RESOURCE GUIDE
I. Unger, A. & Fromme, J. (2012). Computer Games and new media cultures A handbook of Digital Games Studies. Springer Netherlands.
Digital gaming is becoming a big commercial event as well as an integral aspect of postmodern cultures convergent media culture. Gaming culture is a new global phenomenon in media subculture created by gamers. Video games have had a tremendous impact on popular culture since their popularity has overgrown over time.
The subject’s ubiquity, as well as the sheer number of hours young people spend gaming, should make it ideal for urgent academic inquiry, yet until the start of the century, it remained a study backwater. Even today, when millions of young people spend their waking hours manipulating avatars and gaming characters on computer screens, certain scholarly circles remain sceptical.
This book aims to illustrate the importance and utility of researching digital games, which is currently the focus of an increasing number of studies, surveys, conferences, and publications. The chapters in this book focus on the social and cultural relevance of gaming as an overview of the present level of study into digital gaming. The contributions, which vary from theoretical to empirical investigations, cover a wide variety of issues, including game analysis, player-game interaction, and gaming’s social context. In addition, there is a separate area dedicated to the educational elements of games and gaming.
With the growth in demand for mobile and the internet, video game culture has transformed many individuals who play video games refer to themselves as gamers. Gamers find themselves developing social networks as video games become more social with multiplayer and internet capabilities. Popularly electronic sports have been more generally embraced; playing video games can be entertaining and competitive. Through this book, authors from different nationalities tried to demonstrate new media cultures complexity and diversity in a debate concerning different content in the game and digital studies. In this way, this book strongly emphasises the social, cultural, and educational components by bringing the multidisciplinary approach through digital game studies.
II. Tavinor, G. (2009). The Art of Videogames. Wiley-Blackwell.
The Art of Videogames, book by Tavinor, investigates how ideas created for traditional artworks might be applied to video games, arguing that video games can indeed qualify as a new and fascinating kind of representational art.
Interesting chapters included in this book are the following: The New Art of Video Games, What Are Videogames Anyway?, Videogames and Fiction, Stepping into Fictional Worlds, Games through Fiction, Videogames and Narrative, Emotion in Video Gaming, The Morality of Videogames and Videogames as Art.
This book offers a distinct philosophical perspective on video gaming, placing it within the context of the analytic philosophy of the arts. The author investigates how philosophical notions produced for conventional artworks might be applied to video games. Moreover, this book provides a broad readership of both philosophers and video game enthusiasts by the author, who is a philosopher as well as a video game fan.
Video games have a cultural impact in addition to social ones. The tales that video games tell are one manner in which they affect culture. Video games tell tales in a variety of ways. There are parallels between superb video games and great literary and cinema plots, whether you’re playing as a plumber seeking to save a princess, constructing a universe out of bricks with minimal past, or embarking on an epic journey in a realm where diverse individuals have their own goals. Setting, characters, storyline, and themes are all components in narrative storytelling that combine to give meaning to readers, viewers, or users.
This book is highly recommended since it examines and explains the link between video games and previous creative and entertainment mediums, as well as how video games enable interactive fiction, the importance of the game narrative, and the moral position of violent events shown in video game worlds.
III. Ernest Adams (2006) Will computer games ever be a legitimate art form?, Journal of Media Practice, 7:1, 67-77
Ernest Adams, a video game industry veteran, addresses the art of the video game and the extent to which video games are or maybe art through this paper. His study examines numerous working definitions of art and compares and contrasts them with video games, identifying both similarities and differences. He draws parallels with the film business, but he also points out the limitations of such analogies, as well as the issues that the gaming industry has had in the past by copying the film industry’s structures and tactics too closely.
Arcade games, console games often with online multiplayer aspects, smartphone games, internet games such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games, and open-world games such as Minecraft all have narratives to follow and varied levels of production value. They’re up there with movies as the most immersing form of mass communication, and they’re a lot more personal. Films and video games both have high production standards and immersive storytelling, but video games enable players to take on the role of an avatar and interact with the story to affect the plot and setting within limitations. Since this study concludes with practical recommendations for the games business on how to develop more original and innovative work, it is highly recommended.
IV. Juul, J. (2011). Half-real: Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. The MIT Press.
An examination of the connection between rules and storytelling in video games as both a departure from and a development of conventional games. A video game is half-real: we follow real-world laws while immersed in a fantasy realm. We can win or lose the game in the actual world, but we can only slay a dragon in the gaming world. The author of this book investigates the ever-evolving relationship between rules and narrative in video games through thought-provoking research. He explains how video games are both a departure from and a progression of classic non-electronic games, discussing titles ranging from Pong to The Legend, chess to Grand Theft Auto.
To present a theory of what video games are, how they operate with the player, how they have evolved historically, and why they are pleasant to play, the book brings together viewpoints from literary and cinema theory, computer science, psychology, economic game theory, and game studies.
He claims that video games and computers have a fundamental connection, citing a history of games that dates back to Ancient Egypt. Computers function as enablers of games, allowing us to play old games in new ways and allowing for new forms of games that would not have been feasible before computers, much as the printing press and the cinema have encouraged and allowed new kinds of storytelling.
He gives a basic game model that explains how games are traditionally built and predicts future advancements. He looks at how rules give players with difficulties, learning, and enjoyment, as well as how a game prompts them to imagine the game’s fictitious universe. Thus, this book appeals to media, literature, and game researchers, as well as game professionals and players through its colorful approach and varied use of materials which is recommended for digital studies students.
V. W. M. J. (2007). The medium of the video game. University of Texas Press.
In today’s time, millions of individuals today spend more time in the interactive virtual world of games than they do watching movies or even television, although video games have only been around for four decades. The arrival of new games or gaming equipment, such as the PubG, Ludo king, Clash of Clans, creates a lot of buzzes and even a shopping frenzy. Despite this, this colossus of popular culture has received little in-depth research or critique until today.
Wolf and four other researchers undertake the first comprehensive study of video games as an artistic medium in this book. The book begins by attempting to clarify what the phrase “video game” means, as well as the many modalities of creation within the medium. Then goes on to give a brief history of video games before using cinema studies techniques to examine the medium in terms of standard features such as space, time, narrative, and genre. Throughout the book’s chapter, the video game is also examined as a cultural institution, a museum piece, and a reservoir of psychological archetypes. It has become important for students of digital studies to read it. Moreover, this book concludes with a list of video game research resources for more investigation.
References:
- Ernest Adams (2006) Will computer games ever be a legitimate art form?, Journal of Media Practice, 7:1, 67-77
- Juul, (2011). Half-real: Video games between real rules and fictional worlds. The MIT Press.
- W. M. J. (2007). The medium of the video game. University of Texas Press.
- Tavinor, G. (2009). The Art of Videogames. Wiley-Blackwell.
- Unger, , & Fromme, J. (2012). Computer Games and new media cultures A handbook of Digital Games Studies. Springer Netherlands.
