Homo Ludens
Publishes academic articles and reports on video games, in Polish and English. Topics include game psychology, player aggression and addiction, the uncanny valley, game spaces, game law and Polish RPG fandom.
Connections
Each row is a game or company named alongside Homo Ludens, each column a document, oldest first. A mark means that document names it. Select a row to see those documents.
Documents
Co Jest Źródłem Satysfakcji Gracza? O Kluczowej Roli Wymiany Autystycznej w Grach Komputerowych
Łukasz Winnicki's article, published in Homo Ludens in 2019, argues that satisfaction in video games arises from what he terms "autistic exchange," a concept adapted from Ludwig von Mises in which an individual exchanges effort or time with their environment rather than with other people.
- Winnicki's 2019 article in Homo Ludens argues that satisfaction in video games stems from 'autistic exchange,' an indirect exchange of effort or time with the environment rather than with other people, adapted from Ludwig von Mises and tested against George Homans' five sociological exchange propositions, all of which the author concludes apply to gaming.
- The study's basis is an online survey of 669 respondents, predominantly young men who play computer role-playing games, in which 56.6% valued the gameplay process itself as rewarding and 33.2% cited reward-driven motivation.
- Roughly 70.7% of players reported anger after in-game setbacks, which often found aggressive outlets, yet about 66.2% felt better afterward, a pattern the author uses to support the Homans propositions.
Glitch as the Representation of the Uncanny in Oxenfree
Agata Waszkiewicz's article examines how the audiovisual glitch functions as a representation of the uncanny in Oxenfree (2016), a narrative-driven independent game by Night School Studio that blends Gothic mystery with coming-of-age storytelling.
- Waszkiewicz argues that the Gothic finds a natural home in video games because players are both active participants and passive recipients of a predetermined story, and that glitch is a key device for expressing the uncanny in Oxenfree (2016), developed by Night School Studio.
- In Oxenfree, glitches act as a visual marker of the rift between the living and the spectral world, distorting the image to disorient players and mirror the characters' unease.
- The article distinguishes spontaneous glitches (code errors) from deliberately designed 'glitch-alike' effects, and classifies Oxenfree's glitches as the latter.
From Symbolism to Realism: Physical and Imaginary Video Game Spaces in Historical Aspects
This study examines how the physical and imaginary spaces of video games have developed from early symbolic representations toward increasingly realistic and detailed worlds.
- The study argues that video game spaces evolved from abstract, symbolic settings in early titles like Spacewar!, Space Invaders, and Asteroids toward increasingly realistic, continuous, and detailed worlds, a shift tied to technological advancement.
- The analysis frames early game spaces as simplified 'allegories of space' in the sense described by Espen Aarseth, relying heavily on player imagination to fill in what the graphics did not show.
- Key milestones in the trajectory include the flip-screen technique in Adventure and Gravitar, the side-scrolling and off-screen virtual space introduced by Defender (1980/1981), the 2D era of Super Mario Bros. (1985) and Contra (1988), the pseudo-3D of Wolfenstein and Doom, and the true 3D turn of Super Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64.
Cywilnoprawna Problematyka Wykorzystania Gry Komputerowej Jako Narzędzia Promocji: In-Game Advertising Oraz Advergaming
This academic study, published in 2019 in the Polish journal Homo Ludens by Kamil Szpyt, examines the civil-law dimensions of using computer games as promotional vehicles, with particular attention to in-game advertising, including product placement, and advergaming.
- The paper's central thesis is that existing Polish civil law is largely adequate to govern in-game advertising and advergaming, so game-specific legislation is unnecessary, though courts and scholars must interpret those rules in light of the medium's distinctive characteristics.
- The Audiovisual Media Services Act and the Press Law do not apply to games, because games lack the separate whole, simultaneous reception, and periodicity these statutes require, while most other advertising regulations, such as the Act on Counteracting Alcoholism, do apply.
- Legal uncertainty persists for brand extensions into virtual goods and loot boxes, which had not yet been classified as gambling under Polish law as of the study's 2019 publication.
Two Faces of Flow: Preliminary Results From a Game Addiction Study
Preliminary research on game addiction examines whether the psychological experience of flow in gaming is uniform or divided into distinct components with different implications for player well-being.
- The study distinguishes hedonic flow (play pursued for pleasure) from eudaimonic flow (play used as escapism), arguing that the two relate differently to addiction.
- Hedonic flow remains the dominant gaming experience across players, while eudaimonic flow is markedly elevated among addicted players, suggesting it functions as a compensatory strategy rather than simple enjoyment.
