Editorial
Articles
The Demarcation Problem in Multiplayer Games: Boundary-Work in EVE Online’s eSport
by Marcus Carter, Martin Gibbs, Michael Arnold
Informal rules are fundamental to multiplayer game play. Based on the analysis of a thrown tournament final in EVE Online’s eSport, this article presents and argues for the theory of boundary-work for understanding the processes through which players develop and dispute informal social rules that mediate play in multiplayer games.
Me and Lee: Identification and the Play of Attraction in The Walking Dead
by Nicholas Taylor, Chris Kampe, Kristina Bell
This micro-ethnographic account of gameplay in The Walking Dead examines the shifting nature of players’ relationship with Lee Everett, the game’s protagonist. It offers a provisional schema that accounts for the “attractors” that shape this relationship. The schema is applied to a brief but intense moment in two players’ experiences with the game.
No Mastery Without Mystery: Dark Souls and the Ludic Sublime
by Daniel Vella
This article discusses the aesthetic mode of the sublime as it applies to games, contextualized in an analysis of Dark Souls. It argues that the sublime represents a crucial aspect of the player’s engagement with the game object, defining it as resulting from the tension between the player’s drive towards mastery and the mystery resulting from the essential unknowability of the game object..
Self-Reflexivity and Humor in Adventure Games
by Krista Bonello Rutter Giappone
This article focuses on the “adventure game” genre, its metafictional humor, and tendency towards self-parody in both its formative stage and its more recent ensuing nostalgic turn, with particular reference to Zork (Infocom, 1980), LucasArts’ Monkey Island games (1990-2000), and Telltale’s parodic-nostalgic “Reality 2.0” (Sam and Max, 2007).
Book Reviews
A Manifesto, With Footnotes. A Review of Miguel Sicart’s “Play Matters”
by Sebastian Deterding
Play Matters (2014) by Miguel Sicart. Cambridge, MA, London: MIT Press. ISBN: 9780262027922. 176 pp.
Jørgensen’s “Gameworld Interfaces”
by Hans-Joachim Backe
Kristine Jørgensen (2013). Gameworld Interfaces. Cambridge: MIT Press. ISBN 978-0-26202686-4. 181 pages.
Call For Papers
Game Studies Special Issue: “WAR/GAME”
by Guest Editors – Pötzsch & Hammond
Video games are an important sector of the global entertainment industry and AAA titles often have budgets and audiences similar to those of major Hollywood productions. Many of the commercially most successful games are war-themed titles that play out in what are framed as authentic real-world settings inspired by historical events.
