Denk / Serada / Pfeiffer A LUDIC SOCIETY

1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-3-903150-73-7
Verlag: Edition Donau-Universität Krems
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 6 - ePub Watermark

E-Book, Englisch, 400 Seiten

Contemporary game scholarship offers a broad palette of theories and methods inherited from such fields as sociology and communication studies, experimental sciences, literary analysis, educational sciences and cultural critique. At large, this inherently interdisciplinary research aims for a holistic perspective on the 'LUDIC SOCIETY'. With that in mind, this book is organized into four sections that present related and often intertwined ideas and observations about the ways we manifest ourselves in games and play, how games represent us in the present and in the past, how games and play change us, and what it all may mean for contemporary society. This book invites readers to engage with the key challenges of a ludic society, explore new perspectives and initiate fruitful discussions. It is aimed at both passionate game scholars and all those who want to get a first taste of the multifaceted research field of game studies.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Denk, Natalie

Serada, Alesha

Pfeiffer, Alexander

Wernbacher, Thomas

Weitere Mitwirkende

Kraus, Constantin

Leseproben

EMPATHY AND INCLUSIVITY IN GAMES AND THE PROTEUS EFFECT

Ricarda Goetz-Preisner

Games have become more varied and inclusive. The hero and protagonist is not only a 30-something white heterosexual man anymore. Protagonists in games, often represented by playable avatars, look and behave differently nowadays. Women-avatars can be warriors, protagonists in games can represent different ethnicities or abilities, and avatars can have same-sex relationships and follow new narratives. “The Sims” is one game that has offered these possibilities for a long time. Players can create virtual characters with or without any physical attributes. This inclusive attitude toward the appearance of gender, visual identity traits and sexuality, once a rarity in video games, is becoming more common as games take on more diverse and weightier subject matters. There are different reasons for creating these sometimes called ‘serious games’ or ‘empathy games’. Many of the reasons can be linked to the Proteus effect. The Proteus effect proposed by Yee and Bailenson (2007) suggests that the human embodiment in digital avatars may influence the self-perception of the player both online and offline, based on their gaming avatar’s aesthetics or behaviors. Different studies (e.g. Fox et. al 2013) since then focused on how players can be influenced by their avatars. She found that women may be at risk for experiencing self-objectification when their avatars wore revealing clothing (ibd.) or that participants responded better to avatars modelled closely on their real appearances (Fox 2009). Future studies need to clarify the extent of these and show how different avatars can be created to elicit positive changes in attitudes, game play and self-image. This paper provides a literature review and different close readings of games within the concepts of inclusivity, diversity and the Proteus effect in and of games.

Keywords: Games, Inclusivity, Diverse Characters, Proteus Effect, Influence

EVOLUTION OF GAMES AND CHARACTERS

Video games have been in a constant state of evolution. From the early beginnings where pixilated graphics and simplistic story lines were the norm, the aesthetics of games have developed into crystal-clear high definition pictures with multi-varied narratives. One example where we can clearly see the development of games is a comparison of the graphics of The Legend of Zelda in 1986 and Zelda: Breath of the Wild in 2017. The later game provides 3D graphics with a detailed appearance of the main character Link, and even though the game is a fantasy adventure game, it creates the illusion of really exploring imaginative forests and landscapes. The world and perspective that players find themselves now is utterly emerging with the 3rd person perspective and abilities one has, nothing close to the rudimentary graphics and bird perspective from the game in 1986.

Games have also changed in the way gamers are able to interact with them and with their game characters. Characters that players control now have gone from simple forms like squares and circles to hyperactive realistic human-looking avatars. „In early games like Asteroid or Pac-Man, player representation was quite simple (…) as technology advanced, player representation became more detailed“ (Graner Ray 2004:94). Game characters now display unique traits in their appearance and embody different genders, groups of ethnicity or body and ability types. Playable characters also offer unique personalities that easily create an empathic experience for the gamer. According to Graner Ray, the better a game character, she uses the word avatar, is created, the more players feel comfortable and the longer they play (cf. ibd.). A long and intense engagement in a game is in that regard the goal of every game producer. That might lead to the assumption that inclusive player representation in avatar design is benefitting all parties involved in a game.

