Aditya Deshbandhu

Bio: Aditya Deshbandhu is an academic researcher from University of Hyderabad. The author has contributed to research in topics: Educational technology & Context (archaeology). The author has an hindex of 3, co-authored 7 publications receiving 20 citations.

Towards a Monopoly: Examining FIFA’s Dominance in Simulated Football

Abstract: Simulating the world’s most popular sport is big business and the most popular titles in the industry are Electronic Arts’ FIFA (2015-2019) franchise and Konami’s Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) (2015-2019). A rivalry that begun in 1995, the last 24 years have seen the games modify, adapt and transform the way sports simulators are made. In the pursuit of digitally recreating the magic from the football pitch, the two titles have garnered extremely loyal fanbases that include some fans whose gaming practices are limited to playing just one of these games. This article aims to analyze the success of FIFA and the decline of PES in the last decade when reviewers of games and industry observers have repeatedly found PES to be the better game. It begins by comparing review scores of the last eleven iterations of the two franchises and then uses a multi-pronged approach to identify the various dimensions that allow FIFA to thrive as a game despite offering a comparatively poor gameplay experience to its players. This paper uses a multipronged approach to identify and analyze the various dimensions that has enabled FIFA as a franchise to create a near monopoly in the simulated football/soccer genre. By close reading streams of players of the game, formally analyzing the last five iterations of the FIFA franchise and then juxtaposing the two frames to examine FIFA as a hybrid cross-media product/service, this paper looks at the various non-play related elements that make it successful. The paper identifies and analyses the various dimensions that make FIFA a service that has allowed the franchise to create a near monopoly in the simulated football/soccer genre.

Developing a ludic framework for counteracting interventions for dementia: A narrative and analytic review

Abstract: As the field of medicine tries to tap into various facets of gamification, the potential of video games and gaming-based interventions has become a hotbed of interesting activity in the Dementia circles of medical research. This paper, exploratory in nature is a bid to find common grounds for the fields of neurosciences, psychology, and psychiatry with the sub-field of ludology in a hope to find unique insights from the benefits of interdisciplinary research and extrapolating findings from gaming addiction.From the perspective of game studies, the paper will draw from elements of concepts like flow, immersion and engagement in a bid to understand the various tools that can be of use if people ailing from neurocognitive disorders were to engage in gaming activity. This paper will lay the framework that will enable the beginning of a matching gaming exercises based on cognitive deficits and psychological profiling of clients diagnosed with neurocognitive disorders and advance the fields of neurosciences and psychology.By combining the findings from existing studies and original work this paper will propose both a means to study the possible effects of gaming-based interventions and suggest ways to streamline and optimize the use of gamification in patient care.

Repurposing a WhatsApp group: How a fantasy cricket group transformed into a site of care and support during India's second wave of Covid-19

Abstract: Set in the context of India's second Covid-19 wave (April–June 2021), this article examines the transformation of a WhatsApp group originally created to study a pool of fantasy sport players into a site of care, concern, and support. By using netnography and in-depth interviews to chart the various challenges faced by the study's participants, the article analyzes how key health information was curated, moderated, and shared by the group's participants during the period. Our findings indicate that during the Covid-19 wave, users of WhatsApp relied on the personal connections it offered as they found ways to make the platform their own. By harnessing WhatsApp's capabilities with regard to accessing and sharing essential information that was both timely and locationally relevant, users of the service found ways to stay informed in moments that were fraught with uncertainty. By analyzing the various ways in which the group's participants shared information with each other and outside of the group, this study argues that the insights obtained can be used to understand broader social realities and the possibilities offered by platforms such as WhatsApp that could help navigate the various challenges presented by the ongoing pandemic in the Global South.

Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming

Abstract: Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer GamingT. L. TaylorCambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2012. Appendix, notes, bibliography, index. 304 pp. $29.95 cloth. ISBN: 9780262017374In Raising the Stakes: E-Sports and the Professionalization of Computer Gaming, author T. L. Taylor examines the ups and downs of a slowly emerging industry, e-sports (electronic sports). The e-sports industry aims to turn real-time video game competition into the next major professional sport-complete with franchises, broadcast tournaments, superstar players, and mogul team and league managers. Those who would make e-sports a success point to South Korea, the only country so far in which the industry has taken hold. Taylor tells us that tournaments like the World Cyber Games draw sponsors like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, and Samsung and that Korean Telecom companies, and even the Korean Navy have-or sponsor-teams. Outside of the promised land of South Korea, however, e-sports have struggled and exist as a generally small, niche industry.Taylor's book does an excellent job of examining e-sports through numerous lenses. Providing historical context, she takes us back to the roots of e-sports, delving into the early days of informal, head-to-head video game competitions around the first computer game, Space War! (1962) and the inclusion of highscore record keeping on arcade machines to arcade-based tournaments (still happening today on the old machines like Pac Man and Donkey Kong and chronicled in the 2007 documentary King of Kong) and the video game-themed Starcade (1982- 1984) television show. She then moves to the emergence of the on-line networked play of Id Software's Doom (1993) and Quake (1996) through today's current live and networked tournaments of firstperson shooters and other video game competitions. Yet Raising the Stakes is not just a historical effort. With her first book, Play between Worlds: Exploring On-Line Game Culture, Taylor established herself as a solid analyst of games as media and community.And Taylor brings those skills to bare on gaming as a sport. For example, in her second chapter, titled "Computer Games a Professional Sport," Taylor guides us through an in-depth, well-reasoned, and documented analysis. She cites the literature on the debates around computer games as play. She examines the modification of rules, and occasionally of systems, of the games themselves for tournament play, judging, and broadcast. She compares the requirements and practices of professional sports and professional athletes (mental and physical training, hours and routines of practice, preferences for specific brands and makes of equipment or insistence on the use of personal equipment) in other sports to those of professional gamers. …

Masculinities, Violence, and Culture

Abstract: Masculinity, War and ViolenceMurder and MasculinityThe Routledge Companion to Masculinity in American Literature and CultureThe Dynamics of Masculinity in Contemporary Spanish CultureRape on Prime TimeTransforming MasculinitiesDoing Justice, Doing GenderCrime, Criminal Justice and MasculinitiesTurn This World Inside OutCultures of MasculinityMen, Masculinities and ViolenceMasculinities, Violence and CultureThe Tough StandardCleansing Honor with BloodTransfigurationsCaptain America, Masculinity, and ViolenceMasculinities and CultureMasculinities and ViolenceMen, Masculinities and Intimate Partner ViolenceNine LivesViolent MasculinitiesMasculinities, Gender Relations, and SportEducation and MasculinitiesViolence and NonviolenceGender, Crime and VictimisationYouth Gangs and Street ChildrenMale Roles, Masculinities and ViolenceDismantling Rape CultureTropical CowboysMental Health, Men and CultureCultures of MasculinityWhat Causes Men's Violence Against Women?Violent ManhoodMasculinities and CultureComrades in ArmsMen in PrisonMen and MasculinitiesMisreading MasculinityThe Media and the Models of MasculinityMasculinities in Contemporary American Culture

Self-identification as a “gamer” among college students: Influencing factors and perceived characteristics:

Abstract: Much of the research involving perceived characteristics of so-called “gamers” has been directed at deconstructing traditional stereotypes associated with the term. As gaming has become mainstream,...