<p>What is game studies? What separates that inter/disciplinary space from a larger notion of games research—and who decides? In recent years, scientometric research within game studies has increased as scholars have attempted to more concretely define a field which has been volatile since its formal origins in the early 2000s. But a recent controversy between scientometrics and gender studies (Lykke, 2018) has revealed a potential shortfall with relying on metric studies alone. Metrics can reveal which theories, themes, and scholars have been most privileged within a discipline, but only within predetermined boundaries, a limitation in a multi-disciplinary field which begs the question of who gets to determine those boundaries. Games research draws from many fields, from media studies to literature to computer science and psychology, but unless that work makes it into game studies journals, it will never be included within a metric analysis of game studies. In many fields, these boundaries may arise organically to create disciplinary lines. In game studies, however, anecdotal evidence indicates such boundaries have historically excluded work grounded in feminist, queer, and critical race theories. This project therefore employs a mixed methods approach to metrics research that allows for a broader view of not just game studies, but games research. This mixed methods approach, which I call <i>rhetorical metrics</i>, utilizes contextualized metric data to create a rhetorical approach to the scientometric measurement of a field, thereby providing empirical data underscoring anecdotal knowledge of exclusions in game studies. </p><p>In this project, I build on previous metric analyses of game studies by thickening data with additional perspectives. This data includes gender identity information, keyword clusters on themes beyond traditional game studies, such as information on race or queerness in games, and data on scholars who publish inside and outside of game studies journals. By revealing where different types of scholarship on games appear, and where certain knowledges are privileged (or not), this form of expanded, intersectional metric analysis allows for a more inclusive view of games studies than current studies provide, and results in a flexible research methodology that can be similarly applied to other inter- and multidisciplinary fields. </p>

Video game adaptations of the classical world are becoming increasingly intricate, and the study of video games as artifacts of classical reception and adaptation is likewise becoming increasingly important for the field of historiography. Assassin's Creed: Odyssey, set during the Peloponnesian War, recreates, among other aspects of the Greek world of the period, the political setting of Periklean Athens. This thesis examines instances of Athenian political representation within the game which depart from the typical image of Athens' politics as informed by primary source accounts, knowledge of sociocultural practices, and archaeological finds. It argues that the game depicts the Athenian democracy as a republic with a strong aristocratic element rather than as a direct, participatory democracy. The paper recalls the tradition of reception and adaptation of democracy in political thought and examines some of the resulting attitudes towards democracy. It suggests that the game's depiction of democracy as an oligarchic republic is a result of the developers' passive adoption and repetition of popular theories regarding the form and function of democracy, past and present. Players' likelihood of adopting and perpetuating a misshapen image of democracy is briefly discussed. The conclusion considers the potential for video games to influence players' perceptions of political systems and participation in them and, in light of that capacity, advocates for closer scrutiny of adaptations of the classical world which engage in political representation. It also ponders the possibility of novel interpretations of democracy as the next step in the tradition of democracy's reception and adaptation.

In my thesis I focus on analysing the representations and images in historical digital games. I base my thesis upon methods and works from the game studies field. Those texts research games based on principles of mechanics and rules, narrative, aesthetics, and simulation. All those aspects of games come under my analysis of chosen set of digital games. I connect this methodology with theory of history, which focuses on means of historical representation and ways of construction of the historical image, just as it notes role of historians and history in nowadays society. Further I build upon work of Jean Beadrillard on simulation and simulacra, who takes on the topic of production of images in our culture. I confront my analysis with work of Adam Chapman Digital Games as History, which offers me not only a basic terminology but also serves me as an inspiration for comparison of the games' images with the historians' epistemology. My thesis results in comparison and attempted junction of the methods of game studies with those of historiography on the material of digital games. Apart from deeper analysis of selected games I come to more general conclusions, which could in my opinion, add to further analysis of the past and its digital representations, just as they could help to think through the role...

How do games express meaning and participate in societal development? A significant contribution to the scholarly efforts that seek to answer such questions takes the rule-based properties of games as its starting point. Termed Procedural Rhetoric, the theory is tightly interwoven with major research questions in Game Studies, yet is under-researched and lacks clarity in several respects. This paper conducts an exploratory, qualitative literature review of the theory to address the lack of information about accumulated knowledge. It discovers new perspectives that may help chart a future for the theory and for Game Studies more broadly. Three possible paths forward are also outlined. A New Agenda is suggested in which game rules and procedures are (re)instated at the core of the analysis but new perspectives are embraced concerning the role of players and of developers, the societal context, and the contributions of the researchers and the educators who study them.