- Among 111 fully completed surveys of non-clinical participants, addicted players averaged 3.21 on in-game eudaimonic flow versus 2.55 for less addicted players, alongside lower life satisfaction.
Uncanny Valley in Video Games: An Overview
Dawid Ratajczyk's review examines the uncanny valley hypothesis, originally proposed by Masahiro Mori in 1970, and its application to video game characters.
- The uncanny valley hypothesis, first proposed by Masahiro Mori in 1970, holds that increasingly realistic but imperfect human characters can provoke eeriness rather than engagement, and rising rendering power alone may not resolve this.
- Empirical studies generally support a non-monotonic relationship between realism and likability, with some identifying multiple uncanny dips rather than a single one.
- The eyes and facial regions appear to be the most important triggers, while realism in inanimate environments does not seem to provoke the effect.
Aggressive Worlds: Aggression, Self-Esteem and MMORPG Gamer Playstyles
This study examines the relationship between self-esteem, aggression, and playstyle preferences among massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) players, situating the inquiry within Polish debates over video game violence and industry self-regulation.
- Lower self-esteem is linked to higher hostility, anger, and overall aggression among MMORPG players, based on an online survey of 192 male players conducted in 2011.
- The expansive-conflict or "griefing" playstyle showed the strongest association with aggression, yet only 2.6% of respondents preferred it.
- Players with high general aggression most often chose socializing-oriented play, while those with low aggression most often selected role-playing.
Ksenofobiczna Gra w Japonię: Przykład Ekstremalny Międzykulturowej Narracji Niedbałej
This Polish-language article by Arkadiusz Jabłoński, published in Homo Ludens in 2019, argues that certain popular accounts of Japan constitute what the author calls "careless narratives" (narracje niedbałe), a parasitic subgenre that presents imaginative, non-verifiable interpretations as expert knowledge.
- Jabłoński's 2019 Homo Ludens article argues that popular Polish accounts of Japan can be 'careless narratives' that present imaginative, unverifiable interpretations as expert knowledge, using Eric Berne's Parent-Adult-Child model to explain how such texts assert predetermined theses.
- The central case study is Karolina Bednarz's book 'Kwiaty w pudełku' (Flowers in a Box), which the author reads as claiming that women in Japan are universally oppressed, a generalization he judges unsupported.
- The critique identifies recurring flaws: selective or distorted facts, omission of male-side social pressures, extending individual examples to an entire society, and misleading translations of Japanese idioms.
Perma-dying Worlds and the Limit of Eternal Return in Digital Games
This article examines how certain digital and tabletop games limit the player's ability to return after death, in contrast to the more common mechanics of save-and-reload that enable endless resurrection and repetition.
- Permadeath and permapermadeath mechanics turn repetition from a route to mastery into a source of emotional weight, because choices become permanent and the player's control over outcomes diminishes.
- The article draws on Nietzsche's eternal return, Freud's repetition-compulsion, and Jesper Juul's account of failure to frame why limiting return after death changes the meaning of play.
- This War of Mine offers no saving within a playthrough, so early choices remain memorable even though the game can be replayed.
OneBookShelf Community Content Programs and the Polish RPG Fandom
Marek Golonka's article asks why Polish authors are nearly absent from OneBookShelf community content programs, such as Dungeon Masters Guild, which let fans publish supplements for tabletop RPGs without a formal publisher license.
- As of December 2018, only three Polish contributors were active in OneBookShelf community content programs such as Dungeon Masters Guild, and only one, Jan Sielicki, had published multiple titles.
- The paper's central argument is that the long absence of professionally published RPGs in Poland, combined with a persistently small commercial market, intensified fan prosumption while limiting fans' chances to acquire skills for professional or semi-professional publishing.
- Several factors are cited for weak Polish participation: Dungeons & Dragons holds a weaker position in Poland than in the English-speaking market, its first successful Polish release came late, and the community prefers printed books and local publishers are reluctant to release PDFs.
Inny świat, inny twórca. AnotherWorld Érica Chahiego jako przypowieść o Twarzy
This article reads Éric Chahi's 1991 video game Another World as a self-reflective artistic statement that engages with Emmanuel Lévinas's philosophy of dialogue, particularly his concepts of separation, atheism, and the Face.
- The article reads Éric Chahi's 1991 game Another World as a self-reflective artistic statement engaging Emmanuel Lévinas's philosophy of dialogue, especially the concepts of separation, atheism, and the Face, rather than as mere entertainment.
- Another World dramatizes the tension between isolation and openness to the Other, with programming functioning both as a means of withdrawal and as a route toward encounter.
