Game studies: critical perspective

Tribalism, exclusions, prejudice: game studies from a critical perspective - Mirosław Filiciak, Piotr Sterczewski, Bartłomiej Schweiger, Paweł Frelik, Stanisław Krawczyk

Based on a brief review of (predominantly video) game studies, the authors conclude that critical approaches to the research subject and research itself are underrepresented in the discipline. The article calls for addressing this issue as an antidote to the academic isolation of game studies and to reproducing patterns focused on legitimizing the research subject, revised in recent years by film studies and other disciplines. The text provides examples of critical analyses concerning game production, their political aspects, the issue of representation, game history, and the broadly defined “gaming culture”.

Critical approach in Polish research on digital games: analysis of publications - Stanisław Krawczyk

The article offers a systematic review of articles, chapters, and books about video games. The analysis encompasses Polish publications (without translations) from the years 2007-2014. It studies cases of presenting digital games as a medium which takes up taboo subjects, showing games as a critical tool and exposing undesirable features of players and games, as well as negative opinions regarding game studies. The review presents an evolution of the discussion regarding phenomena important to the critical approach to video games and game studies within the Polish academia.

A cartographic passion: imperial imagination and maps in open-world video games - Tomasz Z. Majkowski

The text is a reflection on the relationship between the map, i.e. an element of the game in single-player open-world games, and the territory of such games. Using imperial theory tools, it seeks to describe the logic of both their relationship and its specific and key element, namely the procedure of placing markers on the map in places corresponding to distinct parts of the space, trying to uncover the way in which games preserve the topic and ideology of discovery which drives imperial cartography and travel narrative.

Video games are coming of age: a contribution to the local genealogy of discussion about art games - Anna Nacher

The topic of the article is the process of “growing up” of video games which can now express different identity scenarios while retaining high reflexivity of the medium. This process is accompanied by an increase of video games’ importance in today’s mainstream audio-visual culture. Consequently, according to the author, we need to rethink the category of “art games”. Of course, this requires us to move beyond the traditional framework of aesthetic concepts, invoking ideas such as “beauty” and “sublimity”; however, it is possible to use approaches already present in discussions of new media art. It is also worth to decentralize the disputes within game studies by looking at local genealogies. The author makes this gesture, using the example of a game called Antykoncepcja [Eng. Contraception] – one of the first Polish art games created in 2003 by a team of feminist artists – by putting it in the context of modern debates on gender in games known as #GamerGate.

Dark design patterns in video games: on creating games against players’ interest - Marcin Petrowicz

The most important goal of most games is providing pleasure – however, it often happens that some element of the game is frustrating or ruins the whole experience for the player. Sometimes it is not a coincidence or designer’s mistake. Game researchers Staffan Björk, Chris Lewis and José P. Zagal created the concept of Dark Design Patterns, defined as “schemes used consciously by the author of the game, which evoke a negative experience in the player, go against his interests and have probably been used without his consent”. Dark Design Patterns use players’ resources in an unethical way – monteral, temporal or social resources. The article aims to critically present the concept of Dark Design Patterns in video games and its theoretical sources, as well as develop it basing on one-player games.

Screen and entertainment: the relationship between games and business and e-sports - Mateusz Felczak

The text touches upon the relationship between electronic sport and business models of high-budget video games operation in the media circuit. It starts with a historical analysis of the development of this branch of electronic entertainment and an elaboration of the key phenomena which contributed to e-sport’s popularity, such as internet data streaming services. The article also discusses matters connected to the culture of participation and some of its aspects: content production by fans and the changing division into a causative audience and e-sportsmen with specific media (and economical) tactics.

Oral history methods in research on digital games in Poland - Piotr Sitarski

The article discusses the use of oral history methods in research on digital games in Poland. Research material is constituted by interviews about the use of computers and digital games in the 1980s and 1990s, collected in the Chair of Media and Audiovisual Culture of the Łódź University. The analysis of these interviews allows to discover old media practices and computer users’ perspectives from that era. In particular, one can recreate the process of digital games’ emergence among other uses for computers and the way games were related to the culture of that time, especially in the context of popularization of consumerist attitudes.

The power of the digital interface - Jarosław Kopeć

An analysis of selected examples of digital interfaces allows to define the concept of interface power. The texts discusses also a (futile) search for ways to overcome this power.

Word games as a performance – the case of Dozens - Wiktor Uhlig

The article features an analysis of word games as a performance. The selected game is Dozens, i.e. duels developed in Afro-American youth culture where players insult each other’s mothers. Game’s transformation into a kind of an internet joke weakened the agonistic aspect of the phenomenon. However, examples of its derivative word games – freestyle battle and poetic slam – indicate that it remains popular. Agonicity, orality and audience participation mean that this type of games ought to be construes in performance categories.

