![]() Related to Wright et al.’s findings (albeit not a research report), in mid-2013 Time magazine profiled Jacob Granberry, an artist and fan of the Game of Thrones novel-cum-television series, who has overseen a complete digital reconstruction of the land of Westeros in the construction video game Minecraft. Perhaps more related to creativity per se, their study also found Counter- Strike players to be highly adept at using in-game tools to recreate (with great accuracy) real-world simulations of game maps, as well as logos and other elements not native to the original game environment. For example, textual analysis of chat logs from players of the first-person shooter Counter- Strike found highly sophisticated usage of contextualized humor and joke-work, from simple naming mechanics (naming oneself “Osama bin laggin” referring to a then-topical news item and referring to lagging-a common issue in online gaming by which a computer network is unable to process data at the same speed as a computer terminal, resulting in a temporarily broken play experience). ![]() ![]() In a content analysis of in-game behaviors, Wright, Boria, and Breidenbach (2002) found several instances of gamer-created content consider by most to be far beyond a simple act of game play. Such an act requires a great deal of thought-projection on the player’s behalf into the digital space, as was suggested by subsequent linguistic analyses on these interviews ( Banks & Bowman, 2013, 2014). In deep interviews with a set of highly engaged World of Warcraft players, Banks (2013) found that players actively construct headcanons-or idiosyncratic stories about the gaming experience-that include speculations about how the avatar (the on-screen character) might be affected at the cognitive, behavioral, and emotional level by the relationship between player and avatar. In creating these in-game personae, players have also been known to personify their on-screen character, imbuing them with a sense of agency and personality. ![]() Grodal (2000) and Nakamura (2000) similarly argue that a particularly appealing element of video games is their ability to allow users to create and experiment with a variety of different personae. One of the more enduring elements of video games that fosters a creative spirit is the manner in which they allow players to construct identities. Ferguson, in Video Games and Creativity, 2015 Video Games as Creative Expression For instance, a player performing the role of a healer would use a weapon primarily with attributes that support the player’s healing and defensive capabilities that confers both the emotions of capacity and security. In multiplayer games, a balanced weapon enables the player to fulfill his/her role within group play. More importantly, a customizable weapon enables the player to continually improve his/her weapon to keep up with tougher challenges, which contributes to the player’s satisfaction. In single-player games, a balanced weapon consists of a combination of attributes which function together to enable the player to create various strategies during gameplay in order to overcome challenges. In evaluating the balance of a weapon in gameplay, the player decides what attributes to focus on when crafting the weapon based on his or her goal in the game. Although it reduces the quality of gameplay, players still use it as they feel more capable and secure due to its high damage which enables players to dominate maps in Counter-Strike ( Valve Corporation, 1999). The use of such weapons thus reduces the quality of gameplay, and also reduces the element of choice in gameplay, as most players would then use this weapon over other weapons or strategies in gameplay. It is a long-range sniper rifle that can be used by the player to kill another player in one shot. An example of an unbalanced weapon is the AWP sniper rifle in Counter-Strike ( Valve Corporation, 1999). A balanced weapon in video games is thus a weapon that neither confers an unfair advantage to the player by means of high impact (e.g., high weapon damage) nor causes the player to suffer a severe disadvantage in the gameplay due to its low impact (low weapon damage). In gameplay, the notion of balance “is the sense that your circumstances or your chosen means of playing the game are roughly equivalent to everyone else’s, in terms of giving you a fair shot at winning” ( Newheiser, 2009). Weimin Toh, in Emotions, Technology, and Digital Games, 2016 Reaction: Composition-Balance
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |