gamevironments
Research17 reports · 57 articles
Open-access journal from the University of Bremen on video games, religion and culture, with articles, interviews and research reports.
Documents
Article
Spirits in the Aether: Digital Ghosts in Final Fantasy XIV
"Spirits in the Aether: Digital Ghosts in Final Fantasy XIV" argues that avatars in massively multiplayer online role-playing games continue a long tradition of technological ghost rhetoric.
- The report argues that avatars in MMORPGs continue a long tradition of technological ghost rhetoric, occupying liminal spaces between server, game world, and player body much as ghosts hover between planes of existence.
- Using multimodal semiotic discourse analysis of Final Fantasy XIV (2013), the authors contend that ghostly themes operate across narrative, visuals, and gameplay mechanics, making them multimodal rather than merely literary.
- The analysis is based on hundreds of hours of expert play and scene-level review by novice researchers, focusing on the game's opening, The Calamity narrative, and aetheric and maritime metaphors linked to historical radio and internet rhetoric.
gamevironmentsJan 2015
Whitepaper26 pages
The WoW Factor: A Virtual Ethnographic Study of Sacred Things and Rituals in World of Warcraft
Sonja Sapach's 2015 study examines sacred objects and ritualized behavior in World of Warcraft through a complete participant observation-style virtual ethnography.
- Sacred objects and rituals in World of Warcraft arise socially from players rather than being designed in by developers, so they can only be studied by a researcher embedded within the game culture who balances insider access with outsider analytical detachment.
- The study uses Durkheim's theory of the sacred and profane, Huizinga's magic circle, and Gold's typology of participant observer roles as its theoretical framework, treating the game world as a multi-sited field shaped by mechanics and technology.
- The fieldwork comprised 407 hours of participant observation conducted between August and December 2012, generating 1,842 screenshots and 364 minutes of video that were coded for sacred objects and ritualized group behavior.
gamevironmentsJan 2015