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Samuel Poirier-Poulin

Samuel Poirier-Poulin holds a master’s degree in anthropology from the University of Toronto, Canada, and is currently a master’s student in game studies at Tampereen yliopisto/Tampere University, Finland. His research interests include horror films and horror video games, trauma studies, autoethnography, and sexuality studies. Samuel is vice editor at Press Start, and the founder and director of Pika-Pi!, a reading circle that works toward decentering game studies.

Sexual Humour, Virtual Romance, and Queer Space in Coming Out on Top

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Despite an increase in the number of video games portraying the life of queer folks (Greer, 2013; Holmes, 2016; Shaw et al., 2019), queer characters in most games continue to be tragically framed. Whereas Sam in Gone Home (The Fullbright Company, 2013) lives a secret love story and must face the homophobic reaction of her parents, Dave in Firewatch (Campo Santo, 2016) has unrequited feelings for Ron and gets badly beaten at a bar for being gay. As Alexandra (2018) puts it: “while games allow us to be many things—space marines, mages, and tenacious heroes—they rarely allow queer people to be happy” (para. 1). In contrast, Coming Out on Top (Obscurasoft, 2014), a gay-themed visual novel and dating simulator, follows the conventions of the comedy genre. The game tells the story of Mark Matthews, a college student who recently made his coming-out, and focuses on his last academic year, his friendship with his roommates, and his romantic and sexual life. The game is a mix of situational, romantic, and gross-out comedy, and contains erotic and pornographic elements. While the game has been criticized for reinforcing the idea of consumable gay male bodies (Harper, 2015), a qualitative analysis of 514 reviews published on Steam (in English, French, and Spanish) reveals that most players enjoyed the game. Players describe the game as funny and fun to play, and as full of love and sexy scenes. Two elements seem to stand out from the game: its humour and its sexual content. With the understanding that humour can create a safe environment (Dormann & Biddle, 2009) and can be a powerful tool to explore sexuality, including that of marginalized folks, this paper analyzes sexual humour in COOT. I use the tools of netnography (Kozinets, 2015) and close reading (Bizzocchi & Tanenbaum, 2011) to create a dialogue between my own gayming experience, the experience of other players, and previous scholarship on humour. Building on the concept of affordance, I ultimately argue that COOT leaves a positive impression on queer players because it offers them something relatively new in the world of video games: the possibility to laugh and imagine their lives in a positive and fun way.

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Simon Wimmer

Simon Wimmer holds a Bachelor’s degree in Cultural and Social Anthropology and a Master’s degree in Game Studies. Since 2017 he works at the Center for Applied Game Studies at the Donau-Universität Krems. His focus is on storytelling, conceptual- and narrative design. When he is not working, he is probably…playing video games or …taking a walk or …eating greasy food or …camping somewhere.

(Online-) SNEAK GAMING – a low-threshold opportunity for players and devs in times of COVID19

FROG 2020 – Poster Presentation

Co-Authors:
Natalie Denk (Danube University Krems)
Constantin Kraus (Danube University Krems)

The poster presentation highlights the newly established event format SNEAK GAMING by the Center for Applied Game Studies in cooperation with SUBTORON (www.sneakgaming.at). SNEAK GAMING is based on the concept of sneak previews in the film industry. Game developers can submit their projects which, if accepted, will be presented, tested and discussed at SNEAK GAMING. Which games are presented is only revealed to the participants at the start of the session. SNEAK GAMING is supposed to offer a low-threshold opportunity for developers to present, test and promote the game projects of any kind. In the same way, players will have a low-threshold opportunity to try out unpublished and experimental projects, give feedback and talk to the developers. For game researchers, the event format provides an opportunity to stay up to date with the latest trends in emerging game production, the needs of players and the challenges and opportunities of contemporary game production. With the Covid 19 pandemic, the event concept faced a challenge. Even before the very first SNEAK GAMING session in March 2020, it became clear that this date could not take place as planned on site in an event room in the Museumsquartier Vienna. The concept had to be adapted for an online presence.. The poster presentation shows how game developers and interested people meet in the online space, how exchange can take place there and also which specific effects have been caused by the virtual holding of these events. Furthermore, we want to announce and present the concept of the next planned online-event: “SNEAK GAMING XL”.

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Mathias Lux

Dr. Mathias Lux is Associate Professor at the Institute for Information Technology (ITEC) at Klagenfurt University. He is working on user intentions in multimedia retrieval and production, semantics in social multimedia systems, and interactive multimedia in the domain of video games. In his scientific career he has (co-) authored more than 100 scientific publications, serves in multiple program committees and as reviewer of international conferences, journals and magazines on a regular basis, and has (co-)organized multiple scientific events. Mathias Lux is also well known for the development of the award winning and popular open source tools Caliph & Emir and LIRE for multimedia information retrieval. He has integrated image indexing and retrieval features in the popular Apache Solr search server and his system is for instance powering the WIPO Global Brand Database. At Klagenfurt University he has established a lively community of game developers and enthusiasts who meet at regular events and game jams.

