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Copyright of Pasado y Memoria. Revista de Historia Contemporánea is the property of Pasado y Memoria and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Drawing on Debord's the society of the spectacle and Evans and Giroux's notion of the spectacle of violence, this paper argues that a discourse on war, organised violence, and global politics has been disseminated through a military-entertainment complex that has commodified militarism into a practice of consumption. Drawing on first-person shooter (FPS) video games as a context, the paper considers the market for these games, the conditions of their creation, and the way they are marketed. The paper discusses three ways in which FPS games function as part of a contemporary spectacle of violence: through their intertextual connections to other forms of military entertainment; through the immersive experience they offer; and through the geopolitical position they establish. The paper concludes by establishing FPS games as complex, sophisticated cultural artefacts that both draw on and shape wider discourses on war and the military, in the age of the spectacle of violence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Multidisciplinary Journal of School Education is the property of Jesuit University Ignatianum in Krakow and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

This Special Issue of I Arts i explores the art (and practice) of adaptation in what may be the two most influential mediums in existence today: film and video games. In the opening article, [15] ([15]) argues that the concept of video game cinema - often seen as simply the adaptation of a video game into a film - must be rethought and broadened in light of films like Spike Jonze's I Her i (2013) and Sam Mendes' I 1917 i (2019), which are not adapted from specific video games but bear the marks of games in less obvious, but undeniably potent, ways. [8] ([8]) discuss I The Witcher i media franchise, which began in the 1980s as fiction (written by Andrzej Sapkowski) and took on an international scope with film and video game adaptations, including a recent (2019-2021) Netflix series. 10.3390/arts10020020 17 Thomas Christian Interview: Acclaimed Game Designer Ryan Kaufman Discusses Telltale Games, Star Wars, Harry Potter, and How Video Games Can Transform Us. [Extracted from the article]

From 2018 to 2021, the "egirl" witnessed a radical shift from her origins as a sexualized slur in online gaming. Through critical discourse analysis of news media of this period, this paper interprets this transformation within two primary phenomena: (1) the growth of women game influencers who reclaimed "egirl" slurs in their self-branding and (2) the launch of "Egirl.gg," a platform for paid gaming companions. I argue that live streaming platform Twitch.tv, and the expansive ecosystems of labor its demand from streamers, were integral to this re-authorization of who can play as themselves in a patriarchal gaming culture. Here, I extend Ergin Bulut's framework of "ludic authorship" to delineate how stakeholders in game streaming industries masculinize the cultural labor of "authenticity." The ambivalent embrace of "egirling" via streaming cultural logics further complicates the work of women gamers who must work harder to realize careers in platformed entertainment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Araucaria is the property of Araucaria-Revista Iberoamericana de Filosofia, Politica y Humanidades and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

The article is devoted to the question of the categories of the epic as part of the theoretical paradigm of contemporary musicology. It is proven that nowadays there are many books, magazines and articles about the epic genre of music. The concept of a soundtrack that appeared in the 1950s is highlighted of XX century. The compilation of songs "Carmina Burana", which became the reason for the appearance of the music for the trailers was investigated. It has been established that since the 90s of the XX century, the first companies that were engaged in the creation of music for trailers began to appear - "Globus" and "Inmediate Music". It is determined that the first studio album of the group "Globus" was "Epicon". It is noted that video games belong to epic music. It has been studied that epic soundtracks are most often used in video games with the plot of war, confrontation and battles. It is noted that Jeremy Soule, who gained fame thanks to the game series "Elder Scrolls" and "Harry Potter" is the most famous composer of orchestral music video games. The importance of music is emphasized for the video games of the famous American composer Garry Schyman. Emphasis is placed on the talented works of German instrumentalist Hans Zimmer. It is noted that the music is epic and cinematic. Samples of the musical epic of Ukrainian composers are highlighted. Explored Japanese anime style animation. Revealed that talented artists receive the MTV Video Music Awards every year. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines the cultural tensions on non-Kuwaiti video games circulating in Kuwaiti culture based on the views of Kuwaiti gamers on gender, violence and sexuality and censorship in gaming. It explores how Kuwaiti gamers reconcile their desire to play Western video games with video game censorship by the Kuwaiti government. It explores the perception on and response of Kuwaiti gamers to differences between Japanese and U.S. cultures depicted in video games with Kuwaiti culture.

