Abstract:

How do video games and mental health intersect from the perspectives of psychology and game design? In recent years, the topic of mental health has gained tremendous importance for the games industry, affecting both the applied and entertainment games sectors. The former draws from established practices in diagnostics, digital medicine, therapy, and self-help to develop innovative and accessible tools; the latter follows in the tradition of games d’auteur, addressing the topic of mental health from a personal perspective. The contributors to this volume inspect current trends and future perspectives related to these phenomena to inform the work of psychologists and game designers

Abstract:

Video games are temporal artifacts: They change with time as players interact with them in accordance with rules. In this study, Federico Alvarez Igarzábal investigates the formal aspects of video games that determine how these changes are produced and sequenced. Theories of time perception drawn from the cognitive sciences lay the groundwork for an in-depth analysis of these features, making for a comprehensive account of time in this novel medium. This book-length study dedicated to time perception and video games is an indispensable resource for game scholars and game developers alike. Its reader-friendly style makes it readily accessible to the interested layperson.

Abstract:

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization

Abstract:

Gaming has never been disconnected from reality. When we engage with ever more lavish virtual worlds, something happens to us. The game imposes itself on us and influences how we feel about it, the world, and ourselves. How do games accomplish this and to what end? The contributors explore the video game as an atmospheric medium of hitherto unimagined potential. Is the medium too powerful, too influential? A danger to our mental health or an ally through even the darkest of times? This volume compiles papers from the Young Academics Workshop at the Clash of Realities conferences of 2019 and 2020 to provide answers to these questions.

Abstract:

An essential exploration of video game aesthetic that decenters the human player and challenges what it means to play.

Do we play video games or do video games play us? Is nonhuman play a mere paradox or the future of gaming? And what do video games have to do with quantum theory? In Playing at a Distance, Sonia Fizek engages with these and many more daunting questions, forging new ways to think and talk about games and play that decenter the human player and explore a variety of play formats and practices that require surprisingly little human action. Idling in clicker games, wandering in walking simulators, automating gameplay with bots, or simply watching games rather than playing them—Fizek shows how these seemingly marginal cases are central to understanding how we play in the digital age.

Introducing the concept of distance, Fizek reorients our view of computer-mediated play. To “play at a distance,” she says, is to delegate the immediate action to the machine and to become participants in an algorithmic spectacle. Distance as a media aesthetic framework enables the reader to come to terms with the ambiguity and aesthetic diversity of play.

Drawing on concepts from philosophy, media theory, and posthumanism, as well as cultural and film studies, Playing at a Distance invites a wider understanding of what digital games and gaming are in all their diverse experiences and forms. In challenging the common perception of video games as inherently interactive, the book contributes to our understanding of the computer’s influence on practices of play—and prods us to think more broadly about what it means to play.

How did games rise to become the central audiovisual form of expression and storytelling in Gaming no longer only takes place as a »closed interactive experience« in front of TV screens, but also as broadcast on streaming platforms or as cultural events in exhibition centers and e-sport arenas. The popularization of new technologies, forms of expression, and online services has had a considerable influence on the academic and journalistic discourse about games. This anthology examines which paratexts gaming cultures have produced – i.e., in which forms and formats and through which channels we talk (and write) about games – as well as the way in which paratexts influence the development of games. How is knowledge about games generated and shaped today and how do boundaries between (popular) criticism, journalism, and scholarship have started to blur? In short: How does the paratext change the text?

Abstract
Professor Odile Limpach gibt unabhängigen Entwicklern alles, was sie brauchen, um Ihr Videospiel erfolgreich zu vermarkten. Das Buch bietet eine Analyse vom Indie Spielmarkt, eine Kategorisierung von Publishing Leistungen, sowie Zugang zu den Learnings von jungen als auch versierten Entwicklern aus deren Publishing-Strategien und Erfahrungen mit gewählten Publishing-Partnern. Auch legt es das Wissen routinierter, professioneller Vermarkter offen. Darüber hinaus bietet das Buch eine Übersicht über Werkzeuge und Plattformen für die Veröffentlichung von Videospielen.

Aus dem Inhalt
Vermarktungsplattformen mit Ihren Stärken und Schwächen
Erfahrungsberichte von Indie-Entwicklern und professionellen Games-Publishern
Bedarfsanalyse für eine erfolgreiche Games-Vermarktung 
Leitfaden für Ihre Vermarktungs-Entscheidung: allein oder mit Partner
Liste nützlicher Werkzeugen für PR, Kommunikation und Community-Management

The Publishing challenge for Indie Game Developers defines what game publishing means for the Indie developer and offers a concise framework to tackle the decision of whether to self-publish or not. Furthermore, the text establishes a catalog of current known publishers with some salient characteristics and offers a list of useful publishing tools. Along with showcasing testimonials from several young and seasoned developers on their experiences with publishing and partners and recommendations from renown experts of the industry this book offers tools, platforms, and guides to game publishing.

Games are the most influential audiovisual expression and narrative form of digital culture. The currently emerging state educational offerings are therefore gaining artistic and cultural, but also scientific and economic significance, as was the case with film courses in the 20th century, for example. For the first time, this volume provides a comparative overview and at the same time introduces the various fields of university teaching and research in the field of digital games: Game Studies, Game Design, Game Arts, Game Informatics and Technology, Game Economics and Producing.

Media narratives inform our ideas of the future – and Games are currently making a significant contribution to this medial reservoir. On the one hand, Games demonstrate a particular propensity for fantastic and futuristic scenarios. On the other hand, they often serve as an experimental field for the latest media technologies. However, while dystopias are part of the standard gaming repertoire, Games feature utopias much less frequently. Why?

This anthology examines playful utopias from two perspectives. It investigates utopias in digital Games as well as utopias of the digital game; that is, the role of ludic elements in scenarios of the future.