Analyzing Usage Patterns in Online Games

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Co-Authors:
Wilfried Elmenreich

A typical life cycle of a game is reflected in its usage patterns. A game first builds a user base, then reaches an absolute peak to then online is played by a minimum number of dedicated fans at the end of its life. However, in games, especially multiplayer and massive multiplayer ones, extraordinary events can be observed as peaks in usage. For the usage of video games, the COVID-19 pandemic has impacted usage as it had on the game business itself. However, research lacks data to investigate these relations further. Usage statistics of games are rarely accessible for researchers. In this paper, we relate usage statistics to viewership and popularity of a game on Twitch.tv. In a first study, data from the online role-playing game (MMORPG) Eternal Lands is analyzed. Eternal Lands is a free, multiplayer, online game that was created already in 2002. The usage patterns show day/night cycles of players in the prime time of the time zones where most players are located and increased playing activity on weekends. A general trend over time shows a slowly diminishing userbase over the years since its introduction. In April 2020, a significant rise of user activities can be observed, attributed to lockdowns in many countries due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Since user statistics from Eternal Lands are shown on a per-user basis, it is possible to distinguish two patterns for this time. Regular players invest more time playing the game during the lockdown. In contrast, new or recurring players, who have not played the game intensively before, were looking for a distraction during the lockdown. In a second study, we focus on complementary viewer statistics on the popular game streaming platform Twitch.tv. We can easily observe that the COVID-19 pandemic impacted the playing time, as mentioned earlier. We relate usage data to viewership and streaming statistics of popular games. With the example of Eternal Lands, being a game that never went viral, we discuss the possibility of app roximating a game’s popularity through game streaming and viewership thereof.

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Lukas Prader

Lukas Prader is a graduate of the master course “Game Studies” at the Danube University Krems. He wrote his final thesis about Clash of Clans. Lukas Prader works as a 3D artist for the Austrian game company Purple Lamp Studios.

The success of Clash of Clans

FROG 2020 – Poster Presentation

The poster presentation and the book contribution in the planned anthology analyses one of the most successful mobile games, Clash of Clans (Supercell), which is available as an app for Apple’s iOS operating system since 2012 and for the Android operating system since 2013. The mobile market is developing rapidly from year to year and has been the strongest economic success in the gaming industry. As social games increasingly became available on the smartphone and were no longer bound to a social platform, such as Facebook, Clash of Clans quickly evolved into one of the first mobile games to attract the masses worldwide. The mobile game has enormous appeal regardless of gender and age. This paper includes the description of the game and the research in the form of an online survey and two focus groups with 8 players* of the Clash of Clans Clan “Ludoholics”, who thoroughly discussed the results of the survey. Briefly said, the success of the game is based on the factors of easy entry, regular player expansion, social factor, monetization and presence in the media.

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Thomas Wernbacher

Thomas Wernbacher is a media psychologist and works as Senior Scientist at the Center for Applied Game Studies at the Danube University Krems. He is founder of Picapipe GmbH and teaches at the TU Vienna. In his work he researches the use and effects of playful approaches and emerging technologies in the context of mobility, education and health. His fields of expertise includes behavioral concepts in the form of gamification and nudging with a special focus on incentive models. The current focus of his research is on the communication of sustainable development goals in the context of urban development and climate change.

Cycle4Value

FROG 2020 – Poster Presentation

Co-Authors:
Alexander Pfeiffer (Danube University Krems)
Constantin Kraus (Danube University Krems)
Alexander Seewald (Seewald Solutions)
Mario Platzer (yverkehrsplanung)

Despite a variety of measures to promote cycling, the overall share of bicycle traffic in Austria has changed only slightly in favour of the bicycle in recent years (BMVIT 2017 and 2013). As part of its mobility strategy, the Austrian government has therefore set itself the goal of doubling the proportion of bicycle traffic in 7 years. In times of COVID a total of 866,263 cyclists were registered by Vienna’s automatic counting stations in April 2020. Compared to the same month of the previous year, 20.2 percent more Viennese have thus taken to the bike. However, the sustainability of this effect is declining, so incentives must be created for a permanent modal shift. In course of the research project“Nice Rides” we aimed at promoting bike commuting in the urban area by developing a gamification framework which involves both cooperative and competitive game elements. In order to reach a meaningful playing experience we implementedfindings from game design and motivational models. Our key goal was to achieve a change in long established behavioural patterns (choosing the car for commuting) by enhancing the safety and attractivity of biking. 10 years later, the peak of gamification has been left behind, incentive tracking apps broadly adopted gamified mechanics as well as incentive systems. With “Cycle4Value” as follow-up project a transparent and low-threshold reward model for the promotion of cycling based on the blockchain technology is being tested. The economic, health and ecological advantages/effects of cycling are are converted into a real value (=cycle tokens). These value units are stored in a digital wallet and can be paid for in a marketplace. The research project surpasses conventional incentive systems, since on the one hand the storage of the value units as well as the redemption process is decentralized, tamper-proof and transparent and on the other hand the real economic benefit of active cycling is monetarized.

