ABSTRACT. Introduction

As game design suites such as Twine, RPG Maker, Bitsy, Construct 2, and Ren’Py make it simpler than ever for developers with no coding expertise to produce games, more and more college instructors are incorporating these tools into their classrooms and syllabi. This panel will introduce a number of programs and assignments intended to teach humanities students with no background in coding how to design and develop their own games for college courses. The panel participants, a group of instructors from diverse institutions, will postmortem their own assignments and provide a framework for other instructors to develop their own game-making courses and projects.

A Machine Made of Words: Interactive Fiction as Creative Writing (Best)

Over the past decade, storytelling through interactive fiction has blossomed. Choice-based stories built with platforms like Twine have covered topics like mental illness (Quinn, Lindsey, & Schankler, 2013) and queer identity as mitigated by nuclear paranoia (Anthropy, 2014). Parser-based IF, largely created with Inform, has emerged from time spent in caves hunting treasure to stories about the politics of elementary school (Ondricek, 2016) and professional jealousy (Groover, 2016). The challenge of teaching interactive fiction as creative writing is balancing the various demands of the genre. Humanities students must learn basic programming concepts, practical Web skills like HTML and CSS, the development platforms, and the fundamentals of good writing. How can we help students tie these varied areas together to write a meaningful story that goes beyond “mere” entertainment? Practical, scaffolded readings and assignments can help develop confidence for students who might not yet have some of these requisite skills. As for meaning, we can turn to decidedly non-digital authors—including Robert Frost and William Carlos Williams—to guide us on this new frontier.

Game Creation Suites for General Education Students: Incorporating Game Design in Core Curriculum (Pane)

While game creation software is now routinely taught and assigned in various computer science and upper division English or creative writing courses, how might we incorporate programs like Twine, RPG Maker, and Bitsy in core curriculum spaces or even independent studies for students outside of our home disciplines? How might we grade these multimodal compositions, and what kind of assignments can still accomplish mandated learning goals while eschewing traditional writing? Demonstrating games that address everything from rape culture (Balderstone, 2018) to depression and anxiety (Quinn, Lindsey, & Schankler, 2013) provide models for students to create their own serious games interrogating issues related to social justice, technology, education, or any subject the instructor orients their course around. An examination of practical texts, scaffolding, and assignments will provide educators with methods of incorporating these tools into their courses.

The Level Design Unit: Teaching Players How to Learn (Zimmerman)

This talk outlines the introductory level design unit within the NYU Game Center curriculum. Considering level design as a set of literacies opens into a number of fundamental design skills, such how designers teach players new concepts, or how to provide the appropriate level of challenge for a player. The level design unit also offers opportunities for students to learn design methodologies such as rapid prototyping and formal playtesting. This talk will provide an overview of the unit structure and detail the ways in which physical and tabletop exercises are integrated into digital design assignments.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we discuss the possible use of video games on current events as historical documents. The literature on current event games reveals the importance of timelines and temporariness in their nature and the literature on games about historical events and periods is mainly concerned how games represent the past. We question how timely games may be seen by future players and what they may reveal about the period in which they were produced. In this regard, we did a comparative analysis of video games developed during the Gezi Park protest in 2013 and after the Coup attempt in 2016 in Turkey. We argue that these games not only individually represent their creators’ perception and thoughts on these events but also cumulatively reflect the social and political conditions in which they were produced; akin to historical political cartoons and opinion pieces reflecting the zeitgeist of their time of production; thus, may be seen as historical documents.

ABSTRACT. This paper explores representations of real and fictionalized history in Fallout 4 to illuminate how the gameworld makes clever use of common historical tropes, settings and topics in its presentation of a compelling and interactive narrative. In particular, this paper is interested in how Fallout 4 infuses a counterfactual rereading of the Cold War period into the game story, where the historical fear of Mutually Assured Destruction has become a reality, and the questions/challenges this raises for the player. Set in the post-apocalyptic landscape of Massachusetts, Fallout 4 unfolds in a variety of historical sites in Massachusetts (Concord, Lexington, Boston), which serve to anchor the main story while simultaneously grounding a sense of optimism for the future in the tradition of ‘the American spirit.’ At the same time, these virtual-historical landmarks and storylines reveal the major tension at work in the game, one between the hopeful optimism associated with forging a new path forward and utter despair at the state this future world. Or, put another way, between a belief in the power of American tradition weighted against the reality of death, destruction and loss that constantly bombard the screen from every angle. At one and the same time then, the game combines real historical elements with a fictionalized reimagining of the outcome of the Cold War (the ‘Cold’ War goes hot) to present a critical rereading of Cold War experiences. The power of counterfactual history lies in its capacity to unravel assumptions about the static nature of historical events, and in its denial of a linear trajectory of history broadly. In essence, the counterfactual upends conventional and popular presentations of history and problematizes attempts to establish a ‘narrative neatness’ in representations of past events. In the case of Fallout 4, the implementation of a counterfactual story serves as a rejection of the common narrative of American supremacy triumphing over Communist forces to present the player with a more nuanced interpretation of some of the internal and external tensions that came to define the Cold War period (i.e. cultural malaise, economic instability, the growth of a military-industrial complex, far-reaching expectations for the development of future technologies). This conflicting presentation of histories both real and imagined provides an opportunity for the player to experience and interact with the game critically as a counterfactual reimagining of the Cold War era. The player traverses a virtual space in Fallout 4 that is freighted with arguments about capitalist excess, the doctrine of militarism, the uses of violence and the place of historical narrative, all obscured through the lens of the counterfactual as a future world that is constructed out of a popular historical consciousness regarding what the future might have looked like (both if the Cold War went hot, and in terms of technological innovations like servant robots and nuclear powered cars). As a consequence, this game challenges conventional historical narratives about the Cold War by providing a space for the player to reassess their own understanding of the period, and the nature of historical knowledge production more broadly.

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ABSTRACT. The paper will study the ideological content of analog wargames, analyzing different games, from the birth of the hobby in the fifties to the more recent products. Attention will be devoted to the relationship between wargames, popular history – which was always deeply connected to the wargame community – and new paradigms produced by academic historians.

ABSTRACT. This paper seeks to address the theme of the 2018 conference by examining the significant role game developers now have in mediating our understanding and engagement with history by placing players in historical events/scenarios thick with faithfully rendered artefacts, architecture, styles, and social encounters. In doing so, we argue for a new wave of historical games in which developers are no longer merely translating established scholarly perspectives on the past, but operating as historians through their practice-led research that attempts to bridge representational learning with more direct experience by historicizing the player’s experience, gameplay, and interactions. This paper principally illustrates its argument via a range of contemporary game titles that demonstrate a proclivity for creating authentic living socio-cultural systems, game mechanics, themes, and goals that invite players to learn about the past, distinct from games that employ uchronic times, alternate histories, or simply use history as window-dressing.

ABSTRACT. This panel will bring together experts in the field of game art to discuss the current state and changes in the field of game art after twenty years. We hope to bring together several of the leading scholars in field (confirmed: Matteo Bittanti and Domenico Quaranta), and practitioners who have their own unique intersections around games and art (confirmed: Eddo Stern, Lea Schonfelder, Friedrich Kirschner). The purpose of the panel is to discuss and analyze the historical context for game art and more importantly how the field of game art has transformed radically in the most recent years as the culture and practice in both the game making and art making worlds have changed. Specifically, we will discuss the influence the emergent alternative game making cultures and communities such as alt games, fan based machinima, indie games, art games, queer games, twine games, not games, boutique publishing as well as parallel shifts coming from the Art world such as post Internet art, and the shifting nature of Media Art, the rise of experimental and participatory theatre and the growing interest in the art world and film world in Virtual Reality as the current media muse. The panel will explore how have all these changes affected the practice and discourse of Game Art? The artists and scholars on the panel represent a broad range of experiences and perspectives spanning machinima, game studies, internet art, indie games, participatory theatre, feminist games animation, and performance art and sculptural practices that all intersect game design and development as well. Please refer to the bios below as evidence of the requisite expertise will be evident.

I believe the value of the panel to the DiGRA community is paramount. Firstly, I believe it is vitally important to include what may be seen at more peripheral cultural practices and discourse around games in the context of digital game research to diversify the discussion and expand the cannon of works and methodologies beyond the products of the mainstream (and to so degree) indie game industries. Games are a cultural practice that is intertwined in many other artistic and cultural arenas. Secondly, as will be a topic of discussion in the panel and is evidenced by several of the panelists career arcs, many game artists are now working as game developers and designers and have brought different and sometimes radical sensibilities to both the form, context and meaning making potential of digital games.

ABSTRACT. The differences between e-sports and live streaming are less than obvious and tend to become more diffuse as pro-players take advantage of popularity gained in e-sports to promote themselves as live streamers. The study presented in this paper intended to characterize the intersection between these two roles and activities, as represented in a case study. Methodological procedures involved observation, recording and mapping of 20 broadcasts. The discussion is supported by the notion of mediation, as proposed by the Latin American Communication School, performance theories and previous literature on the two activities, most of which focuses on one or the other. Results confirmed the need for different competences and the influence of different mediations in the two types of activity. In the case study, the contrast between the pro-player and the streamer personas granted authenticity to the latter, but the streamer persona was at service of the professional persona, not the other way around.

ABSTRACT. In this presentation I aim to provide an overview of the growing debates around betrayal in games, based on studies of betrayal in EVE Online, DayZ and Survivor. This discussion will be oriented around the three common assumptions that are made about betrayal in popular discourse and game studies literature, (1) that it is – for some reason – unethical, (2) that it is anti-social, and (3) that it reflects poorly on who you are as a person, outside of the game. The purpose of this work is not to argue that betrayal is, or is not ethical, or that how you play does, or does not, reflect who you are in real life. Rather, I argue that these debates offer the opportunity to better understand multiplayer games, social play, and the role of trust in games.

ABSTRACT. Video games are changing our imagination of what constitutes as learning, what we should learn, and how we learn. In this paper, I describe the ways in which video games mediating our realities are reshaping parts of United States’ educational landscape. Specifically, I focus my review on three slices of this larger educational landscape, including the discourses on literacy learning, informal learning, and game-based pedagogies. Here, video game playing is seen and argued as a form of literacy learning where players are learning to encode and decode meaning through this medium for active cultural participation in both societies at large and the specific video game cultures. However, when these cultural practices are situated within a stratified and hegemonic society operating under neoliberal logics, it is unclear who are we serving with these interpretations of learning.

ABSTRACT. Historically, researchers have positioned MMORPGs as “training grounds” for leadership competences. This conceptual paper takes as its point of departure a reversal of contemporary literature on the transferability of leadership skills purportedly learned in MMORPGs to articulate new questions about how these games do not so much “mirror” organizational contexts or serve as learning grounds for leadership competences, but have in fact participated in the very shaping of leadership models in the 21st century. We undertake an analysis of World of Warcraft as a paradigmatic MMORPG to explore the following questions: To what extent do MMORPGs co-articulate or prestage the new cultural/organizational forms that they purportedly provide the “training grounds” for? And – if the game is the message - how might MMORPGs exert agency not just upon new leadership models, but also upon emerging modes of production - from new modes of knowledge creation to emerging forms of affective labour in globalized economies?