Anna Ślusareńka, Precariat’s hero. Ideological focalization of the game This War of Mine - Anna Ślusareńka

This War of Mine is a game where the player controls the fates of civilians during a military conflict. It provides a crucial change in perspective – from a soldier to a civilian. In analysing ideological focalization of the game and comparing it to games from the military FPS genre, I am trying to uncover the value system embedded in the game and the way the player makes his choices – by accepting the perspective imposed on him. In my article I prove that changing the type of the hero from a brave person to a mediocre one who has failed in the past, can go beyond the military context and resonate with the social change and the emergence of a new class – precariat.

Mancala – in the past and now - Błażej Popławski, Cyprian Kozera

The article describes the game of mancala – its origins, its related cultural models and values, social functions and rituals, and the gradual evolution of its meaning. It also characterizes briefly its rules and exceptions. The text describes the connection between the game and the contemporary – in the words of Mikhail Bakhtin “carnivalized” – culture, art, everyday life and economy.

Agar.io and the problem of evolution as a model of social relations - Piotr Urbanowicz

The purpose of this article is to introduce the game agar.io as a particular way of experiencing the mechanisms of evolution. The author proves that games constitute a platform for negotiating the discourse. Evolution becomes the base of contemporary economy and legitimizes the capitalist system. The game constitutes a social compromise between values which can be inferred from various physical evidence of the users. The article aims to present games as objects which illustrate social relations, which in the case of agar.io refers to the model of evolutionary processes.

Inevitability and chance. Analysis of old age in four games - Marta Kania

In discussing old age representations in independent games, I will focus on the ones where the passage of time, old age and avatar’s death are valid themes and not just “side effects” or symbols of failure. I interlace close gaming with a philosophical perspective which allows me to put the intragame old age in a context of temporality and mortality viewed as conditio humana. I focus on ways of presenting the passage of time, its inevitability and old age interrupted by death (chance) in aesthetics and mechanics of the discussed games.

On virtual landscape - Magdalena Szewerniak

This article aims to capture the phenomenon of virtual landscape and the way players experience it. Contrary to the popular meaning of the word ‘landscape’, following Beata Frydryczak I suggest viewing it as a process featuring both a panoramic, distanced observation and a multi-sensory experience. These relationships are also exemplified in video games, which feign reality. However, in this case our experience is much less direct due to such factors as the screen, the mechanics and the plot.

Transformations of the scholars’ identity discourse: from the genealogy of philosophy - Jan Hudzik

The theme of the article is the identity discourse of scholars-philosophers. The author tries to discover what had to happen in the field of thought for scholars to become critical intellectuals. Originally, spoken and written media were supposed to provide them with direct access to the truth and consequently give them a special position in the order of excellence of being and hierarchy of power. Modernity exposes the illusory nature of this project – shut off from transcendence, its former messengers become lost, looking for support in corporate solidarity of the république des lettres, and searching for a reason for their existence in being useful to the public. In a post-metaphysical and post-Kant world, the line between theory and practice is blurred – critical thought, expressed as a critique of ideology and theory of resentimental sources of culture, strips cognition of its emancipatory power and presents it as a form of social practice based on violence and enslavement. Critical intellectuals view reality as a challenge: How can we preserve the diversity of ways of existence and prevent sanctioning the world based on imposed abstract constructions, orders and rationalities? They combine the ability to continually uncover new mechanisms of oppression and social dominance with a moment of engagement in public matters, entering the agora to work on its expansion and including new subjects who cannot enter it on their own. They are mediators between difference and identity.

Emancipatory critique in view of algorithmized everyday life - Hubert Gromny

This article aims to prove that the theme of aesthetics and art, which dominates the late theory of Jacques Rancière, is a consistent evolution of his conceptualization of the term “politics” in Ten theses on politics and La Mésentente: politique et philosophie. By invoking the key concepts developed by the French philosopher – such as dividing the visible, art regime, subjectification – I will argue that the matter of aesthetic experience and its promise of political emancipation is of a central importance to Rancière’s approach to the relationship between aesthetics and politics.

The power of things. Materiality in spatial animation - Maciej Frąckowiak

The article talks about grass-roots material interventions in the public space of Polish cities undertaken in order to make it more social. Based on his own experiences and observations, as well as conversations with their initiators, the author discusses the potential of such actions as compared to other strategies of animation and modern urban transformations. He analyses how using materiality in public space animation changes this practice in many areas, modifying the relationship between various actors participating in the process. Moreover, the author reconstructs dangers connected with the “power of things” mentioned in the title and suggests a method of avoiding these traps by proposing ideas for some potential endeavours.

Culture sector in face of the digital change (subjects analyse) digital imagination: between access and participation - Piotr Celiński

An essay analysing cultural practices connected with the presence of software technologies and open culture challenges in cultural institutions. The author refers to practical experiences in implementing projects in the field of education and digital culture to reflect on the context and impact of technological changes by invoking such concepts as collective imagination, open culture and digital culture. The text compares communicative competence of the mass-media era with a new imagination stimulated by a digital ecosystem which replaces it; and sets institutional norms and fixed modes of behaviour against the possibilities offered within the software formula.

Lessons drawn from failures - Paweł Gąska

Jesper Juul, The Art of Failure, The MIT Press, Massachusets 2013.

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