Aerothorn on 24/11/2009 at 13:20
And now for something completely different -
Long story short, next September I must commence work on my "Division III" project. The program at my college is that, during the fourth year of school, you take a maximum of one class or "advanced learning activity" per semester, and otherwise focus entirely on some massive project. This could be writing a novel, making a film, staging a series of plays, making art, or writing a traditional dissertation.
Anyway, largely due to the success of my Narrative in Video Games course, I have been encouraged by both my peers and some professors to pursue video games in my Div III. The question is: what? I don't have to do a single topic - I could do a sort of portfolio - but I'm still fishing for ideas. For instance, one possible topic is a through examination of the gender gap in gaming (included by not limited to electronic games).
So I was wondering: if you were given a year to work on a project like this, involving video games, what would you do? What are interesting areas in the field worthy of study? What do you think is fun or necessary?
Malf on 24/11/2009 at 13:39
Had a mate who did a Masters in Social Anthropology. His dissertation was on race in games and this was around 1999 to 2000. I think there's a lot of potential in the area, especially as there have been massive advancements in the intervening years.
But I think the major one that needs some serious looking at is addiction in games. This regularly gets raised by John Walker over on RPS, and there's been little but psuedo-science research into it yet.
However, it is a huge subject, and I would understand anyone shying away from it.
Edit: Huh, you're just up the road from me too. I'm in Lewisham.
Thirith on 24/11/2009 at 13:40
I've always been interested in games and narrative and how the latter interacts (and sometimes clashes) with gameplay. One thing that I personally would be interested in pursuing is notions of agency in games - how game narratives and narration play (no pun intended) with player agency and the limits of such agency. (I think CoD4 does some surprisingly interesting things with this.) No idea whether this would interest you much or whether you've already done it to death.
Aerothorn on 24/11/2009 at 14:39
That's a primary interest of mine, Thirith - unfortunately, I kind of blew my load on my self-designed Narrative in Video Games course, where I ended up a bit over 80 pages, 65 of which were in a two-part overview paper, and 40 pages of THAT were on the conflicts of narrative and gameplay. So while that would be my #1 choice, I'd have to find some "new" way of doing it, which would be pretty difficult.
(BTW, I finally finished editing my second paper on the subject - sort of - anyway, the current revision is available to download - I can post a link if anyone wants it).
As far as addiction in games goes, I think it's a very interesting subject but fear that it would end up being more about addiction than gaming, if that makes sense, and while I've taken three psychology courses it's not my primary area of expertise/area of interest.
PigLick on 24/11/2009 at 14:44
I would research violent video games and the effect it has on children
Koki on 24/11/2009 at 14:50
"Why twelve years after the release of Total Annihilation units in Starcraft 2 still don't fire on the move and what it means for the industry as a whole"
addink on 24/11/2009 at 15:32
"Casual gamers v. Hardcore gamers - What can be done to please both demographics with one product?"
or
"How to avoid dumbing down gameplay."
Apart from using non-gameplay rewards (cutscenes, narrative, atmosphere) to engage the player, there are various ways of setting up games to be fun (challenging, not boring) for all level of gamers.
Difficulty settings can be used, but there's also the option to setup a number of harder side quests for the hardcore players and require only the easier main quest to be dealt with to finish the game/level/mission.
Reward schemes, leader boards, toggleable ingame hints, ..
What works, how and when; and for whom?
ANTSHODAN on 24/11/2009 at 15:35
If your institution gives you access to JSTOR, there are a few videogame articles on there. Someone posted one on in the morrowind forum recently about Gender identities - (
http://ttlg.com/forums/showthread.php?t=129327) link. Obviously you wouldn't be wanting to do the same as other folks have written, but it might be worth taking a look for some general ideas about direction. :thumb:
Edit: Actually it wasn't JSTOR, it was (
http://online.sagepub.com/) http://online.sagepub.com/. Same damn thing.
Aerothorn on 24/11/2009 at 18:01
Yeah, thankfully I have access to the online journal respositories, and have drawn on them a little for video games, though previously have used mostly books. There is a rising "game studies" area, but outside of the UK it's usually an extension of other fields (case in point, gender studies).
Article looks interesting, though - I'll definitely give it a read.
june gloom on 24/11/2009 at 18:01
"Emergence of tribal patterns in gamer culture: their causes, their customs, and their wars"
Would basically be an attempt to explain why folks at NMA and RPGCodex are dicks.
