Sprawczość i tożsamość w grach eksploracyjnych

Agency and Indentity in the Exploration GamesThe article focuses on the connection between player’s agency and his identity in the exploration computer games. The aim of the article is to trace down the influence of various tools and interaction mechanics on ways in which players mark their presence in the game and convey their identities. The analysed titles include pure exploration games, like Proteus (Ed Key, David Kanaga, 2013) and MirrorMoon EP (Santa Ragione, 2013), as well as some titles which employ only selected mechanics of exploration games, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda, 2011). Three main points of interest are examined in the article: 1) interfaces and mechanics in relation to player’s agency 2) tools that enable players to build their own narratives and shape the avatars 3) agency in the context of game goals and tasks assigned to a player by the game itself. The theoretical context of the article is linked to the Giorgio Agamben’s theory of dispositif

Agency and indentity in the exploration games

The article focuses on the connection between player’s agency and his identity in the exploration computer games. The aim of the article is to trace down the influence of various tools and interaction mechanics on ways in which players mark their presence in the game and convey their identities. The analysed titles include pure exploration games, like Proteus (Ed Key, David Kanaga, 2013) and MirrorMoon EP (Santa Ragione, 2013), as well as some titles which employ only selected mechanics of exploration games, such as The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (Bethesda, 2011). Three main points of interest are examined in the article: 1) interfaces and mechanics in relation to player’s agency 2) tools that enable players to build their own narratives and shape the avatars 3) agency in the context of game goals and tasks assigned to a player by the game itself. The theoretical context of the article is linked to the Giorgio Agamben’s theory of dispositif

Sport elektroniczny i jego medialne interfejsy

This paper provides an overview of changes on the electronic sports information circuit in the period from 2012 to 2022. The research here focuses on visual components of e-sports events, especially games’ GUIs and interactive elements of the digital platform interfaces that provide technological scaffolding for e-sports broadcasts (such as Twitch). The analysis is conducted from the software studies perspective, with the StarCraft franchise as a chief example of the phenomena assessed in the paper. The findings presented in this study stem from the juxtaposition of divergent modes of interaction between the viewers, players and e-sports media professionals, which are subsequently confronted with the computational rules of e-sports games’ mechanics.This paper provides an overview of changes on the electronic sports information circuit in the period from 2012 to 2022. The research here focuses on visual components of e-sports events, especially games’ GUIs and interactive elements of the digital platform interfaces that provide technological scaffolding for e-sports broadcasts (such as Twitch). The analysis is conducted from the software studies perspective, with the StarCraft franchise as a chief example of the phenomena assessed in the paper. The findings presented in this study stem from the juxtaposition of divergent modes of interaction between the viewers, players and e-sports media professionals, which are subsequently confronted with the computational rules of e-sports games’ mechanics

Dyskursy pracy i zabawy w wysokobudżetowym segmencie gier wideo: fokalizacja i logika operacyjna

Artykuł przedstawia metodę analizy dyskursów pracy i zabawy w wysokobudżetowych grach wideo na podstawie ujęcia fokalizacji w koncepcji Mieke Bal (2012) oraz narzędzi logiki operacyjnej wypracowanych przez Noaha Wardrip-Fruina (2012). Celem pracy jest zaproponowanie metody badawczej, która pozwoli na połączenie dociekań narratologicznych z krytyczną analizą strategii używanych w projektowaniu i dystrybucji cyfrowej gier. Główna teza artykułu opisuje przesunięcie definicji komputerowej rozrywki, w której coraz mniejsze znaczenie ma aspekt bezcelowej zabawy, rośnie zaś tendencja do projektowania (i opisywania) gier w kategoriach wysiłku, pracy i nagrody. Proponowane ujęcie problemu ilustrowane jest analizą gry Wolfenstein: The New Order oraz wybranych tytułów gatunku cRPG (z serii The Elder Scrolls oraz Fallout).Felczak’s analysis of discourses on work and play in big-budget video games is based on a method that draws on Mieke Bal’s concept of focalization (2012) as well as the tools of operational logic developed by Noah Wardrip-Fruin (2012). The article aims to propose a research method that would link narratological research with a critical analysis of strategies used in the development and distribution of digital games. The main argument concerns the shifting definition of computer-based entertainment, from aimless play towards the development (and description) of games in terms of effort, work and reward. To illustrate her thesis, Felczak analyses the game Wolfenstein: The New Order as well as selected titles from the CRPG genre (from the series The Elder Scrolls and Fallout)

The object and the code : analyzing video games throughsoftware studies and speculative realism

The article deals with the analysis of the ludic and mechanical aspects of the video games using Levi Bryant's notion of onticology. It expands the Bryant’s idea that the being is composed entirely of machines or processes, and treats a video game as a collective of objects that communicate with each other through various codes. The main focus of this approach is to analyze the instances in which the said objects present a certain type of self-alienation, independency and agency that allow for a continuous reconfiguration of the states in which a video game object can be found. The various scripts and their role in altering the communication patterns within the game mechanics are investigated in the context of bots, regarded as both automatic prothesis of the human agents and autonomous interpreters of the games’ implicit rules. Cases of speedruns, glitches and particular uses of the basic C++ language syntax are also considered as the examples of events in which the hidden properties of the objects form a collective process of a video game. On such grounds, this paper discusses the possible removal of distinct ontological domains of subject and object in the context of object-oriented philosophy, taking into account the fluid hierarchy of beings and their mutual inaccessibility

El Presidente tries you: the mechanisms of gamers’ productivity capitalization in “Tropico”, “Torchlight” and “Diablo” video game series

In popular economic discourse, productivity is the ratio of the value of manufactured goods to the initial input. In games, the input can be placed on the players’ side: players invest their time, financial resources, and cultural capital in order to achieve certain benefits, which are “produced “ in the course of the game. The status of this benefit is dependent on the context, but developers make such players’ productivity a key strategy used in promoting and maintaining a game and its fan base. The paper analyses three games: "Tropico III", "Diablo III" and "Torchlight II", in the context of ideological underpinnings of game mechanics that support the notions of using fan’s free labour, taking advantage of their non-game activities via the auction house and forcing them to internalize neo-colonial stance, respectively

Live Streaming Platforms and the Critical Discourse About Video Games

This work concerns online streaming platforms centered on broadcasting video games-related content, such as Twitch.tv and Douyu.com. The aim of this article is two-fold: first, to point out the possible research methods regarding online streaming services as mediums for video game criticism, and second, to assess the potential of these platforms for generating critical discourse about video games. The methodology of the research is based on Mia Consalvo’s take on paratextual frameworks and Veli-Matti Karhulahti’s notions of interview and play frames regarding the activity of video games streaming. In this article, the initial characterization of Twitch.tv and Douyu.com is followed by an analysis on how the work of streamers as content creators can influence the reception of video games. Afterwards, a reading of analyzed phenomena based on paratextual framework is proposed. The last section juxtaposes the initial findings with the perspective of changing viewership figures in relation to selected ludic properties of games. In conclusion, it is stated that the analyzed streaming platforms reflect the proliferating crowdsource trends in the video game industry, with forms of interacting with the product at various stages of its development cycle establishing new practices of talking in and about video games