Computer Games as a Sociocultural Phenomenon: Games Without Frontiers War Without Tears

Front Matter....Pages i-xix
Front Matter....Pages 1-1
The Aesthetic Vocabulary of Video Games....Pages 3-11
Can Games Get Real? A Closer Look at ‘Documentary’ Digital Games....Pages 12-21
Emotional Design of Computer Games and Fiction Films....Pages 22-31
‘Applied Game Theory’: Innovation, Diversity, Experimentation in Contemporary Game Design....Pages 32-44
Front Matter....Pages 45-45
There and Back Again: Reuse, Signifiers and Consistency in Created Game Spaces....Pages 47-55
Another Bricolage in the Wall: Deleuze and Teenage Alienation....Pages 56-65
Front Matter....Pages 67-67
Programming Violence: Language and the Making of Interactive Media....Pages 69-77
Impotence and Agency: Computer Games as a Post-9/11 Battlefield....Pages 78-86
S(t)imulating War: From Early Films to Military Games....Pages 87-96
Front Matter....Pages 97-97
Player in Fabula: Ethics of Interaction as Semiotic Negotiation Between Authorship and Readership....Pages 99-107
‘Moral Management’: Dealing with Moral Concerns to Maintain Enjoyment of Violent Video Games....Pages 108-118
Beyond Good and Evil: The Inhuman Ethics of Redemption and Bloodlines....Pages 119-128
Front Matter....Pages 129-129
Preconscious Apocalypse: The Failure of Capitalism in Computer Games....Pages 131-139
Borders and Bodies in City of Heroes: (Re)imaging American Identity Post 9/11....Pages 140-149
Anti-PC Games: Exploring Articulations of the Politically Incorrect in GTA San Andreas....Pages 150-161
Strip — Shift — Impose — Recycle — Overload — Spill — Breakout — Abuse. Artists’ (Mis-)Appropriations of Shooter Games....Pages 162-172
Front Matter....Pages 173-173
Presence-Play: The Hauntology of the Computer Game....Pages 175-185
Negotiating Online Computer Games in East Asia: Manufacturing Asian MMORPGs and Marketing ‘Asianness’....Pages 186-196
Teenage Girls ‘Play House’: The Cyber-drama of The Sims....Pages 197-206
Back Matter....Pages 207-229