ABSTRACT. Ian Bogost defines procedural rhetoric as “the art of persuasion through rule-based representations and interactions rather than the spoken word, writing, images, or moving pictures” (Bogost 2007, ix). As Bogost claims, videogames are especially suitable for this kind of persuasion because they are computational systems of representations organized by rules. However, what can these systems represent? They can depict conditional interrelations based on rules. By doing this, videogames persuade a gamer that these interrelations actually exist in the world out there. Nevertheless, the theory of procedural rhetoric does not consider the second part of the communicative loop emerging throughout a game process: it explores how one can express something through procedures, but it does not explore how one can grasp a procedural message. If a game designer tries to convey some message with a game, she has to be able to act reflectively, i.e. to assume the position of a gamer who perceives and understands the game. Therefore, procedural rhetoric alone is not enough to explain how the production of meaning in videogames works. I propose to supplement it with a new approach I will call procedural hermeneutics.

Procedural hermeneutics is based on the following principles:

1. A gamer cannot grasp a procedural message of a videogame independently of a visual, audial and/or verbal content of the videogame. For example, Kabul Kaboom by Gonzalo Frasca (2001) would not convey its political message without its visual appearance and verbal title. In this game, a gamer’s avatar is a woman whose task is to catch food falling from the sky while dodging bombs. The game explicates the cynical nature of the US’ humanitarian help to Afghanistan. Nevertheless, we could imagine a game where the player’s avatar would be a bear catching salmon in a river while dodging poisonous snakes. It would be the same game from the procedural point of view, but it would contain no political message. A purely procedural content cannot convey a specific message.

2. Some interpretations of a videogame are incorrect if they are not compatible with an interpreter’s ability to interpret the videogame further. Thus, the understanding of a videogame’s procedural content follows the pragmatist method of differentiating between interpretation and overinterpretation, which Umberto Eco conceived theoretically (Eco 1992) and explored in his fiction (Eco 1989): interpretations must not contradict to an interpreter’s being an interpreter. If a player takes a turtle for a friend in Super Mario Bros. (Nintendo Creative Department 1985) she risks her ability to interpret the game further for she can lose (Arjoranta 2011, 6). This means she interprets the game in a wrong way. Some interpretations of a videogame simply do not allow one to interpret it further because these interpretations make one lose a game. Thus, interpretation of a videogame requires finding at least one way to perform successfully in it (although impossibility to perform successfully in a videogame can be a rhetorical trick itself as in aforementioned Kabul Kaboom where a falling bomb will inevitably kill a player’s avatar which shows the inescapability of the US’ “humanitarian help”).

3. Procedural hermeneutics tries to answer the question of how one can grasp a message conveyed by procedures of a videogame. According to the second principle, one can do it only by performing successfully in a game. Successful performance in a videogame is impossible without grasping the logic of a program that runs the procedures in the videogame. Thus, the third principle of procedural hermeneutics is that understanding a message of a videogame requires understanding of the logic of artificial intelligence confronting the player. Simon’s (2007) example of Call of Duty 2 (Infinity Ward 2005) is of use here. One cannot perform successfully in Call of Duty 2 if one tries to act on one’s own. Successful performance requires cooperation with friendly soldiers. This way a player grasps the main message of Call of Duty 2: “One can never win the war without allies”. Nevertheless, the actions of the non-playing characters who are player’s allies in Call of Duty 2 differ too much from the actions of real soldiers. The NPCs get stuck in front of a wall and a player has to come back to show them a roundabout way, they shoot an enemy even if a player’s avatar is in the firing line, etc. The logic of their actions is not human logic but logic of non-human actors, i.e. of programs. Thus, a player needs to understand the reasoning of non-human actors in order to grasp the meaning of a videogame.

I should also explain the difference between my concept of procedural hermeneutics and Espen Aarseth’s (2003, 5) notion of real-time hermeneutics. His main idea is that a player must always understand the procedures of a videogame in order to be capable of playing it. Therefore, Aarseth apparently would claim that a player must consider a turtle in Super Mario Bros. as an enemy from the very beginning, otherwise she will lose. On the contrary, procedural hermeneutics does not claim that a player understands something in order to be capable of playing. One has to attempt to play the game, make mistakes, fail and try again, and only then one will be able to understand the message. Thus, the essential difference consists in that I consider failing essential for the gaming experience (Juul 2013) whereas Aarseth does not.

In this presentation I outlined the main principles of procedural hermeneutics. This new approach will contribute to answering the question of production of meaning in videogames.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The author thanks Russian Foundation for Basic Research. This research is carried out as a part of the scientific project 16-33-01069.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

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ABSTRACT. Procedural Content Generation (PCG) is deeply embedded in many games. While there are many taxonomies of the applications of PCG, less attention has been given to the poetics of PCG. In this paper we present a poetics for generative systems, including a descriptive framework that introduces terms for complex systems (Apollonian order and Dionysian chaos), the form that describes the shape of the generated output (formal gestalt, individual, and repetition), the locus of the generative process (structure, surface, or locus gestalt), the kind of variation the generator uses (style, multiplicity, and cohesion) and the relationship between coherence and the content used as input for the generator. Rather than being mutually exclusive categories, generators can be considered to exhibit aspects of all of these at once.

ABSTRACT. This is a work in progress research project on Non/Post-Human gaming. It takes as point of departure a speculative provocation: are there going to be video games in the Post-Anthropocene? how do video games respond to the narratives surrounding the imminent mass extinction that will allegedly eliminate all forms of life from planet Earth? The presentation will offer a critical reading of contemporary forms of gaming that make the presence of the human player redundant or marginal, and is inspired by Haraway's concepts of situated knowledge and story-telling for earthly survival.

ABSTRACT. In January 2018 the first promotional materials of Nintendo Labo (an expansion for Nintendo Switch allowing players to build cardboard interfaces) raised a lot of interest and hype around the product: the mixture of digital games and analogue playfulness, of sophisticated software and low-fi interface was both novel and appealing. In this paper I argue that the material aspect of the cardboard interface of Nintendo Labo is the last step of the construction of an aesthetics, which has been undergoing for several years and that has its roots in the post-digital paradigm: that of “paper-made digital games”. Talking about paper-made digital games may seem a contradiction. Digital technologies are often seen as a synonymous of de-materialisation: they allow us to interact with institutions, restaurants or banks without moving from home, eroding the meaning of physical space (Thibault 2016), while digital goods de-materialise several products such as books, films or music. The digital saturation that has undergone in the last decade, however, has finally led to the emergence of an inverse tendency the so-called post-digital paradigm. Post-digital, according to Cramer (2015) indicates the contemporary disenchantment with digital information systems and technological gadgets and entails a revival of “old” media and tools, such as vinyl discs and typewriters – the so called hysperia and the love for vintage are certainly part of this cultural trend. Hipster subculture and digital games may seem to have almost nothing in common, however it is likely that the nostalgia that leads to paper-like aesthetics is not dissimilar to the one that leads to vintage taste (Thibault 2016). Nostalgia has a twofold nature in gaming (Garda 2013): on the one hand, it involves a restorative nostalgia (that focus on the creation of emulators and retro-gaming) and on the other hand, it involves a reflective nostalgia (that sees the past as an inspirational set of stiles). The latter is what triggers the extremely positive response of an elite part of the game community to the indie style(s) described in Juul (2014). Post-digital shouldn't be considered as a Luddite reaction to the digital, advocating for a nostalgic return to the origins. It is a change of paradigm prone to hybridize them with a renewed taste for the analogue: digital music is recorded on vinyl discs, digitally designed toys are made out of laser-cut wood and video game graphics that are sometimes drawn instead of being digitally designed. The idea of hand-drawn or cardboard-made digital games can seem odd at first, but it is rather old. In a prophetical paper promoting the use of rendering styles alternative to photorealism, Masuch and Röber (2003) imagined that. one day: “Gamers might become saturated [by photorealism] and will look for something different. (...) NPR techniques can also be used to support storytelling and to fulfil an artistic vision. Something that unleashes the power of dreams and fantasy and which allows us to drift away from our own world, just limited by our own imagination.” (Masuch and Röber 2003, 10). Among the graphic alternatives that they imagined is an analogue aesthetics capable of combining visual pleasure and nostalgia. Several indie games (and more and more important production) feature hand-drawn or hand-drawn-like graphics that don't appear (or sometimes aren't) digitally generated. Analogue aesthetics can offer a more nuanced emotional palette and original and pleasurable dream-like visuals, but their contemporary success is also due their ability to trigger a wide range of “nostalgias”, both personal (connected with childhood memories) and historical (the longing of a mythological time that we have never experienced, Stern 1992). Paper-like aesthetics, as well as games whose creation process involves actual paper and cardboard, must be understood within this context. To trace a sort of typology of paper-made digital games we should articulate them according to the depth of their relationship with this material. First, we have imitation: games that are completely digital, but whose rendering imitates paper-craft, as – among many others – Crayon Physics Deluxe (Petri Purho, 2009) and Tearaway (Media Molecule, 2013). In both cases the imitation isn't purely visual, but grounds key game mechanics: players will have to draw, to cut or to fold in origami the digital paper in order to advance in the game. Secondly, we have various methods of digitisation, where drawings or handmade cardboard structures become part of the digital content of games. For example, Cuphead Don't deal with the Devil (MDHR 2017) is entirely drawn in the style of 1930s cartoons. Each game animation has been drawn by hand and all backgrounds hand-painted (Moldenhauer 2014). Something similar can be said for The Banner Saga (Stoic 2014) whose hand-drawn elements are inspired by Eyvind Earle's works. State of Play's game Lumino City (2014) goes even further as it is completely hand-crafted. State of Play members built the entire set of the game out of paper and cardboard, photographed it and turned it into a natural-feeling video game world. Finally, the hybridisation becomes complete when cardboard is no longer simply represented or digitised but becomes part of the interface. It is the case of Google cardboard, a DIY viewer that turns a normal smartphone in a VR game device. More importantly, it is the case of Nintendo Labo which allows players to build cardboard artefacts (such as a fishing rod, a motorcycle, a robot or a 13 keys piano) that will interact with Nintendo Switch allowing hybrid forms of play. The passage from digitised to actual paper is not a simply practical matter – cardboard may be inexpensive and eco-friendly, but the choice was clearly a poetic one: the material features of cardboard have been put in the foreground of these products, from their names (Google cardboard) to their colour (with the typical cardboard brown being the default). Their “substance of the expression” (Hjemslev 1961), then, is at the centre of a poetic discourse. Roland Barthes in his Mythologies makes a similar point on wooden toys stating that wood “is a familiar and poetic substance, which does not sever the child from close contact with the tree, the table, the floor” (Barthes 2013: 54). Similarly, paper and cardboard connote a continuity with hand-writing and drawing, with paper-dolls and boxes, in other words with a certain nostalgic idea (and ideology) of a childhood filled with analogue and fantastic play. Paper-made digital games, therefore, are appealing exactly because of their ability embodying a poetic that draws from a culturally shared nostalgia.

