Video games have repeatedly intersected with fake news. Whether it is the absurd claim that Hideo Kojima assassinated the former prime minister Shinzo Abe, the deliberate use footage from Arma 3 by Russian media, or the mishaps of CNN and BBC who included video game footage in news reporting. We discuss these cases and many…
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Most of us have done it at some point, possibly without any awareness of the harm it might cause. After all, piracy has for a long time been an integral part of video game culture. To discuss whether there is any moral angel from which piracy can be justified, we collaborate with Shlomo Sher, Philosophy…
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Men must be strong, show little emotion, and speak with violence—that is an exceedingly common trope in video games, referred to as hypermasculinity. We explore the concept of hypermasculinity to then focus on games that subvert or deconstruct it. Shownotes Measuring a macho personality constellation (Donald L. Mosher and Mark Sirkin) Walking, Talking and Playing…
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Do we have a moral obligation towards virtual characters? Or do games threaten to corrupt our understanding of virtue? Time to continue our conversation about violence in video games; this time with Markus Schulzke’s Defending the Morality of Violent Video Games. In our side quests, we then talk about France trying to maintain the purity of…
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This is one of our monthly plus episodes. You can access it by subscribing to Studying Pixels Plus. You will then receive an individual plus feed that you can add to your favourite podcast app. Attending a conference can be inspiring, productive, and potentially change your future. However, it can also be exhausting, confusing, and even…
Read MoreThe list of controversies revolving around violence in video games is long. But is there anything morally wrong with explicit violence in games? And moreover, where does our the apprehension towards violence in games come from? Join us for a reading of David I. Waddington’s Locating the Wrongness in Ultra-Violent Video Games. In our side…
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“Players don’t need the designer”, says Miguel Sicart, “they need a game, an excuse and a frame for play.” How much power do rule systems have over the performative process of play? And how is meaning actualized in between the two? We discuss Sicart’s argument Against Procedurality. In our side quests, we then go into the…
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This is one of our monthly plus episodes. You can access it by subscribing to Studying Pixels Plus. You will then receive an individual plus feed that you can add to your favourite podcast app. Coming up with a good research question can be exceedingly difficult. But it is well worth it, considering that it is…
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Have you ever made a spiritual experience when playing a video game? Some downright lend themselves to it, such as Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture or Journey. But how would you know whether any experience is spiritual and aren’t video games with their technological foundation pretty much the opposite of transcendental? We discuss exactly such questions with Dr….
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Video games do not just tell stories and show us more or less pretty pictures. By means of their procedural rhetoric, they “make claims about the world, which players can understand, evaluate, and deliberate”, says Ian Bogost in his influential article The Rhetoric of Video Games (2008). Join us as we unpack the concept of procedural rhetoric…
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