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Documents
And the Crops Withered: Designing TTRPGs to Enliven Myths
The document outlines the design process for "And the Crops Withered," a single-player tabletop roleplaying game (TTRPG) inspired by the Greek myth of "The Abduction of Persephone."
- The paper argues that game design can function as critical making, enlivening myths so they speak to contemporary concerns, using the Greek myth of Persephone's abduction as its case study.
- And the Crops Withered centers Demeter rather than Persephone, so players must speculate about the daughter's fate, building uncertainty into the outcome.
- The core mechanic uses tarot draws, with each suit mapped to a theme (labor and passion, psyche and decisions, emotions, nature and investments) and Major Arcana cards prompting encounters with other deities.
Physical Blind Boxes' Compliance with Information Disclosure Requirements: Exploring the Game-like Nature of Blind Box Consumption in the Chinese Regulatory Context
This study assesses the compliance of physical blind boxes sold in Mainland China with the information disclosure requirements outlined in the National State Administration for Market Regulation's 2023 'Guidelines on Rules for Blind Box Business Operation (for Trial Implementation).'
- Only 12 of 50 sampled blind boxes (24%) in Mainland China provided complete and accurate probability disclosures, with probabilities summing to one and no hidden figures, despite 47 products including some form of probability information.
- The most common disclosure failure was hidden or secret items whose probabilities summed to more than one, leaving consumers unable to determine their actual odds of obtaining a given item.
- Fewer than half of the products (48%) displayed each item's probability alongside images of the rewards, with many burying the information at the bottom of pages or in less visible sections.
From Play to Idols: How Superfans Shape Esports Ecologies
This study investigates how superfans influence the League of Legends (LoL) esports ecosystem, focusing on their participatory practices and the impact of East Asian idol culture.
- Superfans are defined by the intensity and organisation of their engagement rather than by a fixed identity, and the study examines how such high-intensity participation shapes visibility, discourse, and stakeholder behaviour in the League of Legends esports ecosystem.
- Superfan practices rest on three forms of investment (time, emotional, and monetary) reinforced by strong loyalty, supporting activities such as co-viewing, intensive match tracking, translation work, highlight circulation, and moderation.
- The authors propose a Superfan Influence Model with four pathways: visibility amplification through coordinated platform activity, social coordination through organised projects and fundraising, economic signalling through clustered spending, and norm-setting through moderation and boundary-work.
Bridging Generations Through Play: Older Adults Gamers and Identity Formation
The study investigates the role of intergenerational play in fostering gaming capital and gamer identity formation among older adults, aiming to address their underrepresentation and marginalization within the predominantly young, male-centric gaming community.
- The study frames intergenerational play as an under-researched gap, arguing prior work has focused on serious health-oriented games rather than casual, community-centered play among older adults.
- Drawing on Consalvo's concept of gaming capital and Social Identity Theory, the authors pose two questions: how intergenerational play shapes older adults' gaming capital, and what role it plays in forming their gamer identity.
- Preliminary interviews with 16 participants (mean age 32, 62.5% male) found intergenerational play often introduces family members to gaming and establishes habits, and participants recall it fondly when framed as bonding rather than distraction.
Loyalty vs. Heresy: Kitbashing and Materiality Negotiation in Tabletop Games
This research examines kitbashing in tabletop games as an information practice where players negotiate meaning through material modification under rule-based constraints.
- Kitbashing is framed as an information practice in which players negotiate meaning through material alteration within rule-based constraints, rather than as mere aesthetic customization.
- The authors treat miniature bases as material anchors, non-negotiable physical features that stabilize shared interpretation and gameplay consistency because they are tied to movement, attack range, and objective control.
- Players generally alter weapons, poses, and decorative elements freely but keep bases materially consistent with official models.
Transparency Isn't Enough: How Ordinary Features of Games Contribute to Exploitative Monetization
The document argues that current approaches to ethical monetization in video games, which primarily focus on transparency, addiction, and child protection, are insufficient to address exploitative practices.
- The paper argues that microtransactions can be exploitative even when players fully understand the mechanics and their own financial situation, setting aside the deception, gambling, addiction, and child-protection concerns that dominate prior scholarship.
- Inside a game the developer is effectively the sole seller, creating a temporary monopoly in which prices can be set unfairly, since MTXs are rarely embedded in competitive markets.
- Some microtransactions show little change in demand as prices fluctuate, suggesting low price sensitivity, which the author argues undermines the conventional economic justification for consent-based pricing.
Sacred Places: Designing 360° Narrative VR Games for Hybrid Use in CAVE and Mobile HMD Setups
The document outlines the design and preliminary evaluation of "Sacred Places," a 360° narrative VR game developed for hybrid use in CAVE (Cave Automatic Virtual Environment) and mobile HMD (Head-Mounted Display) setups.
