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- Volume 8, Issue 3, 2016
Journal of Gaming & Virtual Worlds - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2016
Volume 8, Issue 3, 2016
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Homesick for the unheimlich: Back to the uncanny future in Alien: Isolation
By Robin SloanAbstractIn 2014 Sega released Creative Assembly’s Alien: Isolation, a video game sequel to the 1979 film Alien. As an attempt to create both an authentic homage to the Alien franchise and a credible successor to Ridley Scott’s original film, Alien: Isolation was received as both a work of remediated nostalgia and as a deeply uncanny survival horror. This article discusses Alien: Isolation framed by theories of the uncanny (the unhomely) and of nostalgia (the homely), with the aim of revealing how the production design of the game reconciled these seemingly contradictory but nonetheless overlapping aesthetic qualities. By drawing on examples from Alien: Isolation’s visual and level design, this article discusses how the integration of nostalgic and uncanny qualities could be of value to horror and sci-fi game design, in particular to the development of sequels within existing franchises, and to remediations, remakes and reboots.
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The role of social anxiety, the behavioural inhibition system and depression in online gaming addiction in adults
Authors: Deborah Vanzoelen and Marie L. CaltabianoAbstractThis study explored whether adults, who have symptoms of social anxiety or depression, or a temperamental tendency towards having a high behavioural inhibition system (BIS), will be more prone to developing online gaming addiction. Data were collected over a two-month period with a total of 186 participants completing all the online questionnaires (147 university students and 39 Second Life (SL) users), of whom 66 were male (M=34.6, SD=14.15) and 120 were female (M=33.32, SD=12.8). Results of a hierarchical multiple linear regression analysis indicated that combined, social anxiety, a high BIS and depression explained a small amount of variability (9.9 per cent) in gaming addiction, with social anxiety explaining the most variance in the model. Any effect of the BIS was mainly through its impact on social anxiety. Young adult (26–40 years) and middle adult (41–60 years) females represented a higher proportion of problematic gamers in this sample than males. Further research is required into risk factors for addictive gaming, particularly in adult female players.
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Materialist fantasies: The voice as objet petit a in digital games
More LessAbstractThis article takes its starting point from the materialist turn in game studies and, through an examination of the cultural implications of the movement from textual to aural dialogue in digital games, offers as supplement to psychoanalytic approaches already employed in game studies that turn on the embodied experience of gameplay and the materialization of bodies. The embodied practice of subvocalization that accompanies the act of reading is discussed, and several vital tenants of Lacanian psychoanalysis are introduced: the split subject; the Real, Imaginary and Symbolic registers; the mirror stage and its acoustic counterpart; imaginary and symbolic identification; fantasy; and the object voice. Lacanian psychoanalysis provides a critical frame revealing that aural representation of dialogue enables players to better identify as game characters, a narcissistic investment in the ideal subject of the game. Textual representation, reading and subvocalization of dialogue, on the other hand, better enable identification with the game itself, the very system that demands a certain subject. While no guarantee, this is a condition of possibility of confronting the underlying structure of fantasy that organizes all digital games, regardless of their thematic, mechanic and narrative particularities, and thus a condition of possibility for players to recognize how their gameplay is implicated in consumer capitalism. The article not only argues for the importance of games criticism considering this oft-overlooked aspect, but it also points to material experiences that are generalizable across populations of players.
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User delinquency and instructional conditions: Undesirable behaviour in open virtual worlds
Authors: Edd Schneider and Anthony BetrusAbstractVirtual environments are becoming an increasingly common tool for instructional designers, but the creative freedom of these digital worlds can come with an increased risk of deviant behaviour from users. The scenarios at the centre of this research explore the impact different instructional conditions have on unwanted virtual behaviour. Participants in these scenarios were asked to play modified versions of the game Grand Theft Auto 3 (Rockstar Games, 2001) under one of three different instructional conditions. The goal was to measure which instructional conditions had the greatest impact on player behaviour, with an emphasis on investigating which set of conditions resulted in the least amount of deviancy in the experiment’s play period. Deviancy was measured through quantifying negative actions, such as killing computer controlled characters in the virtual space and reckless driving. The final results show that the instructional conditions given to users can have a major impact on behaviour, and thus have a major impact on potential learning.
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Avatars as transitional objects: The impact of avatars and digital objects on adolescent gamers
Authors: Bernadett Koles and Peter NagyAbstractWith practically unlimited opportunities for having fun, the Internet and numerous applications rapidly became favourable means of popular media among members of the younger generation, who enthusiastically embraced the contributions of the new Digital Age. The purpose of the current article is to explore the nature of adolescent gamers’ use of avatars as transitional objects, via employing object-relations theory to understand the psychological use of objects within a digital material culture. Incorporating the psychoanalytic research interview method, the current study builds on in-depth interviews with two adolescent males. By equipping their avatars with special skills, attributes and possessions, users were able to establish their virtual presence, and in turn address and compensate for certain difficulties, shortcomings and anxieties deriving from their offline existence and family conflicts. The avatars were viewed as objects of perfection and collectors of meaningful artefacts, and served as a source of status, recognition and accomplishment; frequently reaching beyond offline realities. Throughout the manuscript, we discuss relevant implications for the field of game studies.
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