ETC Press has recently announced the release of the fourth issue of Well Played: a special issue edited by Jane Pinckard and focusing on the theme of romance in games.
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/content/volume-1-number-4-romance
More info after the jump
Technology and emotion: Playing for the love of the game
Richard E. Ferdig & Kristine E. Pytash
NPC Romance as a Safe Space: BioWare and Healthier Identity Tourism
Heidi McDonald
Tick Tock: A review of Jason Rohrer’s Passage
Eric Hamel
Quest for Love: Playing the Women of King’s Quest
Anastasia Salter
Jane Pinckard, co-founder of the Digital Romance Lab (http://www.dirolab.com/), is editing this special issue and encourages contributors to write essays that explore games that engage emotions associated with love, romance and flirting. Topics might include such themes as developing an attachment to an NPC, falling in love in-game with another player, critique of romance subplots, depiction of loving attachments, experiments in making love a core mechanic of a game, and more.
The Well Played Journal is a forum for in-depth close readings of video games that parse out the various meanings to be found in the experience of playing a game. It is a reviewed journal open to submissions that will be released on a regular basis.
Contributors are encouraged to analyze sequences in a game in detail in order to illustrate and interpret how the various components of a game can come together to create a fulfilling playing experience unique to this medium. Through contributors, the journal will provide a variety of perspectives on the value of games.
The goal of the journal is to continue developing and defining a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to expand the discussion, and show how games are well played in a variety of ways.
For more information, and to purchase or download a copy, visit:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/wellplayed
The ETC Press is an academic and open-source publishing imprint that distributes its work in print, electronic and digital form. Inviting readers to contribute to and create versions of each publication, ETC Press fosters a community of collaborative authorship and dialogue across media. ETC Press represents an experiment and an evolution in publishing, bridging virtual and physical media to redefine the future of publication.
All submissions and questions should be sent to:
drew ( at ) andrew ( dot ) cmu ( dot ) edu
For formatting guidelines, see:
http://www.etc.cmu.edu/etcpress/files/WellPlayed-Guidelines.pdf.
Twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/etcwellplayed
ISSN 2164-344X (Print)
ISSN 2164-3458 (Online)