The possibility of co-creation exists for all media, but game design has developed a culture that is unusually open to co-creation. This dissertation investigates significant cases of co-creation i ...

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Co-creative Game Design as Participatory Alternative Media

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Superpatriarchy Meets Cyberfeminism: Facebook, Online Gaming, and the New Social Genocide

To date, game studies has largely undertheorized the co-production of postcolonial stories, exploration, and mapping in games. Furthermore, as has been noted before (Carr, 2006), the work that has been done on postcolonialism and play so far often leaves the player out of the equation, even sometimes as a theoretical construct. Yet player experience is crucial to understanding such games, as narratives are not only built on the ‘master’ level of game mechanics, but also through the personal stories players processually (Ash, 2009; Thrift, 2008) develop through their journey of touring and mapping, thereby developing spatial stories (De Certeau, 1984; Jenkins, 2004; Lammes, 2009) that may present us with conflicting spatio-temporal accounts. Through a comparative and collaborative auto-ethnographic analysis of Civilization VI (Sid Meier, 2016) – a turn-based strategy game – we want to push this discussion further and improve our theoretical understanding and analytical purchase of the triad relation between narrative and postcolonialism in games, thereby contributing to the field of postcolonial theory and game studies. Drawing on postcolonial geography, science and technology studies (STS), non-representational theory and game studies, we argue that games, through their playful, explorative and emergent qualities, are a powerful means of rethinking and reimagining colonial (hi)stories in this postcolonial era (Lammes, 2009, 2010) including issues of spatio-temporality, cartography and the hybrid relation between women and machines.

https://scholarlypublications.universiteitleiden.nl/access/item%3A3076788/view

Hybridity, Reflexivity and Mapping: A Collaborative Ethnography of Postcolonial Gameplay

Despite gender having become a central topic in the game cultural discussion of today, there does not seem to be clear understanding of the concept of gendered game culture or general theoretical framework that would define and support the study of gendered game culture within the field of academic game studies. This paper argues that there are two starting points for understanding the concept of gendered game culture and for its research: the first being how the concept of gender is understood in the context of games, and the second being defining the central gender questions in game studies and locating them in the field of game culture. The paper also presents a preliminary model for the concept and research field of gendered game culture. The model consists of the central research questions on the topic of gender and games, presented in selected leading level game studies journals and conferences and located in the various sectors of game culture. At the same time, the model reveals some of the gender questions not yet presented in these central publications as well as some of the areas of game culture not yet widely studied from gender perspective.

http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/177_Friman_The-Concept-and-Research-of-Gendered-Game-Culture.pdf

The Concept and Research of Gendered Game Culture

Consumers’ product evaluation, choice, and use are driven by both hedonic (HED) and utilitarian (UT) considerations. Digital games that are typically considered a homogenous product category are often conceived as masculine information systems the use of which is dominated by the men. In this research paper, we present results from a survey study where the impact of gender was investigated at the game subcategory level. The results indicate that gender role models are still strongly involved in the perceived value of digital games except that they differ based on the game subcategories. In conclusion, the greatest differences between genders can be found on masculine games where men emphasize these games’ HED/UT value. The differences can be explained by men’s higher relevant experience rather than by gameplay elements.

Rika Nakamura

Papers

Girlish counter-playing tactics