ABSTRACT. As video games continue to culturally and technically evolve, so do many correlated creative practices that often introduce novel ways of playing. One example is in-game photography: the addition of photo modes to games has become prominent and basic image capture capabilities are now offered by most consoles, including the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch. Unsurprisingly, within an interconnected media ecosystem, the production, circulation, and consumption of images created by players with their favorite games has gained visibility. Although scholars have examined this phenomenon from different angles (e.g. Sandor & Fron 2001, Poremba 2007, Giddings 2013, Moore 2015, Bittanti 2015, Gazzard 2016, Möring and de Mutiis forthcoming), the existing scholarship is far from exhaustive and most contributions focus on the vernacular production. As more and more artists use game spaces for their photographic practices, a scholarly examination of their intentions, strategies, and aesthetics cannot be postponed. In light of the conference topic this panel is concerned with the question: What is in-game photography a medium, a message, both, or neither?

VIRTUAL LANDSCAPE PHOTOGRAPHY: THE MEDIUM IS THE MASSAGE (BITTANTI) ​In the practice of Justin Berry, Mark Tribe, and Robert Wetzer, video games spaces - and specifically ​landscapes - are represented as new pastoral model, bucolic ideals inspired by the photographs of Ansel Adams and Edward Weston. Their aesthetic is dense, referencing both the history of landscape painting and photography. And yet, these idyllic images inevitably depict a loss: the real is nowhere to be seen. They are soothing, enjoyable, and apparently relaxing. Ironically, they often bring forth the mechanics of their own construction, the artifice of reproduction, the anxiety about simulation. What are the underlying ideologies of this kind of image-making? And how do they transpire through digital aesthetics?

GOING BEYOND VIDEO GAME’S SURFACE: PUNCTUM AND IN-GAME PHOTOGRAPHY (FANTACCI) Photography is an art of observation; it’s about finding something interesting in an ordinary place. This has little to do with the things one sees, and everything to do with the way one sees them (Elliott Erwitt 1978). In-game photography has a double nature: it is largely used to celebrate the beauty of games, but it is also used by artists as a medium for artistic interventions. This is the case in which it expresses all its potential. In-game photography allows artists to put things out of their original context and confers them new meanings. The photos that this practice generates share similarities with the punctum described by Roland Barthes in Camera lucida. Reflections of Photography (1980, 28): a particular element, a detail that usually exists within a scene or an environment that has the power to attract the observer’s attention. Here, the punctum is a turmoil, that detail that shakes the observer’s tranquillity. In-game photography is the only way that artists have to step outside the gameplay and extract moments that otherwise would have gone unseen. It’s a medium that allows the punctum thanks to a careful observation of the environment, going beyond the video game’s surface.

GLITCH PHOTOGRAPHY: THE MESSAGE IS THE MEDIUM (MÖRING) Glitch Photography is a popular genre in vernacular and artistic in-game photography alike (cf. e.g. Poremba 2007). For average gamers, the experience of a glitch (for "glitch" see Menkman 2011) can range from a gameplay-disturbing annoyance to spectacular occurrences if a computer game performs unexpectedly in a fascinating way. Both extreme cases may be memorable, hilarious or both, which leads players to take a screenshot or a game-photography to produce evidence of their experience to show other players since "every photograph is a certificate of presence" according to Barthes (1981, 87). Evidence for this can be found in numerous game glitch galleries on social media sites like Pinterest (e.g. https://www.pinterest.com/rolltide80kd/video-game-glitch/). In artistic glitch in-game photography like the works of in-game photographer Robert Overweg the characteristic breakdown or error of games is aestheticised analog to glitch art in terms of the aestheticization of the error (cf. Manon and Temkin 2011) but perhaps different in terms of the artistic strategies involved. In my presentation, I will argue that what is shown as the content of such photographs or screenshots is the materiality of the computer game. In other words, that which is normally opaque if a game functions properly. Follow Mersch's negative media theory (2013), this allows arguing that the content of glitch photographs is the medium of the computer game itself.

PHOTO MODES AS POST-PHOTOGRAPHIC APPARATUS (DE MUTIIS) Introduction of photo modes and in-built image capture functions in games and consoles have allowed players to produce and share images over global networks. While often mimicking the appearance of traditional analog photography in their interfaces, photo modes connect to a contemporary ecosystem of media that lies at the basis of the attention economy and communicative capitalism (Dean 2014). Players are turned into worker-photographers within game spaces producing computational capital (Beller 2016) at the service of a programmed camera (Flusser 1983). What lies behind the program of such black boxes and is in-game photography an extension of the photographic “program”?

ABSTRACT. “Casual” and “hardcore” are commonly used descriptive terms for games and gamers. While critics have discussed these terms with regards to game design and culture, “free-to-play” games like Blizzard’s Hearthstone (2014) add a monetary dimension to such considerations. Players can play such games for free, but success at them often entails purchasing in-game content. These games are sometimes instead derisively referred to as “pay-to-win:” players who spend money win more often. Free-to-play games suggest that casual and hardcore depend on how much money a player spends on the game, in addition to measures like time investment or play practices. I argue that free-to-play games encourage casual players to become more hardcore by spending more money on them in addition to improving their skills at the game, using Hearthstone as a case study to examine the implications of the free-to-play monetization model on both game design and game players.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION During the last decade, micro transaction models have become the most common way of monetizing the casual, free-to-play game market, and are increasingly used also in the premium market. Some of these models have been criticized for exploiting the player economically, including the use of so-called loot boxes. A loot box is a digital box containing a random selection of items of varying value, where the odds of obtaining different items is usually hidden from the player. The latest instance of this debate is the controversies following in the wake of the release of Star Wars Battlefront II (EA DICE) during the fall of 2017, and will be the main case of this analysis.

THE STAR WARS BATTLEFRONT II CONTROVERSIES Star Wars Battlefront II is a premium action/shooter game, based on the Star Wars universe, offering singleplayer and multiplayer modes. The loot boxes in Star Wars Battlefront II are called crates and, around the time the game was launched, the rarest items could significantly upgrade the avatar. This ignited an uproar in the player community who regarded it as a pay-to-win feature, disadvantaging players who progress though gameplay only. The publisher, Electronic Arts, met this criticism in various ways without managing to ease the tension in the player community (Manegus 2017) and on November 16, 2017 they decided to temporarily remove the possibility to buy loot boxes (Gabrielsen 2017), a decision they later stated would be permanent.

While the player community may have “won” the battle with Electronic Arts, the controversies had other consequences. The debate gradually gained attention in mainstream media, involving actors outside the gaming community, including politicians who accused the game producers for incorporating addictive gambling features and exploiting players economically. This again led to inquiries from rating boards in Europe (PEGI) and the U.S. (ESRB), about whether this was an ordinary computer game or a gambling game embedded in a computer game.

The controversy is interesting as is engages a long range of stakeholders, including players, producers, distributors, media regulation organs, and academics. A range of different, but interlinked, topics are also discussed and my aim is to conduct a discourse analysis concerning what sort of notion of computer games they produce, and what implication this may have for the game industry and regulatory regimes. The analysis will focus on two discursive strand, concerning: 1) the distinction between gambling design and game design and whether loot boxes can be deemed exploitative and 2), to what extent Western regulatory organs are equipped to regulate this kind of design. The latter is made especially pertinent as gaming disorder has now been suggested as a diagnosis in the draft for the latest edition of International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), building on diagnostic criteria from pathological gambling. The analysis will draw on material from online sites where the discussion has been prominent, including player run blogs and discussion fora, journalistic game sites, and also and public statement and documentation from the industry, rating boards and other stakeholders.

Figure 1: Loot box in Star Wars: Battlefront II during the opening process

The loot box contains five crates hiding different items. The player click on each item to reveal its content. The opening process is accompanied with sound and visual effects. Source wccfteck.com and polygon.com PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING AND ABUSIVE GAME DESIGN Resemblances between computer games and gambling were described already in the 1980s. Arcade machines were, for instance, compared to slot machines, and children were reported begging and stealing to get their “video game fix” (Klein 1984 in Griffiths 1993). The most obvious difference between computer games and gambling is that the former does not include wagering of money, which is normally seen as the most central features of gambling games (Walker et al. 2008). Concerning design, however, there are several similarities. Research on pathological gambling regard design of reward mechanisms as important since these mechanisms, according to behavioristic theory (Skinner 1953), may condition the behaviour of the player (King et al. 2010). Slot machines are seen as especially apt at triggering pathological gambling due to a combination of several features: high event frequency, easy access, small rewards at various frequency, and positive sound and graphical effects (Turner 2008). As has been pointed out several times during the Star Wars Battlefront II controversies (Heather 2017), loot boxes share many of these features, and may create the same type of flow, given that the player has enough money to keep buying crates. Seen in isolation, and from this particular academic perspective, loot boxes may fall under the definition of gambling and hence represent a danger for the player to become addicted or economically exploited.

GAMBLING AND GAMING IN A REGULATORY PERSPECTIVE In the West, and as a result of the controversies around Star Wars: Battefront II, regulation of loot boxes has been debated several places, including in Belgium and Hawaii. The most concrete outcome so far is that Hawaii has banned sales of games with loot boxes to people under the age of 21, and that the odds of obtaining different items must be revealed upon purchase. In Asia, where loot boxes (called gacha) have been used in mobile games at least since 2004, loot boxes have already been subject to targeted regulation. A certain type of loot boxes (called “complete gacha”) was, for instance, banned in Japan in 2012, and the odds for winning must be revealed on games where loot boxes are incorporated (Koeder and Tanaka 2017).

The rating boards in Europe (PEGI) and in the U.S (ESRB), have both answered inquiries about loot boxes. On a question from the game site Kotaku, about whether ESRB would classify loot boxes as gambling, they answered that they, despite having an element of randomness, don’t consider loot boxes as gambling since “the player is always guaranteed to receive in-game content”. They describe loot boxes as a principle similar to collectible cards, since each pack contain cards, albeit cards that the purchaser sometimes already own (Schreiner 2017). Several game journalists and players argue that this comparison is dubious, since players are not paying to get access to common items, but rare and valuable ones (Heather 2017).

