Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / O objetivo desta pesquisa é, a partir do estudo sobre as abordagens de diversos autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, propor uma definição do termo por meio de teorias de comunicação. A palavra jogabilidade é frequentemente utilizada em matérias jornalísticas especializadas, trabalhos científicos e conversas de jogadores de videogame, tendo sido criada sobre ela uma falsa impressão de clareza conceitual. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica foram analisadas as principais propostas de autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, sem que houvesse unanimidade sobre ele. Além da análise da literatura relacionada à jogabilidade,foram também utilizados vídeos de gameplay e experimentação direta de alguns jogos que compuseram o corpus desta pesquisa. Por fim, através da relação teórica entre os conceitos de agência, interface e interação, esta pesquisa define a jogabilidade sob três grupos de interesse: o controle do jogador, o design e a experiência de jogar. Com isso, a pesquisa pretende auxiliar a compreensão e utilização do termo em futuros trabalhos acadêmicos da área de comunicação relacionada com o estudo dos jogos eletrônicos. / The objective of this research is, starting from a study about different authors' perspectives on the concept of playability, to propose a definition of the term through theories of communication. The word playability is frequently used in specialized newspaper articles, scientific papers and the conversations of videogame players, having been cast upon it a false impression of conceptual clarity. By way of a bibliographical revision, many authors' main proposals for the concept of playability have been analyzed, without reaching a consensus. Besides the analysis of the literature related to playability, gameplay videos and direct experimentation of certain games were key to composing the body of this research. At last, through the theoretical relationship between the concepts of agency, interface and interaction, this research defines playability under three different interest groups: the player's control, the design and the gaming experience. With this, this research intends to help the comprehension and usage of the term in future academic papers of the communication field related to the study of electronic games

Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado do Rio de Janeiro / O objetivo desta pesquisa é, a partir do estudo sobre as abordagens de diversos autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, propor uma definição do termo por meio de teorias de comunicação. A palavra jogabilidade é frequentemente utilizada em matérias jornalísticas especializadas, trabalhos científicos e conversas de jogadores de videogame, tendo sido criada sobre ela uma falsa impressão de clareza conceitual. Por meio de uma revisão bibliográfica foram analisadas as principais propostas de autores para o conceito de jogabilidade, sem que houvesse unanimidade sobre ele. Além da análise da literatura relacionada à jogabilidade,foram também utilizados vídeos de gameplay e experimentação direta de alguns jogos que compuseram o corpus desta pesquisa. Por fim, através da relação teórica entre os conceitos de agência, interface e interação, esta pesquisa define a jogabilidade sob três grupos de interesse: o controle do jogador, o design e a experiência de jogar. Com isso, a pesquisa pretende auxiliar a compreensão e utilização do termo em futuros trabalhos acadêmicos da área de comunicação relacionada com o estudo dos jogos eletrônicos. / The objective of this research is, starting from a study about different authors' perspectives on the concept of playability, to propose a definition of the term through theories of communication. The word playability is frequently used in specialized newspaper articles, scientific papers and the conversations of videogame players, having been cast upon it a false impression of conceptual clarity. By way of a bibliographical revision, many authors' main proposals for the concept of playability have been analyzed, without reaching a consensus. Besides the analysis of the literature related to playability, gameplay videos and direct experimentation of certain games were key to composing the body of this research. At last, through the theoretical relationship between the concepts of agency, interface and interaction, this research defines playability under three different interest groups: the player's control, the design and the gaming experience. With this, this research intends to help the comprehension and usage of the term in future academic papers of the communication field related to the study of electronic games

Through more than five years of extensive, participatory research the writer became a fully integrated member of the World of Warcraft community he set out to study. By actually living the grounded practices that constitute the everyday life he concludes that the mundane, often repetitive practice has very little to do with the cyber-utopian claim that one can flee the body and become who they want on the Internet. Instead this doctoral thesis argues that the constant transitions of the borders between offline and online, virtual and real, body and avatar, play and work, player and producer are best described with the concept of leakage. Using leakage to describe the perforated borders that surrounds the game not only allows an understanding of World of Warcraft as a powerful site for production of meaning and culture but also places it far from the traditional understandings of separated fun, play and games. Play as an activity has traditionally been described with three intrinsic features: it is separable from everyday life, in particular from work; it is safe, meaning that it isn’t productive nor does it carry consequence and finally that play is pleasurable or fun. World of Warcraft doesn’t easily admit to these features and should not be understood as neither innocent utopia nor as a devoured mimesis, but rather as an expansion of the life space where players repeatedly and deliberately stretch beyond the producer’s intentions and create a world consisting of work, unwritten social norms, creativity and friendship. Players are social laborers that produce the core of what makes World of Warcraft what it is: a serious game.