Game Agencies Research Articles

Agency, Control and Power in Video Games: The Procedural Rhetoric of Inside

Agency, Control and Power in Video Games: The Procedural Rhetoric of Inside

All the Faces of Agency in Video Games

All the Faces of Agency in Video Games

An Empirical Framework for Understanding a Player’s Sense of Agency in Games

This study investigates players’ sense of control over a game, referred to as the sense of agency (SoA). While prior research has addressed the importance of control in game interactions, understanding the factors that constitute players’ SoA remains limited. Using a mixed methods approach, we conducted interviews (n = 18) and surveys (n = 654) to gain qualitative and quantitative insights into this unique perceptual phenomenon. Multidimensional scaling analysis revealed a two-dimensional space comprising five clusters that shape players’ SoA. We then developed and tested a 12-item Game Sense of Agency questionnaire which, through exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis, measures four factors: Multisensory Presentation, Feedback Reasoning, Virtual Realism and Control Smoothness. This research identifies the multifaceted nature of players’ SoA and offers practical suggestions for how it could be measured. The outcomes contribute an empirically-driven framework for understanding and evaluating the factors that influence players’ SoA in games.

Moral distress in The Last of Us: Moral agency, character realism, and navigating fixed gaming narratives

Moral agency describes one’s comprehensive moral attitude developed through continuous evaluations of social and contextual information. However, in fixed-narrative games like The Last of Us (TLOU), player moral agency is compromised by excessive violence, restraints in player control, and moral dilemmas. Researchers suggest that video game players use moral disengagement and rationalization strategies to reduce emotional and moral distress arising from virtual participation in morally reprehensible activity. However, the realism of TLOU characters, the ubiquity of its violence, and the inability of its players to make in-game moral decisions may prove these coping mechanisms ineffectual, while suggesting the possibility of heretofore unexplored alternatives. In the present study, nine interview subjects explicate, through the evolution of the player-character relationship, the versatility of moral agency in games. The findings suggest that players expanded their moral agency and regained moral control through mentalizing or mind-reading character perspectives, thus reducing players' emotional distress, and increasing empathy and prosocial beliefs. This process was facilitated by TLOU's character realism and the simulation of social practice within player-character interactivity.

“Liberty for Androids!”: Player Choice, Politics, and Populism in Detroit: Become Human

In this article, I analyze the 2018 video game Detroit: Become Human as a potentially political text from the perspective of literary and cultural studies. I argue that it features and presents narrative choices in a way that encourages players to make decisions not solely for personal or empathetic reasons but also through a political contemplation, and I contend that the manner in which the game narratively presents individual agency and populist imaginations of “the people” complicates this political project. To do so, I first present an approach to narrative, agency, and politics in video games more generally, before then discussing questions of agency and politics in Detroit: Become Human on three levels: in its narrative presentation, in how the gameplay politicizes player choice, and in how both the narrative and the ludic elements in the game complicate its interest in politics. This contribution thus suggests ways of both studying the connections of agency and politics in video games and culturally contextualizing this particular way of representing (a)political choices.

Creative Agency and Play in Design-Based Games

Find information about UTP Journals. University of Toronto Press is Canada’s leading academic publisher and one of the largest university presses in North America, with particular strengths in the social sciences, humanities, and business. The Book Publishing Division is widely recognized in Canada for its strength in history, political science, sociology, Indigenous studies, and cultural studies. Internationally, UTP is a leading publisher of medieval, Renaissance, Italian, Iberian, Slavic, and urban studies, as well as studies in book and print culture.