In this paper, the concepts of game characters and avatars are used synonymously, however in different research the latter is often referred to as a digitized image of the player itself. As different studies use these concepts within their respective definitions in more or the same way, this author will refer to avatars and game characters following a definition by Ahn et al:

“Broadly defined, any form of representation that marks a user’s entity can be considered an avatar. (…) Over time, avatars have become more complex creations, rendered in three-dimensional forms with an extensive range of animated movements that aid in the expression of the avatar’s personality and supplement various social interactions. Options for individual customization of avatars have increased significantly as well, allowing users to modify a number of physical features including eye color, hair style, height, body shape, clothing, and even facial expressions. Using these diverse features, users have great freedom to build not just a graphical marker of themselves, but virtual humans with distinctive personalities, unique appearances, and individualized behavioral patterns” (Ahn et al 2012).

Another change has become noticeable in long-time beloved characters like Lara Croft from Tomb Raider or B.J. Blaskovics from Wolfenstein. These game characters have changed drastically over time with both new technical possibilities as well as feedback from the side of gamers. Lara, still appealing to a broad audience as a strong attractive fighter, now wears slightly more clothing when she fights evil and has more realistic body features. B.J. is still muscular and hyper-masculine in his appearance but also resembles more or less a real person with realistic facial features and body shape. Lara Croft has been subject to different academic papers, focusing broadly on her role, her importance for players, as one of the first women avatars or her sexualized aesthetics. Kennedy (2002) gives an extensive insight in different research about the game character Lara Croft and sums up that:

“it is impossible to securely locate Lara within existing feminist frameworks, nor is it entirely possible to just dismiss her significance entirely. These readings demonstrate the range of potential subversive readings, but there exists no real ‘extra-textual’ evidence to back this up – hence the focus on the text itself, which is on its own inadequate to explore the range of pleasures available from playing as Lara – we can only conjecture.” (Kennedy 2002)

Figure 1. © Crystal Dynamics [https://whatculture.com/gaming/10-legendary-video-game-heroes-you-wont-recognise-now?page=9]

METHODOLOGY

This paper provides a literature review of both theoretical game studies works as well as reviews of game experiments that are concerned with identity and empathy in digital games focusing on the so-called Proteus effect. Additionally different close readings of games will give empirical examples. The focus lies on so-called triple AAA games, playable on PC and consoles who feature human looking gaming characters. Triple AAA games refer to games with high production value, extensive budgets for advertising and marketing their games and a high number of players. Compared to other media texts they can be referenced to Blockbuster-movies (cf. Demaria & Wilson, 2002). Rather than independent movies or games that are done both as the name suggests, by either independent producers or smaller development teams, big game production companies have more means to create more elaborate games which differ in the way a game is then playable. Games that will be discussed in this paper range in the genre of Role Playing Games (RPGs) which on the one hand offer rather realistic game opportunities, and on the other feature mostly human looking characters.

These games represent different opportunities to explore aspects of our own or different identities and stories. They are also story-driven games that put more emphasis on the narrative within the game, contrary to other genres where the emphasis lies strongly on game play itself (how the game is played). Story-driven games like RPGs also spend more time and resources developing the protagonists of their games with regard to aesthetics and personality traits and pay greater attention to details such as dialogues. Sometimes these games also become other media texts in form of movies or TV shows, like for example The Witcher, Tomb Raider or Assassins Creed have been franchised into high grossing movies.

That said, a (video) game is still a game, so even though these games try to feature realistic narratives or characters, they still provide a some-what out of this world experience where real-world physics, human abilities or stories are not the main objective per se. Nonetheless these games present means to broaden our own empathy towards the lives of others and let the players experience different worlds.

INCLUSIVE GAMES

Inclusivity in games with regard to this paper means to show and include representations of different identities of humanoid characters, as well as the game story shows varied narratives and realities. The term identity describes the way individuals and groups define themselves and/or are defined by others based on their gender, orientation, ethnicity or ability. Identification, as a concept has been studied in the context of interactive and traditional media, and functions to understand how attitudes and stereotypes about groups can manifest themselves in virtual...