Online Games, Play and Gamification Assignment 3: Exercise: Creative Artefact
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Assignment3.docxAssignment 3: Exercise: Creative Artefact
In Brief:
The Exercise: Creative Artefact is worth 35% of your overall mark. Please refer to the calendar in your Unit Outline for the precise due date.
Instructions:
Choose a digital game or game genre and create a media artefact to introduce it to a generalist audience.
The artefact you create must be accessible/viewable/playable in no more than 4 minutes.
Further details:
Your artefact can be in any media form you prefer except for text-only (ie you can create a short playable game, a short video, flash animation, stop motion animation, short interactive website, photo collage presented as a slideshow, a series of infographics, an illustrated pamphlet or pretty much any other format except a traditional essay form).
While we encourage you to be adventurous, as this is not a production-based unit, you need to keep in mind the skills you have already learnt and play to your strengths wherever possible.
Your artefact should situate your game or genre in terms of its impact and importance. While not intended as a checklist, some important contexts might include: historical (what contexts inform the development and release); social/cultural (how, where, by whom, and in what ways is the game or games played/experienced); economic/industrial (business models, distribution, cost, versions); and design/technical (how does the game/genre work, what design and play elements are important, influential or popular).
The game or genre case study must be accessible to a generalist audience; it should not be designed specifically for an academic reader or viewer. This is an opportunity to communicate something about games to someone who does not have the depth of knowledge about games of a university student studying them.
While you must still indicate academic sources and so forth, you do not specifically have to follow APA or other styles if it is incompatible with your presentation format. (For example, if you created a short video, your credits would indicate your sources, but not necessarily presented in APA format as this would be clunky and not in keeping with the style of online video.)
Your artefact must be presented in a publicly accessible form online. You do not have to include your full name on it if you do not wish to, but you must include enough identifying information to ensure your marker can clearly identify your work (eg a shortened name and the unit code – 'Jane S, Web Play' – would suffice). As the case study is publicly online, you are responsible for ensuring it complies with copyright laws – if you are including remixed media from elsewhere, these should be clearly indicated and you should respect whatever licenses they are under; if you are arguing that your case study is legal by way of Fair Dealing, you should clearly indicate this as part of the media you create. You should include a clear statement about the copyright status of your case study as part of your assignment (placing this statement wherever is appropriate given your chosen media form).
You must submit a coversheet which provides the usual information and the URL of (link to) your case study online.
Criteria for Assessment
You will be assessed on how well your assignment:
· Develops a clear, succinct and accessible overview of a game or game genre for a generalist reader
· Balances a comprehensive introduction with the constraint of four-minute viewing/reading/playing time
· Explores the specificities of online games as critically informed by readings, conversations and other unit material
· Respects appropriate conventions for the media format you are using, including indicating sources, copyright laws, and so forth
Topic 3.1: Gamers and Online Community
Topic Outline
In module 3 we go further in our exploration of games, focusing on the identity of the “gamer” as well as the cultural shifts that are taking place within the video game industry and its associated communities. Internet connectivity has transformed the way players engage with each other, with game developers, and with games themselves. Online gaming has heralded the rise of “trolls” and “griefers” – players who disrupt online games and communities for their own amusement, typically at the expense of other players. Social media and other online forums have also provided new avenues for players to share their diverse experiences and perspectives. This week’s materials explore the notion of the “gamer” and the wider culture(s) of online gaming.
Core Reading
Shaw, Adrienne. (2012). “Do you identify as a gamer? Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Gamer Identity.” New Media & Society, 14(1), pp. 28-44. [Available here ].
Conditt, Jessica. (2015). “Gaming while black: Casual racism to cautious optimism.” Joystiq. Available from http://www.joystiq.com/2015/01/16/gaming-while-black-casual-racism-to-cautious-optimism/
Alexander, Leigh. (2014). “‘Gamers’ don't have to be your audience. ‘Gamers’ are over.” Gamasutra. Available from http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/224400/Gamers_dont_have_to_be_your_audience_Gamers_are_over.php
Additional Postgraduate Reading
Snider, Evan, Tim Lockridge and Dan Lawson. 2012. “Challenging the Roles of Gaming: Griefing as Rhetorical Tactic” in Guns, Grenades and Grunts: First person Shooter Games. Eds Gerald A. Voorhees, Joshua Call, Katie Whitlock. Continuum, pp.277-298. [Available here ].
Questions
In order to get started thinking through this area, please consider:
1. Do you identify as a gamer? Why/why not?
2. Have you encountered or observed harassment in online games? What form did it take?
3. Alexander argues that the “gamer” identity is dead. Do you agree? Why/why not?
Topic 3.2: Gamification
Topic Outline
Gamification is a word used to explain how elements of play have moved outside of the discourses of conventional digital gaming and started to filter into other disciplines and areas of life. Gamification also refers to the allocation of reward or points at the completion of some digital task whether that be in the workplace, or increasingly, through exercise. The FitBit, for example, rewards users on the level of exercise they complete (shown above).