Testing a Local Inbreeding Hypothesis as a Cause of Observed Antler Characteristics in Managed Populations of White-Tailed Deer

The increased use of antler restrictions by state game agencies has led to a focus on antlers by the hunting public, particularly the potential for an association between genetics and antler characteristics. We analyzed microsatellite data from 1231 male white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) from three states (Oklahoma, Mississippi, and Texas) within USA to determine if genetic relatedness, internal relatedness (IR), homozygosity weighted by locus (HL), or correlations among uniting gametes (Fis) influenced total antler points, antler score, non-typical points or antler malformations. Within each location, deer in the lower and upper quartile intervals for number of antler points and score were unrelated (95% CI included 0 or was <0) and relatively heterozygous for four measures of inbreeding. Antler score and points were positively influenced by age but negatively influenced by IR and HL, except for antler score in Mississippi. Relatedness, HL, IR and Fis did not differ between groups of deer with and without antler malformations. Perceived differences in antler quality do not appear to be affected by heterozygosity or a result of close inbreeding because we found deer were unrelated and measures of inbreeding and genome-wide heterozygosity were not correlated with antler characteristics.

Creative Agency and Play in Design-Based Games

Creative Agency and Play in Design-Based Games

The Elephant in the room: What can we learn from California regarding the use of sport hunting of pumas (Puma concolor) as a management tool?

Puma (Puma concolor) management in the western United States is highly contentious, particularly with regard to the use of sport hunting as a management tool. Since the 1970s, puma in ten western states have been managed by state fish and game agencies through the use of a sport hunt. The rationale presented by wildlife managers is that sport hunting, in addition to providing recreational hunting opportunities, also reduces threats to human safety and livestock safety, and increases populations of the puma’s ungulate prey, namely deer (Odocoileus sp.) and elk (Cervus elepus). We evaluated these claims using the state of California as a control, which has prohibited sport hunting since 1972, and employing data obtained from state and federal agencies with authority and control over puma management. Specifically, we tested four hypotheses: 1) sport hunting will suppress puma populations, 2) sport hunting will reduce the number of problematic puma-human encounters; 3) sport hunting will reduce puma predation on domestic livestock, and 4) sport hunting will reduce the impact of puma predation on wild ungulate numbers, resulting in increased hunting opportunities for the sport hunt of ungulates. Our results indicated, respectively, that relative to the 10 states where puma are hunted, California had 1) similar puma densities, 2) the 3rd lowest per capita problematic puma-human encounters, 3) similar per capita loss of cattle (P = 0.13) and a significantly lower (t = 5.7, P < 0.001) per capita loss of sheep, and 4) similar average deer densities while changes in annual deer populations correlated with changes in other states (F = 95.4, P < 0.001, R2 = 0.68). In sum, our analysis of the records obtained from state and federal wildlife agencies found no evidence that sport hunting of pumas has produced the management outcomes sought by wildlife managers aside from providing a sport hunting opportunity. Consequently, and particularly because other research suggests that sport hunting actually exacerbate conflicts between pumas and humans, we recommend that state agencies re-assess the use of sport hunting as a management tool for pumas.

Coping with [R]evolution in Online Games: Vulnerability and Resilience Responses to Change in MMO Game Expansions

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOs) often introduce new content and mechanics to increase player retention and enjoyment. Drawing on theories of socioecological risk response, this exploratory study examines players’ in situ responses to these changes by analyzing patterns in public, in-game chat across 3 game expansions. Analysis reveals that a) change facilitates agenda setting in player chat, b) vulnerability and resilience expressions highlight tensions in player and game agencies, and c) increased semantic distance between the game and the “real” helps cope with game changes. In addition, sociotechnical affordances of MMO environments could be a mechanism for coping with change, more generally.

Video Games and Agency in Contemporary Society

In recent years, the idea of player control, or agency, has become central and explicit in certain video games and genres, affecting many debates concerning the study or definitions of video games. In spite of this, the notion of agency in video games has been rarely explicitly explored or defined in relation to its sociological and political dimensions. Hence, drawing on actor–network theory, (neo-)Foucauldian governmentality studies, and empirical data gathered over a 3-year period, this article expands to our understanding of video game player agency and, moreover, argues that video games provide an important example and perspective to consider the contemporary nature and political basis of agency.

