De nos jours, la notion d’immersion est largement utilisée, voire galvaudée, par l’industrie du jeu vidéo pour décrire les nouvelles expériences de jeu vécues par les joueurs, notamment lorsqu’ils utilisent des contrôleurs de mouvement. Il est donc intéressant de comprendre comment cette notion s’insère dans le processus de conception des jeux vidéo et comment les concepteurs de jeux vidéo mobilisent cette notion. Pour essayer de comprendre comment les concepteurs de jeux vidéo conçoivent leurs expériences de jeu dans ce contexte, nous avons réalisé une série de cinq entrevues avec des concepteurs de la région montréalaise. Nous avons porté une attention particulière à recueillir le discours de concepteurs indépendants et de concepteurs œuvrant dans de grands studios afin d’obtenir une diversité dans le type d’approches. Nous avons relevé que les concepteurs de jeux vidéo sont loin de partager la même définition de la notion d’immersion. Qui plus est, cette notion n’est souvent pas directement mobilisée par les concepteurs. En effet, les résultats de notre recherche ont démontré que les concepteurs recherchent plutôt à intéresser les joueurs par des stratégies d’engagements plutôt que de les « immerger ». Selon nos concepteurs, un joueur engagé signifie qu’il éprouve un plaisir sincère dans l’acte même de jouer. / Nowadays, the concept of immersion is widely used or overused by the video game industry to describe new gaming experiences for players, especially when using motion controllers. It is therefore interesting to understand how this concept fits into the process of designing video games and how game developers mobilize this notion. To try to understand how video game designers design their gameplay experiences in this context, we conducted a series of five interviews with designers in the Montreal area. We paid particular attention to interview independent developers and designers working in major studios to obtain a diversity of approaches. We found that game developers are far from sharing the same definition of immersion. Furthermore, this notion is often not directly mobilized by the designers themselves. Indeed, the results of our research have shown that designers use strategies of engagement rather than "immersion". According to our designers, an engaged player means he feels a sincere pleasure in the act in itself of playing.

La industria gamer ha llevado a la posibilidad de subsistir económicamente del streaming. Dado que los streamers generan ingresos en relación con su audiencia, mientras mayor sea esta y esté más conectada con ella mayor probabilidad habrá de que genere mayores ingresos. Por ende, surge un nuevo modelo de negocio que requiere de una gestión reputacional para construir esta audiencia. Para ello, se necesita un primer análisis del contexto peruano desde la percepción que mantienen los jugadores de Dota 2 peruanos frente a los streamers peruanos de Dota 2. Por ello, este trabajo utiliza el paradigma naturalista/interpretativo que estudia al público en su contexto natural, es decir los gamers y el Dota 2. El diseño para este sería fenomenológico pues se busca entender la percepción (reputación) del streamer peruano desde el punto de vista de los jugadores de Dota 2 en general. Finalmente, se usa un enfoque cualitativo para obtener las opiniones de los usuarios que juegan Dota 2 sobre los streamers peruanos, con el uso de entrevistas semiestructuradas para alinearlas en los 3 aspectos para medir reputación: sólida dimensión axiológica, comportamiento comprometido y calidad de servicio. / The gaming industry has led to the possibility of economically subsisting on streaming. Since streamers generate income in relation to their audience, the larger their audience and the more connected they are, the greater probability of generating more income will exist. Therefore, a new business model emerges that requires reputational management to build this audience. To do this, a first analysis of the Peruvian context is needed from the perception that Peruvian Dota 2 players maintain compared to Peruvian Dota 2 streamers. That’s why, this work uses the naturalistic paradigm /interpretive that studies the public in its natural context, that is, the gamers in their gameplay and the design for this would be phenomenological because it seeks to understand the perception (reputation) of the Peruvian streamer from the point of view of Dota 2 players in general. Finally, a qualitative approach is used to obtain the opinions of the users who play Dota 2 on the Peruvian streamers, with the use of semi-structured interviews to align them in the 3 aspects to measure reputation: solid axiological dimension, committed behavior and quality of service. / Trabajo de investigación

