Blog of Abstracts

Simon Wimmer holds Bachelor’s degree in Cultural and Social Anthropology from the University of Vienna. In his Elective Modules “Museum and Educational Work” and “Art-Media-Narration” he took every chance to write about game related topics. He is attending “Game Studies” at Donau-Universität-Krems since 2015.

Participant Observation As a Tool to Delve Within the Magic Circle

Thesis presentation, FROG main conference | Sunday 15^th October, 16:30 – 16:45

In my talk I will point out why the participant observation can be a great tool to gather qualitative data within the magic circle. I will prove my points with my theoretical bachelor thesis, which sketches how anthropology handled “game” since Johan Huizinga. In this thesis, I also refer to three anthopolical case studies. Each of these case studies used a form of participant observation as a research method. Further I will talk about my empirical bachelor thesis where I did my own participant observation.

Philipp Söchtig (M.A.) holds a Bachelor’s degree in Japanese Studies and Philosophy as well as a Master’s degree in Literary and Media Studies. As part of his studies he has been at the Waseda University in Tokyo for two semesters. Philipp Söchtig has been a PhD candidate and lecturer at the Otto-Friedrich-University of Bamberg since 2017. His main fields of research include Game Studies, Intermediality, Gamification and Virtual Reality.

Otto-Friedrich-Universität Bamberg

Video games as art – How players create their own worlds

Thesis presentation, FROG main conference | Friday, 13^th October, 16:15 – 16:30

The aim of my Master’s thesis was to look at how players create their own meanings and worlds in and out of context of games and how they can be seen as artists in doing that. Umberto Ecos concept of open works of art, John Fiskes theory of productive consumers and Johan Huizingas and Roger Caillois notions of play served as a theoretical base. To illustrate the many ways players use to engage with digital games, the main part of the thesis was divided into four sub-categories of with regard to the field of creativity: narration, mechanics, technology and communication.

Lyuba Stafyeyeva works as a Social education worker in Caritas St. Pölten. She received her Bachelor of Education from Gorlovka University of Applied Science in Ukraine and obtains a Master Degree in Applied Knowledge Management at FH Burgenland. Her current research interests include Integration of Digital Games in Learning and E-learning Environments in school and enterprises.

FH Burgenland

Game-based learning in schools: Is it for everyone?

Thesis presentation, FROG main conference | Sunday, 15^th October, 09:30 – 09:45

Danai E. Gavranidou received her Undergraduate degree at Theatre Studies Studies at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich and obtained a master’s degree in Theatre Studies at Freie Universität Berlin in 2017. During her studies she focused on the role of the audience, posthumanism and Game Studies. This resulted in a master thesis on children as videogame players.

Getting Lost in the Game World? – Approaches on Children as  Video Game Players

Thesis presentation, FROG main conference | Friday, 13^th October, 15:30 – 15:45

To this day video games have often been attacked for their supposed negative impact on their audience. These attacks become especially fierce when the consumers are children, as this specific group is both valued and generally perceived as not being able to protect themselves against possible threats. This talk seeks to display research from the field of Game Studies that places the game in the everyday life (of children) and focuses on the contexts, situations, and socio-political relations of gaming. Thus, the emphasis no longer lays on the immersive, virtual experience that is perceived as threatening to young recipients.

Alesja Serada has BA in Oriental Philology from Belarussian State University (Minsk, 2006) and BA in Media & Communication from European Humanities University (Vilnius, 2017). She turned to game studies in 2016 after gaining several years of working experience in game marketing. Currently she is a student of MA programme in Sociology (specialization: Visual and Cultural Studies) at European Humanities University in Vilnius, Lithuania.

European Humanities University

The phenomenon of playbor: Relations between labour and leisure in casual farming games (the case of “royal story”)

Thesis presentation, FROG main conference | Sunday, 15^th October, 11:15 – 11:30

This paper explores specific forms of playbor that can be found in a typical free-to-play game Royal Story. The research objective is to reveal game design patterns when play becomes work, and vice versa, and explain them from the economic perspective. To achieve it, we conceptualize playbor within context of game studies and apply our updated definition of it to our observations of 60 highly dedicated players of the game. Thus, we verify existence of playbor in Royal Story in a number of sometimes unexpected forms, such as, communicating with other members of the gaming community or purchasing luxury goods.