When PEGI was approached by the tech site wccftech about the same question, they answered that they “cannot define what constitute gambling” since this is the responsibility of national gambling commissions. After examining the issue more closely they released a statement similar to ESRB’s (Palumbo 2017). Since both ESRB and PEGI are self-regulatory organs controlled by the game industry, their independence has been questioned. The increasingly blurred boundaries between computer games and gambling will probably present a challenge also in the future. DISCUSSION The use of loot boxes in premium games has been an issue for years, but the Star Wars: battlefront II controversies have led this discussion into new terrain where politicians discuss new restrictions on game design. The question is whether PEGI and ESRB can uphold their current view on this matter, especially if gaming disorder and pathological addiction become classified as related forms of behavioral addictions. While the loot box controversies have resided for the time being, they may in the longer run lead to a shift in the public discourse about computer games, where certain features may be deemed abusive, leading to stricter regulation. This will again influence the industry and the monetization models they use. In the further development of this analysis, the aim is to look closer at how the question about loot boxes may influence the public view on computer games, and also the academic debate of whether computer games design may be deemed abusive. BIBLIOGRAPHY EA DICE. 2017. Star Wars Battlefront II, PC game, Electronic Arts Gabrielsen, Oscar, press release. An update on Star Wars battlefront II, https://www.ea.com/games/starwars/battlefront/battlefront-2/news/pre-launch-update?utm_campaign=swbf2_hd_na_ic_soco_twt_swbfii-prelaunchblog-tw&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=social&cid=42029&ts=1516295704735&isLocalized=true, November 16, 2016, accessed January 18, 2018. Heather, Alexandra Kotaku 13, October 2017 Loot Boxes Are Designed To Exploit Us https://kotaku.com/loot-boxes-are-designed-to-exploit-us-1819457592, accessed January 18, 2008 Kamper, Soren. It will take 4,528 hours of gameplay (or $2100) to unlock all base-game content in star Wars: Battlefront 2 http://www.swtorstrategies.com/2017/11/it-will-take-4528-hours-of-gameplay-or-2100-to-unlock-all-base-game-content.html, November 17, 2017, accessed January 18, 2018. King, Daniel L., Delfabbro, Paul H., and Griffiths, Mark D. (2010b). Video game structural characteristics: a new psychological taxonomy. International Journal of Mental Health and Addiction, 8(1), 90-106. Koeder, Marco Josef; Tanaka, Ema (2017) : Game of chance elements in free-to-play mobile games. A freemium business model monetization tool in need of self- regulation?, 28th European Regional Conference of the International Telecommunications Society (ITS): "Competition and Regulation in the Information Age", Passau, Germany, July 30 - August 2, 2017 Menegus, Bryan, Gizmondo. Congratulations to EA for Posting the Most Hated Comments in Reddit History, https://gizmodo.com/congratulations-to-ea-games-for-posting-the-most-hated-1820391000, published November 13, 2017, accessed January 25, 2018. Palumbo, Alessio, wccfteck, PEGI on Loot Boxes: We Can’t Define What’s Gambling, Only A Gambling Commission Can, published October 12, 2017, last accessed January 28, 2018) Schreiner, Jason (2017) ESBR Doesn’t See ‘Loot Boxes’ As Gambling.https://kotaku.com/esrb-says-it-doesnt-see-loot-boxes-as-gambling-1819363091, published October 11, 2017, accessed January 25, 2018. Skinner, B.F. (1953). Science and Human Behavior. New York: Macmillan.
Smith, Marc, and Kollock, Peter (1999). Communities in Cyberspace. london: routledge.
 Turner, Nigel E. (2008). “Games, Gambling, and Gambling Problems”. In Massod Zangeneh, Alex Blaszczynski and Nigel E. Turner (eds.), In the Pursuit of Winning: Problem Gambling Theory, Research and Treatment. New York: Springer. Walker, M., Schellink, T. and Anjoul, F. (2008). “Explaining Why People Gamble”. In In the Pursuit of Winning: Problem Gambling Theory, Research and Treatment, edited by Massod Zangeneh, Alex Blaszczynski, and Nigel E. Turner.

ABSTRACT. In this paper we investigate the phenomenon colloquially known as "loot boxes" or "loot crates". Loot boxes became a hot topic towards the end of 2017 when several legislative bodies proposed that they were essentially gambling mechanisms and should therefore be legislated as such. We argue that the term "loot box" and the phenomena it covers are not sufficiently precise for academic use and instead introduce the notion of "random reward mechanisms" (RRMs). We offer a categorization of RRMs, which distinguishes between RRMs that are either "isolated" from real world economies or "embedded" in them. This distinction will be useful in discussion about loot boxes in general, but specifically when it comes to the question of whether or not they represent instances of gambling. We argue that all classes of RRMs have gambling-like features, but that only one class can be considered to be genuine gambling.

ABSTRACT. With the rise of "loot boxes" it is increasingly important that we establish video game monetization in historical context and we continue to explore its effects on our relationships with digital games. This paper builds on previous works that have attempted to detail monetization strategies (Heimo et al, 2016; Zackariasson & Wilson, 2010). Furthermore, this paper also adopts a theoretical frame built upon the work of Marshall McLuhan (2004) as well as the notion of “dark patterns” in design (Zagal, Björk, & Lewis, 2013). In the end, this paper attempts to show how monetization methods have shaped video game design and player experiences in fundamental ways.

ABSTRACT. Previous research shows that female players participate less in competitive games than male players. However, it is reported that there are more female players are than male players in King of Glory (KoG), one of the most popular multiplayer online battle arena (MOBA) games on the mobile platform in China. This study aims to investigate how can KoG capture the interest of female players. We compared the game design of KoG with League of Legends (LoL), one of the most popular MOBA games on the PC platform. We followed up with a semi-structured interview study with 20 participants about their gameplay experiences on the two different platforms. Our analysis indicates that mobility, sociability, and lower barrier to entry are the main factors that drove female players to participate in KoG.

ABSTRACT. The notion of transmedia storytelling implies that each medium is capable of equally contributing to a transmedial world or universe without acknowledging the capabilities of the medium as a story device. Specifically games become an issue when transmedia worlds rely on storytelling and the imagination, since they tend to disrupt the sense of coherence within transmedial worlds. Through a case study of the Overwatch franchise (Blizzard Entertainment 2016 – 2018), this paper challenges the notion of transmedial worlds central to the idea of transmedia storytelling. Based on Anderson’s notion of Imagined Communities (1983), this paper proposes instead to consider transmedial universes that include games such as Overwatch as shared universes that take into consideration various types of worlds, such as virtual worlds, by focusing on how the Overwatch franchise supports the connection between consumers.

ABSTRACT. This study explores emerging types of mobile and social play patterns through the object-based, but technologically enhanced practices of toy tourism. As our case studies demonstrate, object play practices in the digitalizing world are not only becoming increasingly social in nature but even more mobile than before. As illustrated by our study focusing on Travel Bugs in the context of the international game of geocaching, toys become mobile through different practices partaken by players, willing to either become involved in toy tourism with their playthings. Our study consisted of 45 survey responses from geocachers traveling with Travel Bugs. According to the results, mobile and social object play practices enabled by the platform of Geocaching become gamified – i.e. more perceivable, goal-oriented and measurable. Our main contribution is a conceptual framework in which the relations between the digital, the physical and the social dimensions of toy tourism are modelled.

ABSTRACT. This paper argues that game studios can productively be thought of as a type of technological platform, and utilises Bruno Latour's Actor-Network-Theory to explore this and its implications.

ABSTRACT. Casual games, we are told, represent a groundbreaking moment in the history of video games. Many scholars - such as Juul, Russoniello, Kultima, Stenros, Kuittinen, Consalvo, Tausend, and many others - have emphasised a number of factors which stress the profound importance of casual games to any chronology of video gaming’s past, present, and likely future. Analyses from these scholars and colleagues have emphasised the newness of the phenomenon, the growth of the gaming audience it has heralded, a change in the demographics of game-players, and the role of casual games as a focus for many companies within the games industry. In addressing ourselves to casual game scholarship, we therefore note that “casual games” are understood as being specifically digital in nature.

As such, the game designs and the players who constitute the concept of “casual” seem natively digital, and thus casual games are ultimately understood to be a particular moment in video game history, a claim with two central tenets: the contemporariness of the phenomenon, and that the phenomenon is limited to video games. Acknowledgements are sometimes made of other kinds of game with commonalities or historical relationships, such as board and card games, but these and their interactions with casual games are not developed beyond a passing mention. However, none of the literature on casual games addresses one kind of game which - we wish to argue in this exploratory paper - is an exemplary site of casual game design, casual play, and casual players. The games in question are not traditionally digital, and nor do they involve playing on any kind of “board” (unless one adheres to a very broad definition of a “board”). They do not involve the use of cards of any sort, and they require nothing more than a piece of paper and something to write with (although one could, with a good memory, play without the latter component).

We are speaking, therefore, of paper puzzle games: of crosswords, sudoku, kakuro, kenken, word-searches, and their diverse ilk that are ubiquitous throughout newspapers and magazines the world over. These are games played by millions, perhaps tens of millions, and yet are entirely absent not just from the literature on casual games, but from the game studies canon as a whole. Although we do not disagree that the newfound expansion of casual video games is quite new phenomenon, we propose two issues with this dominant analysis to date. Firstly, we propose it has unduly conflated “casual video games” with “casual games”, which is to say games as a whole that share a set of design characteristics, and that this is an incomplete (at best) and flawed (at worst) proposition that elides a significant volume of other games valuably conceptualised as being casual. Secondly, although board and card games have been commented on by casual game scholars, paper puzzle games have been entirely unexamined by game scholars, and their study can complicate our notions of what a casual game (video or otherwise) actually is. For both of these reasons, we believe the examination of paper puzzle games is of significant value to game scholarship, and will push the study of casual games, gaming and players in valuable new directions.

The goal of this paper is therefore to offer what we believe to be the first game studies exploration of “paper puzzle games”, and in doing so explore two interrelated questions: to what extent do current understandings of casual games help us to shed light on this genre, and to what extent does this genre of game complicate and confuse our present notions of casual games? To do so, the paper begins with a brief review of the (sparse) existing literature on paper puzzle games. It then identifies the six most common or universal themes in casual game literature that define the "genre": that they are fun and universally appealing in content and theme, they are quick to access, easy to learn, require little expertise, offer fast rewards to the player, and are designed with temporal flexibility in mind. We explore each of these, addressing the extent to which they adequately describe paper puzzles and their players, or the extent to which paper puzzle games complicate what is and is not a casual game. In doing so the paper will explore the particular material, economic and cultural constraints of paper puzzle games, which we argue are simultaneously distinctive enough to merit their own study, whilst still being undeniably comparable to what we otherwise understand as “casual games”. This duality allows us to stand on immediate solid ground when subjecting paper puzzle games to critical and scholarly scrutiny, whilst also suggesting a number of potential avenues for distinctive research into these forms of play that are likely to be mirrored nowhere else within game studies. The paper concludes from these six themes that paper puzzle games are casual games par excellence, and as such also complicate several unquestioned assumptions and positions about casual games as a whole. This paper is thus designed to challenge our notions of “casual games”, bring paper puzzle games into this discussion as an important historical antecedent to their present development, and open up paper puzzle games to broader game studies consideration.

ABSTRACT. Paradox can occur in a variety of forms from logical and literary to visual and auditory, but what does paradox look like in an interactive form? The distinction between interactive paradox from other forms is that for a paradox to constitute as interactive, interaction must be central to the paradox occurring. Traversing the surface of an impossible structure, for example, would not constitute as an interactive paradox because the paradox doesn’t rely on the interaction to occur. In this paper I propose and discuss five classifications of interactive paradox.

ABSTRACT. The contemporary video game market is more and more crowded with products that are expanded by digital contents that can be downloaded for free or payment: from annexing additional costumes to the characters, to implementing large portions of narrative, today expansion packs represent a phenomenon potentially and concretely capable of redefining the lifespan of each video game initially sold as a standalone product, to then prove to be partial when new contents are released. This essay will try to group the variety of these digital contents into two essential sets, and then it will try to understand if the video games expanded by future downloadable contents can be included among the canons of serial gaming, now explicitly represented by the advent of episodic video games.