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Constantin Kraus

Constantin Kraus BEd, studied teacher training for elementary schools at the Kirchliche Pädagogische Hochschule Graz. He is currently in the master’s program MediaPlayPedagogy at the Danube University Krems. In addition to his work in an afternoon care center at an elementary school, he has been working as a sound designer, graphic designer and motion designer for several years.

Ride2Park

FROG 2020 – Poster Presentation

Co-Authors:
Thomas Wernbacher
Simon Wimmer

When talking about individual mobility the negative effects on the environment and health such as congestion, urban heat, bad air quality and climate relevant emissions are well known and regularly discussed within the political as well as scientific community. Costs related to these factors include certificates for carbon dioxide on the state level as well as costs for infrastructure such as parking space provided by companies. The modal and behavioral shift needed is not on the horizon, in cities such as Judenburg up to 72% of citizens still use the car to get to work or to school. With Ride2Park we offer a gamified solution for solving the climate crisis by motivating employees of medium to large companies to use carpools for getting to work. Drivers and co-drivers can collect rewards as well as can take part in weekly lotteries to win prizes provided by the employer or respective company. Next to principles of gamification our framework also includes nudging as motivational boost. Ride2Park is the first step in our plan to use insights from psychology, game studies and social anthropology to achieve a positive impact on mobility choices of employees. To achieve this goal we plan to enhance existing business solutions by building an additional layer in terms of design, metrics and incentives. For the quantification of our reward system we plan to include the results from established services such as “BlaBlaCar” or “Bike Citizens” (as application for tracking active mobility) on the one hand and user-driven inputs on the other hand.

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Natalie Denk

Natalie Denk has a degree in Educational Science (University of Vienna) and Game Studies (Danube University Krems). Her research focuses on Game-based Learning, Educational Game Design and the examination of age and gender aspects in relation to digital games. Since 2014 she has been involved in several national and international research projects at the Center for Applied Game Studies at the Danube University Krems. Furthermore, she is responsible for the university courses “Game Studies”, “Media Game Pedagogy” and “Action Oriented Media Pedagogy”. Since July 2019 she acts as Head of the Center.

Esports and related phenomena of today’s gaming culture – opportunity, challenge and necessity for educational work

FROG 2020 – Poster Presentation

Co-Authors:
Alexander Pfeiffer (Danube University Krems)
Thomas Wernbacher (Danube University Krems)

Digital games have long since become an important part of today’s youth culture and for a large proportion of young people, gaming is a popular leisure activity – regardless of gender, social and cultural background. Around this fascination for digital game(s) a “gaming culture” has developed. However, here, not only the mere consumption of digital games plays a role. It is rather about active participation in a media landscape shaped by digital games. Young people exchange information (online and offline) about their favorite games and trends, watch, create and share “Let’s Play” videos and gameplay streams or follow their favorite gamers on various social media channels. Of growing importance in the gaming culture of young people (in Austria and worldwide) is also Esports – the organized competitive play of digital games. Active participation in the gaming culture reveals a number of competences, for example in ICT or creativity. Furthermore, the gaming culture and the resulting phenomena have a significant influence on everyday life, but also on the development of pupils and, as a consequence, shape our society. It is therefore high time to pay attention to these developments in the educational sector, to take up potentials and also to face up to the associated challenges. The poster contribution sheds light on the topic of esports and related phenomena in educational work from different perspectives and provides insights into ongoing projects – above all the E-Sport Schulliga Wien 21/22.

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Alexander Pfeiffer

Alexander Pfeiffer is recipient of a Max Kade Fellowship awarded by the Austrian Academy of Sciences to work with The MIT Education Arcade. His research focus as a postdoctoral fellow is on blockchain technologies and their impact to society. Before joining MIT, Alexander headed the center for applied game studies at Danube-University Krems, Austria, for eight years. At the beginning of 2021, he will move back from MIT to Danube-University Krems with the aim to establish the new Emerging Technologies Lab at the University and assist with establishing the Space21Future Lab in Vienna.

Life as a magic circle. A reflection with special consideration of our situation during the Covid-19 crisis.

