Category: Game studies (Page 2 of 7)

Emmanoel Ferreira

ABSTRACT: 
Based on a dialogue with authors of pragmatist philosophy, game studies, and communication, this article intends to understand the relationship between aesthetic experience and ludic media, in particular digital games, in what this relationship distinguishes from the aesthetic experiences provided by different media, such as literature, music, film and the arts in general. To better understand this relationship, we propose the presentation and development of three epistemological axes (or keys), namely: i) aesthetics and agency, ii) aesthetics and appropriation, and iii) aesthetics and politics. Furthermore, this article intends to present and comment on selected works of digital games to illustrate the relationship between play and aesthetic experience in each of those respective axes.

KEY WORDS: 
aesthetics, agency, appropriation, digital games, epistemology, play, politics.

DOI: 
10.34135/actaludologica.2023-6-2.62-78

Naz Almaç

ABSTRACT: 
A player’s subjective interaction with a digital game is referred to as player experience. The consequence of playing a game affects a player’s thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviours. To measure player experience there are various qualitative and quantitative methods. Iterative game development and play testing sessions enhance and optimize game designs, to determine the impact of functional and psychosocial consequences of gaming in various cultures, a credible scale is required. To be able to measure and analyse player experience, this study aimed at adapting the ‘Player Experience Inventory’ (PXI) scale developed by V. V. Abeele1 to Turkish. The results of test-retest analysis and back-and-forth translation demonstrate that linguistic equivalence is not applicable for the Turkish variant. Only one item for functional – audio-visual appeal – and two items from psychosocial – immersion and autonomy – consequence of gaming have a proper factor structure. In this way an adaption study was carried out by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and explanatory factor analysis (EFA) with three items from the scale. The validity and reliability of the scale and relationship of audiovisual appeal of gaming on game enjoyment were tested and this article proposes a model for the functional and psychosocial consequences of gaming.

KEY WORDS: 
digital games, game user research, moderation effect, player experience, scale adaptation.

DOI: 
10.34135/actaludologica.2023-6-2.42-61

Oleg Dietkow 

ABSTRACT: 
The issue with gamer identity has been troubling researchers for the last decade. Despite trying to assign different parameters such as time spent playing, individuals themselves do not identify along such lines and the reasons why one person defines themselves as a gamer and another does not have not been clear. The goal of this paper to demonstrate, by applying B. Suits ontology of games and understanding identity in accordance with H.-G. Moeller’s concept of profilicity as a form of identity construction, the existence of two separate constructs of the gamer label. To demonstrate this, a series of interviews were conducted with two groups of people engaged in gaming: those who sought fun and those that desired winning. Both groups show clear differences in selfidentification with their identity and the observed differences explain inconsistencies and issues observed by prior studies. Playing for fun is a factor that acts against seeing oneself as a gamer while playing to win is a factor inducive towards identifying as a gamer. Those that seek winning are likely to seek validation of their identity by comparing themselves to known gamer influencers while those that prefer playing over gaming will construct their definition of a gamer in an authentic manner.

KEY WORDS: 
digital game culture, digital games, gamer identity, profilicity, second-order observations.

DOI: 
10.34135/actaludologica.2023-6-2.20-40

Esteban Vera

ABSTRACT:
This paper discusses the concept of the hero and the role of memory as an object of (re) construction of the world in the narrative of the Nintendo digital game The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Through the analysis of how memory is reconstructed in Link and the characters that inhabit Hyrule, memories, historical and social memory, monuments, documents, space, and gameplay within the same digital game are also reconstructed. Testimonial memory, in turn, will help remember and construct the narrative of Link’s personal and social history by reconstructing the story. The personal experience that the player has while interacting with the game through the act of playing can build the meta- discourse between memory and narrative to understand the hero and his journey through the world. In this sense, the importance of the character Link within the game is affirmed, as he is a much more complex subject than a simple archetype within the game mechanics.

KEY WORDS: 
digital games, hero, memory, narrative, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild.

DOI:
10.34135/actaludologica.2023-6-2.4-18