All of us, players. Pathways in the diffusion of digital gaming: relocations, pervasiveness, gamification

Editorial Board

JOURNAL (Peer Reviewed)

All of us, players. Pathways in the diffusion of digital gaming: relocations, pervasiveness, gamification

PDF Download G|A|M|E – Issue 1 In our first issue, we have invited scholars and researchers from various fields to reflect on the diffusion of the video game medium outside of its established contexts. This phenomenon should lead us to reconsider the object of our research as part of a wider ...

In our first issue, we have invited scholars and researchers from various fields to reflect on the diffusion of the video game medium outside of its established contexts. This phenomenon should lead us to reconsider the object of our research as part of a wider media ecology. From the ideology of gamification to geo-localization, and from mobile applications to the ludic sociability of Farmville, we are witnessing video games’ invasion of the spaces and temporalities of everyday life.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Homo ludicus. The ubiquity of play and its roles in present society

Peppino Ortoleva (Università di Torino)

PDF Download In the last decades new technologies, the rearrangement of living and labour time and other less visible cultural factors have brought some significant historical modifications to the traditionally separated area of the ludic. New types of games have emerged and the threshold between play and reality has been ...

In the last decades new technologies, the rearrangement of living and labour time and other less visible cultural factors have brought some significant historical modifications to the traditionally separated area of the ludic. New types of games have emerged and the threshold between play and reality has been redefined to include aspects of social life that seemed to be unrelated to playing activities.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Ludic interfaces. Driver and product of gamification

Mathias Fuchs (The University of Salford/ Universität Potsdam)

PDF Download The recent success of non-standard and playful interface devices like Wii Remote, Move, and Kinect is an indicator of a process that demonstrates that ludic interfaces might be the core driver for a transformation in the sector of video games cultures and beyond. Yet, ludic interfaces are drivers—as ...

The recent success of non-standard and playful interface devices like Wii Remote, Move, and Kinect is an indicator of a process that demonstrates that ludic interfaces might be the core driver for a transformation in the sector of video games cultures and beyond. Yet, ludic interfaces are drivers—as well as driven by social developments known as the ludification (Raessens, 2006; Fuchs & Strouhal, 2008), or the gamification of society (Schell, 2010; Bogost, 2010; Ionifides, 2011; Deterding, Khaled, Nacke, & Dixon, 2011).

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Apocalypse postponed. Discourses on video games from noxious objects to redemptive devices

Marco Benoit Carbone (University College London), Paolo Ruffino (Goldsmiths. University of London)

PDF Download Over the last decade, a new narrative has emerged in favour of the medium of the video game. Games are now being described as a series of practices which improve our mental and physical skills (see Johnson, 2005, or the marketing and reception of Nintendo's 2007 game Wii ...

Over the last decade, a new narrative has emerged in favour of the medium of the video game. Games are now being described as a series of practices which improve our mental and physical skills (see Johnson, 2005, or the marketing and reception of Nintendo’s 2007 game Wii Fit); they are targeted to a mature audience, and are no more associated with antisocial teenagers (see Prensky, 2006); they are capable of unprecedented aesthetic achievements (see the reception of games like Rockstar Games’ 2011 L.A. Noire); and their consumption allegedly reveals a seemingly never-ending user growth, making them a globalized, pivotal media for the solution of social and political issues on the scale of the whole planet (McGonigal, 2011).

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Gamification is broken. An interview with Steven Poole

Marco Benoit Carbone (University College London), Paolo Ruffino (Goldsmiths. University of London)

PDF Download Steven Poole is the author of Trigger Happy (2000. New York, NY: Arcade Publish), Unspeak (2006. New York, NY: Grove Press), and You Aren't What You Eat (2012. In press). He has written extensively on books, culture, and videogames for The Guardian and other publications. Q. In a recent ...

Steven Poole is the author of Trigger Happy (2000. New York, NY: Arcade Publish), Unspeak (2006. New York, NY: Grove Press), and You Aren’t What You Eat (2012. In press). He has written extensively on books, culture, and videogames for The Guardian and other publications.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Computer games as a tool for language education

Ivan Lombardi (Università Cattolica di Milano)

PDF Download When it comes to examining the diffusion of videogames, and of computer games in particular, outside of a recreational context, the use of this peculiar tool for schooling is certainly one of the most interesting subjects an educator could hope for. In fact, owing to data collected by ...

