Platform-produced Heteronormativity: A Content Analysis of Adult Videogames on Patreon

Petri Lankoski, Thomas Apperley, J. Tuomas Harvianen

Games and Culture, https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/15554120221084453 (CC By)

Abstract

This article examines the prominent role of Patreon in the rapidly growing sector of crowdfunded pornographic games. Recent research has indicated that, on average, more people (patrons) are funding pornographic digital games on Patreon than other (non-adult) digital games. Graphtreon’s ‘Top Patreon Creators’ list from 9 June 2021 includes six NSFW game projects among the top 50 projects (ranked by number of Patrons).1 For example, Summertime Saga (Dark Cookie), the highest-ranked pornographic game, is third in terms of the number of funders, with 27,791 patrons funding $74,657 per month. While Wild Life – An Adult RPG (Adeptus Steve), which reportedly only had 9417 patrons as of 9 June 2021, receives a monthly income of $94,129 from those pledges.2 The current funding levels for both Patreon projects are considerably higher than when we began our sampling: since January 2020, the funding level for Summertime Saga has risen by 27.86%, while for Wild Life – An Adult RPG it has risen by 21.45%.

Keywords: adult games, content analysis, heteronormativity, non-consensual sex, Patreon funding, pornography

Patreon and Porn Games: Crowdfunding Games, Reward Categories and Backstage Passes

Petri Lankoski & Mikolaj Dymek

In DiGRA 2020 conference proceedings. The definitive version will be on DiGRA digital library.

Abstract

Patreon is a crowdfunding platform where pornographic games are funded; even the most successful game developer in terms of the number of members is developing a pornographic game. We looked at 42 developers and their Patreon pages in order to examine the effects of the Patreon crowdfunding model on videogame development. Especially we studied membership rewards. As a result, developers were not only selling the game, but rewards we much about Community, Influence, and Recognition. Regulating Content Access is used regularly but often the latest version of the game is made available to everybody, just later to the members funding the development. We propose that certain rewards are similar to backstage passes in the music business and suggest that Patron pornographic games funding deviates from the crowdfunding model is not following mainly product-oriented commodity logic but a more community-oriented concept.

Continue reading “Patreon and Porn Games: Crowdfunding Games, Reward Categories and Backstage Passes”

Constructive Alignment in Teaching Game Research in Game Development Bachelors Programme

Petri Lankoski and Mirjam P. Eladhari

Paper presented at Teaching Games: Pedagogical Approaches – DiGRA 2019 Pre-Conference Workshop(TGPA:DiGRA2019) August 6, 2019, Kyoto, Japan.

Abstract

This paper presents a case study of a Bachelor level game research methods course (15ECTS). The course covers observations, interviews, and introduction to statistical analysis. The course set-up follows constructive alignment design where the aim is that the learning goals, learning tasks, and evaluation are aligned. During the course, students first learn re-search design and later design their research based on a set of examples and conduct data gathering and analysis. The evaluation of the pedagogical approach used is based on students’ learning diaries where the focus is the methods and applying methods. Qualitative evaluation indicates that students can better describe their research designs and analyses.

Keywords

pedagogy, constructive alignment, research methods, game design research

Continue reading “Constructive Alignment in Teaching Game Research in Game Development Bachelors Programme”

Constructive Alignment in Teaching Game Research in Game Development Bachelors Programme

Lankoski & P Eladhari

A paper to be presented at Teaching Games: Pedagogical Approaches (at DiGRA 2019 Conference)

This paper presents a case study of a Bachelor level game research methods course (15 ECTS). The course covers observations, interviews, and introduction to statistical analysis. The course set-up follows constructive alignment design where the aim is that the learning goals, learning tasks, and evaluation are aligned. During the course, students first learn research design and later design their research based on a set of examples and conduct data gathering and analysis. The evaluation of the pedagogical approach used is based on students’ learning diaries where the focus is the methods and applying methods. Qualitative evaluation indicates that students can better describe their research designs and analyses.

Methods, History, and Impact: Directions in Game Design Research

Forgot to blog about New Research Perspectives on Game Design and Development Education workshop paper.

Hartmut Koenitz, Christian Roth, Elisa D. Mekler, Staffan Björk, Petri Lankoski, Mirjam Palosaari Eladhari, Annakaisa Kultima, & Ben Medler
Abstract
Research into the design aspect of games has proliferated since the early 1970s. Currently, early historical overviews appear and categorical divisions within the field become more pronounced. It is therefore timely to reflect on the development until today, take stock of the current landscape, and consider future topics. This position paper does so by bringing together seasoned and emerging scholars, as well as practitioners and industry insiders. Together, they consider which topics are already engaged, and what new ones might be necessary. In addition, the paper will discuss the relationship between game design research and independent/ industry practices as well as implications for game design education.

Full-text PDF

2018 DiGRA Distinguished Scholar

I have the honor to be selected as one of 2018 DiGRA Distinguished Scholars.

