Why are We Chasing Nostalgia in Video Games?
Nostalgia, the reason why we keep coming back to those games we loved in our childhood.
Topical game research articles picked up and referenced by PlayLab! writers.
Video games as rites of passage: Exploring liminal rhetoric in Oxenfree
Transformative experiences in girlhood games - Stephanie Harkin discusses the potential of video games utilizing liminal spaces in exploring identity.
Spellbound by Virtual Vastness – The Sublime Rediscovered
Can a video game be sublime? Yaeri Kim dove deep into ABZÛ and discovered virtual vastness that took her breath away.
Get ready for the last shift and become the Mixologist, but is it for the sake of creative expression or mere survival?
Between crafting and serving drinks – On labor tropes in drink making games and their relation to creativity and uncertainty.
Exploring On Their Own – The Value of Implicit Video Game Tutorials
Giving players freedom to roam can be more beneficial than holding their hand too much.
Do League of Legends players overestimate their skills – The ELO Hell phenomenon
Research investigates, are low-ranked LoL players affected by Dunning-Krueger effect and blame failures on others
What Do We Know About Professional Gaming?
A look into the current research on professional gaming and professional gamers in e-sports.
“Mom! We made a game in school, and it was awesome!” Implementation of game design activities in children’s formal contexts
Authors observe children designing games at school to analyze collaboration and digital skills. Reports indicate higher motivation and interesting results regarding teamwork.
Socializing, exploring or perhaps challenging oneself – different motivations of play.
Eleven motivations of play were found in this research, some more obvious than others.
Thanks a lot, Tolkien: Stereotypes and Identity Construction in CRPG’s
How does identity construction work in digital games and what can we learn from it through studying character creators?
Colorful pixels for 150,000 € – understanding virtual skin buyers in CS:GO
This research was conducted to find reasoning for why players spend tons of cash for a feature that adds zero to the gameplay.
“I never asked for this”: Reinforcing social-emotional skills through video game interactions
Social interaction between player and non-player characters can be useful for developing social-emotional skills.
Film adaptations of video games as a way to remember gameplay
A new study indicates how incorporating gameplay referrals into film adaptations of videogames may affect the viewing experience.
Highlight of “Role-Playing Games and Well-Being” by Kerttu Lehto (2021)
Impacts of role play games (RPGs) in the study of well being is undeniable.
Value capture in gamification can help deal with addiction
In this article, Michael Ridge chooses gamification as the subject of analysis to develop one of the cases in which his recognized problem, Value Capture, can be useful in the long term
A Mind Game in Game – Creating ludic unreliability to challenge players’ inference of the designer’s intention.
Common practices of game artifacts are shifted by implied designers delivering thoughts to create ludic unreliability for players by inviting them to question and hesitate to develop game element relationships between players and designer
What is localization and how it has influenced in video games?
This research highlight explains what localization is in videogames, and how the industry manages it with its clientele, according to the study carried out by three experts: Marina Fontolan, James Wilson and Janaina Pamplona.
Who gets to decide? – Representation and inclusion in Overwatch community
When two Overwatch characters were revealed to be LGBTQ, discussions flared in the community. Tanja Välisalo and Maria Ruotsalainen ask: Who has the right to have a say in what kind of representation is included in a game?
Discovery of self through roleplay
How can RPGs and LARP help trans people to explore and develop their identity? Josephine Baird's research of self-expression, exploration and embodiment investigates this question.