6 Making Let's Plays Watchable: an Interactional Approach to Gaming
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Threat Simulation in Virtual Limbo Preprint
This is a preprint of the article “Threat simulation in virtual limbo: An evolutionary approach to horror video games” by Jens Kjeldgaard-Christiansen and Mathias Clasen, Aarhus University. The final, published version has been published in the Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds and is available at https://doi.org/10.1386/jgvw.11.2.119_1. Page 2 of 33 Threat Simulation in Virtual Limbo: An Evolutionary Approach to Horror Video Games Keywords: horror, Limbo, game studies, evolution, simulation, evolutionary psychology Abstract Why would anyone want to play a game designed to scare them? We argue that an alliance between evolutionary theory and game studies can shed light on the forms and psychological functions of horror video games. Horror games invite players to simulate prototypical fear scenarios of uncertainty and danger. These scenarios challenge players to adaptively assess and negotiate their dangers. While horror games thereby instil negative emotion, they also entice players with stimulating challenges of fearful coping. Players who brave these challenges expand their emotional and behavioural repertoire and experience a sense of mastery, explaining the genre’s paradoxical appeal. We end by illustrating our evolutionary approach through an in-depth analysis of Playdead’s puzzle-horror game Limbo. Page 3 of 33 Introduction Imagine this: You are a little boy, lost somewhere deep in the woods at night. You do not know how you got there or how to get out. All you know is that your sister is out there, somewhere, possibly in great danger. You have to find her. The ambiance is alive with animal calls, the flutter of branches and bushes and a welter of noises that you cannot quite make out. -
Repositorium Für Die Medienwissenschaft
Repositorium für die Medienwissenschaft Martin Hennig Why Some Worlds Fail. Observations on the Relationship Between Intertextuality, Intermediality, and Transmediality in the RESIDENT EVIL and SILENT HILL Universes 2015 https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16505 Veröffentlichungsversion / published version Zeitschriftenartikel / journal article Empfohlene Zitierung / Suggested Citation: Hennig, Martin: Why Some Worlds Fail. Observations on the Relationship Between Intertextuality, Intermediality, and Transmediality in the RESIDENT EVIL and SILENT HILL Universes. In: IMAGE. Zeitschrift für interdisziplinäre Bildwissenschaft. Themenheft zu Heft 21, Jg. 11 (2015), Nr. 1, S. 17– 33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.25969/mediarep/16505. Erstmalig hier erschienen / Initial publication here: http://www.gib.uni-tuebingen.de/image/ausgaben-3?function=fnArticle&showArticle=319 Nutzungsbedingungen: Terms of use: Dieser Text wird unter einer Deposit-Lizenz (Keine This document is made available under a Deposit License (No Weiterverbreitung - keine Bearbeitung) zur Verfügung gestellt. Redistribution - no modifications). We grant a non-exclusive, Gewährt wird ein nicht exklusives, nicht übertragbares, non-transferable, individual, and limited right for using this persönliches und beschränktes Recht auf Nutzung dieses document. This document is solely intended for your personal, Dokuments. Dieses Dokument ist ausschließlich für non-commercial use. All copies of this documents must retain den persönlichen, nicht-kommerziellen Gebrauch bestimmt. all copyright information and other information regarding legal Auf sämtlichen Kopien dieses Dokuments müssen alle protection. You are not allowed to alter this document in any Urheberrechtshinweise und sonstigen Hinweise auf gesetzlichen way, to copy it for public or commercial purposes, to exhibit the Schutz beibehalten werden. Sie dürfen dieses Dokument document in public, to perform, distribute, or otherwise use the nicht in irgendeiner Weise abändern, noch dürfen Sie document in public. -
Evolution of the Youtube Personas Related to Survival Horror Games