Digital games as transmedia works of art – Games as social environments – The aesthetics of play – Digital games in pedagogy – Cineludic aesthetics – Ethics in games – these were some of the important and fascinating topics addressed during the international research conference “Clash of Realities” in 2015 and 2016 by more than a hundred international speakers, academics as well as artists. This volume represents the best contributions – by, inter alia, Janet H. Murray, David OReilly, Eric Zimmerman, Thomas Elsaesser, Lorenz Engell, Susana Tosca, Miguel Sicart, Frans Mäyrä, and Mark J.P. Wolf.

Wolfgang Menge (1924-2012) was one of the most important screenwriters of the post-war German Federal Republic. Television plays like “The Dubrow Crisis”, “The Million Game” or “Smog” wrote TV history, series like “Steel Net”, “A Heart and Soul” or “Motzki” inspired and provoked an audience of millions. As a talk show host, Menge became one of the most prominent heads of television – as a writer of radio plays, plays and films, novels and non-fiction, he tried out transmedial writing.

This volume combines critical and documentary perspectives and brings together analyses of his work, testimonies from companions as well as key historical texts about and by Wolfgang Menge.

How did games rise to become the central audiovisual form of expression and storytelling in digital culture? How did the practices of their artistic production come into being? How did the academic analysis of the new medium’s social effects and cultural meaning develop?

Addressing these fundamental questions and aspects of digital game culture in a holistic way for the first time, Gundolf S. Freyermuth’s introduction outlines the media-historical development phases of analog and digital games, the history and artistic practices of game design, as well as the history, academic approaches, and most important research topics of game studies.

With contributions by André Czauderna, Nathalie Pozzi and Eric Zimmerman.

Wie stiegen Games zur zentralen audiovisuellen Ausdrucks- und Erzählform der digitalen Kultur auf? Wie entstanden die Verfahren ihrer künstlerischen Produktion? Und wie formierte sich die wissenschaftliche Analyse der sozialen Wirkung und kulturellen Bedeutung des neuen Mediums?

Diese grundlegenden Fragen und Aspekte digitaler Spielkultur nimmt die Einführung erstmals ganzheitlich in den Blick. Gundolf S. Freyermuth skizziert die mediengeschichtlichen Entwicklungsphasen analoger und digitaler Spiele, die Geschichte und künstlerischen Praktiken des Game Designs sowie die Geschichte, wissenschaftlichen Ansätze und wichtigsten Forschungsfragen der Game Studies.

The volume “New Game Plus” presents a diverse selection of current methods and approaches in computer game research. The contributions ask: Which topics dominate game studies, since many formerly central debates still have historical value at best? Which (inter-)disciplinary cooperations have proved fruitful, which have failed? How do Game Studies and Game Design or Game Design Theory relate to each other? And last but not least: How has the (mass) cultural breakthrough of digital games influenced other disciplines, such as literature, art, theatre and film studies?

With contributions by Ian Bogost, Thomas Hensel, Jesse Schell, Stephan Schwingeler, Eric Zimmerman and others.

Gamification marks a major change to everyday life. It describes the permeation of economic, political, and social contexts by game-elements such as awards, rule structures, and interfaces that are inspired by video games. Sometimes the term is reduced to the implementation of points, badges, and leaderboards as incentives and motivations to be productive. Sometimes it is envisioned as a universal remedy to deeply transform society toward more humane and playful ends. Despite its use by corporations to manage brand communities and personnel, however, gamification is more than just a marketing buzzword. States are beginning to use it as a new tool for governing populations more effectively. It promises to fix what is wrong with reality by making every single one of us fitter, happier, and healthier. Indeed, it seems like all of society is up for being transformed into one massive game.

The contributions in this book offer a candid assessment of the gamification hype. They trace back the historical roots of the phenomenon and explore novel design practices and methods. They critically discuss its social implications and even present artistic tactics for resistance. It is time to rethink gamification!

André Czauderna beschäftigt sich mit Lernprozessen im Internet am Beispiel eines Forums zum Videospiel Pokémon. In vier objektiv hermeneutischen Sequenzanalysen rekonstruiert er die Strukturmerkmale, die den Prozess des Lernens – verstanden als soziale Praxis – im Rahmen der untersuchten Threads charakterisieren. Schließlich skizziert er die Grundzüge einer soziologischen Theorie des Lernens in Computerspielinternetforen.​

The close connection between playing and learning precedes the formation of human life in evolutionary terms. With digitalisation, it now reaches completely new qualities: computer games compete with the older narrative-audiovisual media such as theatre, film and television; touch and gesture control also initiate an embodiment of interactive play and thus learning experiences.

The volume pursues the question of how and why we learn with digital media and especially with serious games and exergames. Among the international contributors from theory and practice are Ian Bogost, Linda Breitlauch, Chris Crawford, Simon Egenfeldt-Nielsen and others, Henry Jenkins, Jörg Müller-Lietzkow, Rolf F. Nohr and Isabel Zorn.

With the transition from industrial to digital culture, new visual media are emerging – but they do not come out of nowhere. They emerge gradually, in a complex interplay of technological and social, aesthetic and epistemological factors. The contributions in this volume are devoted to this change in pictorial forms, which was initiated in the course of digitization, and reflect on it from various perspectives of media history and media theory.

Comment écrit on un jeu ? Comment le présenter ? Quelles sont les étapes de la conception de son scénario ? Quelles sont les spécificités dramatiques du jeu ? Ecrit en collaboration avec les plus grands auteurs de jeux, cet ouvrage pratique permet d’accéder facilement aux techniques de ce nouveau métier qui attire un public de plus en plus large. Il s’adresse aussi bien aux passionnés qu’aux professionnels du cinéma.