The video game industry has in three decades gone from a garage hobby to a global multi-billion euro media industry that challenges the significantly older and established cultural industries. After decades of explosive growth the industry surprisingly finds itself in a crisis – in terms of sales, future trajectories and creative paradigms. The global gaming culture receives substantial attention from society, media and academia – but the industry itself appears in comparison as an enigmatic terra incognita with astonishingly little dedicated research. This thesis aims to amend this situation by presenting a study at the cross-section of the video game industry, game studies, literary theory, cultural industries and business studies. It deals with the following question: how does the global game industry relate to its own product, in terms of communication and media dimensions, and what are the (business) consequences, in terms of production, strategy and commercial/creative innovation, of this relationship? This study’s departure point is constituted by a comprehensive description of the industry’s structure, dynamics and processes, based on extensive interviews with industry professionals. It is followed by an examination and comparison of the game industry with other media/cultural industries in relation to their economy and business dynamics. With inconclusive answers regarding the medium-industry relation, this study proceeds by exploring literary theories from the field of game studies, in order to gain insights into the dynamics of medium and industry. Literary theories from ludology and narratology provide rewarding perspectives on this inquiry, since it is found that the ontological dichotomy of simulation vs. respresentation present in the interpretational realm of the game medium is also reflected in the industry and its dynamics. This has pivotal consequences for the analysis of the game industry. This study concludes by positing the current critical condition of the industry as an extremely decisive moment in its history: will it become a truly universal mass-medium, or will it continue down its subcultural path? Subcultural “interactive cinema” meets mass-cultural media of simulation – how will the industry evolve? / QC20100708

Purpose: To examine how video-game releases affect the share price, and if video-game reviews have any impact on the share price of gaming corporations.  Method: A quantitative deductive research approach is applied with event study methodology used as basis. The investigated companies were the five largest gaming companies listed on the U.S. NASDAQ exchange. A total of 29 video-game launches and 85 reviews where examined.   Theory: The study is based on The Efficient Market Hypothesis, Agent Theory, Public Relations Theory, Nextopia and previous research. Results: The result contains 114 observations in five companies. The result accounts for the cumulative abnormal return for each video-game. It also accounts for the cumulative average abnormal return for each company ten days after release. Analysis: The hypothesis test accounts for a statistical significant correlation between negative abnormal return and the release. It is also accounted for a cumulative average abnormal return of  -2,29 % of the video-game companies stocks. Conclusion: There is a negative abnormal return for shareholders ten days after a video-game release. The result and the analysis dose confirm a direct correlation between video-game reviews and the abnormal return.

Mon mémoire portera sur la musique des jeux vidéo dans le cadre d’un effondrement systémique ou d’une autre forme de décroissance de l’économie. C’est dans ce cadre que j’exposerai mes idées quant aux différentes formes que pourraient prendre l’industrie vidéo-ludique et sa musique dans un contexte qui semble difficile à envisager. Quelles sont les sources de créativité dans un monde où les indicateurs liés aux sociétés modernes auront vraisemblablement changé du tout au tout ? Comment envisager que le jeu vidéo puisse rester attrayant, intéressant et passionnant dans un modèle économique décroissant ? Ce sont les problématiques auxquelles je vais tenter d’apporter des réponses ici. / My thesis consists on confronting video-game music with a case of systemic collapse or economical degrowth. Regarding these environmental and societal problematics, I’ll suggest ideas concerning the way we could look at the future of video-games, by thinking on the form the medium and its music could take in a context that we often fail to contemplate. How can creativity still emerge in a world where common society’s indicators will most likely be totally different from what they are today? Could we find ways for video-games and video-game music to be as interesting and inspiring as it is today in a context of economical degrowth? Those are problematics that I’ll specifically address in my thesis, by trying to find an approach and potential answers that suits a realistic future state of the world.