FROG 2020 – Poster Presentation

I justify this with the fact that a Magic Circle is basically a system with independent rules. It does not necessarily, but can of course, be a game environment. Magic Circles with game reference are (A) a clearly defined game (B) a hybrid game world, like Alternate Reality or Urban Games and (C) games that are experienced by one person as a game, even if it is not a game for the other persons. Typical Magic Circles would also be clearly marked places like the tennis court, the soccer field, the board game, the games app etc. But also places like the swimming pool or the streetcar are Magic Circles, because there are special rules which are accepted at the entry and end at leaving. One can go so far as to consider life itself as a big Magic Circle, which offers thousands of play and non-play related, closed, semi-open and open Magic Circles. In the context of the poster presentation and my book chapter I would like to go into more detail about the underlying reasons for this point of view and would like to further point out a particular look at magic circles that have arisen and will arise for us in the context of the Covid-19 situation with all its rules, laws, regulations, the lockdowns, family life, working life, media use and so forth.

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Bastian Krupp

Bastian Krupp recently completed his M.A. in action-oriented media pedagogy at the Danube-University Krems. He wrote his Master-Thesis on the connection between the development of emotional intelligence and gaming. As a trained educator and studied social worker, he is interested in the effect of digital games as a methodical instrument for initialising educational processes. Since 2017 he has been working as a social pedagogical director in open youth work, where he has been able to realise numerous projects with and through games, such as eSport.

On the connection between the development of emotional intelligence and gaming

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Digital games have been an integral part of individual media biographies for half a century now. More than one third of Germans play regularly. For society as a whole and for media education in particular, this raises the question of the “right” way to deal with digital games in educational activities. Up to now, social evaluation has been primarily based on the consideration of ascribed risks (see discourse on “killer games” and the loss of empathy through glorification of violence and social isolation). If the potential risks are made the central origin of a social debate, they also control pedagogical action. A benevolent societal attitude toward digital games helps media education to gain greater recognition for its pedagogical use, which has already produced impressive successes for learning and educational processes. Scientifically, there are few relevant research results on the effect of digital games on the development of empathy. Emotional intelligence (EQ) is still a young field of research but is not being considered in the context of digital games. This thesis deals with the question of the effect of digital games on emotional intelligence by means of a quantitative survey of gamers. The results show that gamers, in principle, have no differences in the development of emotional intelligence compared to non-gamers. Thus, they represent an important finding for a social as well as a scientific debate about their recognition as cultural assets. The identification of gender-specific differences also draws attention to the lack of diversity in gaming, which is still characterized by ideals of masculinity and in whose environment women are repeatedly confronted with sexism. In society, as in media education, there is a need for a reformation that allows for a sharpening of the view for the positive effects of digital games and addresses problematic conditions in the gaming scene.

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Tanja Sihvonen

Tanja Sihvonen is professor of Communication Studies at the University of Vaasa, Finland. She is specialized in digital media, games, and participatory cultures on the internet. Her most recent work considers astroturfing, monsters, and cryptogames.

Narrative Transformations and Cultural Appropriation. Placemaking in Assassin’s Creed: Origins Discovery Tour Mode

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Co-Authors:
Mona Khattab (Communication Studies, University of Vaasa)
Sabine Harrer (Game Design Department Gotland, Uppsala University, Sweden)

Assassin’s Creed (Ubisoft, 2007-) is an action-adventure stealth video game franchise that lets its player delve into history, from Renaissance-era Florence to Victorian London. In this presentation, we aim at understanding the purpose of placemaking as a technology for virtual and identity tourism. More particularly, we will perform a close-reading of the ‘discovery tour mode’ function in Assassin’s Creed: Origins (henceforth: ACO, 2018), a game that takes place in Ancient Egypt. We argue that due to its quasi-touristic staging of an ancient civilisation, the discovery tour mode is a particularly potent feature in exploring how games render history palatable for an implied white Western audience. What makes the discovery tour mode specifically interesting is the focus that ACO has on the perceived othering and cultural appropriation of classical civilizations. Othering is a tool frequently employed in games seeking to immerse players into ‘exotic’ places constructed from imperial cartographic memory. The presentation unpacks this phenomenon in three sections that analyse placemaking in ACO through three different-level narrative viewpoints. The first of these examines the depiction of Egypt through which the real historical and geographical location is reimagined as a game environment. This section focuses on the transcultural representation of Egypt as the exoticized Other in the representational context of the global south. The second section highlights the centrality of the main character in the game narrative and the structure of the game. The third section addresses the intersectionality of narrativity and cultural representation as immersive, spatially organized experiences and studies these in the theoretical frame of placemaking and the game’s potential for virtual and identity tourism. This talk combines textual analysis of game objects and environments to autoethnographic observation and geographical understanding of real-world locations turned into reappropriated game places. The conclusion highlights the intersectionality of cultural and narratological trajectories within the framework of placemaking, leading to an assessment of the potential of creating virtual tours of historically and geographically non-Western locations.