Final Flashcards
For Mark Wolf, embodiment is akin to
the ______________ in games.
interactive element
How is the medium of games unique?
Games are unique in that your
body is involved in the progression of
the story.
How are docile bodies created in gaming?
Holding the controller, memorizing
movements, staying seated for hours,
staring at a screen, all privilege the
play of certain types of bodies. Players must conform their bodies to gaming, this leads to ‘docile bodies’.
Michel Foucault suggests that “docile bodies” are formed within institutional structures that reinforce those
institutions. What example does he provide to illustrate this point?
Specifically, he gives the example of how prison isn’t
really for the reformation of prisoners- it is to
convince the general population to not go to prison-
aka create a disciplined subject.
ESSAY QUESTION: Explain the significance of bodies within a game world. How does this affect player behavior within and outside of the game world?
Bodies in a game world are both freeing and limiting. They assign an idealized mode of what the gamer should look like, in addition to how that gamer is expected to behave.
The desired body of gaming is still most commonly
white, middle-class, able-bodied, and cis-gendered.
While games such as Kim Kardashian: Hollywood
offer opportunities for remapping the body in terms
of skin color, there are still hints of an idealized player
body. The body problem becomes a problem when it
maps back to real bodies, the lived bodies of actual
players that internalize who is expected to play and
how that play should occur (2017, p. 171).”
Define heteronormativity?
Heteronormativity is the idea that
heterosexuality is the normal or
preferred sexual orientation.
What is the Kinsey scale?
the Kinsey
scale which ranges from 0
(exclusively heterosexual) to a 6
(exclusively homosexual) with a
grade of X to represent
asexuality.
Name one of the formal enforcements which encourages heterosexuality.
Can adopt children (universally).
Which of the following are examples of informal enforcements which encourage heterosexuality?
A) Entertainment media (e.g. Disney
princesses are presumed straight)
B) Children’s toys which encourage playing
wedding or house.
C) Parents assuming cross-gender
socialization between children are
‘signs’ of heterosexuality (Martin 2009
found that parents attribute behaviors
as heterosexual to children as young as
3 years old.)
D) All of the above
D
What is an affordance of games in regard to sexuality and identity?
Games can also let us play with sexuality in a
way which has limited risk to ourselves and our
identities
What is true about both queerness and play?
Both queerness and play contain possibilities for
resistance and for reinscribing norms.
Who does most of the urban planning in the USA and why?
For the most part, urban planning in the USA is done
by development firms with financial incentive to
develop the land for profitability.
What was the Ladies’ Mile?
Ladies’ Mile was a stretch of expensive
shops in New York which limited
wealthy white women’s exposure to
the public.
How do suburbs connect to the role of women?
Suburbs, like London’s Golders Green,
present a solution to the ‘dangers’ of
city women and women in the city. They also represent gender segregation between the city where
men work and the suburbs where
affluent women can focus on
homemaking.
In the 1900s, plumbing codes were written into
law- these largely excluded women. Name two ways in which women were negatively affected by these laws.
1.) Often toilets are built on top of one another,
exactly the same size- you can fit more urinals
than stalls so there are fewer fixtures in women’s
bathrooms.
2. Women are often caregivers and need to spend
more time helping others use the restroom.
What does a game designer do?
1.) Establish design goals and
plans on how to reach them.
Think in systems.
2.) See with the player’s eyes.
3.) Embrace being wrong with
humility and understanding of
all its consequences
What does MDA stand for?
mechanics, dynamics, and aesthetics
ESSAY QUESTION: What is emotional labor? How are female streamers expected to perform emotional labor?
Emotional labor “requires one to
induce or suppress feeling in order to
sustain the outward countenance that
produces the proper state of mind in
others- in this case, the sense of being
cared for in a convivial and safe place.
This kind of labor calls for coordination
of mind and feeling and it sometimes
draws on a source of self that we honor
as deep and integral to our
individuality (1983, p.21).”
Participant 8 contrasts her experiences to ‘normal’, or more traditional forms of labor like working in an office or running a shop. Her stream is a business, only the relationships she has with her ‘customers’ -to extend the metaphor- are far more than simply transactional. Instead of just selling items, she is also expected to deal with her community members’ routine emotional needs in a way that would not be expected of a shop clerk. In this case, she is performing emotional labor to manage their emotions and suppress her own because if she tells them to leave, there is a worry she’ll lose financial support.
What are the three different kinds of labor?
1.) Physical- Lifting bags into overhead
storage, pushing heavy drinks carts.
2.) Mental- Knowing safety regulations.
3.) Emotional- Delivering a ‘fun’ experience,
inducing emotions in an audience.
How do streamers operate and make money?
‘influencer/attention economy’, a
person turns themselves, their life, their
personality and their individuality into a
corporation for the purposes of making
money.
True or False: 8 of the top 200 (viewed) streamers are
women.
True
What is gendered gatekeeping?
Gendered gatekeeping’ (Scott 2019) is
when women are cast as outsiders
through a failure to perform certain
forms of masculinity deemed
legitimate practice.
Who makes games? (what percentages of men, women, non-binary, etc.)
62% men, 30%
women, 8% non-
binary,
genderfluid,
genderqueer,
two-spirited.
What is the most represented demographic in games?
Historically, white male characters dominate the digital
populace. From 133 games, Williams et al. (2009) found an
overrepresentation of white males compared to female
characters and characters belonging to minority ethnicities
What is one reason women are sexualized in games?
Sales pressure may be one reason why female game
characters are sexualized. Companies may have been historically encouraged to conceptualized exploitable images of women in character design for a largely male and heterosexual audience.
What is game talk?
“Game talk” (O’Donnell 2009) is when developers reference games as a shared knowledge base.
