Cosmic Brownie

Game Jams are game development marathons limited by time, usually lasting 48 hours. These events bring people together not only to make games in a short period of time but to connect beginners, amateurs and professionals. Although seen as a diverse environment, in Games – either as a technology culture or as a professional occupation – we can find prejudice and discrimination against LGBTQIA+. This paper is an exploratory study about diversity in game jams, specifically about the participation of LGBTQIA+ in some hubs at Global Game Jam 2021. We investigated the participation of LGBTQIA+ people at the Global Game Jam 2021, aiming to understand their perspectives and the potential challenges around any prejudice or discrimination they may face during the game jams. We combined quantitative and qualitative research methods. First, we used a survey to collect quantitative (closed-ended questions) and qualitative (open-ended questions) data. The second part consisted of online interviews with some of the respondents from the survey. After analyzing the collected data, we provided a set of recommendations for structure and organization, aiming at a more inclusive and welcoming environment to LGBTQIA+ participants, besides increasing the participation of this public. The recommendations are: Organize diversity-focused game jams and diversity-focused Global Game Jam hubs; make every participant aware of the code of conduct; foster collaboration over competition; introduce aspects that the LGBTQIA+ community can relate to; and promote learning activities.

In this paper, we present the findings of an interview study of game developers participating to a constrained game development event, Survival Mode 2016 game jam. Survival Mode 2016 was organized in Finnish Lapland as the northernmost jamming site of Global Game Jam (GGJ) 2016. The event differed from the typical Global Game Jam site in Finland in terms of participants being mostly experienced game developers and that there were additional design constraints for their projects. In addition to the global theme, the participants of the Survival Mode 2016 had an extra thematic constraint and the setting of the event itself created such constraints as limited Internet connectivity and power supply. The interviewees reflected on their projects and experiences with design constraints providing interesting insight to the role of design constraints in game development and the difference between a jam setting and commercial game creation projects. These observations can be utilized in further studies of game design constraints as well as in the design of different game jam events.

While research on game jams internationally has proposed that they can be a useful context for informal learning, networking between indie developers, and innovation, in this chapter, we argue that they can also be perceived, and experienced, as exclusionary spaces by those who identify as women and individuals who are outside of existing game-making communities. Research on game jams in two different cities in Ireland for the Refiguring Innovation in Games project found that these events overwhelmingly attracted a young male demographic with existing programming skills. Since 2016, the authors have designed and run six adult ‘female-friendly’ diversity in games workshops in Ireland to encourage inclusive informal education and innovation. They took place at weekends in co-working innovation centers and formal educational settings provided by our partners. This chapter reflects on the recruitment, participation, and outcome of our workshops, but, in particular, reflects on the explicit and implicit spatial and technical barriers faced by participants and organizers. While contemporary discourses and industry data seem to support the democratization of games production, contemporary software for game development and available learning spaces impose restrictions that continue to marginalize and impose a technicity that is gendered, classed, and raced. Adapting the concept of Code/Space and drawing upon a technofeminist approach, this chapter argues that explicit inclusion strategies are needed to address persistent structures of exclusion in informal and formal games education.

The notion of scenes has helped frame how particular clusters of cultural activities, practices, and "happenings" simultaneously replicate and transform global practices in specific localities. The study of scenes has aided us in examinations of how geographic and virtual localities create and shape global industries, movements, and genres. In this article, I focus on the Toronto game production scene to examine how it replicates and transforms the wider cultural norms, working conditions, and genre productions of the global game industry. Based on a two-year ethnography of the scene, I survey how gamemakers maintain and challenge the expected norms and practices of industry and platforms in the production of local games. To identify these clusters of cultural activity, I develop the notion of scenes as palimpsests to trace how gamemakers replicate and transform industry cultural norms and practices in the local scene. The last decade has seen the emergence of social media platforms as a venue for participants of scenes to discuss, create, and disseminate their works with geographically local and global audiences. The textual spaces of these platforms connect participants of local production scenes to a global community defined by geography, industry, and genre. By tracing scenes through its inscriptions, I examine how these platforms are centers for encounters between the values and practices of the Toronto game production scene and the wider industry. This article is about how the geographical cultural activities of scenes are shifting into virtual environments, and how these virtual spaces are transforming the cultural norms and practices of gamemaking and its associated activities, such as socials, game jams, and "talking shop." I argue that analyses of globalization must consider the wider physical and virtual infrastructures of local production to understand how cultural media are produced and circulated around the globe.

Bringing Global Game Jam to Ukraine was the first successful action of an IT-Alliance recently formed in Kirovograd, Ukraine. The organizational issues, community perception and impact to the future IT projects is analyzed and discussed in this work in progress.

There is little research into the emotional dimension of creative industry personnel, such as computer game designers, and how emotions relate to their creative practices and work-related events. Such socioemotional work is the focus of this chapter. There is a practice-centered relevance to this topic too – it is reported that there exists a poor quality of life in many global game studios. Given our deficient knowledge of emotions in computer game development, and the practical resonance of this topic, our key research question is: What emotions, creative practices and work-related events characterize emotional journeys in computer game design teams, and how do these characteristics inter-relate? To explore and answer this research question, we draw on an in-depth field study of a computer games studio in Singapore. The chapter offers a theory of emotion-mediated improvisation as a coping model for the tumultuous emotional journeys that game developers endure.

