This Thesis is pertinent to the negotiations of sex, gender, and sexuality in the video game Cyberpunk 2077 and the narratives the gamer traverses while on the game, and aimed to add to the literature regarding the entanglements of gender and technology within the virtual world of the video games.This Thesis focused on investigating the potential of technocultural assemblages to undo gender (and racial) interpellations, and more specifically in regard to the assemblages that are formed between (post)human and avatar in first-person video games that allow the user to create their character with a great deal of freedom. In other words, this study deploying the method of Autoethnography set out to research the materialities and normativities in (post)human-technology relations and the potential of these relations to operate as a means of resistance.

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This thesis is an examination of the representation of trans characters like Bridget from GuiltyGear Strive(2021). By analyzing trans representation in movies and games, the typical tropesof trans characters were found, and conducting a close reading of the visual design of Bridgetto see where she represents and differs from these tropes. The results of the close readingfound that Bridget's shape language conveys a harmless appearance, differing from the tropeof violence. The color scheme conveys harmonious and youthful, contrasting trope ofdysphoria. Bridget's cute appearance makes her similar to the trope of ambiguity. Bridget'suse of toys as weapons makes her comedic without becoming the butt of the joke. Bridget isnot treated as disgusting nor focused on the male gaze. This thesis concludes that Bridgetmainly differs by not being as adult-oriented, showing it can represent trans identity withoutrelying on these negative tropes.

The focus of this thesis is to explore the impact of art styles on video-games. This was done so that I could contribute something more to the digital media industry regarding this topic, and show people unique data sets that may help guide them in the right direction if they are looking for answers to questions they may have about art styles and their impact on the success of games. This was done through a study that was conducted via an online survey, where results were taken from student participants over the age of 18 in the GAIM program at UCF. I found that there was a correlation between the familiarity that people had with a game and how well they thought a particular art style was fitting for a game. This study is useful because it can help describe what people thought about various popular genres for video-games. This deep dive into the subject of art styles found in video-games is important as it shows that popular games have what players consider good art style. Research in games is a growing category in the world of digital media. This study collected data specifically from students in that field and helps give a new perspective on what that demographic thinks about art styles in the games they are familiar with and will hopefully impact the games they will make in the future.

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The question of fidelity, which has long been at the center of adaptation studies, pertains to the problem of authorship. Who can be an author and adapt a text and who cannot? In order to understand the problem of fidelity, this thesis asks larger questions about the problems of authorship, examining how authorship is changing in new media. Audiences are taking an ever-increasing role in the creation and interpretation of the texts they receive: a phenomenon this thesis refers to as participatory authorship, or the active participation of audience members in the creation, expansion, and adaptation of another's creative work. In order to understand how audiences are creating texts, first the place of the player within video games is addressed. Due to the nature of the medium, players must become active co-creators of a video game. Drawing a parallel between video game players and performance, it is argued that players must simultaneously perform and author a text, illustrating the complex and multilayered nature of authorship in video games. In the second chapter the role of the fan is examined within the context of the My Little Pony fandom, Bronies. Like players, fans take an active role in the creation of the text and destabilize the traditional notion of authorship by partially controlling of a text from the original author. By examining the place of the player and the fan the traditional notion of authorship is destabilized, and the more open and collaborative model of participatory authorship is proposed.

This research is based on the following research question: What are the pupils’ thoughts about their gaming habits and possible learning situations in connection with their gaming? The study is based on literature on the subject and on two interviews with five youths who are between sixteen and seventeen years of age. The conclusions that can be drawn from my research question are:- Learning could take place in different domains and be put into different contexts. Hence, language learnt from playing video games, could be applied on domains outside of the game, i.e. implicit learning in terms of using a foreign language when communicating with other players can become tacit knowledge that the learner can apply on settings outside of the game. Also, social skills learnt from the structure of a game like World of Warcraft can be used in a formal educational setting. As a video game is multimodal in its nature there are benefits from also using other multimodal material in formal education, as many of the pupils are familiar and used to the same sort of text.- There are also problems connected to informal learning. The informants in this study describe how their interest in video games often clashes with their formal education. Another aspect is of course how the quality of the content learnt within an informal setting is being supervised, in contrast to how the formal education works with a trained teacher and a set curriculum that carefully explains how the learning should become available for the learner. Finally, one of the informants explains how his writing skills has become worse because of his informal training of English, since he wants to use smilies and abbreviations in formal text writing.

This study examined the effects of gamification, i.e. (what makes games challenging, engaging and fun), and its effects on speed and accuracy on an interdependent paper sorting task. Undergraduate students (N=42) at the University of Central Florida participated by working interdependently in groups to sort numbered pieces of paper into piles before and after either playing video games or doing back-to-back drawing(basic team building exercises). It was hypothesized that participants who played video games would sort pieces of paper into the piles faster and more accurate than those who did back-to-back team exercises. Results showed that playing video games was not better than doing basic team exercises, but that the two tasks were relatively equal. Although groups were formed and dissolved quickly, there was improvement between the pre and posttests. While the experiment did not yield significant results, it is possible that using different video games or different interdependent tasks could foster increases in speed and accuracy compared to back-to-back drawing.