Disciplinary identity of game scholars: an outline

There has been academic research work directed at games and play for decades, but the field has been somewhat scattered, and around the turn of the millennium the idea of establishing a new discipline, dedicated to the study of games in their own right gained prominence. The conference, journal and other publication activity in games research has expanded during the last decade, but it remains unclear how many contemporary academics working on games could be seen to represent a unified group, sharing a common disciplinary identity. This paper reports the first results from an international survey (valid n = 544), carried out among the DiGRA mailing list subscribers, as well as among the members of ECREA and ICA games research groups, aimed at probing the background education, orientation and academic practices of games researchers. The findings highlight the great diversity of educational backgrounds and of the current self-identified research fields, but also the dynamic interdisciplinary changes from one field to another, and how strong the identification as a “digital games researcher” is among the survey respondents

On the Liberation of Space in Computer Games

This article describes the evolution of space in computer games from self-contained spaces to more processual concepts. While in the early age of computer games the design of space primarily caused specific interpretations and acts (invasion or defence of space – as a matter of opinion), the latter concepts become more and more indefinite: Former hard-fought dungeons and space stations resolve into landscapes open for relational perspectives. Insofar as the design of space loses its impact on the perceptions and actions of the players, acts of social communication and not warfare reduce uncertainty. The thesis is that this process gives rise to the formation of communities and the unpredictable configuration of space

The Pyrrhic Victory of Game Studies : Assessing the Past, Present, and Future of Interdisciplinary Game Research

Although game studies are widely viewed as an interdisciplinary field, it is unclear how interdisciplinary they actually are. In response, this article reads scientometric data and game studies editorials, handbooks and introductions through the lens of interdisciplinarity studies to assess game studies’ status as an interdiscipline. It argues that game studies show drivers and hurdles typical for interdisciplines. Yet instead of establishing themselves as the broad umbrella interdiscipline of digital game research, they are becoming one narrow cultural studies multidiscipline within the growing and diversifying field of game research and education. Researchers from fields like human-computer interaction or communication are abandoning game studies venues in favor of disciplinary ones – ironically thanks to game studies legitimizing game research. The article suggests that a design orientation and cross-disciplinary boundary objects such as middle range theories could help to broaden, deepen, and secure future interdisciplinary game research

Virtual World-Weariness: On Delaying the Experiential Erosion of Digital Environments

A common understanding of the role of a game developer includes establishing (or at least partially establishing) what is interactively and perceptually available in (video)game environments: what elements and behaviors those worlds include and allow, and what is – instead – left out of their ‘possibility horizon’. The term ‘possibility horizon’ references the Ancient Greek origin of the term ‘horizon’, ὄρος (oros), which denotes a frontier – a spatial limit. On this etymological foundation, ‘horizon’ is used here to indicate the spatial and operational boundaries that a (video)game environment affords its players. This book chapter discusses a particular feeling that emerge in relation to playful encounters with the ‘possibility horizons’ of videogames. I am referring here to the realization, as a player, that a game environment can be experientially exhausted and is, as such, ultimately banal. In other words, I will examine how our deliberate engagement with the interactive environments of digital games can trigger sensations that are analogous to what Romantic authors referred to as Weltschmerz (‘world-weariness’)

Inviting the Audience – Interactive, Participatory, and Social Television in Finland