Long-Term Trends of Northern Bobwhite Populations and Hunting Success on Private Shooting Plantations in Northern Florida and Southern Georgia

Nearly all broad-scale assessments (U.S. Department of the Interior, Fish and Wildlife Service [USDI-FWS], Breeding Bird Surveys, Audubon Society Christmas Bird Counts, and state game agency harvest surveys) of northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) population trends during the past 30 to 50 years point to widespread declines at local, regional and national scales. Long-term records of populations that do not show long-term bobwhite declines are rare. Landowners and managers in the shooting plantation country between Tallahassee, Florida and Thomasville, Georgia have been recording quail hunting and bag records for many years. Such information can provide valuable insight into the long-term trends of bobwhite populations. We therefore analyzed bag records from 5 different properties where data had been collected for periods ranging from 14 to 80+ years. Trends from these data were completely opposite from long-term trends shown from other sources such as Breeding Bird Survey and Christmas Bird Count data. These data indicate that a long-term, continuous approach to habitat management (primarily burning with prescribed fire, and frequent soil disturbance from disking) can sustain abundant bobwhite populations and high-quality shooting. These data also call into question alternative hypotheses such as invasion of the red imported fire ant and range expansion of the coyote as being responsible for the long-term bobwhite decline. Both fire ants and coyotes are common in the Thomasville-Tallahassee area, yet, abundant bobwhite populations persist, presumably as a function of high-quality habitat management.

Formulation of an Optimum Winter Food-Patch Mix for Bobwhite Quail

Many state game agencies are seeking to improve winter quail food and habitat by means of artificial food-patch plantings. The objective of such plantings is to increase the limited supplies of nutrients available to quail in late winter. Desirable qualities of food species included in the seeding mixture are: low seeding cost, high nutrient and energy content, persistent seeds, and cultivation ease. Presently used mixtures have been formulated in the absence of detailed nutritional analysis and cost-minimization techniques. This paper seeks to demonstrate the utility of modern operations-research technology in such decisions by outlining the procedures for determining the composition of an optimum food-patch mix. This mix will meet nutrient and cultivation requirements at a least-possible cost per acre of food planting. Although a solution is presented, the emphasis of the paper is on the method for obtaining such a solution.

Development of a self-contained carbon dioxide euthanasia trailer for large-scale euthanasia of feral swine

Range expansion of feral swine (Sus scrofa) continues to be pervasive in the United States. Lethal control of feral swine is an accepted management practice throughout the nation. Indirect lethal control measures (e.g., trapping) often require euthanasia and methods used must be humane, safe, and economical. Though cranial gunshot is a widely accepted method of euthanasia, in some cases it is not safe, legal for use, or practical. Alternate means for euthanasia of wildlife research subjects are needed at the Feral Swine Research Facility on the Kerr Wildlife Management Area (KWMA), Hunt, Texas, USA. The American Veterinary Medical Association approves a gradual fill method of carbon dioxide (CO2) euthanasia for some laboratory animals and livestock species, including domestic swine. We manufactured a self-contained CO2 euthanasia chamber on a 4.27-m (14-foot) dump trailer for the euthanasia of feral swine. We conducted 3 euthanasia trials of 5 feral swine during December 2014–February 2015 at the KWMA. Carbon dioxide administration began immediately postloading and commenced for 5 min at an average of approximately 18% chamber volume/minute. Recorded mortality rates were 100%. Results of this study and scalability of our system may have widespread impacts on wildlife euthanasia protocols for wildlife researchers and state game agencies across the nation. © 2016 The Wildlife Society.

6. Domsch, Sebastian. 2013. Storyplaying. Agency and Narrative in Video Games. Berlin: De Gruyter, 220 pp., EUR 69.95.

Article 6. Domsch, Sebastian. 2013. Storyplaying. Agency and Narrative in Video Games. Berlin: De Gruyter, 220 pp., EUR 69.95. was published on November 1, 2013 in the journal English and American Studies in German (volume 2013, issue 1).

Will Hunters Steward Wolves? A Comment on Treves and Martin

As wolf conservation transitions away from federally sponsored protection and recovery toward sustainable management under state fish and game agencies, researchers and policymakers are interested to know what role hunters will play. Based upon hunters' responses to three recent surveys in Wisconsin and the northern Rockies, Treves and Martin question the assumption that hunters will steward wolves, noting that the majority of hunters that responded were unsupportive of wolf conservation. However, this conclusion largely depends upon what is meant by stewardship and what actions are required for wolves to be conserved. This article discusses the meaning of three concepts either explicitly or implicitly discussed by Treves and Martin—tolerance, acceptance, and stewardship—and offers a conceptual model of wildlife conservation behavior that clarifies the relationship among these concepts.