ABSTRACT. This paper represents an initiatory investigation into moments of inaction in games. Two particular types of inaction are defined and discussed: stasis, which is inaction brought on by or through a game’s mechanics and stillness which is brought on by or through a game’s aesthetics. Moments of stasis and stillness are shown to either be designed features of a game that produce a variety of affective experiences or playful subversions that are injected into a game by the player. Through describing stasis and stillness as either designed or injected, these two modes of inaction are compared and contrasted and positioned as part of a broader project that interrogates whether play can be a form of critique.

ABSTRACT. extended abstract

ABSTRACT. The main focus of my presentation will be the analysis of how mechanics of horse-riding in video games affect the ways in which players perceive mounts’ subjectivity in open-world triple-A RPGs and action games. Although the analysis of well-represented genre of racing games and horse-riding simulations like My Horse and Me (2007) and The Saddle Club (2010) would certainly make for an interesting topic on its own, I strongly believe that the complexity of mechanics and animations required to nuance said subjectivity is rarely achieved in games that lack triple-A budgets. Another reason for my decision is the fact that games focusing mainly on horse riding do not contain nearly enough of other mechanics to create a context for the mount-related ones. Using both Ian Bogots’s procedural rhetoric (2007) and the MDA framework created by Robin Hunicke, Marc LeBlanc and Robert Zubek (2004), I will present how specific design choices for game mechanics relate to mounts’ subjectivity. Said mechanics and dynamics can be divided into three types: control schemes and interface mapping, the mount’s agency and the mount’s persistence in the gameworld. I will also juxtapose said analysis with the dominant notions in game design and development, i.e. that of gamefeel (Swink, 2008) and related aspects of real-time control and responsiveness.

ABSTRACT. In the game Breath of the Wild (Nintendo, 2017), systems were put in place to incentivize players to bond with wild animals, with a special emphasis on horse taming. In a franchise where wildlife used to be considered as an adversary to beat, this paper considers the role played by behavioral mechanics to bring life to this open world game. Through a semiotic analysis of the possible interactions with animals in Breath of the Wild, this paper proposes that variable and identifiable behaviors are favorizing bonding with players while the more generic and repetitive mechanics are desubjectifying the animal object and reveal their artificiality. With the horse-taming feature, Breath of the Wild is trying to find balance between a system based on free-play, designed for evoking emotions and emergent storytelling and a useful transportation method. For the latter, the system suffers the comparison with other transportation mechanics present in the game. On the other hand, the livelihood of the open world in Breath of the Wild is very tied to the conduct of the wildlife of Hyrule and its way to interact with Link. In conclusion, this paper will propose ways to push further attachment with artificial agents with mechanics favorizing emergent play.

ABSTRACT. The kinaesthetic aspect of digital games has been approached in various ways: Karhulahti (2013) explores kinaesthetic gaming challenges as dependent on nontrivial psychomotor effort; Calleja (2011) studies kinaesthetic involvement in relation to the agency of the player; Newman (2002) argues that the pleasures of video game play are primarily kinaesthetic; and, from a more design-centric approach, Swink (2009) examines the role of kinesthesia in relation to game feel. At the same time, there is an apparent trend towards studying video game characters in relation to their counterparts in more traditional storytelling media: Lankoski (2011) outlines a theory of how to make sense of player characters in digital games, based on the narrative theory of Rimmon-Kenan (2003), and Vella (2015) suggests revisions of Margolin’s (1986) characterisation statements to understand the character aspect of the playable figure. All the while, numerous scholars have been busy arguing that we must be careful when examining games using theories and methods developed for a different medium (e.g. Aarseth, 2001; Lammes, 2007). This study will attempt to combine inquiries into playable figures [1] with examination of the kinaesthetic experience linked to the avatar in question. As a specific case, this study will explore the avatar-kinaesthetics of Horizon: Zero Dawn (Guerrilla Games, 2017) (henceforth HZD), facilitated in part by the haptic feedback [2] of the PlayStation 4 DualShock controller. Digital games have used haptic feedback since the mid-1970s (Wolf, 2008, p. 39), and the technology is continuously refined and utilized in new ways. HZD is a PlayStation 4 exclusive, which means that we can assume that the haptic feedback has been designed with this particular controller in mind. The fact that the game offers feedback on various actions across multiple modalities thus allows for in-depth analysis of the relevance of the avatar-kinaesthetics in different situations. Avatar-kinaesthetics is here meant to refer to the combined phenomenon of the haptic feedback of the controller and the audiovisual representation of the movement and actions of the avatar – feedback based on player performance [3]. An example of the simplest form is the haptic feedback generated when Aloy, the playable figure in HZD, lands after a jump. While this type of feedback is obviously designed to somehow “immerse” the player further in the game, we argue that it also functions as a characterisation statement, as the haptic feedback, combined with the audiovisual representation of the executed game, can serve the function of communicating information about the character-dimension of the playable figure, in this particular case a distinct sense of Aloy’s weight. This is notable when the kinaesthetic feedback is compared to that presented in the very early parts of the game, in which the player controls Aloy as a child. Similarly, the feedback triggered when commanding Aloy to (fully) draw her bow leaves the player with the sensation that Aloy is a skilled hunter, but it also strengthens the link between avatar and character, making Aloy seem more of an immediate prosthetic extension (Klevjer, 2007). In the field of game studies, certain researchers have focused on the avatar in relation to the feeling of embodiment. Such studies include, for example, Klevjer’s (2007) aforementioned work on the avatar as a prosthetic extension of the player. This understanding of the avatar becomes central to this investigation when linked to the view of kinaesthetics in cognitive science, where kinaesthetics is considered to be a more specific form of proprioception and defined as a perceptual awareness of bodily movement (Gapenne, 2011) and its composite dynamic qualities in their spatial, temporal, and force aspects (Sheets-Johnstone, 2010). Kinaesthetic changes are understood to happen on both the mechanical and the visual level, offering two complementary sources of kinaesthetic information (Lishman & Lee, 1973), both of which are accounted for in our interpretation of avatar-kinaesthetics in HZD through the analysis and discussion of haptic and audiovisual feedback. Furthermore, in the case of HZD, as well as in most other third-person games, the player is not just responsible for controlling the movement of the avatar, but is also in charge of the avatarial camera (Klevjer, 2007) or optical mechanism (Karhulahti, 2013), adding yet another dimension to their kinaesthetic engagement with the avatar. Within the broader field of human-computer interaction, the integration of multimodal perceptual cues (such as visual, aural, and haptic) has already been identified as contributing to the sense of presence in virtual environments (Biocca et al., 2001, p. 260). Consequently, we argue that the multiple facets of the player’s kinaesthetic engagement in HZD contribute not only to a stronger prosthetic relationship with the avatar, but also to a better understanding of the character dimension of the playable figure. Thus, the central argument of this study is that the avatar-kinaesthetics in these examples can be understood both in relation to the player’s immediate control- and feel of the avatar, but also in relation to the character dimension of this playable figure. As such, it becomes meaningful to study exactly how avatar-kinaesthetics function in contributing to the character-dimension of the playable figure. To do so, we will build on Margolin’s (1986) theory of characterisation statements, which approaches action as a basis for characterisation. The theory has been revised by Vella (2015) in the context of digital games, and, building on both versions of characterisation statement-theory, this framework will help us situate avatar-kinaesthetics as a means for characterising avatars in digital games.

BIBLIOGRAPHY Aarseth, E. (2001). Computer game studies, year one. In Game Studies, 1(1). Biocca, F., Kim, J., & Choi, Y. (2001). Visual touch in virtual environments: An exploratory study of presence, multimodal interfaces, and cross-modal sensory illusions. In Presence: Teleoperators and virtual environments, 10(3), 247-265. Calleja, G. (2011). In-game: From immersion to incorporation. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Carter, J., & Fourney, D. (2005). Research based tactile and haptic interaction guidelines. In Guidelines on Tactile and Haptic Interaction (GOTHI 2005), 84-92. Gapenne, O. (2011). Kinesthesia and the Construction of Perceptual Objects. In Gapenne, O., Di Paolo, E. A., & Stewart, J. R. (Eds.), Enaction: Toward a New Paradigm for Cognitive Science (pp. 189-218). Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Karhulahti, V. M. (2013). A kinesthetic theory of videogames: Time-critical challenge and aporetic rhematic. In Game Studies, 13(1). Klevjer, R. (2007). What is the Avatar? Fiction and Embodiment in Avatar-Based Singleplayer Games. Doctoral dissertation. University of Bergen. Lammes, S. (2007). Approaching game-studies: towards a reflexive methodology of games as situated cultures. In Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference. Lankoski, P. (2011). Player character engagement in computer games. In Games and Culture, 6(4), 291-311. Lishman, J. R., & Lee, D. N. (1973). The autonomy of visual kinaesthesis. In Perception, 2(3), 287-294. Margolin, U. (1986). The Doer and the Deed: Action as a Basis for Characterization in Narrative. In Poetics Today, 7(2), 205-225. Newman, J. (2002). The myth of the ergodic videogame. In Game Studies, 2(1). Rimmon-Kenan, S. (2003). Narrative fiction: Contemporary poetics. London: Routledge. Sheets-Johnstone, M. (2010). Body and Movement: Basic Dynamic Principles. In S. Gallagher & D. Schmicking (Eds.), Handbook of Phenomenology and Cognitive Science (pp. 217-234). Springer Netherlands. Swink, S. (2009). Game feel. A Game Designer’s Guide to Virtual Sensation. Burlington, MA: Morgan Kaufmann Publishers. Vella, D. (2015). The Ludic Subject and the Ludic Self: Analyzing the ‘I-in-the-Gameworld’. Doctoral dissertation. IT University of Copenhagen. Wolf, M. J. (2008). The video game explosion: A history from Pong to Playstation and beyond. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

LUDOGRAPHY Guerrilla Games. (2017). Horizon: Zero Dawn [PlayStation 4]. Sony Interactive Entertainment.

ENDNOTES 1. We follow Vella’s (2015) terminology where the playable figure consists of respectively avatar, a component under the player’s direct control in the “game-as-system”, and character, a representation of an individual within the “game-as-heterocosm”. 2. Haptic is here used to refer to “dynamic aspects of touch” (Carter & Fourney, 2005, p. 85); with regards to the PlayStation 4 controller, haptic feedback is understood as the vibration triggered by certain in-game actions or states. 3. This means that certain types of haptic feedback are excluded, e.g. vibrations indicating world-events in cutscenes, where the player has no control of the avatar.

