Games and Culture

This paper considers J. L. Borges’ Book of Imaginary Beings as a vector for the cultural transfer of folkloric, mythological, religious, and literary motifs from foreign cultures to Japanese video games and collectible card games. My analysis relies upon Michel Espagne’s cultural transfer theories and discusses not only the Book of Imaginary Beings but also other vectors of transfer, such as the roleplaying game Dungeons & Dragons. I focus on four specific motifs from different cultural spheres, whose introduction to Japanese video games can be retraced to Borges’ bestiary: The carbuncle, the catoblepas, the peryton, and Kujata. Thus, this paper presents a case study of the cross-cultural influence of literary works on games. Furthermore, it underscores the need for a deeper consideration of the cultural influences found in games and of games as agents of cultural transfers.

This article examines Rievssat (2018), one of the six games developed during the 2018 Sami Game Jam, as a case study to demonstrate how digital games on Indigenous issues afford opportunities to embed Indigenous ways of knowing into the core of game design. In particular, by exploring Rievssat’s themes and game mechanics, this article identifies the way its procedural rhetoric models an understanding of and relationship to the game environment that reflects the dialogic connection with nature and animistic worldview unique to the Sámi people. This article thereby demonstrates the value of new media in recentering Indigenous systems of knowledge and cultural practices by engaging with and incorporating Indigenous epistemologies into the foundation of game design, revealing how Sámi digital games can offer insight into Sámi ways of knowing and experiencing the world to Indigenous and non-Indigenous players alike.

This article aims to illuminate how game analytics have discursively shaped the mainstream perception of Southeast Asia as a regional games market through a qualitative analysis of the data and discourses in three market reports by Newzoo, an influential game analytics company that played a pivotal role in pioneering market research about the region. By reconceiving the futurity of Southeast Asia in terms of capitalist temporality, these reports envision the region as a games market of perpetual capitalist growth through data-led approaches. Despite its limitations, the compelling conception of Southeast Asia as “the world’s fastest growing games market” has become a powerful myth that exerts profound influence on how the public conceive the region as a gaming space.

While there is an abundance of research concerning the gendered dimensions of video gaming and online communities, there is a limited focus on gameplay competence. This study examined the relationship between sexism and gendered perceptions of competence in gaming. Three hundred and 85 participants volunteered to take part. Participants were randomly allocated to one of three gendered conditions (female, male or neutral). Participants watched two video game clips within each condition (novice and expert playthroughs). Participants rated the competence and warmth of the players, estimated the number of errors made and completed the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory. The findings indicated that female and neutral clips were perceived as less competent than male clips in both skill levels. This difference was more pronounced in the expert level. Warmth ratings varied significantly across conditions. Hostile sexism predicted lower perceptions of warmth. The study demonstrates the need for inclusive and safe online gaming environments.

This article investigated whether it is possible to establish correspondences between game mechanics and particular cognitive stimulations. There are many challenges to prevent and treat cognitive decline with aging or neurocognitive disease. Observing difficulties to establish such correspondences in the scientific literature, we proposed to move away from “classification by genre” or any other type of taxonomy that deviates from the framework of the “Rules/Formal schemas” and the “set of rules” component of the gameplay. Thus, we proposed the Gameplay Bricks model as a theoretical framework for Video Game (VG) and Serious Games (SG). We jointly relied on a framework on fractionated executive functions, memory, and attention. The Gameplay Bricks model currently identifies 14 major Metabricks (game mechanics) through seven Metabricks of obligations and seven of prohibitions. We have proposed first correspondences accompanied by examples from the VG-SGs. The limits and perspectives of these first matches were then discussed.

This article examines the prominent role of Patreon in the rapidly growing sector of crowdfunded pornographic games. Recent research has indicated that, on average, more people (patrons) are funding pornographic digital games on Patreon than other (non-adult) digital games (Lankoski & Dymek, 2020). Graphtreon’s ‘Top Patreon Creators’ list from 9 June 2021 includes six NSFW game projects among the top 50 projects (ranked by number of Patrons). ¹ For example, Summertime Saga (Dark Cookie), the highest-ranked pornographic game, is third in terms of the number of funders, with 27,791 patrons funding $74,657 per month. While Wild Life – An Adult RPG (Adeptus Steve), which reportedly only had 9417 patrons as of 9 June 2021, receives a monthly income of $94,129 from those pledges. ² The current funding levels for both Patreon projects are considerably higher than when we began our sampling: since January 2020, the funding level for Summertime Saga has risen by 27.86%, while for Wild Life – An Adult RPG it has risen by 21.45%.

This article examines the experience of the sublime engendered by video games and the function of immersion and interactivity in producing this effect. A close inspection of the history of the sublime as an aesthetic principle and related cultural practices reveals that the elements of immersion, interactivity, and virtuality were already integral to Burke’s seminal conceptualization, as well as in architecture and visual media, before the emergence of digital media. The techniques and technologies of the immersive sublime deployed by preexisting spatial and visual art forms are inherited, revised, and enhanced in video games, as demonstrated by the analysis of the undersea exploration game ABZÛ. In this sense, the video game simultaneously marks the continuation of and new developments in the interlinked histories of the sublime and technology.