The aim of this text is to discern and analyze aesthetic tropes in selected fantasy cRPG games in the areas of visual arts and music. The analysis is conducted in the context of American romanticism, especially Hudson River School of painting, and musical works belonging to the dungeon synth genre. Through the enumeration and close reading of the elements pertaining both gameplay and digital landscapes, it is argued that the specific type of romantic imagery and its philosophical underpinnings may have influenced the recurring themes in cRPG games, including character development, avatar’s agency and player’s projected disposition towards the game world.
This article seeks to explore the digital hunting games genre, in particular the theHunter franchise, using the interpretative framework based on Roger Caillois’ concepts of paidia and ludus. It is argued that both of these notions are represented in the gameplay, narrative
structure and graphical user interface of the analysed titles, effectively working towards reconciliation of the possible ecocritical and hunting-focused readings. The article interprets the theHunter games by juxtaposing the divergent stances towards environmental awareness and hunting
culture, in the form in which they are communicated both in the games and within the communities of players.
This study investigates the work of content creators in relation to developers and fans, focusing on digital platforms in a case study of the video game Path of Exile which functions in the game as a service (GaaS) model. The analysis was based on in-depth, semi-structured interviews with a diverse group of aspiring content creators and on the assessment of data extracted from distribution, streaming, and social digital platforms. The institutionalized labor of content creators, which is subjugated to the live service model curated by the developers, could be characterized by the notions of transactional play, aspirational boredom, and gaming the markets. These three elements stand for the commodification of play time, substituting actual play with broadcasted footage, and actively shaping the in-game economy, respectively. The study acknowledges the rising importance of content creators as contributors to the financial well-being of a game employing the GaaS model, while raising awareness of the cultural, economic, ethical and health issues associated with it.
This paper provides an overview of changes on the electronic sports information circuit in the period from 2012 to 2022. The research here focuses on visual components of e-sports events, especially games’ GUIs and interactive elements of the digital platform interfaces that provide technological scaffolding for e-sports broadcasts (such as Twitch). The analysis is conducted from the software studies perspective, with the StarCraft franchise as a chief example of the phenomena assessed in the paper. The findings presented in this study stem from the juxtaposition of divergent modes of interaction between the viewers, players and e-sports media professionals, which are subsequently confronted with the computational rules of e-sports games’ mechanics.
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