This article analyzes specific characteristics of value created through digital scarcity and blockchain-proven ownership in cryptogames. Our object of study is CryptoKitties, the first instance of a blockchain-based game that has garnered media recognition and financial interest. The objective of this article is to demonstrate the limits of scarcity in value construction for owners of CryptoKitties tokens, manifested as breedable virtual cats. Our work extends the trends set out by earlier cryptocurrency studies from the perspective of cultural studies. For the purpose of this article, we rely on open blockchain analytics such as DappRadar and Etherscan, as well as player-created analytics, backed by a one-year-long participant observation period in the said game for research material. Combining theoretical cryptocurrency and Bitcoin studies, open data analysis, and virtual ethnography enables a grounded discussion on blockchain-based game design and play.
From crossword puzzles and quizzes to more complex gamification strategies and serious newsgames, legacy media has long explored ways to deploy playful approaches to deliver their content and engage with the audience. We examine how news and games fit together when news organizations, game creators and news audiences welcome gameful forms of communication and participation. Moreover, we reflect on the theoretical and empirical significance of merging news with games as a way to reformulate normative assumptions, production practices and consumption patterns. As a result, the boundaries between journalism and game’s logics start to erode, and they begin to find new ways of converging.
This article examines the branding of the new Tampere University in Finland and the reactions it evoked in Finnish social media and news media between 2018–2020. The merger of the University of Tampere and Tampere University of Technology into a new foundation-based university provoked considerable public debate and sparked uproar over the communication style and practices of the university’s new management. The main reason for the outcry was that the new governance model of the university ignored the traditional democratic way of running a university. Our article contributes to the growing literature on public relations communication in higher education by focusing on promotional culture and the role of the changing media landscape in university branding. We analyze how and why the brand messages were contested and transformed into memes and satirical commentaries on social media. When the university’s management tried to restrain this subversive play with legal sanctions, the issue escalated into the news media. Our qualitative analysis demonstrates the possible repercussions of a quasi-corporate style of communication on the credibility of the university as a higher education institution in a hybrid media environment.
This article investigates gothic play and performance in Habbo, a virtual world for preteen children and teenagers. In addition to analyzing the aesthetics of the environment and its player characters, the authors seek to ask how gothic players figure in its appropriation and redevelopment. Countercultural player activities, such as playing goth in Habbo, are often treated as disruption, but here it will be argued that gothic players are in fact rather resourceful and productive members of the community. Observations of player-generated content, events, rituals, appearance and group discussions indicate that goth is more than a style – it is also play and performance. Gothic players are not only consumers, but also content providers, who inspire the developers at Sulake, the company behind Habbo. The influence of Habbo goths is evident, as emergent gothic player-created content has repeatedly been incorporated in newer releases of the game platform.
In this chapter, we review the various ways games are used in financial education. We start by discussing the evidence on the links between financial education and financial literacy, and note that active learning methods, of which games form an important part, have been found to provide promising results. We introduce the distinction between serious games and entertainment games as a basis for our analysis. We note that students can learn valuable skills either at their leisure time or as part of formal learning experiences. We then discuss the education science literature on the implications of games for learning and devote a section to analyze the learning implications of games in financial education. Toward the end of our chapter, we discuss examples of different types of games used for educational purposes: digital games, board games, and role-playing games. In the concluding section, we provide some practical advice to teachers and other educators.
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