The role and function of gaming in education has been hailed as an important and revolutionary way to get students engaged and 'immersed' in learning. Making education fun is a central trope of gamification as it moves through pedagogy. If students can learn through play (much like young children do) then the perpetual problem of 'engagement and motivation' might melt away. But gamification also opens up a range of possibilities for surveillance and may be serving to normalise surveillance within our social framework - making it fun and playful - rather than a serious matter. This week we explore the potential benefits and dangers of gamification.
Viewing
Gamification can improve our world: Yu-Kai Chou https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v5Qjuegtiyc
Gaming can make a better world: Jane McGonigal https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dE1DuBesGYM
Core Reading
The talks above reify gamification as transformative and even world-saving. However, not everyone shares this optimism in the potential of play to make everything better. There are those who are cautious about gamification and the ways in which play is insidiously hijacked in some circumstances for darker purposes.
1) Bogost, I. (2011). Gamification is bullshit. http://bogost.com/writing/blog/gamification_is_bullshit/
2) O'Donnell, C. (2014). Getting played: Gamification, bullshit, and the rise of algorithmic surveillance. Surveillance and Society, 12(3), 349 - 359. Find it here .
Additional Postgraduate Reading
Short, D. (2010). Teaching scientific concepts using a virtual world - Minecraft. Teaching Science, 58(3) https://civicadigibase-public.sharepoint.com/MinecraftEDU%20resources/Short-2012-science-teaching-minecraft.pdf
Bos, B. Wilder, L. Cook, M. O'Donnell, R. (2014). Learning mathematics through Minecraft. Teaching Children Mathematics, 12(1). 56 - 59 (Find it here .)
Questions to Consider
1. What is the potential in linking learning, education and play?
2. How much gamification is in your life? Does life improve with increased gamification? How does it change the way in which you interact with your everyday life?
3. Are you concerned about the security implications of gamification? How do you feel about the possible collection of your data?
Online Games, Play and Gamification
Topic 3.3: Games in Popular Culture
Topic Outline
Video games are no longer a niche interest. They are wildly popular with a wide variety of people on a global scale. Increasingly, there has been a cross-over between games and other forms of popular culture and media. Even if you don't play video games, you've likely heard a fair bit about them and know people who do. This is indicative of the extent to which gaming, and forms of web play in particular, have entered into our consciousness. We are seeing more and more film adaptations being made from games, plus more references to gaming in film, novels, and television shows.
Since digital games became popular, their representation in popular culture has been ambivalent, ranging from pathological machines to innocent ar bitrators . Aside from films that have been made from video games (source material including Tomb Raider, Hitman, Mortal Kombat, Prince of Persia, Resident Evil and the Warcraft movie and Assassin's Creed), advertising and politics have also moved to cross over into video games. But there are also texts that reverse our understandings and deploy video game techniques, such as those found in the 8-bit Philosophy videos.
Popular culture is unbiquitous. It is often frequently constructed as frivolous and trivial. Yet popular culture is where we make our meanings and make sense of our everyday lives. Therefore, this final topic is dedicated to thinking in greater depth about the role of games in popular culture.
Core Reading
Our reading this week is a report that explores general perceptions and attitudes toward video games. While the survey results apply to Americans in particular, it offers an interesting data set to consider and discuss:
1) Duggan, M. (2015). Gaming and Gamers. Pew Research Center. http://www.pewinternet.org/2015/12/15/gaming-and-gamers/
Core Viewing
So far in this unit, we have focused mainly on how video games portray a variety of ideas and cultural concepts. The clips below reverse this focus and show examples of how video games are portrayed within popular culture. As you view them, think about what assumptions or perceptions of games and gamers are being deployed. Do they reflect the statistics cited in the reading above? Do any of the clips attempt to dislodge common stereotypes about gamers?
Community featured an 8-bit game in season 3, episode 20 , "Digital Estate Planning". Fans of the show then built their own version .
If you can think of any more examples, please share them in class or on the discussion board!
Questions
1. How are video games represented in popular culture? Have you observed any changes over time?
2. What is the relationship between video games and cinema? Does one feed off the other, or is it a more symbiotic arrangement?
3. How do you think online games will evolve in future?
Additional Postgraduate Reading
Kerr, A. and Flynn, R. (n.d.). Revisiting globalisation through the movie and digital games industry. http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/406/1/Convergence_final.pdf
Izushi, H. and Aoyama, Y. (2006). Industry evolution and cross-sectional skill transfers: A comparative analysis of the video game industry in Japan, the United States, and the United Kingdom. Environment and Planning, 38. 1843 - 1861 (find it here .)