One might argue that it is precisely within the nothingness of post-war landscapes - where infrastructural ruination encloses possibility and necropolitical forces stifle human and nonhuman life alike - that local, regional and international state and non-state actors produce value and accumulate capital. Manna picks up the task of excavating Syria's well-dug histories of slow violence right where Amiralay had left them off. I Wild Relatives i (2018) is a documentary essay on Syria by Palestinian visual artist Jumana Manna. [Extracted from the article]

Copyright of Russkaa Starina is the property of Cherkas Global University Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

In response to the increased use and study of video games in academic work, academic libraries have started building or have expanded their video game collections. Collection development practices, however, have focused on collecting video games based on their format and not on their subject and disciplinary content. The authors of this article suggest that video games, while “read” differently than monographs, can communicate knowledge in unambiguous and discipline specific ways. Using the discipline of history as an example, the authors examined four World War II commercial video games to see how well these games communicated discipline-specific knowledge. Although none of the four video games evaluated would be identified as scholarly, two of the video games could be considered as sources of historical knowledge. As scholars begin to explore the creation and use of video games as secondary or tertiary sources in addition to primary sources or objects of study, academic libraries should include video games in their collections based on the video games' disciplinary content and the scholarly arguments that they present. The authors recommend a process for evaluating video games that could be used for most academic disciplines. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

A current evolutionary hypothesis predicts that the most extreme forms of animal weaponry arise in systems where combatants fight each other one-to-one, in duels. It has also been suggested that arms races in human interstate conflicts are more likely to escalate in cases where there are only two opponents. However, directly testing whether duels matter for weapon investment is difficult in animals and impossible in interstate conflicts. Here, we test whether superior combatants experience a disproportionate advantage in duels, as compared with multi-combatant skirmishes, in a system analogous to both animal and military contests: the battles fought by artificial intelligence agents in a computer war game. We found that combatants with experimentally improved fighting power had a large advantage in duels, but that this advantage deteriorated as the complexity of the battlefield was increased by the addition of further combatants. This pattern remained under the two different forms of the advantage granted to our focal artificial intelligence (AI) combatants, and became reversed when we switched the roles to feature a weak focal AI among strong opponents. Our results suggest that one-on-one combat may trigger arms races in diverse systems. These results corroborate the outcomes of studies of both animal and interstate contests, and suggest that elements of animal contest theory may be widely applicable to arms races generally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article collects predominant representation or representations of war in war video games. To this end, a content analysis is carried out on a sample of 62 video games, which was taken following the sampling criteria of volume of sales or number of downloads in Spain between 2005-2015. This analysis is based on three conceptual lines: a) conflict legitimizers; b) enemy dehumanizers; and c) player de-individualizers. Results show the prevalence of a defense-centered legitimizing discourse of the conflict with no territorial or resource motivations, the absence of civilians during the action of the game, a predominance of enemies with homogeneous appearance and behavior who lack distinctive features and are realistically represented, and some main characters with a default design, heroic background and unreal invulnerability. Relying on the cultivation theory, this descriptive work establishes an empirical basis for further studies on how regular users of this kind of leisure activity construct beliefs and attitudes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article examines the close historical and contemporary ties between the Pentagon and Hollywood from the 1920s until today. Drawing on the US military as an in-depth case study, the article shows the extent to which key military actors view the conduct of war as an arena that stretches well beyond the actual battlefields and includes the production of war movies, film documentaries, computer simulations and first person shooter video games. The article begins with an examination of the 'Military-Industrial Complex' and its evolution into what experts have dubbed 'The Military-Industrial-Media-Entertainment Network (MIME-Net).' It then focuses on the military's relationship with the filming industry, with the production of reality TV, and the commercial gaming industry. It thereby investigates, through in-depth interviews with key stakeholders, how this phenomenon has evolved over time and into new areas where games, simulators, and game technologies cross the boundaries between militaries, the defense industry, Hollywood and the commercial gaming sector. And it shows how the advent of digital new technologies have opened new platforms through which militaries seek to boost recruitment, to (re)write military history, and to influence the portrayal of the armed forces in the eyes of the public. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2014, the Polish studio 11 Bits Studio produced the computer game entitled This War of Mine. The concept of this game was based on the course of the siege of Sarajevo. This production has changed the way of representation of war in video games. The main characters are not soldiers, but civilians, whose main aim is: to simply survive the war. Starvation, cold, lack of sleep and psychosomatic problems turn out to be more dangerous than the enemy's army. Survival is possible, but forces the player to make ethically ambiguous decisions. The aim of the paper is to determine how the creators of the game presented the perspective of the civilians. This analysis will be based on the plot and mechanics of This War of Mine, on the historical context (war in the Balkans: the siege of Sarajevo) and with regard to virtual war schemes (topic of war in video games). The paper will also propose a concept of the game about war as an agon: the territory of not only a conflict, but also competition and a war spectacle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With the emergence of computer games focused on the First World War, representations of the conflict have begun to reach brand new audiences in ways it has been unable to before. The portrayal of the war in an interactive setting has exposed millions to new information about its origins and methods. To understand the reach and impact of these games it is necessary to also understand their backgrounds and historiography. This article presents the first in-depth examination of the source material for two of the biggest First World War focused computer games in existence; Valiant Hearts: The Great War, and Battlefield 1. Through discussions with the developers behind these games and analysis of the sources which provided them with their information, it becomes possible not just to chart the provenance of their historical messages but also to understand how themes within academic history are being disseminated by the modern media. However, it is also possible to see the extent to which understandings of the war and how it was waged are not being incorporated by games developers or their products. This article argues that more work and cooperation is needed between historians and developers if the narratives of these games is to be influenced by historical research in the same way that the visual authenticity has been. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article considers the use of war games by both military and corporate groups. Topics include gamification, the notion of incorporating parts of games into more weighty activities, simulation games, video games, planning, decision making, and strategy. It considers the history of the shift from war games from the military to businesses, team or shared approaches to war games, and descriptions of three games suitable for businesses.

The author discusses the military first-person shooter game "Call of Duty: World War II." He mentions the relationship of the game to the work of mythologist Joseph Campbell, the depictions of World War II in the game, and the question of how the game presents a metaphor for U.S. hegemony in the post-war era.

The popular perception of the First World War has remained an inherently white mythic space in which white men fight against other white men and where minorities, when and if they are featured, are given an anonymous secondary role and are subject to the will and motivation of their white heroic leaders. This article will be considering the white mythic space of the First World War by focusing on the video game Battlefield 1 (2016) and investigating the backlash by players on online message boards against the inclusion of soldiers of color in the game's multiplayer features. In the online discourse, these players diminish the role that minorities played in the First World War and although the presence of minorities in the historical First World War is to a minor extent acknowledged, their space in the video game is nonetheless denied. I argue that this backlash is based on a rejection of the inclusive collective memory as portrayed in Battlefield 1, supported by racist arguments against the backdrop of the white mythic space of the First World War and that their rejection of the presence of minorities in Battlefield 1 can be constructed as a continuation of the denial of agency for soldiers of color by white individuals that took place during the First World War and the postwar period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article comments on the excessive reliance by U.S. policymakers on computer-based simulation in crafting decisions on war, military balance, and national defense. The reliance on simulations is misplaced because most military simulations and games lack quality control, are one-sided and not well documented. Furthermore, the scenarios drawn are overstructured and illogical. Computer models do not take into account human limitations and organizational weaknesses. This omission can prove fatal during actual war.