In 2016 DiGRA established the Distinguished Scholars program to recognize senior scholars in the field of game studies who have been at the forefront of the development of rigorous scholarship, the establishment of game studies and game development programs, and who have made significant contributions to DiGRA itself as an organization.
The complete list of DiGRA Distinguished Scholars: http://www.digra.org/the-association/distinguished-scholars/

A simple save system in Unity

Saving game data is a task that I need regularly. Using serialization and writing data to a file is an approach that I have used much, but that does not work in WebGL builds. Instead, I wrote data in a PlayerPrefs string. In this way I do not need to keep a details about what objects have a save data to delete or find all save data. The XML string stored contains everything.

Continue reading “A simple save system in Unity”

Measuring aggression, the effects of violent games (and other media)

According to Anderson et al. (2010) there is a link between violent games and aggressive behavior. However, that meta-analysis has been criticized. In addition, studies have found little evidence that violent games relates to violent behavior in real life, for example, as aggravated assault or homicide. (see my previous post). Again, this is not a systematic review, but more notes to myself on the topic.

According to Ferguson and Rueda (2009) modified Taylor competitive reaction time test of aggression (modified TCRTT) is used to violent game effects. The idea of TCRTT is to measure how much painful noise (or in unmodified version electronic shock) participants are willing to induce to another.

However, Ferguson and Rueda note that there is no standardized version of modified TCRTT. Elton (2016) reviewed the use of TCRTT in 130 publications and found that those publications used 156 different quantification approaches. Ferguson and Rueda (2009) argues that lack of standardized version has a serious consequences: “Researchers (or indeed clinicians) could choose outcomes that best suit their hypothesis and ignore outcomes that do not.”

Tedeschi and Quigley, TCRTT  have more fundamental flaw in its design:

Tedeschi and Quigley 1996 note, the iterative nature of the game may encourage aggressive responding for other reasons, such as reciprocity (fairness) and deterrence (social control), rather than desire to harm. There is also the possibility that very competitive participants might use more severe shocks, not because they want to harm theirmopponent, but to negatively affect their reaction rates and so ‘‘win’’ the game. (cited in Ritter and Eslea, 2005.)

If we “define aggression as behavior that is intended to harm another individual who does not wish to be harmed“ (Baron and Richardson, 1994, cited in Rajiv and Hammond, 2014) intention to harm should be also evaluated. Laboratory research have a great challenge here because participants are most likely aware that research cannot setup study so that participants could harm someone with their actions in an experiment. (C.f. Ritter and Eslea, 2005.) Also, Milgram experiment at 1960s tells a story, at least, how experiment situation can setup so that participants follow instructions, give electric shocks, even when thinking they cause pain to someone; however, the participants apparently lacked intention to harm.

Breuer, et al. (2015) studied the relation of frustration and aggression measuring aggression with modified TCRTT. They conclude:

The current results corroborate previous research and provide further support for the contention that factors other than violent content play a role in the effects of digital games on aggression. (Breuer, et al. 2015)

Elton, et al. show evidence that game speed, for example, can influence aggression measures used in laboratory research:

The results show that game speed, a feature that tends to vary across games and genres, not only interacts with displayed violence, but also has a direct effect on several outcome variables that might otherwise be misleadingly attributed to displayed violence. The findings of this study demonstrate the importance of controlling potentially confounding factors in experimental research on digital games and points to the importance of further systematic research into what other variables of a game may affect player experience and behavior […] (Elson, et al. 2015)

For the future reading: Ritter and Eslea (2005) provides review of main approaches(including TCRTT) to measure aggression in  laboratory settings as well as critique to those.

References

  • Andreson, et al. 2010. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2). DOI=0.1037/a0018251.
  • Breuer, J., Scharkow, M. and Quandt, T. 2015, Sore losers? A reexamination of the frustration–aggression hypothesis for colocated video game play, Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(2), pp.126-137.
  • Elson, M., Breuer, J., Van Looy, J., Kneer, J. and Quandt, T. 2015, Comparing apples and oranges? Evidence for pace of action as a confound in research on digital games and aggression, Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(2), pp.112-125.
  • Elton, M., 2016. Flexible Measures / Competitive Reaction Time Task. Available at http://www.flexiblemeasures.com/crtt/index.php?menu=publications.
  • Ferguson, C.J. and Rueda, S.M.  2009. Examining the validity of the modified Taylor competitive reaction time test of aggression. J Exp Criminol, 5(121). DOI= 10.1007/s11292-009-9069-5.
  • Rajiv, J. and Hammond, T. 2014. Principles of social psychology. Available at https://opentextbc.ca/socialpsychology/.
  • Ritter and Eslea, 2005. Hot Sauce, Toy Guns, and Graffiti: A Critical Account of Current Laboratory Aggression Paradigms. Aggressive Behavior 31, pp.407–419.

 

Violent game effects?

This is not anything like systematic review, but more notes for myself.