ABSTRACT. Video games as instances of everyday technoculture, operate within the premises of digitality, technology, simulations and software. By their very nature, they break down the subject-object, organic-inorganic, and player-game dichotomies. They constitute ludic ensembles, “inter-species assemblages” (Dyer-Witheford, 2015) or “biological-technological-informational” collages (Stasieńko 2017, 44). The subjectivity of the player is redistributed during gameplay into a post-human network of human and non-human bodies and agentialities. Post-humanist thought (Braidotti 2013) seems to be offering a promising perspective for digital games research. One, which invites theories and concepts looking at the game, the technology, the non-organic players. The very fact that games entail AI, procedural generation, complex agential relations between the player and the avatar, mean that strict divisions into subject and object, activity and passivity need to be rethought. It is fascinating, if not necessary in order to understand digital play and games, to move beyond the human and look at the phenomena of gaming from the point of view of the game instead. The examples of self-acting AI and self-playing games, make the technocultural and post-human dimensions even more pronounced. Over a decade ago Seth Giddings opened a debate on non-human dimension of digital play, when he proposed to recognize technological agency and shy away from the anthropocentric assumption that agency resides solely in the human player (Giddings 2005). This year, at DiGRA 2018, we would like to open a new chapter in the post-human ludic debate. In their talks, the participants of this panel we will address post-humanism in video games from numerous interdisciplinary perspectives, summoning the metaphorical death of the player in a Barthesian sense, exploring gaming in the post-anthropocene, addressing nonhuman agency in play, scrutinising the subjectivity of a game, and finally theorising a video game as a resistant (bio)object. References Braidotti, R. (2013): The Posthuman. Polity Press. Giddings, S. (2005): Playing with Non-Humans: Digital Games as Techno-Cultural Form. Proceedings of DiGRA 2005 Conference: Changing Views – World in Play. http://www.digra.org/digital-library/publications/playing-with-non-humans-digital-games-as-techno-cultural-form [Accessed 14.11.2017]. Dyer-Witheford, N. (2015): Cyber-Proletariat. Global Labour in the Digital Vortex. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Stasieńko, J. (2017): Automaty, hybrydy, afekty – posthumanistyczne konteksty apartu gry komputerowej i praktyk grania. In Teksty Drugie, 3, 2017.

Participants Sonia Fizek (Abertay University, UK) Panel talk: The Death of the Player Sonia is a Lecturer at the Division of Arts and Games at Abertay University. Her current research focuses on the relationship between digital games and automation. She looks at self-playing games, automated gameplay, and algorithmic players to understand the essence of and the fascination with self-acting playful systems. She is an active member of the research community as an associate editor of the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, and a board member for multiple initiatives and journals, such as Digital Games Research Association (British DiGRA), Digital Culture and Society Journal, Replay. The Polish Journal of Game Studies, and Journal of the Philosophy of Games. Paolo Ruffino (Lincoln University, UK) Panel talk: Video Games for Earthly Survival: Gaming in the Post-Anthropocene Paolo Ruffino is an academic and artist. He works as Lecturer in Media Studies at University of Lincoln (UK), and is the author of ‘Future Gaming: Creative Interventions in Video Game Culture’ (MIT/Goldsmiths Press, 2018). Ruffino has been doing research in digital gaming, media and cultural studies, media arts, semiotics and philosophy of language. He has been publishing on Games and Culture (SAGE), GAME Journal, Digital Culture and Society. Ruffino is chair of DiGRA Italia and board member of British DiGRA. He is one of the four founding members of the media art collective IOCOSE. Seth Giddings (University of Southampton, UK) Panel talk: Toying with the posthuman Seth is Associate Professor of Digital Culture and Design at Winchester School of Art, University of Southampton. He is the author of Gameworlds: virtual media and children’s everyday play (2014) and editor of The New Media & Technocultures Reader (2011). He is currently working on projects that address design for postdigital play, and on a media theory of toys. http://www.microethology.net. Sebastian Möring (University of Potsdam, Germany) Panel talk: What does a computer game care about when playing a human being? - Extra-human perspectives on computer games Sebastian Möring, Ph.D. is a lecturer in European Media Studies, a joint program of the University of Potsdam and the University of Applied Sciences Potsdam, Germany. His research focuses on meaning and structures of games and play, existential ludology as well as game and play philosophy. He is further interested in computer game photography. He acts as head coordinator of the Digital Games Research Center (DIGAREC) of the University of Potsdam whose computer game collection of 10.000 games is part of the International Computer Games Collection, a collaborative project with partners like Computerspielemuseum, Berlin. In changing roles he is involved in the organization of the annual Philosophy of Computer Games conference. For more information please visit http://sebastianmoering.com. Justyna Janik (Jagiellonian University, Poland) Panel talk: A video game as a resistant (bio)object Justyna Janik is a PhD student at Faculty of Management and Social Communication at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland, as well as a member of the Jagiellonian Game Studies Research Centre. She holds MAs in Comparative Studies of Civilisations and Cultural Studies. Her thesis concerns the subject of the relationship between a player and a video game, with a focus on post-human and performative nature of this bond. She is also fascinated by works of Tadeusz Kantor, which she uses as a theoretical tool to better understand a video game as an object.

ABSTRACT. The table-top play situation offers unique opportunities for approaching real-world personal problems in ways where the structures inherent in the problems can be deconstructed, examined, and understood. This paper presents design considerations from the ongoing development of a therapy board-game; how every-day issues can bleed in and out from framed play sessions, and how game rules in this context can benefit from being malleable. The paper also offers a tentative avenue towards how play sessions, in a combination of stances for the design of game mechanics with approaches to game mastering, can be constructed as safe-spaces, affording players to draw near deeply personal issues and find ways to support each other.

ABSTRACT. Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice,a digital game developed and independently published by Ninja Theory, contributes to various on-going debates across the field of game studies. This initial paper serves two purposes: first, as an early exploration of Hellblade's potentially-controversial depiction of psychosis and secondly, by investigating reactions to the game. The hope is that this early work will act as a stepping stone for further research projects both for the authors and other researchers in the field of game studies.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION ‘Debris’, created by Moonray Studios Inc. is a single-player/co-op adventure game, set in underwater Arctic ice caves. In the game, Alta, a mining company, is getting ready to present a new discovery in renewable energy: the debris. Dr. Sonya Rossi, Alta scientist and marine biologist and Ryan Norcott, owner of Fathom Productions, and his friend Chris are present during the inauguration of this discovery when something happens and they find themselves trapped underwater. Dr. Rossi is injured and she cannot move, the only option for her is to stay behind and guide Ryan though the dark water so that he can reach safety and send a team to rescue Sonya. Sonya will follow Ryan’s moves using a squid-like Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) which will allow them to communicate. What the player does not know is that the accident, in connection with a very stressful and dangerous environment, will alter one of the video games character’s perception as well as alter his/her ability to think and, broadly, make sense of the reality around him/her. The game is based on experiential learning and displays how people who live with psychosis experience the reality around them. At the same time, the multiplayer version of the game demonstrates how psychosis affects more than just the individual, but also the family members, friends, co-workers, and fellow citizens. Debris considers psychosis as a collective experience - to survive, players need to find a way to make sense of their reality, trust each other, and mutually overcome crisis situations (reference removed for anonymity). Debris was designed using participatory methodology inviting five youths (2 female, 3 male; age 17-19), who were gamers with lived experience of mental illness, in helping understand the complexity of the psychosis experience and stigma associated with it (reference removed for anonymity). Academics and clinicians were also part of the game design by providing information on the science and clinical knowledge of psychosis. Over the course of eight months, the five young gamers, Moonray Studios founder and project manager, and academic researchers met (seven meetings and two individual meetings) to discuss video game elements (game characters, story, interactivity, graphics, etc.), video game experiences, and messages around psychosis and mental illness. Each meeting was audio recorded, transcribed, and analyzed resulting in a game Conceptual Model created to capture Debris’ game experience, mental health messages, and values (reference removed for anonymity). The Model is composed of the following elements: Gamer values (fun, fantasy, interactivity, experiencing, control, autonomy, connectedness); and, mental health video game values (empathy, dignity, and compassion); video game learning objectives; and game mechanisms. The discussion between youth, game developers, and researchers, captured by the Model influenced and shaped video game messages and game mechanisms of Debris (reference removed for anonymity). METHODOLOGY AND ANALYSIS Debris was release on Steam and Humble in fall 2017. Shortly after, players posted videos of their video game playing online offering a unique opportunity to explore players’ experience in relationship to mental health messages as well as game ability to challenge, or not, stereotypes about mental illness. More than 40 Debris playthrough gameplays were posted on YouTube and Twitch; playthrough with commentary were identified and 10 videos were selected for final analysis (five from YouTube and five from Twitch). The playthrough with commentary gameplay videos were analyzed looking at Debris’ game mechanisms: Experiential learning (experiencing reality with psychosis); game environment (reality-based “surrealistic” game); story (complex game characters and compelling story); narrative (Interactive stories and dialogue options); and symbiotic mechanism (players are intrinsically bound together in order to survive). We also explored gameplay experiences in relationship to Debris’ game messages and learning objectives: (1) Promote understanding of mental illness by reducing stereotypes and fear; (2) promoting the possibility of relating to and willingness to help someone in a situation of crisis. DISCUSSION & CONCLUSIONS Debris aims at helping players understand the experience of psychosis, and how it can impact different people in different ways. Using real gameplay experience, posted online by players, we explore the impact that the Debris’ game mechanism had on players as well as the meanings and understandings around psychosis generated by payers through the Debris’ game experience. Currently, only a few video games attempt to represent the lived experiences of someone dealing with psychosis; unfortunately, the majority of video games perpetuate “madness” stereotypes and mental illness stigma (Corrigan & Kleinlein, 2005; reference removed for anonymity). Players are learning to respond to people with mental illnesses in avoidant and disparaging ways. A game such as Debris promotes a different experience and learning. This analysis has implications for assessing and understanding the impact of gameplay on players when exposed to video games on the serious topic such as psychosis and mental illness.

