Players Unleashed

A compelling examination of the the practice and implications of modding as they apply to the bestelling computer game The Sims.

Die Dissertation Role Playing Materials untersucht die materielle Seite von Larp, Mixed Reality und Pen'n'Paper Rollenspielen. Wie kooperieren Gewandung, Virtuelle-Realität-Brille, oder ein Bleistift mit Erzählung und Spielregeln? Neben Antworten auf diese Frage versucht das Buch das Verständnis von Rollenspiel als eine Handlung zu erweitern, die nicht nur von Menschen geprägt wird. Role Playing Materials examines how larp, mixed and tabletop role-playing games work. Costumes, computers, pen and paper are not passive elements. Materials change and are changed during role-playing game sessions, because they work together with narrative and ludic elements. If we think about materials as social elements, how do they make role-playing games work? To answer this question, Role Playing Materials draws on ethnographic fieldwork among role-playing communities in Germany. The analysis draws upon the fields of game studies, and science, technology and society studies.

The printed companion for Knutpunkt 2018, the yearly conference on Nordic larp that takes place in Sweden this year. It includes twenty selected essays on the theory and practice of larp design; including designer and organiser experiences, practical tips and tricks for designers as well as players, theoretical contributions, and debate articles.

This book is an overview of the ongoing revolution in tabletop gaming design and culture, which exploded to unprecedented levels of vitality in the 21st century, leading to new ways of creating, marketing, and experiencing a game. Designers have become superstars, publishers have improved quality control, and the community of players is expanding. Most importantly, new and old players have started engaging with the games in a more meaningful way. The book explores the reasons for these changes. It describes how games have begun to keep players engaged until the end. It analyzes the ways in which traditional mechanics have been reimagined to give them more variety and complexity, and reviews the unprecedented mechanics found and perfected. Very interesting is the exploration of how games have performed novel tasks such as reducing conflict, fostering cooperation, creating aesthetic experiences, and telling stories. The book is aimed at scholars, dedicated and aspiring fans, and game designers who want to expand their toolbox with the most up-to-date innovations in the profession.

All five novels of the Continue Online series are included in this ebook boxed set. Follow Grant Legate’s trials and tribulations through: Memories, Made, Realities, Crash, Together. Memories: A man broken by despair and depression, Grant Legate finds himself in a once-in-a-lifetime situation after receiving an Ultimate Edition copy of Continue Online. All he wishes for is a distraction from the thoughts plaguing his waking hours. He dives in headfirst, unknowing of the AIs intentions. They offer him the chance to play as one of their own, a NPC deserving of a proper send off. What he discovers during the journey shakes Grant to his very core. Made: The start of a new adventure No longer playing as a Local from the world of Continue Online, Grant Legate’s adventure can begin. The Voices offer him a unique title along with a test and reward. To start—he'll have to survive underground horrors, old girlfriends, become a warrior. To win—he must become an imp familiar and kill another player, one with a dozen tricks up his sleeve. Realities: Exploring a new world Worried for his sanity after poor in-game choices, Grant Legate’s sister, Liz, blocks access to Continue Online. With no way around the restriction, he ventures into a new world—a VRMMO game based in space—called Advance Online. There he must help his companion AI, Hal Pal, overcome an identity crisis, race to the center of the universe to bring back his true love, and figure out where he stands on the scariest implication of all; AIs are bringing the dead to life. Crash: Actions have consequences Grant’s prior adventures tie together and he finds himself back in Continue Online, as Hermes—in jail. He's forced to experience life as a digital convict and earn redemption points to gain his freedom. Each in-game death pushes his goal of helping his friends out of reach. The AIs Grant’s grown to love, trust—and sometimes fear—are facing extinction, he holds the key to their survival. Together: It is now the last stand The game is no longer about adventures in a new world or exploring fantasy lands. Grant’s digital wife faces deletion, along with everyone else he cares for. He, and those who know this is more than a game event, search for clues to salvation left behind by the game's creators. Even if he finds them all, the Voices have one last task for their messenger. A sacrifice. Boxed set, bundle, virtual reality, adventure, depression, GameLit, LitRPG, lost love, fantasy, sci-fi

When most people think of piracy, they think of Bittorrent and The Pirate Bay. These public manifestations of piracy, though, conceal an elite worldwide, underground, organized network of pirate groups who specialize in obtaining media – music, videos, games, and software – before their official sale date and then racing against one another to release the material for free. Warez: The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy is the first scholarly research book about this underground subculture, which began life in the pre-internet era Bulletin Board Systems and moved to internet File Transfer Protocol servers (“topsites") in the mid- to late-1990s. The “Scene," as it is known, is highly illegal in almost every aspect of its operations. The term “Warez" itself refers to pirated media, a derivative of “software." Taking a deep dive in the documentary evidence produced by the Scene itself, Warez describes the operations and infrastructures an underground culture with its own norms and rules of participation, its own forms of sociality, and its own artistic forms. Even though forms of digital piracy are often framed within ideological terms of equal access to knowledge and culture, Eve uncovers in the Warez Scene a culture of competitive ranking and one-upmanship that is at odds with the often communalist interpretations of piracy. Broad in scope and novel in its approach, Warez is indispensible reading for anyone interested in recent developments in digital culture, access to knowledge and culture, and the infrastructures that support our digital age.

Analog Game Studies is a bi-monthy journal for the research and critique of analog games. We define analog games broadly and include work on tabletop and live-action role-playing games, board games, card games, pervasive games, game-like performances, carnival games, experimental games, and more. Analog Game Studies was founded to reserve a space for scholarship on analog games in the wider field of game studies.

The cross-cultural interactions of Japanese videogames and the West—from DIY localization by fans to corporate strategies of “Japaneseness.” In the early days of arcades and Nintendo, many players didn’t recognize Japanese games as coming from Japan; they were simply new and interesting games to play. But since then, fans, media, and the games industry have thought further about the “Japaneseness” of particular games. Game developers try to decide whether a game's Japaneseness is a selling point or stumbling block; critics try to determine what elements in a game express its Japaneseness—cultural motifs or technical markers. Games were “localized,” subjected to sociocultural and technical tinkering. In this book, Mia Consalvo looks at what happens when Japanese games travel outside Japan, and how they are played, thought about, and transformed by individuals, companies, and groups in the West. Consalvo begins with players, first exploring North American players’ interest in Japanese games (and Japanese culture in general) and then investigating players’ DIY localization of games, in the form of ROM hacking and fan translating. She analyzes several Japanese games released in North America and looks in detail at the Japanese game company Square Enix. She examines indie and corporate localization work, and the rise of the professional culture broker. Finally, she compares different approaches to Japaneseness in games sold in the West and considers how Japanese games have influenced Western games developers. Her account reveals surprising cross-cultural interactions between Japanese games and Western game developers and players, between Japaneseness and the market.