Unit 6 - Critical Approaches

 Player/Audience:

• Audience profiling

Qualitative audience research:

• interviews
• forums
• to get detailed answers
• pod casts
• articles
• trends 

Quantitative audience research:

• statistics
• questionnaires
• forums
• polls

Demographics:

• Male
• middle aged

Psycho-graphics:

The study and classification of people according to their attitudes, aspirations, and other psychological criteria, especially in market research.

Bartle's taxonomy of player types: (deck of cards)

• Achievers(want to reach all the goals in a game and like challenges) = Diamonds
• Sensations, Challenge(1), Submission
• Dark souls, Portal, Beat saber,  

• Explorers (they want to know the expansiveness of the game and like to discover) = Spades
• Fantasy, Narrative, Discovery(1), Submission, Sensations
• Skyrim, Fallout, Outer worlds, 

• Socialises(feeling of fellowship) = Hearts
• Expression, Fellowship(1), Submission
• Vr chat, World of Warcraft, tabletop simulator, Garry's Mod

• Killers(destroying and likes to impose themselves on others) = clubs
• Challenge, submission(1), Fellowship
• Call of duty, Fortnite, league of legends

Le Blanc taxonomy of pleasures:

1. Sensations (music, in game sounds, aesthetics)
2. Fantasy (the fictional world)
3. Narrative (story unfolding)
4. Challenge (solving a puzzle)
5. Fellowship (community)
6. Discovery (secret features)
7. Expression (create and build)
8. Submission (escape the real world)

S.E.S (Socio-economic status):

Low S.E.S = sport&console

High S.E.S = ____ & PC

Low S.E.S = low academic achievement, poverty, poor health

Inequities are like the characteristics/differences that people have depending on there S.E.S

Girls are rejected as being identified as gamers

Boys have egos, aggression and like over sexualised content

half of the gaming population are woman 

Corporate learning gamer:

Schools: education and technology

games create an engaging and motivational environment

Big tech firms:

10 years ago 20% of world population had access to the internet (limited access)

Now 50% has limited access

Misinformation



People of low S.E.S will most likely be consumers and will mostly stay towards the easy end of the "How to play spectrum" for example they would only go up to parameter based construction, this is because stereo-typically  people with low S.E.S will have bad and low paid jobs and will probably work a lot, therefore they will probably not have the time or effort to dive further into games. furthermore people with low S.E.S will most likely be console gamers, with people who play on console they won't be able to develop mods or to be a creator because they wold need a PC and would probably not have enough money for one.

However, when it comes to people with high S.E.S they will probably live in better houses, and will probably live in bigger towns or cities, they will probably have a better job and make more money this means they will have more time to dive deeper into games or have the time and money to become a creator, this is why big cities like Cambridge house a lot of major developers such as Jagex(https://www.jagex.com/en-GB/) and Frontier developments(https://www.frontier.co.uk/) because the people that live in Cambridge have a high S.E.S. most of  the people who have a high S.E.S will most likely be all 3(creators, synthesizers and consumers) and have the ability to be all across the "how to play spectrum form easy to hard because of their S.E.S.

Minecraft:
With minecraft you can be a consumer where you just run around and play with your friends, you could build new things so as a consumer you would only go up to parameter based construction, however you can also be a synthesizer and create mods for the game for other people to enjoy.

Skyrim, Minecraft, Farcry 3 map editor, Staccups

Cultural Competence:

• thoughts
• comms
• actions
• customs
• beliefs
• values
• ethnicity
• social group
• representation

We must value diversity

We must be able to create cultural assessments

We need to think about what happens when two cultures interact

We need to have institutionalised culture knowledge

We must be able to adapt to cultures

We must be aware of the relationship with other cultures

Fan Culture:
This is where it will affect the lifestyle of the player.

What you can buy?

• Merch
• collectables (pop figures)

Fan cultures will sometimes have a name, such as a group they can be identified as. they will also have a place in where they can chat such as sub redits

For example the star strek or star wars fan groups

Game Responses:

Negotiated responses:

Own values and opinions are applied to that game, an example of this is where a game story is affected by the player. However the story can also affect the player. It's a 2 way street. An example of this is in fallout 4 where you can choose which faction you want to go with and this affect the story, for example you could go with the synths which is kind of evil but leaded by your dying son so you would support him, or go against him as the brotherhood of steel.

Preferred response:

What the player will take from the game, e.g. an ideal world and certain desires. "i would prefer..."

Oppostitonal response:
This is where you oppose something in a game, something that might be inappropriate or offensive. e.g. No Russian COD Modern Warfare 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YoQVCxVgKxo


Participatory:
Encourage people to level up. clear path, limited tools and awareness of next level. e.g. Diablo and progressing through quests to get further through the story and to level your character.


Passive Player:

• Accepting opinions
• Paying little attention
• Watching a game 

Active Player:

• Forming opinions
• Full engagement
• Playing the game

Audience theory:

War of the worlds 1938 Orson Wells, mass media broadcast. Aliens have landed at a location and are murdering humans.

This is known as the hypodermic needle model theory (magic bullet), this injects thoughts. Passive or active they have the same response.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nwk-C_mh13U Acrhage unchained trailer.

Semiotics:

Shirt, haircut, tattoos, dress, (mise en scene). you decode the symbols. Every cultural activity produces a blip on the Richter scale.

in this image you can see the wasteland spanding outwards and it makes you think that some serious destruction has taken place which is shown through all of the dead trees and run down buildings, the main character stands out because his clothing seems new and clean which shows that he may have been sheltered from the destruction.

Violence theory:

"behaviour involving physical force intended to hurt, damage, or kill someone or something."

Age rating:

18 - 

16 -

12 - 

7 - 

3 - 

"Playing violent games will increase aggressive behaviour"

Psychological arousal and aggressive thoughts and feelings decreases pro-social behaviour.

video games games violence is unclear because there isn't enough research into it.

Social learning Theory:

Asummes the mind can not differentiate the difference between physical and T.I.A.G(this is a game)

all media which have posted about massacres which have been blamed on video games have never included sources of data.

However aggression and violence in TV has been proven to cause violence.

Catharsis Hypothesis:

Natural biological drive which requires release (desires to mate) causes prime aggression

displaced through activities such as sport and exercise.

aggression decreases when gaming over time.  

Mood management theory:

choose media to fit current mood. the goal is to improve mood.

it's proven that regretful people choose violent media.

Crime doesn't ever correlate to crime.

https://oxfordre.com/criminology/abstract/10.1093/acrefore/9780190264079.001.0001/acrefore-9780190264079-e-51

Slender man stabbing cases:
https://www.newsweek.com/2014/08/22/girls-who-tried-kill-slender-man-264218.html

Sex in gaming:

Sexually objectified characters. E.G. Lara croft

Arousal/Hedonic valence model theory.

Human exposure to the character leads to aggression