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- Volume 10, Issue 2, 2018
Catalan Journal of Communication & Cultural Studies - Volume 10, Issue 2, 2018
Volume 10, Issue 2, 2018
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Proceso de Lana: Playing Andean culture through board games
Authors: Natalie Underberg-Goode and Peter SmithAbstractAndean culture and folklore is an interesting topic that should be explored and valued by other cultures. Unfortunately, it is difficult to explain the intricacies of the differences between the culture of the Andean people and that of people in the United States to young people. In an effort to bridge the gap, a game called Proceso de Lana was designed to provide an opportunity to role-play as a member of an Andean village as they process wool, weave it into textiles, and sell it at the market. The board game’s design seeks to convey various Andean concepts such as reciprocity and cooperative labour in what appears on its face to be a traditional competitive game. Players learn about the Andean culture and folklore, while gaining an appreciation for Andean world-view and lifeways.
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Gender, sex and romance in role playing video games: Dragon’s Dogma, Fable III and Dragon Age: Inquisition
More LessAbstractGender, as Judith Butler argued, is performative. People define their gender by ‘doing’, often unknowingly, through manners, gestures and practices. Video games are cybertexts with configurative performances, that is, the act of playing is a constant performance that affects not only the creation of meaning, but the resulting text of the game as well. When we play, we shape the discourse by ‘doing’. Representation – how the game elements can be seen to articulate meaning – and performance – how the player uses the game to complete and modify this meaning – cannot be separated in game analysis. Every game gives us a set of actions, or mechanics that we use at will to achieve goals following clear rules, and these rules and actions are precisely the building blocks of a game. Ludofictional worlds have an ingrained idea of ‘reality’ that we can take at face value or explore, even question. So, if games are performances, is our performance within them gendered? That is, are we reproducing our learned performativity or breaking away from it? Is the game a procedure we follow or an instrument we use to express ourselves? In this article, I use game analysis tools and theory to describe if and how three particular games, Dragon’s Dogma (Capcom, 2012), Fable III (Lionhead Studios, 2010) and Dragon Age: Inquisition (BioWare, 2014), each coming from a different territory: Japan, Europe and the United States – give the player freedom and opportunity to perform gender, and how they include pluralism and/or diversity. The article has no intention to describe all of the current gaming culture, but to illustrate some trends in mainstream games regarding representation and player freedom in the design of gender and sex. Romance can be seen as the frame of a conversation between the designers and the players.
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The erasure of female representation in geek spaces as an element for the construction of Geek identity: The case of Warhammer 40.000
Authors: Alejandro Muñoz-Guerado and Laura Triviño-CabreraAbstractIn the following article we aim to depict the complex threefold relationship between the phenomenon of the second digital divide that plagues women inside entertainment spaces, the theoretical framework of post-sexism and the construction of Geek identity as a besieged, discriminated space. Our purpose is to highlight how the construction of Geek identity was based on both the exclusion of women from geek spaces and the creation of a melodramatical narrative surrounding such spaces. We do so through the analysis of gender representation within the popular Warhammer 40.000 game. Results show a perfect example of a women-excluding setting, packed with gender representation problems that is trying, as of late, to distance itself from such baggage, taking steps to redefine what it means to be a Warhammer 40.000 fan.
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Fan preservation of ‘flopped’ games and systems: The case of the Virtual Boy in Spain
Authors: Marçal Mora-Cantallops and Ignacio BergillosAbstractThis article presents Planet Virtual Boy (PlanetVB) and Virtual Boy enthusiast practices in Spain as a case study for fan preservation of failed games and systems. Using a historical approach and contributions from cultural studies, fan studies and game studies, practices and motivations for fan curation are discussed. Online communities serve as a common ground where fandom collaborates and negotiates at different levels in order to support video game preservation. The tensions that arise and the practices that take place are explained and connected to previous theory. Virtual Boy in Spain illustrates how the fragile, ambivalent and chaotic nature of online communities can also contribute to a successful preservation of game culture and video game history.
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Talking about games: Gamers’ digital communication spaces as the object of study
Authors: Sandra Sanz-Martos, Silvia Martínez-Martínez and Amalia CreusAbstractIn the digital environment, gaming is one of the activities that has generated the greatest number of fans. What is more, gaming becomes a topic of conversation between gamers/users, who leverage the potential of different communication platforms to research, collaborate, share tips and even boast of their achievements. This article seeks to describe and analyse how these gamers’ communication environments work, on the basis of the inherent characteristics of communities of interest, learners and practice. Through examination of the activities on gaming forums for two highly popular massively multiplayer online games – League of Legends and Minecraft – and the exchange of comments between viewers of leading Spanish YouTubers like RevenantL0L and Vegetta777, we analyse users’ behaviour, the amount and content of messages and compare the structures and workings of the two environments.
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The impact of digital practices on the perception of risks and benefits of digital gaming
More LessAbstractThis study introduces a new multivariate framework around a set of digital practices such as entertainment-oriented uses, information-oriented uses, social-connection uses and e-commerce uses, and shows that these digital practices are, in fact, important predictors of the positive and negative perceptions of digital gaming. We developed two multiple regression models on a representative sample of the Spanish population. After controlling for socio-demographic factors (age, gender and level of education), our models reveal that gaming-related perceptions of benefits and risks are associated with people’s concrete personal experiences with digital games and, interestingly, to the greater or lesser development of their digital practices. We show that the perceptions of benefits with regard to video games are related to more developed digital practices. Conversely, the perceptions of risk are higher in the case of individuals who lack exposure and experiences regarding digital practices.
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The four board game eras: Making sense of board gaming’s past
More LessAbstractThe history of board games stretches back into pre-history presenting a challenge for examining the full sweep of the medium’s past. In response this article suggests a way of dividing board gaming’s past into four broad phases or eras. These eras are defined by primarily by shifts in production processes rather than game design choices or player tastes. Drivers of each era discussed include intellectual property law, mass-scale printing, plastics and online developments such as crowdfunding. Examples of what games align with which era are given. The article also explores the relationship between video games and board games. The strong influence of board games on early video games is explored as is the question of why relatively few ideas transfer from video games back into board games.
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The board game designer: An approach
More LessAbstractGames as a structured activity need authors who create them. Throughout history, the figure of the author has been unknown for different reasons. In ancient times, games were owned by the society as a whole; the birth of the printing press saw printers becoming publishers, illustrators and authors at the same time, while in the Industrial Age games were owned by manufacturers. This has changed recently. We started to realize about games’ authorship through hobby games and eurogames, and finally modern games brought the author to the forefront of game creation in the twenty-first century. This article aims to shed some light on the role of board game authors, starting with a short historical approach on their role, and will hopefully serve as a basis for further research.
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Future Story Chasers: An experience with co-creation of fiction in the classroom through a collaborative storytelling game
Authors: Antoni Roig, Fernanda Pires de Sá and Gemma San CornelioAbstractIn this article, we will outline the co-design process of the Future Story Chasers storytelling game methodology. Future Story Chasers is a research project aimed at fostering the collective creation of stories based on a common fictional premise. A first experience was carried out in late 2017 in three primary and secondary schools in Barcelona, with approximately 200 participants from three different age groups and diverse social backgrounds. Previously, a co-design process was carried out to establish the grounds for the narrative and game experience, with a twofolded aim: to nurture adaptive storytelling strategies through a broadly defined fictional universe set in a near future; and to stimulate reflection around social issues, meaningful for the participants, through fiction and creativity. We will focus on the design process of the board game that served as the starting point for the experience and the challenges for the overall research methodology.
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