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Full-Text Articles in Arts and Humanities
Incipient Games: Restoring The Past Through Play In Historical Reenactment, Luke Konkol
Incipient Games: Restoring The Past Through Play In Historical Reenactment, Luke Konkol
Theses and Dissertations
This thesis is an ethnography of an historical reenactment group which stewards a living history village portraying the nineteenth-century “Wisconsin frontier.” It analyzes productions from improvisations, to scripted vignettes, to a “whodunit” mystery game. Across their practice, reenactors are met with a host of challenges including ‘authenticity,’ balancing constructionism and objectivism, visitor engagement, educating the public, and the bleeding together of period techniques and modern thinking. Such challenges push against the boundaries of analyzing the project of reenactment (or larger social life) as theatre. Given terms like “play-acting” and “role-playing” in the space of reenactment, this thesis examines this phenomenon …
The Labor Of Play: The Political Economy Of Computer Game Culture, Justin Schumaker
The Labor Of Play: The Political Economy Of Computer Game Culture, Justin Schumaker
Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation questions the relationship between computer game culture and ideologies of neoliberalism and financialization. It questions the role computer games play in cultivating neoliberal practices and how the industry develops games and systems making play and work indistinguishable activities. Chapter 1 examines how computer game inculcate players into neoliberal practice through play. In chapter 2, the project shows Blizzard Entertainment systematically redevelops their games to encourage perpetual play aimed at increasing the consumption of digital commodities and currencies. Chapter 3 considers the role of esports, or professional competitive computer game play, to disperse neoliberal ideologies amongst nonprofessional players. Chapter …
Issues With Reality: Defining And Exploring The Logics Of Alternate Reality Games, Jay Johnson
Issues With Reality: Defining And Exploring The Logics Of Alternate Reality Games, Jay Johnson
Theses and Dissertations
Alternate Reality Games (ARGs), a genre of transmedia experiences, are a recent phenomenon, with the first recognized ARG being The Beast (2001), a promotion for the film A.I.: Artificial Intelligence (2001). This dissertation seeks to more clearly define and investigate contexts of transmedia narratives and games, specifically ARGs. ARGs differ from more popular and well-known contemporary forms of gaming in several ways, perhaps most importantly by intensive use of multiple media. Whereas a player may experience most or all of a conventional video game through a single medium, participants in ARGs must navigate multiple media and technical platforms— networks of …
Rules Of The House: Strategy, Tactic, And Violence In One World By Night, World Of Darkness, Live-Action Role-Play Games, Laya Liebeseller
Rules Of The House: Strategy, Tactic, And Violence In One World By Night, World Of Darkness, Live-Action Role-Play Games, Laya Liebeseller
Theses and Dissertations
The following thesis focuses on governance of institutionalized play in three World of Darkness live-action role-play (larp) games (ethnographic field work conducted between May and August of 2016), whose players have willingly allowed the international organization of One World by Night – an organization made up of their peers – to unify them in such a way as to create connection, community, and shared story across the world. I analyze four locii within these games (the book, the organization, the storyteller, and the player) using Michel de Certeau’s, The Practice of Everyday Life, translated by Steven Rendall, specifically focusing on …