Toniolo EVOLUTION OF THE YOUTUBE PERSONAS RELATED TO SURVIVAL HORROR GAMES FRANCESCO TONIOLO CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF MILAN ABSTRACT The indie survival horror game genre has given rise to some of the most famous game streamers on YouTube, especially titles likes Amnesia: The Dark Descent (Frictional Games 2010), Slender: The Eight Pages (Parsec Productions 2012), and Five Nights at Freddy’s (Scott Cawthon 2014). The games are strongly focused on horror tropes including jump scares and defenceless protagonists, which lend them to displays of overemphasised emotional reactions by YouTubers, who use them to build their online personas in a certain way. This paper retraces the evolution of the relationship between horror games and YouTube personas, with attention to in-game characters and gameplay mechanics on the one hand and the practices of prominent YouTube personas on the other. It will show how the horror game genre and related media, including “Let’s play” videos, animated fanvids, and “creepypasta” stories have influenced prominent YouTuber personas and resulted in some changes in the common processes of persona formation on the platform. KEY WORDS Survival Horror; Video Game; YouTube; Creepypasta; Fanvid; Let’s Play INTRODUCTION Marshall & Barbour (2015, p. 7) argue that “Game culture consciously moves the individual into a zone of production and constitution of public identity”. Similarly, scholars have studied – with different foci and levels of analysis – the relationships between gamers and avatars in digital worlds or in tabletop games by using the concept of “persona” (McMahan 2003; Waskul & Lust 2004; Isbister 2006; Frank 2012). Often, these scholars were concerned with online video games such as World of Warcraft (Filiciak 2003; Milik 2017) or famous video game icons like Lara Croft from the Tomb Raider series (McMahan 2008). -
Analysis of Gender and Queer Representation in Outlast II Margret
Outlasting the Binary: Analysis of Gender and Queer Representation in Outlast II Margret M. Murphy Department of Sociology SOC 401: Research Dr. Oluwakemi “Kemi” Balogun March 20, 2020 OUTLASTING THE BINARY 2 Abstract The components within Horror Media has been a topic of study for decades. A major gap in the scholarship is how representations within horror media impacts marginalized communities negatively. Using the first-person survival horror game Outlast II, I ask how these tropes accentuate the archetypes of hegemonic masculinity and emphasized femininity as well as how they conventionalize individuals that challenge the gender binary. The cutscenes, dialogue, documents, and recordings collected will be analyzed, providing evidence for the forthcoming discussions about the representation of gender and queer communities within this game. Results show that the game emphasizes similar themes commonly found in horror media. These include: the “male protector” and “damsel in distress” archetypes, the violent mistreatment of women, framing sexually transmitted diseases (STD’s) as grotesque, exclusion of primary female characters, stereotyping queer characters, and emphasis on hegemonic masculinity, a term coined by Connell (1987). This case study will provide further evidence for ongoing research on horror media and its use of the gender binary, stereotypical male/female roles, and exclusion of non- stereotypical gender non-conforming or queer characters. Keywords: videogames, horror, gender binary, hegemonic masculinity, emphasized femininity, queer representation OUTLASTING THE BINARY 3 Dedications and Acknowledgements A huge thank you to my advisor, Professor Oluwakemi “Kemi” Balogun! Thank you for giving me criticisms, advice, and ideas that were nothing but helpful in making this the best it can possibly be. -
Markedness, Gender, and Death in Video Games
Western University Scholarship@Western Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository 10-2-2020 1:00 PM Exquisite Corpses: Markedness, Gender, and Death in Video Games Meghan Blythe Adams, The University of Western Ontario Supervisor: Boulter, Jonathan, The University of Western Ontario : Faflak, Joel, The University of Western Ontario A thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the equirr ements for the Doctor of Philosophy degree in English © Meghan Blythe Adams 2020 Follow this and additional works at: https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd Part of the Other Film and Media Studies Commons Recommended Citation Adams, Meghan Blythe, "Exquisite Corpses: Markedness, Gender, and Death in Video Games" (2020). Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository. 