Critical studies of the global game industry have shown how employment in game companies is often advertised as a chance to get paid for playing games. The same love of games that often brings people to the game industry also places them at a disadvantage when negotiating the terms and conditions of work. Drawing from fourteen in-depth interviews conducted with game industry representatives, the chapter traces the different roles and functions playing games has for game developers and how working in a game studio changes their playing habits over time. Developers appear aware of the trade-offs associated with playing games as part of their work and apply various strategies to preserve the joy and relevance of play.

Game engines have become a central element in the contemporary digital game industry, significantly contributing to the democratization of game development. By providing integrated tools, reusable systems, and accessible development environments, game engines have reduced technical and financial barriers that previously restricted game creation to large studios with substantial resources. This article examines the historical evolution of game engines, from proprietary solutions to modern, accessible platforms, and analyzes their role in enabling independent and small-scale development. Through a comparative and bibliographic methodology, the study discusses the main features of leading engines, their economic and market impacts, and their influence on the growth of the indie game sector. Additionally, the article addresses current limitations and challenges, such as technological dependence, licensing changes, and market saturation, while also exploring future trends, including open-source engines, artificial intelligence integration, and the standardization of development pipelines. The findings indicate that game engines have played a decisive role in expanding creative participation, fostering innovation, and reshaping the global game development ecosystem.

The trend of remote work has led to a rise in the popularity of multiplayer online games among working adults, offering an escape from their daily routines. The COVID-19 pandemic further boosted the global gaming market, reaching USD 249.55 billion in 2022. This study focuses on Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MORPGs) addiction specifically among working adults, as previous research has mostly centered on younger individuals and students. The paper has investigated the relationships between self-esteem, the need for advancement, emotional states, social motivation, and MORPG addiction. Data was collected from 89 respondents in the Greater Kuala Lumpur/Klang Valley region using convenience sampling. Results indicated that the need for advancement significantly influenced MORPG addiction, while self-esteem, emotional states, and social motivation have no significant impact on addiction among the prime working-age group. In view of the prevalence of MORPGs, the understanding of gamers' behavior in various markets is crucial for games developers' marketing and promotional efforts.

Chung maps out the current state of video-game development in Southeast Asia, which is in a transitional state as Southeast Asia game industries start to participate in global game development. The chapter provides a detailed theoretical discussion on cultural and economic decentralization of the US-centered transnationalism and globalization. With the game industry as the empirical case, the chapter also discusses the argument that the sole focus on the “Americanization” paradigm misjudges Japan’s transnational cultural power in the region and the circuit of cultural globalization.

As the global gaming market grows, localizing video games has become essential to reaching international audiences. It is not just about translating words; it is also about preserving the emotions behind them. This is especially true for expressive speech acts, which convey feelings like gratitude, apology, or sorrow. While Indonesian-made games are gaining worldwide popularity, little is known about how well their delivery and translations capture the emotional depth of the original story. This study explores expressive speech acts in A Space for the Unbound, a popular Indonesian game with a growing global fan base. It also examines whether the Indonesian translation effectively conveys the emotions found in the original English text. Using a descriptive qualitative approach, the research compares English expressive speech acts from the game’s prologue and Chapter 1 to their Indonesian translations. The speech acts are categorized using a mix of expert models, and the translation is evaluated based on accuracy, readability, and acceptability. The findings reveal a high frequency of expressive speech acts, evenly distributed to elicit emotional responses in players. The translation quality is excellent, with all three dimensions exceeding 95%. Small adjustments to accuracy (around 5%) seem intended to enhance emotional engagement. This research demonstrates that a successful game translation necessitates a balance between accurate language and cultural and emotional meaning, providing practical insights for game developers and localization experts working across languages.

Garena is a global game developer and publisher. Garena provides users with access to popular and engaging online games for mobile and PC, developed, curated, and localized for each market. The Battle Royale genre is relatively new, and this research will evaluate Free Fire, one of the games in this genre made by Garena. Analyzing end-user reviews is considered important for evaluating software quality. Researchers need to understand which aspects need to be evaluated based on player reviews on Google Play and how the model's performance is generated using feedback from players who have played Free Fire. In this study, researchers use the Latent Dirichlet Allocation (LDA) method to model topics and generate clusters in discussions for each topic. LDA is a generative probabilistic model of a corpus. This research on topic modeling using Google Play reviews and LDA has identified the topics users are most concerned with. The research shows three main aspects: bugs, graphics and performance, and game rules/punishment policy, as aspects that need to be evaluated based on player reviews on Google Play.

As the global gaming industry continues to grow, so does the need for game design to be accessible to people with different physical and cognitive abilities. Therefore, it is necessary to take accessibility design into consideration when developing a game. By using the interactive model of accessibility game design, this review explains why players with disabilities are unable to fully enjoy playing video games while playing. It then analyzes challenges and solutions related to visual, auditory, motor, and cognitive accessibility to gain a comprehensive understanding of how these elements interact in the game environment. Using case studies, this article lists a few games with accessibility in mind and illustrates the usability techniques they use. However, the process of achieving accessible gaming comes with its own challenges. This article analyzes the technical, economic, and creative barriers that developers often encounter, and provides a series of recommendations for game developers to address these challenges. By championing accessibility, the gaming industry can ensure that everyone, regardless of ability, can actively participate in video games.