International Journal of Games and Social Impact, Vol. 2, Nº. 2 (2024)

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http://hdl.handle.net/10437/15163

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    Designing romance and the 'playersexuality' debate : love, romance, identity, and player perceptions of baldur's gate 3 and the dragon age series
    (Lusofona University, 2024-11-14) Tomlinson, Christine; HEI-LAB (FCT) - Digital Laboratories for Environments and Human Interactions
    Players of role-playing games have become increasingly interested in romantic narratives as part of the play experience. These romantic possibilities with pre-programmed in-game characters can be an exciting part of play, giving games more depth and allowing players to feel more connected to game content. This qualitative project applies content analysis to the Dragon Age video game series and Baldur’s Gate 3 as well as online conversations among players of these games to investigate how players interpret, experience, and evaluate in-game romance. I find that players’ relationship with romance in video games is complex. Romance is often also built around the idea of player agency, aiming to fulfill fantasies and emphasize player choice over repre-senting sexualities as part of characters’ identities. This has resulted in tensions as players seek out in-game romance, selecting in-game partners, exploring facets of identity, and often pursuing realistic stories when it comes to love. While some players appreciate playersexual models of in-game romance that make characters love them at the press of a button, the desire for realism – including the inclusion of characters with their own sexualities – often undercuts desires for control. Keywords: video games, narrative, romance, identity, representation
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    I'd rather have cake : asexual representation and queer designing of games
    (Lusofona University, 2024-09-01) Parker, Todd; Ntelia, Renata; HEI-LAB (FCT) - Digital Laboratories for Environments and Human Interactions
    Queer game academics have identified an increase in the number of games that explore queer experiences by experimenting with the limitations of games, particularly from small independent creators, that has been described as a queer games avant garde. Despite this, this paper identifies a notable under representation of identities and experiences along the asexual spectrum. In this vein, it documents a study that looked to explore whether the dominant way in which game design is approached as practice, with frameworks that separate formal gameplay elements from aesthetic elements, hinders the authentic representation of the asexual lived experience. This falls in line with existing pushes in the queer design space to move beyond popular forms of queer representation in games that have often limited it to dramatic elements such as narrative and art. To do this, the study employed popular design frameworks for designing a playable proof of concept with the aim to convey asexual experiences. Using design as a research method, the study showed that while these formal elements can convey themes, even those relating to the asexual lived experience, they fall short as a lone avenue for queer representation. Instead, the paper calls for the exploration of a more comprehensive design framework and proposes affect theory as an appropriate conceptual tool not only for game analysis but also for game design. Asexuality, Queer Game Design, Affect Theory, Games, Representation, Play