7414. https://ir.lib.uwo.ca/etd/7414 This Dissertation/Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by Scholarship@Western. It has been accepted for inclusion in Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository by an authorized administrator of Scholarship@Western. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Abstract This dissertation analyzes gendered death animations in video games and the way games thematize death to remarginalize marked characters, including women. This project combines Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel’s work on the human subjection to death and Georges Bataille’s characterization of sacrifice to explore how death in games stages markedness. Markedness articulates how a culture treats normative identities as unproblematic while marking non-normative identities as deviant. Chapter One characterizes play as a form of death-deferral, which culminates in the spectacle of player-character death. I argue that death in games can facilitate what Hegel calls tarrying with death, embracing our subjection to mortality. -
Fig. 1: the Cartoony, In-Game Graphics. Fig. 2: a More Lifelike, Pre-Rendered Cutscene
Joseph Thurmond Dr. Jennifer Buckner 8 May 2017 ENGL-629-O Box Logic Project: Part 3 – Recording a Nightmare: Outlast and the Remediation of a Camcorder Introduction The act of remediation is typically thought of as the language or form of a medium being used within another. A common example used for videogames is how “cutscenes” remediate film, which present a story in a more realistic, dramatic light to break up playing. While this medium has reached the point where the visuals of cutscenes are increasingly indistinguishable from in-game graphics, they were clearly meant to provide a cinematic flair to titles such as Final Fantasy VII in contrast to the blocky, polygonal graphics, respectively shown in figures 1 and 2. Fig. 1: The cartoony, in-game graphics. Fig. 2: A more lifelike, pre-rendered cutscene. This can be further analyzed to point out how the camera angles, structure, and presentation of cutscenes remediate filming norms, but a curiously understudied aspect of remediation is how the devices used for previous media languages/forms are represented in newer media. Jay Bolter and Richard Grusin understandably compare the evolution between, say, photography remediating Renaissance painting as the fulfillment of lifelike art to the point where many asked, “Was photography an art? Did it make painting and painters unnecessary? And so on” (25). Film is the fulfillment of bringing motion to the static images of photography, and videogames have sought to provide direct involvement while striving for the lifelikeness of film and photography -
Department of English and American Studies English
Masaryk University Faculty of Arts Department of English and American Studies English Language and Literature Lucie Štolfová Pragmatics of Let's Play: Viewers and Their Engagement in Videos Bachelor’s Diploma Thesis Supervisor: doc. Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. 2018 I declare that I have worked on this thesis independently, using only the primary and secondary sources listed in the bibliography. …………………………………………….. Author’s signature Acknowledgement I would like to thank my supervisor doc. Mgr. Jan Chovanec, Ph.D. for his patience, helpful advice and comments. I would also like to thank Mgr. Stefan Veleski, B.A. for his helpful comments and my family for their support. Table of contents 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................... 6 2 Defining the new media and pragmatics ........................................................................ 8 2.1 Cyberpragmatics and CMC ...................................................................................... 8 2.2 CMC genres ........................................................................................................... 11 2.3 Multimodality ......................................................................................................... 13 2.4 Phenomenon of YouTube ...................................................................................... 14 2.5 Let’s Play ............................................................................................................... 17 2.5.1 -
Formalising Suspense from Immersive Environments