- The paper presents "Sacred Places," a 360° narrative VR game about Greek-Australian immigrant memory and identity, built for hybrid use across a room-sized CAVE and mobile head-mounted displays.
- The design draws on Pierre Nora's lieux de mémoire and Jan Assmann's mnemohistory, with precedents including Woolf's To the Lighthouse and What Remains of Edith Finch.
- The game combines ethnographic research and oral testimony with multi-viewpoint 360° video, non-linear first-person narration, text overlays, interactive objects, and full-body motion tracking in the CAVE setup.
Forms of Self-Reflexivity in Team Hero Shooters and Beyond
This study aims to investigate the nature and transposability of self-reflexivity among players of team hero shooter games, specifically examining whether this practice constitutes a "technology of the self" with applicability beyond the immediate gaming context.
- The paper asks whether the self-reflexivity players develop toward their own play in team hero shooters such as Marvel Rivals can function as a "technology of the self" applicable beyond gaming, an angle the authors argue gaming literacy, neuroscience, and skill-acquisition research have underexplored.
- Team hero shooters are presented as a notable case because they pair a community prone to toxicity, where failure is blamed on teammates, with a competitive culture where players actively problematize their own conduct, such as recognizing when they "tilt" after a loss.
- The authors hypothesize that technical supports like video recordings, heads-up displays, and coaching may tie reflexivity to a specific techno-social field, while mental techniques such as emotional self-awareness may generalize across contexts.
That's Such a Show!: Constructing the Entertaining Spectacle in Game Live Streaming
This study investigates how specific moments in game live streaming transform into entertaining spectacles, defined as emotional climaxes that elicit intense audience reactions.
- Entertaining spectacle in game live streaming does not come from the game itself but emerges from a two-part mechanism: a trigger event that suddenly converges audience attention, which only becomes spectacle when viewers collectively notice, imitate, and amplify it through chat while the streamer engages with those reactions.
- The authors identify four types of entertaining spectacle: reversal spectacle (gameplay that deviates from a streamer's persona or viewers' baseline skill assumptions), conflict spectacle (interpersonal confrontation during play), performative spectacle (deliberate transgressions of play logic or non-game interstitial performances), and audience-driven spectacle (chat-generated memes).
- The study frames highlight moments as socially constructed within a co-performed, interactive environment, drawing on Goffman's dramaturgy, interactivity theory, incongruity humour, Collins's interaction ritual model, and Debord's concept of the spectacle.
Game Parlours or Incidental Etchings? Material Traces of Incised Boardgames in Ancient South Asian Communal Spaces
The document explores the material traces of incised boardgames in ancient South Asian communal spaces, arguing that these etchings represent more than isolated recreational marks.
- The paper argues that incised graffiti boardgames in ancient South Asian communal and sacred spaces should be read as material infrastructure reflecting centuries of continuity in form, function, and collective practice, not merely as traces of recreation.
- Incised games cluster densely: one account documents more than nine hundred boards at Vijayanagara (Hampi) across market streets and temple platforms, and the authors suggest these surfaces may have functioned as socially inclusive "game parlours."
- At the Kailasa temple in Ellora, an incomplete 8×8 Ashtapada grid, a Tablan race game, an Alquerque game, and multiple Mancala cupules coexist in one compact area despite belonging to different play traditions.
Imbalanced Pleasures? System Design and Social Rules in the Survivors-like Game Megabonk
This paper examines system design, game balance, and social rules within the context of the popular indie "survivors-like" game, Megabonk (Vedinad, 2025).
- The paper argues that Megabonk's balance choices and player norms are interdependent, and that its satisfying 'right way' to play was deliberately constructed in response to perceived shortcomings of mainstream AAA design culture.
- Its central hypothesis is that Megabonk's specific balance decisions are experienced as more fun and satisfying than those of comparable survivors-like titles.
- The methodology adapts Mark Johnson's three temporal forms of unpredictability (randomness in starting conditions, chance during play, and luck in final outcomes) to analyze three of Schreiber and Romero's seven balance categories: initial conditions, difficulty curve, and progression.
The Reinvention of Hardcore: Authenticity and Identity Among Korean "Real" Gamers
The study investigates the evolving identities of "Real gamers" in South Korea, a group characterized by heavy investment in gaming, active community participation, and a strong sense of authenticity, particularly in the post-pandemic era.
- The study is based on 32 semi-structured interviews of roughly two hours each, conducted in summer 2024 with South Korean gamers recruited through social media, and proposes "Real gamer" as a heuristic category for players with a strong authentic gamer identity marked by heavy temporal, financial, and emotional investment.
- The authors argue the traditional concept of the hardcore gamer has become too narrow for contemporary gaming culture as gaming democratizes and the symbolic centrality of hardcore players weakens.
- Participants combined pride in their expertise and dedication with a self-image as misunderstood minorities, shaped by memories of anti-game addiction discourse, South Korea's shutdown policy, and negative media portrayals.