ABSTRACT. INTRODUCTION More than 1.8 billion people are playing games worldwide, and 27% of gamers are under 18 years old. Today, the gaming industry is a $108.9 billion market (McDonald, 2017). Shooter/action, sport, role-playing, and adventure games are the top four types of video games that frequent gamers play on their mobile or console devices. Emerging literature explores the advantages of playing video games in promoting better attention, memory, and problem-solving skills; enhancing gamer’s ability to cope with failures; managing emotions; and socializing (Granic, Lobel, & Engels 2014). However, the vast majority of research focuses on the negative impact of video games, describing potential harms related to aggression, addiction, and depression (Anderson & Bushman, 2001; Gentile, 2009). Given the high number of young gamers, researchers have also begun to examine gamers’ experiences and game messages about violence, sexism, and racism (Ashmore & Boca, 1981; Beasley & Standley, 2002; Dates & Barlow, 1990). However, no attention has been devoted to exploring the experience of mental illness in commercial video games, and the impact these games have in the normalization, understanding, or the perpetuation of mental illness stereotypes and/or stigma. Therefore, the aim of this paper is to examine mental illness messages, especially about psychosis, in commercial video games. METHOD On Steam (PC gaming platform), we performed keyword searches using the following terms: “mental illness”, “mad”, “mental”, “psycho”, “psychosis,” “asylum,” “insane,” and “crazy” on games made available between 2016-2017. A total of 615 games were identified and reviewed to assess whether the game content was related to mental illness; a total of 106 games were kept. The descriptions of the identified games were then reviewed based on genre, audience, story, language, and graphical style. Information for each game was extracted from Steam’s website, and thematically analyzed to identify and explore key themes. RESULTS We used a game elements framework (characters, game environment/atmosphere, goals, etc.) to unpack and describe the mental health and illness messages in commercial video games. Three key themes were associated with main and secondary game characters: violence (e.g. adorable murderer, genuine threat to society, among violent inhabitants); being lost, helpless, and lonely (e.g. lost, lonely boy, helpless creatures); and mental illness (e.g. psychotic, crazy roommate, assistant to the mad scientist, eccentric and paranoid professor). One such character is Twisty from Twisty’s Asylum Escapades (Twisted Jenius, 2016), a floating brain with sharp teeth that moves through an asylum, attacking patients whom he finds along his path. Associated with video game atmosphere, we identified the following themes: abandoned, disturbing and broken spaces (e.g. an abandoned asylum, darkness hanging over the city, dismal and disturbing atmosphere); violence, danger and chaos (e.g. violence-stricken town, “world about to collapse”, “danger infesting every corner”); and creepy, haunting, and strange ambience (e.g. creepy music, paranormal strangeness, “shadow” reality). These atmospheric elements are particularly salient in Layers of Fear (Blooper Team, 2016), where the player takes on the role of an “insane” painter who must navigate a dark, everchanging mansion to uncover clues about his wife’s death. The game envelops the player in gory imagery as strange noises and whispers guide the player to different clues, with screeching music signaling danger. In terms of video game goals, we identified the following themes: solving/uncovering a mystery (e.g. discover who is real, finding someone, uncover the mystery/secret); survival (overcome fear and “shadows of the night”, survive “the horrors that lie within”, overcome obstacles, perils, traps and puzzles); finding an escape (e.g. escape the asylum, escape from a “hellish place”, escape voices in her head, “make your way through lairs of psychopaths”); and going back to “normal” (e.g. staying sane, “end the infinite loop of madness”, bring an end to the misery, and live a normal/happy life). Finally, we unpacked how games describe mental illness and its experience. Experiences of depression and anxiety were associated with suffering, darkness, and being at their “bottom.” The only exception was Blue Sheep (Noetic Games, 2016), where the player follows the story of a young black girl who must solve puzzles and overcome obstacles (or life adversity) to understand the truth behind the Beast, a symbol of the experience of depression. Psychosis and severe mental illness were typically associated with paranoia, lack of control, being followed by a “dark presence”, having an infection, and/or paranormal or supernatural experiences. For example, in The Wendigo (Warka, 2017), players take part in a paranormal investigation to uncover the mystery behind an evil spirit that causes a version of psychosis. This psychosis, the game describes, is defined by violent and unpredictable behaviour, and the “insatiable desire to eat human flesh”. CONCLUSION Based on our review, the gaming industry seems intrigued by the experience of mental illness, with a large number of games including mental illness in their game elements or trying to describe its experience. Unfortunately, several identified video games seem to portray well-known negative stereotypes and prejudices associated with mental illness, namely that those with mental illness (especially psychosis) are violent, isolated, and fearful, while also promoting the creation of new ones; mental illness involves or is caused by supernatural or paranormal experiences. This is concerning as negative attitudes and stereotypes can promote mental illness discrimination and marginalization (Corrigan & Kleinlein, 2005). The ways in which these video games tend to contextualize mental illness through the games’ atmosphere and goals often reflects these preconceived notions as well; in particular that mental illness is dark and scary, where one must overcome the war within oneself to win. Despite the findings of our review, we believe that video games can provide a unique avenue to counter stigmatizing messages; their immersive ability to tell engaging stories can shift the ways in which gamers perceive and experience what mental illness is really like. The video game industry and players should therefore be educated on the impact of these messages, as stereotypes can be translated into discriminatory behavior. Furthermore, video games can also be used to disseminate alternative, more compelling, realistic, and compassionate messages about experiencing mental illness.

ABSTRACT. What does it mean to conceptualise or theorise regional videogame development practices in the absence of the large triple-a studios that have typically been considered the industry’s backbone, but which are decreasingly representative of many regional videogame development cultures? By localising and specifying various configurations and meanings of indie identification through a close examination of Australian videogame development, informed by interviews with a wide range of Australian developers, this paper unearths a complex ecology of local development practices imbricated with wider cultural scenes and creative identities, and shaped by diverse funding opportunities, labour practices, technological infrastructure, and global consumer cultures.

ABSTRACT. The videogame industry has seen significant socio-technical and socioeconomic changes during the past decade, among which the production of games as a service, the collection of users’ data, the democratization of game design knowledge and tools, and an extended access to distribution. As Kerr notes: “The emergence of platform logic brings together mobile devices, internet intermediaries, data sciences, algorithms and free-to-play business model as a particular configuration” (Kerr 2017, p. 15). This industry is generally presented as increasingly global, which reconfigures the system of actors and techniques involved, especially in the mainstream industry. However, this global reordering of the videogame industry is concomitant with the rise of an important independent scene. Although their market share is quite small compared to mainstream studios, indie companies strongly contributed to the recent recognition of videogames as a cultural production. Small indie teams are also considered more creative and innovative than mainstream ones. They attract educated workers trained for game creation, who are often frustrated to find themselves in executant-only positions in mainstream companies. Moreover, while training programs release each year many more new professionals than the job market is able to absorb, the indie sphere constitutes a valuable intermediary step in a career. But the indie scene has grown so fast during the last three years that some actors now are worrying about an imminent “indiepocalypse”, and wonder about the contribution of game workers to the emergence of a creative precariat (de Peuter 2014). This case study can be compared with the challenges the music industry faced with digitalization. Chris Young (2017) particularly highlights the parallel with the dilemma of democratization: a better access to distribution but more difficulties to “stand out in the crowd” when anyone can become a game developer.

In this proposition, we propose to examine how and to what extent these evolutions are reconfiguring the organization of game production and careers in this industry. Focusing on independent French game workers, we particularly investigate how they articulate global and local scales in their everyday work, based on 40 in-depth biographical and thematic interviews with French game workers, students, public and collective actors. In France, most videogame companies are medium and micro-businesses, which often cannot rely only on game sales, and have to develop other sources of income. Many of the entrepreneurs we met express sustainability – not tremendous success – as the very purpose of their activity (Parker, Whitson and Simon, 2017). To reach it, they bridge local and global investments: besides their contribution to a global market through online platforms, they also develop strategies within very local areas. Some even express a strong commitment to their territory in topical sentences such as: “I think it’s very important to develop local games.” Localism is, moreover, suggested through a literally domestic, “homemade” dimension of these games, as family members often join the studios, installed in the house kitchen, garage or basement. Lastly, because the recent growth of the game industry also has to do with the commodification of game and play (Kerr 2017), they focus on local markets (for instance, answering collectivities’ public tendering for serious games). So, to stand out in the crowd, the ability to play with both local and global scales, to participate in middleground (Mehouachi & al. 2017) dynamics is essential. Our interviews reveal some intermediaries’ crucial role in financial and promotion support: small publishers and alternative forms of funding, festivals, contests ("game jams") and innovative local programs (« clusters », specialized workplace). But “indies” also play at a global level, and emphasize the importance of promotion policies and assessment tools. For instance, the Metacritic score (http://www.metacritic.com/about-metascores) is a key driver for sales, according to our interviewees, as are platforms’ forums and votes. Other ones underline the strong effect that different kinds of socio-technical marketing devices have, for instance Steam platform sales, without being able to explain its functioning (“Half-algorithm, half-human”).

Our interviews allow us to investigate transformations of the production context, and of game producers trajectories. We also wonder the impact they have on this kind of game production. Indeed, many of the game entrepreneurs we met chose independence because they were looking for creative freedom. How do they manage to juggle demarcation work, sustainability and the freedom of creation?

References

Mehouachi C., D.Grandadam, P.Cohendet & Laurent Simon (2017). « Creative capabilities and the regenerative power of creative industries: Local and global ingredients ». In The global management of creativity, M.Wagner, J.Valls Pasola & T. Burger-Helmchen (eds). NY: Routledge. de Peuter G. (2014). ‘Beyond the Model Worker’, Culture Unbound, 6. Hracs, B. J., Jakob, D., & Hauge, A. (2013). Standing out in the crowd: the rise of exclusivity- based strategies to compete in the contemporary marketplace for music and fashion. Environment and Planning, 45 Kerr A. (2017). Global Games: Production, Circulation and Policy in the Networked Era. New York: Routledge, 2017. Parker F., J.R. Whitson & B. Simon (2017). “Megabooth: The Cultural Intermediation of Indie Games.” New Media & Society. Young C. (2017). Conference paper. Indie Interface Symposium, Montreal, Concordia, 28-30 Oct.

ABSTRACT. This paper investigates the process of game localization from an indie development perspective. The global nature of the digitally distributed game industry gives opportunities for game studios of all sizes to develop and distribute games on a global market. This poses a challenge for small independent developers with limited resources in funding and personnel, seeking to get as wide spread of their game as possible. To reach the players in other regions of the world localization needs to be done, taking language and other regional differences in mind. In an AAA or big-budget game production, these questions are handled by separate entities focusing solely on the localization process – but how do small independent game developers handle this? Indie game developers in Sweden, China and India have been interviewed to investigate the research question of how do indie game developers handle localization in the development process. The results points to a widespread use of community- and fan translation, and that only basic localization is done i.e. culturalization aspects are not considered. The results also show that the reason for localizing can be both business decisions but also to spread a specific message using games.

ABSTRACT. By now it is abundantly clear that game development represents one of the biggest cultural industries on the planet (e.g., ESA, 2017, Brand, et al., 2017). Games are subject to gigantic budgets and development cycles of various years, often involving development-teams hundreds or thousands strong. Investing in a game is risky, and companies are risk-averse. The result is a sometimes homogenous AAA market of historical shooters, fantasy RPGs and jewel-matching phone games, owned by a handful of companies (Nieborg, 2011), with the same white male protagonists (Williams, et al., 2009; O’Donnell, 2014; Shaw, 2015).

Indeed, among the pantheon of great cultural industries – film, music, television – the game industry plays its part in reproducing what Adorno & Horkheimer called “Mass Deception:” a cultural industry that “is infecting everything with sameness” in a way that reproduces capitalist power structures under the illusion of luxury, freedom and individualism (1947, p. 94; cf. Benjamin 1936, Hesmondhalgh, 2012). As has been further noted, however, the 21st century saw the independently developed or ‘indie’ game rise from the behemoth of games’ AAA industry, due in no small part to improved game development software and more accessible distribution platforms such as Steam, itch.io and the App Store. Whether as a production setting – small, underfunded teams (Martin & Deuze, 2009) – or as a specific genre of games (Simon, 2012), the promise of indie games has always been their capacity for variation, diversity and innovation. Thus, in public, professional and academic discourses, indie games have been positioned as punk, as countercultural, even as “countergames” (Anthropy, 2012; Galloway, 2006; Ruffino, 2012), thus paving the way for more diverse ways of thinking and playing.

Does independent development grant game designers the freedom of designing in new ways, outside of the logics of market capitalism, conformism and consumerism?