Formalising suspense from immersive environments Pablo Delatorre1, Manuel Palomo-Duarte1, and Pablo Gerv´as2 1 University of Cadiz, Spain [email protected], [email protected], WWW home page: http://esingenieria.uca.es/ 2 University Complutense of Madrid, Spain [email protected], WWW home page: http://informatica.ucm.es/ Abstract. Survival horror video-games have acquired great acceptance in recent years. Immersion, ease of play, virtual reality gadgets and emo- tional intensity have helped to popularise them. Famous youtubers still perform their videos based on these games, counting millions of viewers even if the design of them is very similar in terms of atmosphere, limited actions and mapping. Usually conceived as suspense-evoking threaten- ing environments to explore and escape, this similarity may lead to think about automatising the generation of products of this genre. In this pa- per, suspense definitions are reviewed from the view of emotional e↵ects. Further, we propose a formula relating suspense to dimensions valence, arousal and dominance. Finally, we present an experiment that supports its application for a horror game. Keywords: suspense, emotions, survival horror, video-games 1 Introduction Popularity of games based on horror and suspense has boomed in recent years. Both 2014 and 2015 were defined by critics as “a great year for horror games” [52] and “the year of horror games” [38]. The amount of games of this genre o↵ered in Steam has almost triplicated from 2008 (3.65%) to 2015 (8.49%)3. Most followed youtubers have used this sort of games to induct their fame, what has helped to the expansion of the genre. -
Representation of the Serial Killer in United States Popular Culture
13/07/2016 Representation of the Serial Killer in United States Popular Culture: Evolution of the Hunter-Hero Narrative Liane de Jong 4601637 MA Thesis North American Studies Radboud University Nijmegen Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Mathilde Roza 2nd Reader: Prof. Dr. Frank Mehring Page count: 63 1 Abstract This thesis is an exploration of the serial killer genre in United States popular culture. The aim is to delve into Slotkin’s Regeneration through Violence, and relate the serial killer genre to the hunter-hero narrative that Slotkin elaborates on. In order to successfully attempt this, the thesis also explores contemporary research into the serial killer genre; what are the typical representations of serial killers? What makes the serial killer genre successful and enjoyable for the audience? Afterwards, we relate these contemporary sources to Slotkin’s paradigm to form a successful theoretical framework. This theoretical framework is then used to look at various examples in literature, film, series, and gaming in order to test whether the hunter- hero narrative holds true in contemporary examples of the serial killer genre in United States popular culture. Moreover, the aim is to find out whether or not the hunter-hero narrative evolves into a narrative more suited for modern conventions. 2 Representation of The Serial Killer in U.S. Popular Culture: Evolution of the Hunter-Hero Narrative Table of Contents 1. Introduction p.3 2. Theoretical Framework p.8 3. Literature: p.17 - Silence of the Lambs p.17 - Kiss the Girls p.21 - American Psycho p.24 4. Films & Series: p.29 - Psycho p.29 - Bates Motel p.32 - Dexter p.36 5. -
Page 1 Campaign Critique #1 Entry Name: Red Barrels: the Underscares – the Outlast 2 Companion Diaper Kickstarter Project Agen
Page 1 Campaign Critique #1 Entry Name: Red Barrels: The Underscares – The Outlast 2 companion diaper Kickstarter project Agency: Sid Lee Client: Red Barrels Synopsis Outlast is a successful horror-survival video game launched in 2013 by a small independent gaming company named Red Barrels. The Outlast series takes place in an insane asylum on Mount Massive, run by a company named Murkoff, who are experimenting on the homicidal patients. The player takes on the role of a journalist named Miles. You’ve received a tip from an unknown sender that the experiments on the patients were inhumane, and Murkoff needed to be exposed for what they are doing. Miles arrives to discover that someone, or something, has already taken matters into their own hands. You play the game engulfed in darkness; with endless amounts of jump-scares, gore, and games of cat and mouse with the patients who just want to kill. Armed with hope for survival, Miles only brandishes a night-vision camera that guides him through the horrors of the game. In 2017, Outlast 2 was released. Taken place in the same universe but the player takes on a different character. A squeal to its predecessor, you are a journalist that is investigating the murder of an unknown pregnant woman. The evidence leads you to discover a small town deep in the woods, tokened the name Temple Gate by a cult leader who claims that the town lies on the mouth of Hell. With the popularity of horror-survival games on the rise, Red Barrels needed to stand out during the busy seasons of game releases in the upcoming holidays of 2016. -