- Chahi is framed as a 'digital artisan' working in late-1980s and early-1990s French game development, a period when the cult of the individual author was losing ground.
Creation of the Fictional World in The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
CD Projekt Red's The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is examined as a deliberately constructed, self-contained fictional world rather than a mere backdrop for gameplay.
- The Witcher 3's world was built almost entirely from scratch by CD Projekt Red, since Andrzej Sapkowski's source books offer sparse spatial detail, and no part of the environment is auto-generated.
- The game is presented as an independent fictional ontological construct, with its topography, architecture, human and non-human activity, and location information working together to form a self-contained world rather than a mere gameplay backdrop.
- The invented setting is grounded in real-world geography and climate: Velen evokes Central Europe, Skellige recalls Scandinavia, and Toussaint resembles Southern France.
Reports about Homo Ludens
5 documents by other writers name Homo Ludens in the title or summary.
Avatar and Real Me: Identity Anxiety of Chinese Mobile Otome Game Players: A Case Study of Papergames
This paper examines identity anxiety among Chinese players of free-to-play mobile otome games, using Papergames' Love and Producer (2017) and Love and Deepspace (2024) as case studies.
- The paper argues that existing otome game scholarship, which treats avatars as stable and players as closely identifying with them, fails to explain mobile players, who often reject or feel unease toward their avatar's presence in the two-dimensional game world.
- Within free-to-play otome games, the paper proposes that three identities, the player, the believer, and the lover, come into conflict, and it distinguishes mobile otome games from buy-to-play otome visual novels in how player identity is constructed.
- The study uses semi-structured interviews with thematic analysis organized around the acquisition, retention, and monetization model, supplemented by game narrative and mechanics and official Sina Weibo posts from the developers; the interview sample size is not specified in the extended abstract.
Playing A|part Together in Animal Crossing: New Horizons During the COVID-19 Pandemic
This study examines how Animal Crossing: New Horizons functioned as a social space for players during the COVID-19 lockdowns of 2020.
- The study combines a collective autoethnography by eleven Quebec-based researchers with a computer-assisted analysis of 47,643 English-language, pandemic-related tweets posted between March and June 2020 about Animal Crossing: New Horizons.
- Players framed the game primarily as a place to maintain friendships, with "friend" and "hang" at the center of the main lexical network of pandemic-related tweets.
- A subset of 16,626 "date"-related tweets showed the game was frequently used for virtual dates, though many were sarcastic or involved non-player characters rather than genuine romantic partners.
Brazil Games Industry Report 2022
Brazil's games industry has grown rapidly and is maturing, though it remains highly concentrated and constrained by funding, tax, and talent problems.
- Brazil is the 12th largest games market globally and the leader in Latin America, generating approximately USD 2.3 billion in 2021.
- The industry has experienced rapid expansion, with a 102% increase in active studios since 2018 and a 336% revenue increase in USD since 2015.
- The sector is shifting toward original intellectual property, with 93% of companies now focusing on proprietary IP rather than a pure service-provider model.
Caillois's Man, Play, and Games: An Appreciation and Evaluation
Thomas Henricks's appreciation of Roger Caillois's Man, Play, and Games (1958) revisits a book best known for its typology of play and its response to Johan Huizinga's Homo Ludens, while drawing attention to its less examined concern with the corruption of play in modern society.
- Caillois argues that Huizinga wrongly equated play with the sacred: play is defined by free, self-controlled engagement, whereas ritual imposes obligation and submission to a higher force.
- Caillois proposes a fourfold typology of play, agôn (competition), alea (chance), mimicry (simulation), and ilinx (vertigo), arranged on a continuum between improvisational paidia and rule-bound ludus, a distinction that remains foundational in game studies.
- Caillois contends that unchecked play impulses can degenerate into obsession, greed, or self-delusion, and treats the decline of fair play in a profit-driven, cynical society as a central concern.
Describing Games: An Interaction-Centric Structural Framework
Björk and Holopainen's "Describing Games: An Interaction-Centric Structural Framework" proposes a vocabulary for describing games that serves as a bridge between abstract game theory and the practical needs of game designers.
- The framework's core contribution is a shared terminology for describing game structure and player interaction, rather than empirical findings.
- Björk and Holopainen argue that existing models from game theory and play theory are either too abstract to guide design or too narrow to apply broadly, and position their interaction-centric structure as a complement to game design patterns.
- The framework organizes game components into four categories: holistic, bounding, temporal, and objective, with each core concept situated in one of them.