The television and the ways it has invited the audience to take part have been changing during the last decade. Today’s interaction, or rather participation, comes from multiplatform formats, such as TV spectacles that combine TV and web platforms in order to create a wider TV experience. Multiplatform phenomena have spread television consumption and traditional coffee table discussions to several different devices and environments. Television has become a part of the bigger puzzle of interconnected devices that operates on several platforms instead of just one. This thesis examines the Finnish television (2004–2014) through the notion of audience participation and introduces the technical, thematic, and social linkages as three different phases, interactive, participatory, social, and their most characteristic features in terms of audience participation. The aim of the study is also to focus on the idea of a possible change by addressing the possible and subtler variations that have taken place through the concept of digital television. Firstly, Finnish television history has gone through numerous trials, exploring the interactive potential of television formats. Finnish SMS-based iTV had its golden era around 2005, when nearly 50% of the television formats were to some extent interactive. Nowadays, interactive television formats have vanished due to their negative reputation and this important part of recent history is mainly been neglected in the academic scope. The dissertation focuses also on the present situation and the ways television content invites the audience to take part. “TV meets the Internet” is a global expression that characterises digital TV, and the use of the Web combined with television content is also examined. Also the linkages between television and social media are identified. Since television can nowadays be described multifaceted, the research approaches are also versatile. The research is based on qualitative content analysis, media observation, and Internet inquiry. The research material also varies. It consists of primary data: taped iTV formats, website material, and social media traces both from Twitter and Facebook and secondary data: discussion forums, observations from the media and Internet inquiry data. To sum up the results, the iTV phase represented, through its content, a new possibility for audiences to take part in a TV show (through gameful and textual features) in real-time. In participatory phase, the most characteristic features from TV-related content view, is the fact that online platform(s) were used to immerse the audience with additional material and, due to this, to extend the TV watching enjoyment beyond the actual broadcast. During the Social (media) phase, both of these features, real-timeness, and extended enjoyment through additional material, are combined and Facebook & Twitter, for example, are used to immerse people in live events (in real-time) via broadcast-related tweets and extra-material offered on a Facebook page. This thesis fills in the gap in Finnish television research by examining the rapid changes taken place on the field within the last ten years. The main results is that the development of Finnish digital television has been much more diverse and subtle than has been anticipated by following only the news, media, and contemporary discourses on the subject of television. The results will benefit both practitioners and academics by identifying the recent history of Finnish television.Yleisö mukaan – interaktiivinen, osallistava ja sosiaalinen televisio Suomessa 2004–2014 Television sanotaan läpikäyneen useita muutoksia 2000-luvulle tultaessa, erityisesti digitaalisuuden näkökulmasta.Tutkimus esittelee, miten televisio on aktivoinut ja kutsunut ihmisiä ottamaan osaa TV-tarjontaan – niin teknologian, temaattisen sisällön kuin sosiaalisuudenkin kautta. Suomalaisen TV:n lähihistoriaan kuuluu olennaisena osana interaktiivisen TV-viihteen aikakausi. iTV-viihteellä oli kulta-aikansa v. 2005, jolloin peruskanavien tarjonnasta lähes 50% oli jollakin tasolla interaktiivista. Se piti sisällään SMS-pohjaiset TV-chatit, TV-mobiilipelit sekä interaktiiviset soittovisat. Nykyään lähes kaikki ITV-viihteen muodot ovat hävinneet ruudusta. Kattavaa akateemista tutkimusta ei TV:n viimeisten 10 vuoden ajalta kuitenkaan ole - väitöstyö vastaa tähän tarpeeseen. Tutkimus keskittyy kuitenkin myös TV:n nykytilaan. Nykypäivän interaktio/vuorovaikutus tai pikemminkin osallistuminen näyttäytyy erilaisten multiplatform-formaattien (elävät eri alustoilla samanaikaisesti) myötä. TV-spektaakkelit kutsuvat yleisön ottamaan osaa TV-sisältöön, esim. äänestämällä Idolsissa ja Euroviisuissa tai osallistumalla sisältöihin Internetissä/sosiaalisessa mediassa maksutta. Tutkimusaineisto on monipuolista ja se koostuu muun muassa iTV-formaattien nauhoituksista, Internetsivumateriaalista sekä sosiaalisen median, Facebook ja Twitter, taltioinneista. Lisämateriaalina käytetään keskustelupalstamateriaalia, Internetkysely-dataa ja mediassa esillä olleita artikkeleita. Tutkimusote on laadullinen ja työssä on pääosin toteutettu sisällön analyysia sekä havainnoivaa tutkimusta. Työn päätuloksena esitetään, että suomalaisen digitaalisen television aikakausi on huomattavasti monisyisempi ja monipuolisempi kun on aiemmin ajateltu. Tutkimuksessa käsitelty 10 vuoden ajanjakso voidaan jakaa kolmeen: 1) interaktiivisuuden, 2) osallistavuuden ja 3) sosiaalisen median vaiheisiin. On selvää, että aikakaudet limittyvät keskenään, mutta kukin vaihe pitää kuitenkin sisällään piirteitä, jotka ovat erityisiä juuri sille aikakaudelle. Interaktiivisuuden aikakautta määrittävät tekstiviestipohjainen iTV-viihde eli chatit, mobiilipeleineen ja hyperventiloivine juontajineen. Osallistavuuden aikakaudella Internet alkoi toimia yhä enemmän TV-lähetysten vastinparina tarjoamalla extra-materiaalia ja lisäinformaatiota. Sosiaalisen median myötä mm. Internetin ohjelmakohtaisten keskustelupalstojen luoma sosiaalisuus on siirtynyt live-lähetysten ympärille Twitter-tweettien myötä. Ajankohtaisen materiaalin jako taas on siirtynyt Facebookin piiriin jättäen ohjelmakohtaiset nettisivut lähinnä online-arkistoiksi. Väitöskirja suhtautuu kuitenkin televisioon projisoituihin diskursseihin sekä muutoksen käsitteeseen kriittisesti. Nykypäivän television on usein katsottu, osittain utopistisestikin, kehittyvän yhä vuorovaikutteisempaan ja sosiaalistavampaan suuntaan. Interaktiivisen TV:n kokeiluja on kuitenkin nähty jo television alkuajoista asti ja sosiaalisen median mukaan tulo ei automaattisesti tee TV:n kuluttamisesta sosiaalisempaa. Suomalaisen TV:n lähihistoria ja digitaalisen television aikakausi sisältää huomattavasti monisyisempiä kehitysvaiheita, mitä diskurssien pohjalta esittäytyy. Tämä väitöstyö tarjoaa tärkeän, aiemmin puuttuneen, palasen suomalaisen TV-tutkimuksen nykykentälle ja saatuja tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää niin akateemisessa kuin käytännön konteksteissakin.Siirretty Doriast

Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch

This Open Access book provides a comprehensive review of the rapidly developing esport phenomenon by examining one of its contemporary flagship titles, Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016), through three central themes and from a rich variety of research methods and perspectives. As a game with more than 40 million individual players, an annual international World Cup, and a franchised professional league with teams from Canada, China, Europe, South Korea, and the US, Overwatch provides a multifaceted perspective to the cultural, social, and economic topics associated with the development of esports, which has begun to attract attention from both commercial and academic audiences. The book starts with an introduction chapter to Overwatch and esports engagement in general, co-authored by the editors. This is followed by 15 unique chapters from scholars within the field of game cultures and esports, representing ten different nationalities. The contributions construct thematic sections that divide the book into three parts: Players, Diverse Audiences? and Fan & Fiction Work. As such, the parts provide a wide-ranging overview of esport engagement, thus disclosing the phenomenon’s cross-cultural, transmedial, and interconnected relations that have not been probed earlier in a single anthology

Mediating the Immediate – Endogenous meanings and simulated narratives in ludic spaces

The thesis discusses games and the gaming experience. It is divided into two main sections; the first examines games in general, while the second concentrates exclusively on electronic games. The text approaches games from two distinct directions by looking at both their spatiality and their narrativity at the same time. These two points of view are combined right from the beginning of the text as they are used in conceptualising the nature of the gaming experience. The purpose of the thesis is to investigate two closely related issues concerning both the field of game studies and the nature of games. In regard to studying games, the focus is placed on the juxtaposition of ludology and narratology, which acts as a framework for looking at gaming. In addition to aiming to find out whether or not it is possible to undermine the said state of affairs through the spatiality of games, the text looks at the interrelationships of games and their spaces as well as the role of narratives in those spaces. The thesis is characterised by discussing alternative points of view and its hypothetical nature. During the text, it becomes apparent that the relationship between games and narratives is strongly twofold: on one hand, the player continuously narrativizes the states the game is in while playing, while the narratives residing within the game space form their own partially separate narrative spaces, on the other. These spaces affect the conception the player has of the game states and the events taking place in the game space itself.Tutkielma käsittelee pelejä ja pelikokemusta. Se on jaettu kahteen pääosioon, joista ensimmäisessä tutkitaan kaikenlaisia pelejä ja toisessa ainoastaan elektronisia pelejä. Teksti lähestyy kaikkia pelejä yhtä aikaa sekä tilallisuuden että kerronnallisuuden suunnista. Näkökulmat yhdistetään heti tutkielman alussa niiden toimiessa apuna pelikokemusta käsitteellistettäessä. Tutkielman tarkoitus on käsitellä kahta toisiinsa läheisesti liittyvää kysymystä, joista toinen kytkeytyy pelitutkimukseen ja toinen itse peleihin. Pelitutkimuksellisesti tutkimuksen keskiössä on ludologian ja narratologian välisen vastakkaisasettelun mielekkyys, joka toimii viitekehyksenä pelien luonteeseen pureutuvassa ongelmassa. Sen lisäksi, että tavoitteena on ottaa selville, onko edellä mainittua asetelmaa mahdollista purkaa pelien tilallisuuden kautta, tekstissä keskitytään myös pelien ja niiden luomien tilojen suhteisiin sekä narratiivien rooleihin kyseisissä tiloissa. Tutkimukselle ominaista on uusien näkökantojen kehitteleminen ja tietty hypoteettinen luonne. Tutkimuksen myötä käy selväksi, että pelien ja narratiivien suhde on vahvasti kaksitahoinen: toisaalta pelaaja kerronnallistaa pelitilanteita jatkuvasti pelikokemuksen aikana, kun taas toisaalta pelien sisältämät narratiivit luovat pelitilaan omia osittain pelitilasta irrallisia kerronnallisia tilojaan. Nämä tilat vaikuttavat osaltaan pelaajan käsitykseen pelitilanteista ja pelitilan sisältämistä tapahtumista.Siirretty Doriast

How can exploratory learning with games and simulations within the curriculum be most effectively evaluated?

