages: 387

ISBN-13: 0262547600

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

On the fiftieth anniversary of Dungeons & Dragons, a collection of essays that explores and celebrates the game’s legacy and its tremendous impact on gaming and popular culture. In 2024, the enormously influential tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons—also known as D&D—celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. To mark the occasion, editors Premeet Sidhu, Marcus Carter, and José Zagal have assembled an edited collection that celebrates and reflects on important parts of the game’s past, present, and future. Each chapter in Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons explores why the nondigital game is more popular than ever—with sales increasing 33 percent during the COVID-19 pandemic, despite worldwide lockdowns—and offers readers the opportunity to critically reflect on their own experiences, perceptions, and play of D&D. Fifty Years of Dungeons & Dragons draws on fascinating research and insight from expert scholars in the field, including: Gary Alan Fine, whose 1983 book Shared Fantasy remains a canonical text in game studies; Jon Peterson, celebrated D&D historian; Daniel Justice, Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Literature and Expressive Culture; and numerous leading and emerging scholars from the growing discipline of game studies, including Amanda Cote, Esther MacCallum-Stewart, and Aaron Trammell. The chapters cover a diverse range of topics—from D&D’s adoption in local contexts and classrooms and by queer communities to speculative interpretations of what D&D might look like in one hundred years—that aim to deepen readers’ understanding of the game.

The Composition of Video Games
The Composition of Video Games

Author: Johansen Quijano

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2019-10-11

Total Pages: 243

ISBN-13: 1476637156

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Video games are a complex, compelling medium in which established art forms intersect with technology to create an interactive text. Visual arts, architectural design, music, narrative and rules of play all find a place within, and are constrained by, computer systems whose purpose is to create an immersive player experience. In the relatively short life of video game studies, many authors have approached the question of how games function, some focusing on technical aspects of game design, others on rules of play. Taking a holistic view, this study explores how ludology, narratology, visual rhetoric, musical theory and player psychology work (or don't work) together to create a cohesive experience and to provide a unified framework for understanding video games.

The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sexuality and Culture
The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sexuality and Culture

Author: Emma Rees

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2022-09-02

Total Pages: 613

ISBN-13: 1000627004

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Routledge Companion to Gender, Sexuality, and Culture is an intersectional, diverse, and comprehensive collection essential for students and researchers examining the intersection of sexuality and culture. The book seeks to reflect established theories while anticipating future developments within gender, sexuality, and cultural studies. A range of international contributors, including leaders in their field, provide insights into dominant and marginalised subjects. Comprising over 30 chapters, the volume is comprised into five thematic parts: Identifying, Embodying, Making, Doing, and Resisting. Topics explored include homonormativity, poetry, video games, menstruation, fatness, disability, sex toys, sex work, BDSM, dating apps, body modifications, and politics and activism. This is an important and unique collection aimed at scholars, researchers, activists, and practitioners across cultural studies, gender studies and sociology.

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction
The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction

Author: Lisa Yaszek

Publisher: Taylor & Francis

Published: 2023-02-10

Total Pages: 568

ISBN-13: 1000826287

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

The Routledge Companion to Gender and Science Fiction is the first large-scale reference work of its kind, critically assessing the relations of gender and genre in science fiction (SF) especially—but not exclusively—as explored in speculative art by women and LGBTQ+ artists across the world. This global volume builds upon the traditions of interdisciplinary inquiry by connecting established topics in gender studies and science fiction studies with emergent ideas from researchers in different media. Taken together, they challenge conventional generic boundaries; provide new ways of approaching familiar texts; recover lost artists and introduce new ones; connect the revival of old, hate-based politics with the increasing visibility of imagined futures for all; and show how SF stories about new kinds of gender relations inspire new models of artistic, technoscientific, and political practice. Their chapters are grouped into five conversations—about the history of gender and genre, theoretical frameworks, subjectivities, medias and transmedialities, and transtemporalities—that are central to discussions of gender and SF in the current moment. A range of both emerging and established names in media, literature, and cultural studies engage with a huge diversity of topics including eco-criticism, animal studies, cyborg and posthumanist theory, masculinity, critical race studies, Indigenous futurisms, Black girlhood, and gaming. This is an essential resource for students and scholars studying gender, sexuality, and/or science fiction.

The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 Games
The Minds Behind PlayStation 2 Games

Author: Patrick Hickey, Jr.

Publisher: McFarland

Published: 2023-01-20

Total Pages: 245

ISBN-13: 1476688540

DOWNLOAD EBOOK

Featuring interviews with the creators of 37 popular video games--including SOCOM, Shadow of the Colossus, Tekken Tag Tournament and Sly Cooper--this book gives a behind-the-scenes look at the creation of some of the most influential and iconic (and sometimes forgotten) games of the original PlayStation 2 era. Recounting endless hours of painstaking development, the challenges of working with mega publishers and the uncertainties of public reception, the interviewees reveal the creative processes that produced some of gaming's classic titles.