Date of Award
2008
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Communication and Culture
Abstract
This thesis argues that a focus on the player and the skill sets required to play video games - a player-skill perspective - provides a productive framework from which to examine and address many contemporary 'problem areas' within game studies. Familiarity, social performativity, and material mastery form three crucial, interlocking junctures where skill and mastery are framed as essential components for undertanding games. The game controller is positioned as a 'gatekeeper' between player and game; a precluding factor in engaging with the medium. Participant responses from original qualitative research, which places a primacy on female voices, are framed within a gaming climate of historically increasing complexification of game genres and material components, and point to several trends in how women can (and do) contend with gendered technology.
Recommended Citation
Clemens, Chris, "Skilled play : positioning the player at the centre of the digital game" (2008). Theses and dissertations. Paper 506.
http://digitalcommons.ryerson.ca/dissertations/506