Eludamos: Journal for Computer Game Culture
Open-access peer-reviewed journal on computer game culture, published since 2007 (now via Septentrio Academic Publishing).
Documents
Prolonging the Magic: The Political Economy of the 7th Generation Console Game
Nieborg's paper examines the seventh-generation Triple-A console game as a commodity produced within a capital-intensive, hit-driven, franchise-based industry.
- The paper's central thesis is that proprietary hardware, standardized engines, and platform governance push Triple-A console games toward repeating proven forms, a process it calls "formatting," drawing on Bill Ryan's concept.
- Triple-A console games are characterized as commodities produced in a capital-intensive, hit-driven, franchise-based industry, with the paper describing them as "unfinished commodities" shaped as much by market logic as by ludic design.
- Activision's Call of Duty is presented as the paradigm of franchise-based commodification, using annualized sequels and "branched serialization" such as paid map-pack DLC to offset losses from resale and piracy; Modern Warfare 2 is cited as earning over $550 million in five days and selling 20 million units.
"Tap, Tap, Flap, Flap." Ludic Seriality, Digitality, and the Finger
Heilmann's essay "Tap, Tap, Flap, Flap" uses Flappy Bird (2013–2014) as a paradigmatic case to argue that seriality, the structure of repeated, countable actions, is the fundamental organizing principle of play in videogames.
- Heilmann's essay argues that seriality, the structure of repeated, countable actions, is the fundamental organizing principle of play in videogames, using Flappy Bird (2013–2014) as its paradigmatic case.
- The author distinguishes 'strongly serialized' games such as Flappy Bird and Tetris, built on sustained repetition, from 'weakly serialized' games such as Heavy Rain and Flight Simulator X.
- The essay concludes that arcade-era design established serial play as the dominant model of the videogame medium.
From NES-4021 to moSMB3.wmv: Speedrunning the Serial Interface
Patrick LeMieux's article examines the serial interface of the Nintendo Entertainment System controller as a foundation for understanding speedrunning and tool-assisted speedrunning.
- The NES-4021 serial shift register converts button presses into a timed stream of roughly 108 microseconds of electrical pulses every sixtieth of a second, a hidden layer of structure that tool-assisted play exposes and manipulates.
- Morimoto's 2003 Super Mario Bros. 3 speedrun video, moSMB3.wmv, spread virally through torrents and communities, and early viewers framed his skill in racialized 'alien' terms, which the author reads as evidence that race functioned as a mode of interface.
- The run was later revealed to be produced in the Famtasia emulator through frame-by-frame input sequences and save-state rerecording, reportedly exceeding 40,000 iterations over roughly two years.
Digital Seriality: On the Serial Aesthetics and Practice of Digital Games
Digital Seriality argues that seriality, the logic of repetition, variation, and continuation, is a central yet neglected dimension of digital games.
- Seriality (repetition, variation, and continuation) is argued to be a central but neglected dimension of digital games, spanning franchises, level structures, transmedia narratives, and hardware generations.
- The authors propose a three-level framework of intra-ludic, inter-ludic, and para-ludic seriality, plus analytical approaches of 'serial interfacing' and 'collective serialization.'
- Digital seriality is framed as both a continuation of modern media history and a partial rupture from it, with digitization and convergence enabling non-linear consumption such as binge play and on-demand access.
On the Validity of Metacritic in Assessing Game Value
Metacritic, the review aggregator that converts critics' assessments into a single metascore, is widely treated in the games industry as a proxy for commercial success.
- Metacritic scores correlate positively with sales in a random sample of 196 Xbox 360 and PS3 Action, RPG, and FPS titles, with r = .55 on raw figures and r = .72 after log transformation (both p < .005).
- Sales rise sharply once a game's metascore exceeds roughly 80, though the observational design shows association rather than causation.
- The study addresses a gap in the literature, as no prior broad empirical study had tested the score-sales relationship across a sizable sample of commercial titles.
God of War: A Narrative Analysis
Robert Cassar's 2013 Eludamos analysis examines the God of War trilogy (GOW1 through GOW3) through a close-reading, structuralist lens, with the author playing the games on PlayStation 3 over six weeks.
- Robert Cassar's 2013 Eludamos analysis of the God of War trilogy (GOW1–GOW3), based on six weeks of PlayStation 3 play, argues that the series' narrative is largely fixed by developers and only loosely tied to gameplay.
- Cassar finds that each installment and the trilogy as a whole follow a three-act structure mapped against Christopher Vogler's twelve-stage Hero's Journey, a pattern recurring at the level, title, and series scales.