Evaluasi Gameplay Pada Game Dreadout Dan Outlast 2 Menggunakan Metode Heuristic for Evaluating Playability Abimanyu Prayuda I
Jurnal Pengembangan Teknologi Informasi dan Ilmu Komputer e-ISSN: 2548-964X Vol. 2, No. 10, Oktober 2018, hlm. 4125-4133 http://j-ptiik.ub.ac.id Evaluasi Gameplay Pada Game Dreadout Dan Outlast 2 Menggunakan Metode Heuristic For Evaluating Playability Abimanyu Prayuda I. H. Alfianto1, Eriq Muhammad Adams Jonemaro2, Issa Arwani3 Program Studi Teknik Informatika, Fakultas Ilmu Komputer, Universitas Brawijaya Email: [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] Abstrak Dreadout merupakan permainan dengan genre horror yang dikembangkan oleh Digital Happiness dari Indonesia. Outlast 2 merupakan game dengan genre horror yang terbaik memiliki skor Metacritic tinggi dan mendapatkan banyak review positif pada steam. Pada kedua permaianan itu terdapat unsur yang membuat player tertarik memainkannya. Salah unsur yang membuat pemain tertarik yaitu, Gameplay. Gameplay adalah unsur penting dalam proses membuat game. Terdapat teknik untuk mengembangkan gameplay salah satunya adalah Atomic Element of Game. Untuk mengetahui gameplay pada kedua game sudah menarik untuk pemain, maka dilakukan evaluasi yang menggunakan metode Heuristic For Evaluating Playability yang merupakan sebuah cara yang digunakan untuk evaluasi pada permainan. Evaluasi bertujuan untuk mendapatkan faktor ketertarikan pemain pada gameplay dari permainan. Dengan adanya hasil evaluasi dapat dilakukan rekomendasi Atomic Elemen of Game yang lebih baik untuk kedua game tersebut berdasarkan keinginan responden. Kata kunci: Game, Gameplay, Heuristic for Evaluating Playability, Atomic Element of Game, Dreadout, Outlast 2 Abstract Dreadout is game with horror genre developed by Digital Happiness from Indonesia. Outlast 2 is one of the best horror genre game with high Metacritic score and has many positive reviews on Steam. In both games there are elements that make players interested in playing it. -
Temática ISSN 1807-8931
temática ISSN 1807-8931 Horror Ludens: o manicômio e o corpo monstruoso Horror Ludens: the asylum and the monstrous body Isis Müller KRAMBECK1 Resumo A presente comunicação propõe observar através de jogos eletrônicos e por meio da descrição, a constituição estética da loucura como um elemento de horror, e que apresenta em sua narrativa o manicômio como um lugar monstruoso e que abriga a monstruosidade do corpo não normativo, comumente apresentado no universo da ficção de horror. A partir disso, buscaremos explorar questões importantes e associadas a aproximação existente entre cinema e games, através do uso da linguagem cinematográfica correlacionada aos jogos analisados. Palavras-chave: Jogos Eletrônicos. Ficção de Horror. Horror Ludens. Abstract The present communication proposes to observe through electronic games and through the description, the aesthetic constitution of madness as an element of horror, and that presents in its narrative the asylum as a monstrous place and that shelters the monstrosity of the non normative body, commonly presented in the universe of horror fiction. From this, we will explore important issues associated with the approximation between cinema and games, through the use of cinematographic language correlated to the analyzed games. Keywords: Electronic games. Horror fiction. Horror Ludens. Introdução Com um campo amplo e crescente, os jogos de terror estão sempre entre os mais procurados dentre as plataformas disponibilizadas, envolvendo o jogador e o fazendo experienciar de um processo que envolve sensações e leitura de ambientes, seja ele físico ou virtual. A loucura como elemento de horror faz parte de um processo histórico, 1 Mestranda do Programa de Pós-Graduação em Cinema e Artes do Vídeo, na Universidade Estadual do Paraná (UNESPAR).