The Dark Side of Game Play

Torill Elvira Mortensen is Associate Professor at the IT University of Copenhagen. She studies multi-user games and digital media culture. She’s a board member of Norsk Tipping and the author of Perceiving Play: The art and study of computer games (2009). She was a founding member of the editorial group of the journal Gamestudies.org. Jonas Linderoth is a professor at the Department of Education, Communication and Learning, University of Gothenburg, Sweden. He has published several peer-reviewed journal articles about perception, learning and cognition during gameplay and is a contributor to the Routledge volume Sports Videogames. Ashley ML Brown is a lecturer in Game Design at Brunel University London in the United Kingdom. She is a board member of the Digital Games Research Association and the author of a chapter in Dungeons and Dragons and Philosophy as well as her recently completed thesis entitled ‘Sex Between Frames: An exploration of online and tabletop erotic role play’.

Part I: Introduction 1. Dark Play: The Aesthetics of Controversial Playfulness Torill Elvira Mortensen and Jonas Linderoth Part II: Discourses of Dark Play 2. Analyzing Game Controversies: A Historical Approach to Moral Panics and Digital Games Faltin Karlsen 3. Of Heroes and Henchmen: The Conventions of Killing Generic Expendables in Digital Games René Glas 4. Don’t Forget to Die: A Software Update is Available for the Death Drive Emily Flynn-Jones Part III: Dark Play or Darkly Played? 5. Killing Digital Children: Design, Discourse and Player Agency Björn Sjöblom 6. Little Evils: Subversive Uses of Children’s Games Frans Mäyrä 7. Darkly Playing Others Miguel Sicart Part IV: Dark Play and Situated Meaning 8. Three Defences for the Fourteen-Inch Barbed Penis: Darkly Playing with Morals, Ethics and Sexual Violence Ashley ML Brown 9. Exploring the Limits of Play: A Case Study of Representations of Nazism in Games Adam Chapman and Jonas Linderoth 10. Keeping the Balance: Morals at the Dark Side Torill Elvira Mortensen 11. Fabricated Innocence: On How People Can be Lured into Feel Bad Games Staffan Björk Part V: Designing for Dark Play 12. Massively Multiplayer Dark Play; Treacherous Play in EVE Online Marcus Carter 13. Dark Play in Dishonored Kristine Jørgensen 14. Sonic Descents: Musical Dark Play in Survival and Psychological Horror Isabella van Elferen 15. Boosting, Glitching and Modding Call of Duty: Assertive Dark Play Manifestations, Communities, Pleasures and Organic Resilience Alan Meades