There have been few attempts to introduce frameworks that can help support tutors evaluate educational games and simulations that can be most effective in their particular learning context and subject area. The lack of a dedicated framework has produced a significant impediment for uptake of games and simulations particularly in formal learning contexts. This paper aims to address this shortcoming by introducing a four-dimensional framework for helping tutors to evaluate the potential of using games- and simulation- based learning in their practice, and to support more critical approaches to this form of games and simulations. The four-dimensional framework is applied to two examples from practice to test its efficacy and structure critical reflection upon practice

Modes of Esports Engagement in Overwatch

This Open Access book provides a comprehensive review of the rapidly developing esport phenomenon by examining one of its contemporary flagship titles, Overwatch (Blizzard Entertainment 2016), through three central themes and from a rich variety of research methods and perspectives. As a game with more than 40 million individual players, an annual international World Cup, and a franchised professional league with teams from Canada, China, Europe, South Korea, and the US, Overwatch provides a multifaceted perspective to the cultural, social, and economic topics associated with the development of esports, which has begun to attract attention from both commercial and academic audiences. The book starts with an introduction chapter to Overwatch and esports engagement in general, co-authored by the editors. This is followed by 15 unique chapters from scholars within the field of game cultures and esports, representing ten different nationalities. The contributions construct thematic sections that divide the book into three parts: Players, Diverse Audiences? and Fan & Fiction Work. As such, the parts provide a wide-ranging overview of esport engagement, thus disclosing the phenomenon’s cross-cultural, transmedial, and interconnected relations that have not been probed earlier in a single anthology

Times of Change in the Demoscene : A Creative Community and Its Relationship with Technology

The demoscene is a form of digital culture that emerged in the mid-1980s after home computers started becoming commonplace. Throughout its approximately thirty years of existence it has changed in a number of ways, due to both external and internal factors. The most evident external driver has been the considerable technological development of the period, which has forced the community to react in its own particular ways. A modest body of research on the demoscene already exists, even though several topics still remain unstudied. In this thesis I approach the scene from three different angles: community, artefacts and relationship with technology. The most important frames of reference are subcultural studies, history of computing, game studies, domestication of technology and software studies. The research material is equally diverse, consisting of texts, creative works and interviews. The study paints an uncommon picture of the scene as a meritocracy that actively and even aggressively debates technological change. Technical prowess does not imply embracing new gadgets uncritically, in particular because their perceived ease is in dire contrast with the shared ethic that emphasises individuals’ skill. Practices, interests and relationships to other communities – gamers in particular – are still subject to constant change and, therefore, we should not consider the demoscene as a frozen monoculture, but rather as a group of phenomena that are linked to different periods of time, locations and computing platforms.Times of Change in the Demoscene: A Creative Community and Its Relationship with Technology (Muutoksen aikoja demoskenessä: luova yhteisö ja sen teknologiasuhde) Demoskene on 1980-luvun puolivälissä kotitietokoneiden yleistymisen myötä syntynyt digitaalisen kulttuurin muoto. Noin kolmenkymmenen vuoden olemassaolonsa aikana se on muuttunut monin tavoin, johtuen sekä ulkoisista että sisäsyntyisistä tekijöistä. Ilmeisin ulkoinen muutosvoima on ajanjakson huomattava tietotekninen kehitys, johon yhteisö on sopeutunut omissa puitteissaan. Demoskenestä on jo olemassa jonkin verran akateemista tutkimusta, vaikka lukuisia aiheita onkin yhä täysin kartoittamatta. Tässä työssä lähestyn skeneä kolmesta eri näkökulmasta: yhteisön, artefaktien sekä teknologiasuhteen suunnasta. Tärkeimpiä viitekehyksiä ovat alakulttuuritutkimus, tietotekniikan historia, pelitutkimus, teknologian kotoutuminen sekä uusimpana tulokkaana ohjelmistotutkimus. Tutkimusmateriaali on samoin monimuotoista, koostuen teksteistä, luovista töistä sekä haastatteluista. Tutkimuksen myötä hahmottuu poikkeuksellinen kuva skenestä meritokraattisena yhteisönä, joka ottaa aktiivisesti ja usein kärkkäästi kantaa teknologiseen muutokseen. Tekninen kyvykkyys ei johda uutuuksien kritiikittömään omaksumiseen, etenkin kun uusien laitteiden mukanaan tuoma näennäinen helppous sotii yhteisössä vallitsevaa yksilön osaamista korostavaa etiikkaa vastaan. Käytännöt, mielenkiinnon kohteet ja suhtautuminen muihin yhteisöihin – etenkin pelaajiin – ovat edelleen jatkuvassa muutoksessa, eikä demoskeneä siten voikaan tarkastella jähmettyneenä yhtenäiskulttuurina, vaan pikemminkin ryhmänä eri ajanjaksoihin, paikkoihin ja laitteisiin kytkeytyneitä ilmiöitä.Siirretty Doriast