- The analysis treats quick-time events as tests of skill and reflex rather than narrative drivers, and finds that player choices rarely shape the story outside boss encounters.
Making Sense of Play in Video Games: Ludus, Paidia, and Possibility Spaces
The document, titled "Making Sense of Play in Video Games: Ludus, Paidia, and Possibility Spaces," examines how video game play is best understood through Roger Caillois's categories of paidia (free, improvisational play) and ludus (rule-bound, goal-oriented play).
- Video game play is best understood as a continuum between Caillois's paidia (free, improvisational play) and ludus (rule-bound, goal-oriented play), not as fixed genres or separate types of play.
- Games constantly shift along the paidia-ludus continuum, driven by manipulation rules, procedural rhetoric, metagaming, and the gradual codification of implicit rules by players and communities.
- The tension between order-imposing and disruptive forces produces what Will Wright called a "possibility space," where play's transformative power resides.
The Gendered Identity of Women in the Games Industry
Prescott and Bogg's 2013 study examines how women working in the games industry understand their gender identity at work.
- Women made up only about 4 percent of the UK games industry workforce in 2009, and the authors frame the industry as having a masculine culture that excludes or deters women.
- In a survey of 454 women in the UK and US games industry, 82 percent reported low gender identification at work, a pattern consistent with the wider information and communication technology sector.
- Contrary to earlier literature suggesting a masculine self-concept, 93 percent of respondents showed a high androgynous gender role identity, scoring strongly on both masculine and feminine scales.
Played and Designed Sociality in a Massive Multiplayer Online Game
Eklund and Johansson's study examines temporary "pickup groups" (PUGs) in World of Warcraft to explore the interplay between designed sociality, the social architecture built into the game, and played sociality, the ways players actually use and reshape that architecture.
- The 2009 introduction of the Dungeon Finder tool in World of Warcraft replaced local chat-based group-finding with cross-realm automatic matching by role, a shift the authors treat as a fundamental change in the conditions for temporary collaboration.
- Based on thirty recorded dungeon runs, a six-player focus group, and forum analysis, the study finds minimal sociable interaction in pickup groups, with communication dominated by instrumental, strategic exchanges while greetings and jokes are rare.
- Cross-server, temporary grouping lets players leave freely without the reputational consequences that govern other online games, and the authors attribute the decline in sociability to the Dungeon Finder, shorter sessions, and weakened guild-based norms.
Skin Games: Fragrant Play, Scented Media and the Stench of Digital Games
Christopher Niedenthal's 2012 study "Skin Games: Fragrant Play, Scented Media and the Stench of Digital Games" argues that smell is an underexplored dimension of play design, one with strong associative and emotional power but significant technical, cultural, and perceptual obstacles.
- Christopher Niedenthal's 2012 study argues that smell is an underexplored dimension of play design, with strong associative and emotional power but significant technical, cultural, and perceptual obstacles.
- Scent is hard to digitize and standardize because olfaction lacks the universal notation systems and mature simulation technologies that exist for sight and sound.
- Historical attempts to bring scent into media, including Smell-O-Vision, AromaRama, iSmell, Kojima's scented floppy disk, and scratch-and-sniff cards in Leather Goddesses of Phobos and Leisure Suit Larry 7, are largely characterized as failures due to distribution, synchronization, residue, and cultural dismissal of smell.
Designscape: A Suggested Game Design Prototyping Process Tool
Manker's "Designscape" paper argues that prototyping in computer game design is a central but under-studied activity, functioning less as a technical exercise than as a means of internal communication and negotiation.
- Prototyping in computer game design is framed as a communication and negotiation activity rather than a purely technical exercise, through which teams turn points of controversy into shared consensus and restore trust in contested design elements.
- Prototypes increasingly replace the traditional game design document as the primary vehicle for aligning a team's understanding of a game.
- The findings draw on interviews with 27 practitioners from AAA studios, independent studios, and student groups in Sweden and Poland, but rely on designers' recollections rather than direct observation of teams at work.
Urban Games to Design the Augmented City
This 2012 Eludamos article argues that urban games can reshape how people experience cities and proposes that designers can draw on playful, behavioural methods of urban exploration to build augmented-city experiences.
- The report proposes two macro-categories for game-augmented cities: the "city as pop-up game," a limited, fully perceivable space such as an urban chess board, and the "city as big playground," a larger environment requiring navigation tools, exemplified by the Urban Iditarod.
- The central thesis is that understanding how people move through and attend to urban space can inform the design of games that integrate into the city fabric.
- The conclusions identify spatial dislocation, embodied play, and serendipitous exploration, including getting lost, as core design elements for integrating games into cities.