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- Volume 1, Issue 2, 2009
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds - Volume 1, Issue 2, 2009
Volume 1, Issue 2, 2009
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A life no longer worth playing: some remarks on in-game suicide
Authors: Michael Nagenborg and Christian HoffstadtWhile references to life and death are often made in texts dealing with video games, and violence in video games is still among the most discussed issues, there are, to date, only a few accounts of the act of virtual self-killing or in-game suicide. In fact, in most video games the player's task is to keep his or her character alive. However, there are some very prominent examples of video games that include the suicide of player and non-player characters. By in-game suicide we refer to any kind of self-harming behaviour with intended lethal outcome for a virtual, human-like character in a game. This article will begin by building a typology of different modes of in-game suicide, before going on to take a closer look at several examples. One major distinction for this research is based on the motivation of the character, whereby we distinguish between game-world's internal motivation and game-world's external motivation. Therefore, some basic considerations on the relationship between player and character are given. In the third section we will analyze three different kinds of games involving suicide: first, we will address games where the act of self-killing is the main task of the player; this is followed by an examination of suicide attackers in video games; and finally, we will address the issue of (attempted) in-game suicide as part of the practice of playing, which includes rituals of self-destruction as well as the dramatic staging of a character's departure from the game's world.
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A Fable: or, how to recognize a narrative when you play one
By Adam RovnerThis article marshals various critical models to demonstrate to both ludologists and narratologists that their respective methodologies are not antinomic. Through an analysis of the narrative properties of two video games in the action-adventure genre, Fable and Fable II, this article exposes commonalities between traditional narrative modes and electronic multimodal narratives. Nonetheless, this article's consideration of possible worlds semantics destabilizes established tenets of mimetic theory and points to a significant distinction between traditional narrative worlds and the virtual worlds of video games.
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Teleporting the library?
More LessIn 2007, six Danish public libraries established a virtual library, Info Island DK, in Second Life. This article discusses the library project in terms of design. The design processes include the planning and implementation of the virtual library structure and its equipment, as well as the organizing and carrying out of activities in the virtual setting. It will be argued that, to a large extent, conventions have determined design and use of the virtual library, and also that design has had an impact on the attitudes and understanding of the participants.
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The body of the avatar: rethinking the mind-body relationship in virtual worlds
By Denise DoyleA pivotal concern surrounding the recent growth in Massively Multiplayer Online Games and virtual worlds, and an issue that this article sets out to explore, is our understanding of the mind-body relationship when moving between real and virtual space. How do we understand our avatar as our represented presence in virtual space? What are we identifying with when we identify with an avatar? Do we have bodily experiences of our avatar?
Can Spinoza's theory of the imagination as a form of bodily awareness help us understand the phenomenon of embodied experience in virtual worlds? Drawing from Spinoza, and the Dalai Lama's discussions of the mind-body relationship in Investigating the Mind at Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, along with Bachelard's theory of the material imagination, this article will test concepts of the relationships between the body and the imaginary against the backdrop of the virtual world of Second Life created by Linden Lab in 2003.
The new imaginary present in virtual worlds is a continual interplay between, and stimulation from, both our sense of presence and the image of our presence. The third space, between real space and the virtual space of the screen, is the charged space of tele-presence; where presence and absence are acted out. This article will define these new dimensions of experience that are based on a simultaneity or plurality of presence and absence, and will argue that the relationship between the imaginary and the body of the avatar plays a significant role when interacting with virtual worlds.
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Developing a methodology for corpus-based computer game studies
More LessVideo games have become a huge success in contemporary pop culture, both as ludic devices and as narrative instruments. Because of their immense popularity they are also the didactic means in which a number of social constructs are spread and perpetuated. This is particularly true in the case of Diablo and World of Warcraft, two games produced by Blizzard Entertainment Inc. This study uses a hybrid method to study both games as texts, combining Fairclough's (2003) approach to critical discourse analysis and Corpus Linguistics. The main corpus was compiled by gathering texts about the characters in these two computer games, and their accompanying visual representations, from a) official Blizzard websites and b) user-edited websites and forums. Further data was gathered through the application of a questionnaire about male and female characters in these two games to fifty participants, and by playing each game and recording in-game interactions with non-playing characters and with other players. The linguistic data was examined using a concordancer, and then analysed following Fairclough's (2003) approach. The devised methodology places a strong emphasis in the correlation between linguistic and visual data. Through this correlation and analysis it was determined that there is a strong discourse of gender difference operating within these two games.
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DiGRA 2007 Digital Games Research Association International Conference: Situated Play
More LessLocation: The University of Tokyo, Hongo campus City: Tokyo/Japan
Date: September, 2428th 2007
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Reviews
Authors: Mark Mullen, George Bergstrom, Craig McKenney and Sonia FizekCaptains of industry:Pirates of the Burning Sea and gameplay investment Pirates of the Burning Sea, Flying Lab Software (20082009), Seattle, WA: Sony Platform Publishing.
History intertwined: the relationship between war and gamesFrom Sun Tzu to Xbox: War and Video Games, Ed Halter (2006), New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 400 pp., ISBN: 978-1-56025-681-6, Paperback, $16.95 (USD)
Level up or level out? Rethinking physical/virtual gamespaceSpace Time Play: Computer Games, Architecture and Urbanism: The Next Level, Friedrich von Borries, Steffen P. Walz, and Matthias Bttger, (eds) (2007), Basel, Switzerland: Birkhuser Verlag AG, 495 pp. ISBN 978-3-7643-8414-2, Softcover, $39.95 (USD)
Eating stuff found on the floor is good for you: 1 academia takes media non grata under her wingsPlaying with Videogames, James Newman (2008), First Edition, New York, NY.: Routledge, 224 pp., ISBN: 978-0-41538-523-7, Paperback, $35.95 (USD).
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