This article will present research based on in-depth qualitative interviews with N=27 international developers, based on the role of religious practices and convictions in game design. Religion was chosen as a fundamental source of both videogame conventions throughout the past decennia (e.g., Bosman, 2015; Campbell, 2014; Krzywinska, 2006), as well as for people’s deepest convictions and identifications. Surely, if the discourse around indie is one of individualism, diversity and countercultural innovation, indie designers will be able to show their own convictions through their design – whether as agnostics, Hindus, Christians or Pastafarians. At the very least, these indie games will no doubt depart from such thoroughly established conventions as Priest and Paladins, gods and quests, or holy creeds.

Has indie development allowed for this kind of diversity of religious influences, practices and worldviews – beyond the Christian-/eurocentric conventions of the 20th century? In other words, what cultural and religious practices drive the representation of religion in games, and how has the increased independence of indie games changed the conventional representation thereof?

Having selected developers from various religious backgrounds (agnostic, atheist, Protestant, Catholic, Sunni Muslim, Germanic Pagan, and so on), and/or those dealing with religious content in their games in various ways, our data show that the opposite is often true. Rather, non-religious developers reproduce the religious clichés of videogames as “shortcuts,” “tools” and for “narrative effect.” Religious developers, on the other hand, find themselves steered away from designing from their convictions – admitting that while their religion pervades their entire life, it is difficult to find a place for it in their games.

Analysis of the data shows that firstly, the ‘language’ of game design has developed into a universal language of conventions and tropes that has become divorced from its localized, culturally specific origins in North-American and Japanese, often male-dominated development culture. Whether designing in Delhi, Melbourne, Montréal or Johannesburg, game designers everywhere inherit a universal set of conventions that includes, among other things, a commodified and fetishized variant of (European Christian) religion. Secondly, based on designers’ stories, the analysis articulates five mechanisms that make it difficult and unappealing to deviate from the reproduction of these conventions. That is, - Game design is rooted in a _cultural_ logic that was universalized from a once specific intersectional, local culture of either Japanese Christianity-fascinated Occidentalism; or white, male, North-American agnostic with a Christian background. - This logic is consequently (but analytically discernably) reproduced _traditionally_ as a eurocentric, instititutionalized, conspiratorial and fantasy (e.g., Tolkien-)inspired view of religion. - It is _pragmatically_ a design shortcut that conveys much information and narrative gravitas without explanation – a world where Priests heal ‘because they do’. - It is furthermore, even in the inclusive discourse of independent designers, _socially_ taboo to deviate, to express religiosity among designers, and to be outed as such toward the gamer audience in the public sphere (e.g., Twitter). - Finally, and as a result of these, it is _economically_ advantageous to reproduce these conventions; more so to a perceived militantly atheist ‘gamer’ audience that is to be conformed to in what is a risk-averse industry.

In conclusion, indie development is paradoxically conservative in reproducing some of videogames’ oldest conventions: a fascination with religion. As such, the conclusions of this paper give a cultural sociological insight into, and empirical grounds for neo-marxist theories on the inevitability of the reproduction of hegemony in cultural industries subject to the rationality of capitalism. Particularly the precarious economic position of independent designers in the 21st century precludes them from practically engaging in what indie has been theorized to represent. That is, in spite of the discourse on indie individuality, indies are necessarily made to conform to a universally standardized design language which reproduces religion as commodity, as conspiracy or otherwise as monolithic and magical.

ABSTRACT. This research focuses on the aesthetic properties and production processes of arcade to home computer game ports during the 1980s and 1990s, in particular arcade titles originating in Japan that were licensed by UK based software houses for the 8-bit and 16-bit microcomputer market.

The conversion teams worked within the unique constraints of 6 main platforms, namely the ZX Spectrum, Amstrad CPC / Schneider, Commodore 64, Atari ST, Commodore Amiga, and MS-DOS PC. In all the examples discussed, the original arcade cabinet was used as the core audiovisual and gameplay reference.

As a human mediated process, the conversion of the digital material of arcade game to home computers not only bore the audiovisual constraints of the target platforms, but also the creative signatures of the conversion teams. The most successful home ports succeeded in capturing the essence of the arcade originals, while positively augmenting the gameplay, narrative, and overall aesthetic.

ABSTRACT. Over the past two years, smart speakers such as Amazon Echo have become popular entertainment technologies and, increasingly, game platforms in households across the globe. These systems are controlled through voice-interactive Artificial Intelligences such as Amazon’s Alexa. The present work seeks to open a conversation about voice-interactive games on smart speaker systems in game studies. While these platforms open exciting new creative spaces for gamers and game developers alike, they also raise ethical concerns: Smart speakers are powerful twenty-first century surveillance capable of interpreting, recording and synthesizing human speech. Through the lens of a case study on John Cayley’s ludic Alexa skill The Listeners, this paper interrogates how Amazon Echo’s technological affordances enable new forms of surveillance while also giving rise to a new poetics of voice interaction. Illuminating aesthetic and ethical dimensions can help scholars in game studies assess the risks and perks of this new ludic platform.

ABSTRACT. As VR platforms such as HTC Vive and Oculus Touch enter the gaming market with high fidelity motion controllers, they call for a re-thinking of our game control design schemes. We present a bottom up design exploration of traditional puppetry controls and the design spaces such an experimental mapping opens up for VR gaming. We argue along 3 steps for a critical return to puppetry as a reference to design and analysis game character controls. Based on existing background research that largely emphasized puppetry as metaphor, we briefly touch on the use of puppetry in current games, before presenting our own design approach and implementation of existing puppet schemes in VR. Three initial controller mappings for virtual rod puppets, marionettes, and hand puppets serve to highlight opportunities and challenges in the approach. The overall goal is to re-establish a puppet-based perspective to character controls for VR and to highlight the emerging design space for games.

ABSTRACT. Within virtual play spaces such as digital games, certain types of attributes and abilities are granted through a series of restrictive design choices imposed on user interface (UI) inputs, allowing a player to create their avatar or personal representation. Avatars are utilized as a representation of identity in these play spaces, allowing for certain prescribed ways of being that are embedded within the UIs of the avatar creation screens, as well as in the code itself. These restrictions can ultimately limit the “possibilities a certain [avatar] has to interact with the game mechanics” (Tronstad 2008, 253), such as certain in-game abilities. In this way, the capacities of the player are proscribed through choices made as early in the digital game as avatar creation. This means that while avatars aesthetically represent the player and offer them a virtual existence, the mechanics can hinder the ways in which the player can play and perform in the virtual space. Ultimately, there is very little negotiation accessible to the player, as the restrictions are unidirectional with no reciprocity between user and hard coded UI affordances. These avatars function as a performative representation of a player; within these restrictions, avatars arguably showcase limitations to ways of being and embodiment that enforce certain ways of being online.

ABSTRACT. With this extended abstract we want to argument about two italian Serious Games, "Progetto Ustica" (IV Produzioni, TBA 2018) and "A Little Anti-Fa Story" (Mauro Vanetti, 2017) - both created in order to keep alive the memory of traumatic and controversial events accoured in Italy in recent years - by using the concepts of “history” and “mnemohistory" pointed out by Assman (2000) and the studies on Trauma and Trauma Culture by Caruth (1995) and Alexander (2004).

ABSTRACT. The subfield of game ontology has seen many models and structural hierarchies, but few that actively build on each other, or even attempt comparisons. This paper introduces a meta-model, which in addition to being an ontological model of its own, also offers a method for comparison between competing or isolated models and concepts. It does so by treating games as mechanisms (Craven 2007) with multiple levels of description, and differentiates between four main layers of the game-mechanism. In the first part of the paper we present the model in detail. In the second part of the paper we show applications of the model - we present how some of the existing approaches to game ontology can be compared within it and how it can be used to describe two case examples: the ancient Egyptian funeral game Senet and the difference between game mechanics and game rules.

ABSTRACT. As several museums dedicated to preserving digital games have opened around the world lately, it is interesting to note how different they are in their strategies toward exhibiting and preserving games. The Game On 2.0 exhibition, produced by Barbican International Enterprises, focuses on “original experiences” (Prax et al. 2016), the Nexon Computer Museum in Korea (2014) exhibits mainly international game history and the Finnish Museum of Games tells a national story of game development in Finland (Heinonen 2017). Why are game museums and exhibitions working towards so different goals?

In this article, I look at digital game preservation efforts from a theoretical standpoint, in order to detail a model on how museums should understand digital games in exhibitions and in their collections. The article participates in the ongoing preservation discussion (Sköld 2017), and is based on almost a decade of practical museum experience in working with games at Rupriikki Media Museum and the Finnish Museum of Games.

ABSTRACT. Two components may be recognized in the definitions of video game genres. The concrete component describes the traits of a particular genre (e.g., MMO), and the abstract one identifies the concept of genre itself. In this paper I will distinguish three types of definitions with regard to the abstract component, and I will argue that one of them is especially helpful in the historical study of video games. I will also outline the research implications of the proposed understanding of genre.

ABSTRACT. The premise of this paper is that rather than representing a clash between literary and ludic agendas - or between cognitive modes, necessarily prompting self-reflection on the part of the player - a poetry game may have a coherent poetic agenda that can be intuited through experiencing the various tensions between its segments, including between textual and non-textual components. With reference to games such as Hyper Light Drifter (Heart Machine, 2016), INSIDE (Playdead, 2016) and RymdResa (MorgonDag, 2015), and to my own practical research, I will argue that one way in which games excel at carrying out a poetic agenda is through embodiment of the ‘unreal’; that is, by playing on the tension between the encoded game world, with its simplified rules and forms, and the implied reality which is being simulated, as well as other realities implied by way of metaphor, they may both subvert the expectation of escapism, and advance the literary trajectory described by Marjorie Perloff in 'Radical Artifice': emphasising the character of the text as a contrivance, and the role of the audience in constructing meaning.

ABSTRACT. In repeat experiences of story-focused games or interactive stories, players tend to expect to experience something different in each play session. At the same time, they usually expect that each play session will be self-contained, in the sense that there are no explicit, diegetic references to earlier play sessions. Through a close reading of the visual novel Save the Date, I argue that breaking this expectation of self-contained play sessions creates a sense of defamiliarization, disrupting the mimetic nature of the work at the level of the individual play session and foregrounding the process of rereading, resulting in poetic gameplay. I suggest that such antimimetic interactive stories or story-focused games render the acts of reading and rereading unfamiliar, drawing attention to the act of rereading and encouraging players to think about the process of rereading in new ways.

ABSTRACT. Gameplay is customarily conceived of, in its ideal form, as uninterrupted. Flow, immersion, engagement, even addiction, all imply a continuous engaging with the game. Yet play can also be reflective and it is prone to interruptions. In this article we approach gameplay from an oppositional point of view, by looking it as estrangement, distance, reflection, and queering. The article will address the poetics of estrangement both in theory and in practice.

ABSTRACT. The presentation will make an argument for the special aesthetic possibilities of games with several consecutive endings. It puts them into context with game endings in general (as recently discussed in Fassone 2017), outlines why they induce cognitive dissonance, and presents three aesthetic principles that result from this configuration.