The long debate of how violent games effect on behavior. Anderson, et al. (2010) argue that there are violent games increase aggression and lower empathy:

The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior. Moderator analyses revealed significant research design effects, weak evidence of cultural differences in susceptibility and type of measurement effects, and no evidence of sex differences in susceptibility. Results of various sensitivity analyses revealed these effects to be robust, with little evidence of selection (publication) bias.

Hilgard, Engelhardt and Rouder (2017) provide a reanalysis of Anderson, el al. (2010) meta analysis and reach different conclusion:

First, we detect substantial publication bias in experimental research on the effects of violent games on aggressive affect and aggressive behavior. Second, after adjustment for bias, the effects of violent games on aggressive behavior in experimental research are estimated as being very small, and estimates of effects on aggressive affect are much reduced. In contrast, the cross-sectional literature finds correlations that appear largely unbiased. Third, experiments meeting the original authors’ criteria for methodological quality do not yield larger adjusted effects than other experiments, but instead yield larger indications of bias, indicating that perhaps they were selected for significance.

Ferguson and Kilburn (2010) also criticize Anderson et al. (2010) meta analysis, because  studies included does not study violent aggression. Fergunson (2007) elsewhere states that evidence to publication bias in videogame violence effects publications.

On the other hand, Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis (2008) states that there are evidence that violent imaginary in games has a short term effect to children (increasing aggressive or fearful behaviour), but inconsistent evident of any long term effect or any kind of effect to teens and adults.

Notably, studies looking at the link between violent videogames and violent real world behaviour has not found an evidence that those two are linked. Markey, et al. (2014) did not find evidence that playing violent games and aggressive assaults and homicides are positively linked. However, Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis (2008) claim that there is “weak evidence from correlation studies links media violence directly to crime.”

A new intervention study comparing effects of playing violent videogame and non-violent videogames to aggression, by Kühn, et al. (2018a) allows draw causal conclusions. Based on their study where participants played Sims 3 (n=24) or Grand Theft Auto V (n=25) daily for two months (and have third passive control group who did not play any game, n=28), they conclude

The present results thus provide strong evidence against the frequently debated negative effects of playing violent video games in adults and will therefore help to communicate a more realistic scientific perspective on the effects of violent video gaming.

Kühn et al. (2018a) states that the sample size in the study is enough to detect the average effect sizes, r=.18 reported Anderson, et al. (2010).

In fMRI study, Kuhn et al. (2018b) where people were randomly assigned to play Grand Theft Auto V (n=26), Sims 3 (n=24) or non play group (n=30). They did not find “any evidence for desensitization in the empathy network for pain in the violent video game group at any time point”.

EDIT 2018/03/20. There is a reply to Hilgard, Engelhardt and Rouder (2017) by Kepes, Bushman and Anderson (2017) and provide another set of meta analyses and claim “As stated in our title, although the magnitude of the mean effects were reduced by publication bias and outliers, ‘violent video game effects remain a societal concern.'” However, real life impact of the violent games is another question (cf. Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis, 2008; Markey, et al., 2014).

References

  • Andreson, et al. 2010. Violent Video Game Effects on Aggression, Empathy, and Prosocial Behavior in Eastern and Western Countries: A Meta-Analytic Review. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2). DOI=0.1037/a0018251.
  • Browne and Hamilton-Giachritsis, 2008. The influence of violent media on children and adolescents: a public-health approach. Lancet, 365(9460). DOI=10.1016/S0140-6736(05)17952-5.
  • Ferguson and Kilburn, 2010. Much ado about nothing: The misestimation and overinterpretation of violent video game effects in Eastern and Western nations: Comment on Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 136(2). DOI=10.1037/a0018566.
  • Ferguson, 2007. Evidence for publication bias in video game violence effects literature: A meta-analytic review,Aggression and Violent Behavior,  12(4). DOI=10.1016/j.avb.2007.01.001.
  • Hilgard, Engelhardt and Rouder, 2017. Overstated evidence for short-term effects of violent games on affect and behavior: A reanalysis of Anderson et al. (2010). Psychological Bulletin, 143(7). DOI=10.1037/bul0000074.
  • Kepes, S., Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C.A., 2017. Violent video game effects remain a societal concern: Reply to Hilgard, Engelhardt, and Rouder (2017). Psychological Bulletin,
  • Kühn, Kugler, Schmalen, Weichenberger, Witt, and Gallinat, 2018a. Does playing violent video games cause aggression? A longitudinal intervention study. Molecular Psychiatry. DOI=10.1038/s41380-018-0031-7.
  • Kühn, Kugler, Schmalen, Weichenberger, Witt, Gallinat, 2018b. The Myth of Blunted Gamers: No Evidence for Desensitization in Empathy for Pain after a Violent Video Game Intervention in a Longitudinal fMRI Study on Non-Gamers. Neurosignals, 26. DOI=10.1159/000487217.
  • Markey,, Markey, French, 2014. Violent Video Games and Real-World Violence:  Rhetoric Versus Data. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 4(4) DOI=10.1037/ppm0000030.