There is a clear distinction between ‘casual’ and ‘serious’ games and gamers. Agree or Disagree. Justify your answer.

Assignment 2: Case Study

In Brief:

Research Essay
This assignment is worth 40% of your total mark for this unit.
Please refer to the calendar in your Unit Outline for the due date.

Length: 2500 words

Instructions:

Answer the following question using ONE game of your choice as an example:

Q. There is a clear distinction between ‘casual’ and ‘serious’ games and gamers. Agree or Disagree. Justify your answer.

This assignment is a research essay of significant length. You MUST use academic refereed reading. You MUST reference correctly. Please obey basic essay structuring rules of introduction, middle and conclusion. Please write in full sentences and paragraphs.

Evaluative Criteria:

What I am looking for when I mark your paper:

• Accurate use of terms from the unit
• Effective writing and expression
• Reflexive integration of reading and accurate referencing following APA style
• Articulation of a strong argument

Core Reading

1) Balnaves, M., Willson, M. and Leaver, T. (2012). Entering Farmville: Finding Value in Social Games, in Anyanwu C. and. Green K. and Sykes J. (ed), Communicating Change and Changing Communication in the 21st Century, Australian and New Zealand Communication Association conference, July 4-6 2012.

2) Eklund, L. (2016). Who are the Casual Gamers? Gender Tropes and Tokenism in Game Culture. In Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape, Michele Willson and Tama Leaver (eds). Bloomsbury, pp. 15-30. [Find it here]

3) Albarrán-Torres, César. (2016.) Social Casino Apps and Digital Media Practices: New Paradigms of Consumption. In Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape, Michele Willson and Tama Leaver (eds). Bloomsbury, pp. 243-259. [Find it here]

4) Gong, Huiwen, Robert Hassink, and Gunnar Maus. (2017). What Does Pokemon Go Teach us About Geography? Geographica Helvetica, 72(2), pp. 227-230. [Available here].

5) Henthorn, Jamie. (2016). Rewriting Neighbourhoods: Zombies, Run! and the Runner as Rhetor. In Social, Casual and Mobile Games: The Changing Gaming Landscape, Michele Willson and Tama Leaver (eds). Bloomsbury, pp. 165-177.

6) Piedtype. (2013). “Grandma playing Ingress stopped by cops.” Piedtype blog. Available from http://piedtype.com/2013/06/29/grandma-playing-ingress-stopped-by-cops/

7) Ferguson, C. J. (2018). It’s Time to End the Debate about Video Games and Violence. Kotaku. Available from https://www.kotaku.com.au/2018/04/its-time-to-end-the-debate-about-games-and-violence/

8) Bender, S. (2014). Blood Splats and Bodily Collapse: Reported realism and the perception of violence in combat films and video games, Projections 8(2), 1- 25 http://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2014.080202 [Found here]

9) Habel, Chad and Ben Kooyman. (2013). Agency Mechanics: Gameplay Design in Survival Horror Video Games. Digital Creativity, 02 January 2014, 25(1), pp. 1-14. [Available here]

10) Seo, Yuri , and Jung, Sang-UkJung. (2016). Beyond Solitary Play in Computer Games: The Social Practices of eSports. Journal of Consumer Culture, November 2016, 16(3), pp. 635-655. [Available here]

11)Nelson, M. Keum, H. and Yaros, R. (2004). Advertainment or adcreep: Game players’ attitudes toward advertising and product placement in computer games. Journal of Interactive Advertising, 5(1), pp. 3-31. [Found here.]

12) Pearce, Celia. (2011). “Virtual Worlds, Play Ecosystems, and the Ludisphere” in Communities of Play. MIT Press, pp. 17-35. [Available here – you must be logged in to Oasis]

13) Crowe, N. and Watts, M. (2014). ‘When I click “ok” I become Sassy – I become a girl’: Young people and gender identity: subverting the ‘body’ in massively multi-player online role-playing games. International Journal of Adolescence and Youth, 19(2), 217 – 231. [Available here]

14) Monson, M. (2012). Race-based fantasy realm: Essentialism in the World of Warcraft. Games and Culture 7(1), 48 – 71. [Available here]

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