Blog of Abstracts

Benjamin Kirchengast finished his bachelors degree in history at University of Vienna in 2017. Right now he is studying for his master’s degrees in “Contemporary History and Media” at University Vienna and “Game Studies” at Danube-University Krems, while also working at Verein GEDENKDIENST: He enjoyed playing games most of his life, now he loves studying them and their societal implications.

„That’s not how it was!“: Through the Darkest of Times in the context of a culture war.

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

The historical strategy and survival game Through the Darkest of Times (TtDoT) challenged the way in which history is represented in digital games. That is especially true for its representation of the national socialist Germany and the resistance occurring in parts of the society. However, this representation does not always spark huge excitement in the players of TtDoT. While the game was generally well received by the public, there is also some – quite loud – criticism in the community of digital games. I took a look at the criticism that was voiced by some players in a total of 86 negative reviews on the gaming-platforms GOG and Steam. Based on Phillip Mayrings research method of the qualitative content analysis I formed different categories of criticism on TtDoT. First of all, some reviewers simply call the game mechanics boring. Other critics focus on the interaction of game mechanics and narrative, stating that the players actions do not have any impact on the outcome of the game, which is only partially true. The way in which you can or cannot interact with Nazis did not feel authentic for many users. One of the greatest points of criticism in negative reviews though is the games representation of history. Many reviewers claim that the game transmits a modern perspective on history asserting that TtDoT is historically inaccurate and/or that it feels like the game is forcedly teaching history. Finally there is a group of reviewers who call out the narrative of the game for supposedly transmitting a leftist political agenda, using the holocaust to discredit contemporary right-wing politics focusing on Donald J. Trump. The different categories mostly do not manifest in isolation but in combination with each other giving way to deeper analysis. One major output of the study was that the resistance against TtDoT is to be understood in a broader context of a still ongoing culture war between the left and the right. In connection with the culture war the erosion of the masculine space of video games and their often highly masculine content is harshly opposed, manifested in negative reception of alternative games.

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Wilfried Elmenreich is Professor of Smart Grids at the Institute of Networked and Embedded Systems at the Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt. His research topics are smart grids, swarm systems and self-organizing systems. He is involved in the master program on Game Studies and Engineering and participates regurlarily in short game projects.

Martin Gabriel studied history at the University of Klagenfurt and received his PhD for a thesis on irregular warfare during the 1878 occupation of Bosnia-Hercegovina. He has been a lecturer in Modern History at the University of Klagenfurt since 2012. His research and teaching focus on global history, colonial violence, social structures and ethnicity from the 1500s to the 19th century.

Global History, Facts and Fiction in Early Computer Games: Hanse, Seven Cities of Gold, Sid Meier’s Pirates!

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

For many years, historiography has ignored the importance of computer games for the general perception of past events, focusing instead on “conventional” receptions in film or literature. Mainstream historiography propagated the thought that computer games could not meet academic standards. On the other hand, there had been early computer games using historical events as background. Meanwhile, it is logical to also keep in mind the motives of designers for producing games set against a (quasi-)historical background: Historic settings are attractive for designers because they provide an already existing logical framework for a game, while making costly license fees obsolete. In this work, we analyze three games set against the background of – what Europeans call – the Late Middle Ages and Early Modern Period. The game Hanse is a game featuring elements of the 14th century Baltic trade. Seven Cities of Gold deals with European conquest in the Americas (during the 1500s). It is a real-time strategy game focusing on exploration. Sid Meier’s Pirates! can be seen as a microcosm of the power struggle between European countries in the Early Modern Caribbean. It gives the player a sketch of complex economic or strategic issues where pirates (buccaneers) were operating under different circumstances to support the ambitions of colonial powers. The games were released between 1984 and 1987 for various platforms. Among the systems that have seen releases of all three games, the Commodore 64 versions have been used to analyze the games because of high market share and successful preservation of games. The games were in general very successful and well-received. From a technical perspective, it can be seen that those games did not max out the computer’s capabilities, but rather attracted the players via the interesting setting and the historical connection.

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Paula Gludovatz is a Historian / Youth-worker at Verein Wiener Jugendzentren where she focuses mainly on the aspects of social media , gender and gaming. She graduated from the University of Stirling with a Bachelor of Arts with Honours in History and Religious Studies in 2013. After graduating she continued her studies in childcare and social work. She is currently doing her Masters in Game Studies at the Danube University of Krems.

Girls’ Gaming

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

This presentation highlights the influence of gaming on gender equality in young people aged 10-18. The correlations of social upbringing, gender, and age have shown that they highly influence the gaming behaviours and group settings. Furthermore, there is a stark contrast in the different usage of platforms and choice of games being played. The social aspect of perception to girls* participating in game settings have set the focus quickly to the importance of inclusion, especially in group settings. This led to the questions: How does a social setting change by introducing girls* to a previously predominantly male* dominated setting? Why does gender affect the choice of gaming platform and games being chosen to play? To find an answers to these questions several projects were created to establish an understanding of the issues that were raised. The outcomes of these projects created a possibility of creating a new form of game settings, with a revised social structure as well as a new way of perceiving and introducing gender equality in young children.

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Hossein Mohammadzade began his academic research in game studies with his thesis for his master’s degree in English Language and Literature at the University of Guilan. His main area of interest is the relationship between ideology, narrative, and videogames.

Resource Wars: From Gameworlds to Physical Reality

FROG 2020 – Short Talk

Whether raiding a settlement in an online strategy game such as Clash of Clans or Lords Mobile, or exploring the retro-futuristic, post-apocalyptic landscapes of Fallout 4, or even reading a magazine in the AI-driven 2038 of Detroit: Become Human, players come across the concept of resource wars. While such wars have happened in the physical world, its anticipation both in the retro-futuristic universe of Fallout 4 and in the futuristic one of Detroit: Become Human could have significant implications. Despite their drastically different timelines and forms of technology, they both anticipate a lack of resources that leads to war. Moreover, with the introduction of new devices, technological developments, and a massive population growth, there is also a concern for the resources needed for such a superfluity. Therefore, if different types of technology which are advertised as convenient and efficient in various ways cannot prevent a critical shortage of those resources, does a comparison of the two games reveal a more fundamental, omnipresent problem? This study tries to demonstrate that an analysis of these games shows how excessive production and consumption in pursuit of more profit lead to death and destruction instead of improving the quality of people’s lives. It also tries to answer this question: Do these games implicitly suggest an urgent need to substitute dominant modes of production, or do they hint at a gradual adaptation or reform of current economic systems or modes of production?

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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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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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