When it comes to examining the diffusion of videogames, and of computer games in particular, outside of a recreational context, the use of this peculiar tool for schooling is certainly one of the most interesting subjects an educator could hope for. In fact, owing to data collected by myself and a growing number of researchers in the field of education (Egenfeldt-Nielsen, 2006; Felicia, 2009; Wastiau, Kearney & VandenBerghe, 2009; Minoli, 2009; Lombardi, 2012), teachers are actually intrigued by the educational potential of digital games, but have no idea how to harness this latent power and/or can’t work out how to accommodate the medium specificities in the school curriculum.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Scienze cognitive e game design. Progettare dinamiche di gioco non finalizzate a un obiettivo

Pietro Righi Riva (Politecnico di Milano)

PDF Download Stiamo vivendo gli anni della gamification: game designers e teorici del game design dibattono sui modi di trasporre meccaniche di gioco in servizi, applicazioni e marketing tools non strettamente legati al gioco. La gamification è finalizzata a determinare nel giocatore/utente un comportamento. Nella retorica che supporta la gamification ...

Stiamo vivendo gli anni della gamification: game designers e teorici del game design dibattono sui modi di trasporre meccaniche di gioco in servizi, applicazioni e marketing tools non strettamente legati al gioco. La gamification è finalizzata a determinare nel giocatore/utente un comportamento. Nella retorica che supporta la gamification traspare una visione del gioco fortemente orientata al reward, cioè alla gratificazione in termini di premi e obiettivi.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Games and science fiction. Contributing to define hybrid spaces in location-aware games

Fátima Regis (CiberCog - Rio de Janeiro State University), Letícia Perani (CiberCog - Rio de Janeiro State University)

PDF Download In What Is Philosophy? (1992, p. 137) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari argue that a concept is acquired by “inhabiting, by pitching one’s tent, by contracting a habit”. That is to say, creating a concept is like creating an “intersection”, giving meaning to an undetermined land, hence making ...

In What Is Philosophy? (1992, p. 137) Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari argue that a concept is acquired by “inhabiting, by pitching one’s tent, by contracting a habit”. That is to say, creating a concept is like creating an “intersection”, giving meaning to an undetermined land, hence making a territory. Each culture has its ways of setting up places, therefore creating spatial logics for living grounds. These cultural territorializations articulate knowledge, technologies, narratives, experiences of time and meaning, subjectivity and socialization.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Digital games and the communication of health problems. A review of games against the concept of procedural rhetoric

Carlo Maiolini (Ahref Foundation - Trento). Stefano De Paoli (Ahref Foundation - Trento). Maurizio Teli (Ahref Foundation - Trento)

PDF Download With the spread of the internet and the availability of computing resources, the use of digital games technologies has grown considerably in areas other than pure pastime (Hainey et al., 2011). Serious games in particular are games designed for primary purposes other than pure entertainment (Susi et al., ...

With the spread of the internet and the availability of computing resources, the use of digital games technologies has grown considerably in areas other than pure pastime (Hainey et al., 2011). Serious games in particular are games designed for primary purposes other than pure entertainment (Susi et al., 2007). In this paper, we focus on the potential as well as the limitations of serious digital games as a medium for communication in the area of public health.

Category > 1/2012 Journal

+10! Gamification and deGamification

Ivan Mosca (Università di Torino)

PDF Download This article investigates the cultural meaning of gamification and of its degamificator power. In particular we will see what gamification is (+1), which are the levels of analysis (+2), how gamification makes explicit how culture derives from the game (+3) even if they are different things (+4), how ...

This article investigates the cultural meaning of gamification and of its degamificator power. In particular we will see what gamification is (+1), which are the levels of analysis (+2), how gamification makes explicit how culture derives from the game (+3) even if they are different things (+4), how the formation of culture in game and vice versa could delete them and how gamification cannot do that (+5), why every gamification is a degamification (+6), why pointsification cancels fiction and gameness from games (+7), why gamification of devices does not involve a playification of experiences (+8) and how the gamed player stops to play (+9).

Category > 1/2012 Journal

Click, click, click, click. Zynga and the gamification of clicking

Melinda Jacobs (Flight 1337)

PDF Download Although the era of the social network game officially began with the launch of the Facebook Platform in 2007, it wasn't until 2009 that social network games began to attract the spotlight of mainstream media with the runaway successes of several games. Not surprisingly, since that moment the ...

Although the era of the social network game officially began with the launch of the Facebook Platform in 2007, it wasn’t until 2009 that social network games began to attract the spotlight of mainstream media with the runaway successes of several games. Not surprisingly, since that moment the online gaming industry has been fully occupied with discerning and attempting to replicate the elements that have made those Facebook games fruitful. Both academics and industry members have engaged in a hearty amount of discussion and speculation as to the reasons for the success seen by social network gaming, watching the evolution of the genre as companies have both emerged and retreated from the industry.

Category > 1/2012 Journal