This issue of First Person Scholar is not a “Special Issue” in the everyday academic parlance, but it is a very special issue of FPS because it will be our last issue for some time. FPS is taking an indefinite hiatus due to a lack of resources. This includes the funding cuts to the Games Institute generally, but also a lack of game studies graduate students with enough funding to allow them the time to work on FPS. You can see the official hiatus message by Games Institute Executive Director Dr. Neil Randall here. FPS will remain available as an archive for everyone to access and use.
The essays in this issue have one thing in common. They are all fantastic close readings of specific games. Each author uses their respective case study to reveal the ways that videogames intentionally and unintentionally convey values about their worlds and our own. From triple-A titles whose unquestioned mechanical conventions spoil their loftier and critical thematic aims, to smaller games that unsettle the player through purposeful subversions of interactivity—these essays are testaments to our constantly developing game literacy as academics and players.
“In this case, the depiction of a game within another game—the Pokémon League in Pokémon—is instrumental in setting a fictional universe rather than being played for its own sake. Since being an exceptional player is, by definition, an exception, I will argue that depicting a game within another game in Pokémon’s campaign is a way to express the ethos of exceptionalism in a competitive context to a wide audience. To put it more simply: the emphasis on the feeling of exceptionalism both through gameplay and narrative hides the strings through which they operate. Therefore, this article seeks to explain the relationship between the media itself—the video game and its conventions—and what it depicts to raise awareness on its hegemonic ideological discourse: that everyone can be the very best.”
“While in-game looting can be ethically practiced if it leads to meaningful gameplay consequences that help players understand and engage with the ethics of their choices (Sicart 160), STR offers no such discourse. Instead, game affordances encourage players to loot through valuable, though non-essential, rewards, reinforcing an uninterrogated colonial rhetoric that prioritizes the looter’s interests over the Indigenous group. Furthermore, collectibles that cannot be traded, sold or exchanged (termed “Relics”) are simply added to Lara’s Artifact Collection and justify the theft of cultural artifacts for the enjoyment of only the looter.”
“Beyond the dialogue, the most important aspect of these scenes is the setting, as the state of Dr. Hill’s office visibly shifts between sessions. In the first scene, the office is clean and richly furnished. Throughout the next three sessions, however, the office decays more and more – boards are nailed over now broken windows, the wallpaper and curtains are torn, and various objects appear around the room based on phobias the player revealed to Dr. Hill in Chapter 1. In Chapter 6, the office features a wall of monitors showing the events of the main game, which is the first concrete indication to the player that their surroundings are changing in relation to the main gameplay sections.”
“Oikospiel has several things in common with ‘flatgames’, a genre of short-form homebrew videogame which Gillmurphy puts forward as an example of the possibilities of consciousness churn. Like flatgames, Oikospiel relies heavily on a few conventional ‘readymade’ mechanics (like the 3D movement system, camera, dialogue, etc). Also, both Oikospiel and flatgames are marked by the presence of what Gillmurphy calls “overexpressive content”, meaning “things which carry a larger load of affect and association than their structural role necessarily requires”. This phrase well describes the nature of the prefab assets that Kanaga uses heavily throughout the game: for example, the collection of film posters, medieval illustrations and dog photos that hang on the walls of the Koch Games office (Act 1, scene 5), or the animated 3D monkey in the first scene of the prelude, which sits atop a grand piano making expressive gestures that seem out of place relative to its minor role in the scene.”
“It is the procedural rhetoric of FFVIIR that complicates its ecological themes. As the entirety of the game takes place within the confines of Midgar, how the city is rendered shapes our experience of the game and its world. As Cloud and AVALANCHE move through Midgar, players are repeatedly shown the horrors of what Shinra has done to those outside of the company. Citizens are left to live in slums filled with dirt and debris. There is no sunlight except on the upper plate, where the wealthiest preside. Lingering shots show the devastation that the rampant consumption of Mako has resulted in, and characters describe the horrible damage this has done to the health and well-being of so many. However, all of the city’s evils are undercut by how players learn to interact with it.”
We hope you enjoy these articles, and that you continue reading, citing and assigning articles from First Person Scholar! We hope that you will hear from us again one day soon!
–First Person Scholar editorial team