Through a series of in-depth qualitative interviews and a discourse analysis of academic publications this study explores the definition of indie video games, relationships between queer players and indie video games that they play, and ways in which queer players relate to games in general. The comparison of definitions between academic publications and player interviews shows that “indie” is a vague term that is too broad to define, either relying upon modes of production or becoming impossibly narrow in attempts to describe indie game trends. Instead, a more productive point of discussion seems to be located around affect typical for genres and categories of games, with modes of production being an important but not defining part of the conversation. / Media Studies & Production

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This paper examines the process of designing a breathing mechanic to enhance player-character alignment in video games. Breathing is closely connected to emotional regulation and could therefore potentially impact a players’ emotions in a similar way to the real thing when implemented into a game as a mechanic. Real life breath control is also a common way to alleviate anxiety through the use of breathing exercises. These factors make breathing an attractive action to adopt into game design in the pursuit of aligning the player with the character they are playing. By iterating on a prototype breathing mechanic in our video game, Still, this study observes that breathing as a game mechanic can align player and character through the synchronisation of action in game with action in real life. Players tend to match their real life breath with the in-game breathing mechanic and this suggests player-character alignment.

Ce mémoire porte sur les jeux de rôle participatifs en environnement virtuel (JRPEV), un phénomène qui, dans le champ des game studies, n’a jamais été défini jusqu’ici. Une définition est donc apportée afin d’établir leur spécificité au regard des environnements virtuels, des jeux vidéo, des MMOG et des jeux de rôle traditionnels (sur table et grandeur nature) tout en mettant en lumière les dimensions qui en font un hybride mi-jeu vidéo, mi-jeu de rôle. Pour ce faire, les JRPEV seront définis en tant que jeux, jeux de rôle, pratiques représentatives de la culture participative (Jenkins 2006) et environnements virtuels. À la suite de cette définition, un modèle théorique flexible sera décrit qui rendra compte de l’expérience vidéoludique des joueurs au sein des JRPEV. Pour ce faire, des alternatives aux notions polémiques et polysémiques de «cercle magique» et «d’immersion», très présentes dans la littérature scientifique portant sur les jeux de rôle et les jeux vidéo, sont d’abord apportées : le cadrage de l’expérience vidéoludique et l’allocation des ressources attentionnelles. De plus, le modèle intègre les styles de jeu et les postures interprétatives privilégiées par les joueurs sur les œuvres dont les JRPEV constituent une adaptation vidéoludique ou sur les textes appartenant à l’architexte (Genette 1982) de ces JRPEV. En effet, ces styles de jeu et ces postures interprétatives contribuent à structurer l’expérience vidéoludique. Enfin, ce modèle inclura la dynamique sociale dans laquelle est vécue l’expérience vidéoludique sur les JRPEV en mobilisant le concept de «communauté herméneutique conflictuelle». Cette entreprise conjoint les perspectives herméneutique et sociocritique dans l’étude de jeux perçus comme une médiation ludique (Genvo 2011) (Henriot 1989), soit comme la rencontre d’une attitude et d’une structure ludiques. Elle repose à la fois sur un travail métathéorique et sur l’observation des jeux de rôle goréens, des JRPEV organisés sur Second Life qui illustreront de manière concrète les spécificités de ce phénomène vidéoludique.

The thesis deals with the historical development of computer adventure games in the Czech Republic. It focuses on the period that started in 1994 with the production of the first commercial PC game Tajemství Oslího ostrova (The Secret of Donkey Island), and ended in 1998. It also touches an earlier period and factors that influenced the production of the adventure genre in the nineties. Researched titles belong to the genre of 2D point-and-click adventure. The paper brings the analysis of the games according to the theories of game studies, context of their production, information about their producers and analysis of the feedback in the press that focused on computer games. The thesis tries to identify the common features of the first commercial PC games thanks to which the games became very popular in the nineties and also describes the obstacles that the first producers had to overcome in the post socialistic country. At nearly twenty titles the paper tries to reveal the new elements that showed in the historical development of the adventure games and also to describe the differences among monitored titles. The sources of information for the thesis were both the literature, which dealt with computer games, and the interviews with the developers, game designers and distributors who focused on the...

Typified rhetorical situations are often a result of normalized ideologies within cultures; however, they also have the capability to produce new ideology. Within these discursive sites, identities are constructed among these normalized social acts. More importantly, these identities are constructed across many layers, not limited to one social act, but many that overlap and influence each other. In this paper, I focus on the identities that are constructed in marginalized spaces within sites of interacting discourse. Focusing on the rhetoric of abjection posited by Julia Kristeva, along with McKenzie Wark’s exploration of gamespace, a liminal theoretical space that encompasses the sites of analysis and ideology formation from the perspective of gamers, I analyze disruptions of normalized social practices in the gaming genre in order to implement the use of abjection as a method of understanding how sites of difference produce meaning for minoritarian subjects.