Category: Game Research Highlights
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Defining how empathy is used in games – a new spectrum and how to use it
Empathy spectrum defines several emotions often associated with empathy and explains how it can benefit both the player as well as game developers. Four different games are used to express stages of the spectrum.
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Eudaimonia Mania – Understanding Emotional Experiences In Video Games
Eudaimonic emotional experience has been given less attention than hedonistic emotional experience in gaming. Using a new framework proposed by research, designing more complex emotional experiences might be possible.
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Performing and Pretending for The Audience of One: Role-Playing in Single-Player Games
What are the affordances and restrictions the digital single-player role-playing games impose on the gamer? The study explores the different ways the player can use the game as a complex toy with multiple affordances to play pretend with.
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Twitch streaming and its affordances
Streaming Video Games on Twitch has Affordances for accruing wealth and fame.
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Beyond Gender Stereotypes: Narrative Video Games as a Tool for Fostering Gender Equality
Video games have started to take steps towards more inclusive representations of gender identities. A study by Dalila Forni discusses these new reconsiderations by analyzing gender representations in Horizon Zero Dawn.
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What did you say to me?!
What can and cannot be said while gaming according to men of color.
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Violent video games don’t seem to affect one’s empathy
Are violent video games and one’s empathy connected? Krause et al. study this interesting topic and find surprising results in their article “Exploring the Effects of Violent Video Games on Healthcare Trainees”. #Violence #Gaming #Psychology
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“Forget about it!” – Mafia games represent Italians as part of La Famiglia
Mafia games feed stereotypical images of Italian people, and Mafia movies do the same to Mafia games. Stereotypical cultural products can legitimize organized crime.
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Exploring attachment towards non-player characters in the Mass Effect series
Non-player characters can evoke trust, even love, Tali and Garrus of the Mass Effect series more than many others. Are you Shepard or the player?
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What we do in games – Ten imperative goals
In an effort to create a consistent environment for discussing #objectives, researchers narrowed games down to ten #imperative #goals that could be used to describe any #game.
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Manners maketh player – How bad player behaviour is perceived in CS:GO esports.
In this article, the authors explore different kinds of bad behaviour in CS:GO esports, from throwing to bug exploitation, and how they are perceived by the spectators.
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Analyzing the antagonist; how Portal’s GLaDoS echoes patriarchal values
A study that investigates the villain of “Portal” by Valve, GLaDoS through a psychoanalytical lens. Does the monstrous mother’s behaviour originate from the patriarchy?
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Deceivers, seducers, mothers – Female monstrosity in Dungeons & Dragons
The Monster Manual represents women through misogynistic tropes, following in the footsteps of medieval bestiaries. Combining statistics with descriptions of monsters creates a new game mechanic, the ludic bestiary.
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Why do people play old games?
Kristian Redhead Ahm challenges existing literature on the motivations of playing old games, also known as retrogaming. He finds out that nostalgia is not the sole reason for retrogaming.
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Why do people like watching others stream their gameplay?
A study on what factors and aspects make watching #Twitch streams enjoyable. #enjoyment #streaming
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The need for new forms of gameplay in the face of climate change
We face an enormous danger in climate change, are video games the way to survive?
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The Korean video game industry started from piracy
Jo investigates the early stages of South Korea’s gaming industry. He argues that pirated games and consoles functioned as South Korea’s starting point for gaming before the era of local game development.
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Watch-time or donations? Twitch streamer – choose one
Viewer engagement is guided by how, and what about, the streamer communicates.
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It’s More Than Skin-Deep: Creating Diversity in Digital and Non-Digital Games
Diversity in games requires more than player-customizable avatars. The extensive game analysis outlines five strategies for creating more inclusive characters in games.
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From Space to place: Creating Meaningful Environments in Video Games
One of Red Dead Redemption 2’s greatest achievements is the dynamic, “lived in” feel of its environment. Research highlight from Westerside and Holopainen’s article breaks down how these affective spaces are created and how they carry the narrative throughout the game. #rdr2