Response to the 2022 NCA Game Studies Top Papers

As the moderator for the #NCA22 Game Studies Top Papers session as I am reminded of the wisdom of one of my mentors Raymond Puchot, who stated that moderators must: “be able to cheer the work of the scholars, provide a clear summary of the individual papers & the connective elements between the various presentations, focus on the questions left unanswered by the research, and challenge the scholars to go beyond what was stated in the written and spoken word related to their given research.” This research presented today, as denoted by Sky, is worthy of such praise.

It is in this spirit that I offer the following words to the scholars that are presenting. First, Bowman, Yoshimura, Bohaty, and Condis ask us to frame and reflect our past play and its connection (or lack thereof) to the physical artifacts that allowed us to interact with those digitally constructed worlds of the past and how self-efficacy places us in those “bygone gaming eras.” Retrogaming is a worthy focus as scholars can reflect on their past experiences to frame their current scholarship, especially in their framing of historical versus personal nostalgia within the construction of their study.

I kind of like mere exposure theory as a extension of the personal nostalgia as there should be positive experiences to past play, thus adding to the sense of nostalgia among the players.

Condis’ interesting analysis of Desert Bus as not only being one of the least fun games to play, but being essentially a mode of sanctification in the form of a charitable meme to torture oneself as a quasi-call to action for Twitch viewers to donate money to causes definitely should get game scholars to pause and examine the correlation between a game and its “fun factor” as an essential operational term for this concept we are all studying in this division.

The martyrdom effect invoked by Condis provides a thoughtful critique on why streamers go to “extreme” measures within the social construction of charity online, especially for events like Games Done Quick and other such spectacles. I am reminded on the ice bucket challenge when examining these particular facet of online culture.

I also found that Megan use of cult media as a means of enhancing the abusive game design practice critique wonderfully useful within this research. Also, the Doom port of Desert Bus will give me nightmares for a long well.

I found Young and Wiedenfeld’s application of uses and gratification theory and self-determination theory within the research field of microstreamers as a critical means of examining an area that is both starting to gain traction in our division and a callback to some of the well established celebrity scholarship (specifically the work of Terri Senft, Crystal Abidin, and Alice Marwick). I find this epidemiological networking of the discipline extremely necessary to attempt to maintain a lifeline to the broader communication association.

Young and Wiedenfeld’s calls on how microstreaming satisfied fundamental needs of autonomy, relatedness, & competence as those microstreamers were allowed to grow expressive artists within their given craft and entrepreneurs within the broader global media economy means that these scholars are correct that communication to the microstreamers’ communities should become a logical connection back to other divisions with our association & maintain our ties to other scholars in our collective fields.

Nansong Zhou’s scholarship should be celebrated for not only being the most outstanding student paper at this year’s conference, but marks a clearly denotation of future scholarship. His research digs into how players on MMOG (like League of Leagues) engage with diverse interactions with the various actors within the virtual environment, how currency plays a role in those interactions, and the marketplace as a dynamic construction.

The hybridization of both political economic analysis and textual analysis for a contextually and community-driven intellectual property such as League of Legends should be applauded, as the degree of difficulty paid off in a rich and robust piece of scholarship. His deep-dive on the role of players within the construction of the free-to-play model, specifically the player as a mere commodities and laborer within this space has been overlooked in past literature and worth highlighting.

This leaves us off with Arienne Ferchaud and Anne Rivera with, in their words “a nuanced, layered approach to virtual moral reasoning,” within the realm of video games (especially with Detroit: Become Human). The game lends itself quite nicely to this type of case study as the game naturally allows scholars to examine the classic “decision-tree” model of player engagement that is a classic aspect of game design and user experience.

Ferchaud and Rivera’s scholarship in the realm of interactive narratives combats the claims that “it’s just a game” as the player is force to address their code of ethics and morality through gameplay and conflict, in their introduction of the basal, transformative, and immersive as the models of virtual moral reasoning.

A final thought, the common thread among these five works of scholarship is a critical examination of what we are as the human playing within these virtual environment; whether as a person experiencing the nostalgia of past gaming, a tortured figure using the game as a charitable call to action, a content creator engaging with their community, a exploited laborer, or as a moral being seeking something beyond themselves. Understanding the human as engaged player within these is a worthy theme of discussion, which I encourage you as the audience to do with the panelists