A Computational Model of Perceived Agency in Video Games

Agency, being one's ability to perform an action and have some influence over the world, is fundamental to interactive entertainment. Although much of the games industry is concerned with providing more agency to its players, what seems to matter more is how much agency each player will actually perceive. In this paper, we present a computational model of this phenomena, based on the notion that the amount of agency that one perceives depends on how much they desire the outcomes that result from their decisions. Using a structure for high-agency stories that we designed specifically for this intent, we present the results of a 141-participant user study that tests our model's ability to select subsequent events in an original interactive story. Using a newly validated survey instrument for measuring both agency and fun, we found with a high degree of confidence that event sequences selected by our model result in players perceiving more agency than players who experience event sequences that our model does not recommend.

Playing with one’s self: notions of subjectivity and agency in digital games

This paper explores the ways in which the experience of participation or interactivity in digital games may influence or reinvent the player’s ideological subjectivity. It offers an application to video game analysis of the theoretical perspectives of Jean Baudrillard, Roland Barthes, Louis Althusser, Theodor Adorno, Walter Benjamin and Slavoj Žižek, and thereby suggests that the simulated realities of commercial digital games cultures offer an illusion of agency or co-authorship which, in common with similar illusions promoted by parallel manifestations of industrial mass culture, may foster a critical complacency which permits the inscription of their consumers within virtually invisible ideological perspectives.

Environmental constraints in the colonization sequence of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus Linnaeus, 1758) across the Iberian Mountains, Spain

AbstractAim This paper describes the dispersal process of roe deer (Capreolus capreolus Linnaeus, 1758) with respect to climatic factors, landscape characteristics and human activity. We hypothesized that environmental characteristics constrain the relative abundance and dispersal process of roe deer.Location The study was conducted in the Iberian Mountains, north‐eastern Spain, during 1986–2000.Methods Roe deer colonization dates in the study area were obtained from a survey for large mammals and from direct interviews with the employees of the Fish and Game Agency. We used a 10 × 10 km UTM grid as the sampling unit (n = 91). The relative abundance of roe deer was estimated by counting the number of pellet groups in line transects, which were representative of the habitat availability in the 10 × 10 km UTM grid. Climatic factors were obtained from meteorological stations placed near to the plot. Landscape structure indices, topography and human activity factors were obtained from digital maps using fragstats 3.3 and idrisi 32. We discarded a number of variables with no statistical significance and avoided multicollinearity by using Spearman rank correlation. Then, we used GLMz (with a multinomial error distribution and a logit link function) to analyse the influence of each variable considered in the dispersal process. Finally, GLMz (with a binomial error distribution and a logit link function) were used a posteriori to differentiate between the effects of the explanatory factors on a particular phase of the dispersal process.Results Our results indicate that proximity to a previously colonized grid significantly affected the global process of roe deer colonization. Independently of the proximity of the nearest population in the previous phase of colonization, our results also indicated that the dispersal process was influenced by precipitation and landscape structure, leading the species to colonize even apparently hostile places. Original nuclei of these populations occurred in territories with high and constant precipitation, and a landscape formed by mosaics of agricultural land with a high proportion of forests. During the expansion process, roe deer colonized territories with summer droughts, dominated by large agricultural patches and with few forest patches.Main conclusions These data support the working hypothesis that environmental characteristics constrain roe deer relative abundance and dispersal process through the Iberian Mountains. The location of the original nuclei of these populations probably had environmental conditions that were more favourable for the roe deer. Areas settled in the final phases of the dispersal process had low relative abundances of roe deer, and are likely to act mainly as dispersal corridors rather than being able to sustain viable populations themselves.

Elk Populations in the Western United States and Canadian Provinces

Discover how game agencies count elk, why, and the accuracy of the estimates.