Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds - Time, Play and Games, Jun 2025

Plague Inc (2012) is a strategy game in which players develop pathogens to eliminate, control or zombify the world’s population. The game integrates biomedical models, visual practices and knowledge formations into visual language, terminology and the representation of the temporal course of disease. The article examines the intertwining of medical theorems – in particular evolutionism, epidemiology and public health – with temporal processes and their representation within the ludonarrative structure of the game. Methodologically, a theoretical discussion of concepts of time is followed by an analysis of temporal regimes in epidemiology and public health. Building on this, the epidemiological semantics and chronotopic structures in Plague Inc are elaborated.

Following a platform studies approach to video games, this article explores Deep Learning Super Sampling (DLSS), a cluster of machine learning-based upscaling and anti-aliasing techniques designed to make graphically intensive games run faster and in higher resolutions. Its inclusion as an optional setting in video games influences how players sense time, in terms of increased frame rates and temporal artefacts, and the visual instabilities, flickerings and ‘ghosted’ images that this technology creates. To offer a closer look at the visual manifestations of temporal manipulation at play in contemporary upscaling technologies, this article focuses on the video game Control (Remedy Entertainment 2019). While Control is not mechanically concerned with time management or manipulation, this article argues that the game thematically addresses the takeover of futures by medial pasts in a way that rhymes with the temporal manipulation inherent in DLSS’s use of machine learning models.

This article identifies the queer potentials of slow play by analysing the results of seven semi-structured interviews with players of the tabletop role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). During interviews, players acknowledged that a key element of playing D&D was slowness: they took their time exploring locations, engaged in lengthy turn-based combat sessions and had in-depth discussions. Here players and their characters move slowly, in what I term ‘slow play’. In playing slowly, players created a queer experience of time through a resistance to heteronormative temporal orders defined by productivity and linear progression. I focus particularly on how interviewees wandered away from pre-established goals to produce a method of play that delayed resolution and formed new spatial locations. Ultimately, I contend that slowing down the pace of play queers time through its resistance to normative play movements.

The Indigenous people of North America are, generally speaking, under-represented in media and especially so in games. When Native people are depicted in big budget, AAA games, we are most commonly seen in historical contexts. This article explores the distinction between Indigenous people in the future and Indigenous Futurist video games. Games like Gun.Smoke and Werewolf: The Last Warrior bind Native Americans in a perpetual past and cut our cultures off from creative visions of the future. In contrast, Indigenous Futurist games like Hill Agency: Purity/Decay use a tight braid of traditions and heritage, contemporary issues and vision to create culturally informed futures. Unlike the somewhat repetitive vision of Native people seen in other games, Indigenous Futurist games present culturally informed considerations of how particular values and traditions can exist in a futuristic, postcolonial world. This chapter explores how Native game designers are using Indigenous Futurisms as a framework to create games by and for the seventh generation.

In this article, I examine gameplay compilation videos – videos which compile gameplay, cutscenes and other materials from a computer game – through the lenses of Jack Halberstam’s and Elizabeth Freeman’s respective works on queer temporality, Bo Ruberg’s work on queer play in computer games and Sara Howe’s work on ‘monstrous’ fan compositions and composition practices. Starting from Ruberg’s supposition that Halberstam and Freeman’s theories of chrononormativity extend into game worlds and play – i.e. that there is a temporally normative way to play – this article argues that compilation videos operate as ‘temporal monstrosities’, which both record and are themselves instantiations of queer temporality. I examine two different types of compilation videos and analyse how they employ Howe’s monstrous compositional practices to instantiate queer temporality. Finally, I offer thoughts on future research potential and the videos possible use as archival objects.

This article analyses the various temporal logics governing the functioning and play offered by modern live-service-games. It examines the different ways in which such games build underlying mechanics to engage the player and enable building repetitive commitments to in-game processes like grinding where time and acts of labour are repeatedly extracted. By using the ALNI framework to examine three live-service-games: Hitwicket, Skull and Bones, and Zenless Zone Zero, the article identifies both standard and unique approaches to developing audiences and sustaining the time players spend in-game. The article juxtaposes these measures against success criteria for live-service-games, to highlight the homogeneity in everyday play mechanics and ways in which time-bound content and incentives are delivered. It questions how players’ time and efforts can be protected when games’ engagement strategies fail and calls for adopting nuanced perspectives that rebalance play and access in game design.

This article introduces the concept of ludo-solastalgia to describe the distress players experience due to changes in video games over time, drawing on place attachment and solastalgia from environmental psychology. Ludo-solastalgia is proposed as a framework for understanding how game updates, developer decisions and community actions can disrupt a player’s connection to virtual worlds and prompt protective actions. Through a review of industry and academic literature and case studies of Destiny 2 and MapleStory, this study highlights key markers across virtual environments to establish a foundation for future research into ludo-solastalgia. Technological and cultural markers of ludo-solastalgia are identified as areas for developers to address in order to promote sustainable player engagement and to help players better understand their dissatisfaction with evolving virtual worlds.

The years 2021 and 2022 saw the title of ‘most expensive video game sold at auction’ change hands repeatedly. The press coverage of these record-breaking sales popularized the market for graded video games (i.e. those sealed in plastic and certified for their authenticity and condition) and, in the process, reshaped retro gaming. However, this boom was short-lived. In addition to plummeting sale prices, a class-action lawsuit alleged that WATA Games and Heritage Auctions had engaged in market manipulation. This article argues that conflicts over the graded games market reflect broader concerns about preserving video game history and retro gaming culture.

This article examines the analog horror web video series Super Mario 64: Classified as a reinterpretation of the influential N64 title Super Mario 64. It begins by discussing the concept of analog horror, a genre that employs the aesthetics of older media formats to evoke both nostalgia and unease. This sets the foundation for exploring the connection between the web series and the original game. The series reimagines familiar game elements to generate an uncanny sense of horror. Central to this is the idea of ‘emergent gameplay and narrative’, which ensures that players remember and engage with diverse gameplay moments and story elements through creative interaction with game mechanics. The article investigates how the series draws on these aspects to maintain ties to the original game while crafting new narratives, highlighting the enduring influence and adaptability of Super Mario 64 in contemporary media.