Winter 2023 Research Review and Spring 2023 Plans

 Winter 2023 Review

• Studied statistical analysis and how to use such techniques in research
• Became proficient in statistical software SPSS
• Literature review on engagement and presence in digital games.
• Game feel: analysis and literature review on jumping in digital games.
• Game Genres: analyzed early game genre systems as counterpoint to my own research, may form a possible null hypothesis against my own theory 
• Atari
• Mattel Electronics
• "The Gamester" Paul Kordestani
• Game designer Chris Crawford
• Game scholar Mark J. P. Wolf
• Wrote a two-part analysis of Wolf's spatial structures of video games and compared my Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces to Wolf's system and similar systems by Clara Fernández-Vara and Dominic Arsenault.
• Added case data for (almost) all game titles mentioned in the game genre reviews (above) into my NVivo "Video Game Space and Motion" research database (ongoing work). Also coded all cases with genre data from above sources. Currently at 98 items.
• Added platform data as an attribute to game title entries in research database.

Preliminary cluster diagram of coding similarity, "Video Game Space and Motion" (Rowe, unpublished)

Spring 2023 Plans

My theory posits that a distinct way that humans experience digital games as aesthetic objects is through the embodied, "cyberkinaesthetic" experience of navigating virtual spaces.

The visuo-spatial configuration of a virtual space is the geometry of that space (defined by dimensionality, metrics, and extents), and the methods used to project that space onto the screen (or pair of screens, for binocular vision) of the game apparatus that serves as interface with the player.

A player has certain affordances within the game's field of action allowing them to take actions with other actors and navigate within virtual space. These affordances are moderated by the dynamics that determine the rules of interaction within the virtual space.

A game's spatial paradigm is defined by both the visuo-spatial configuration of its virtual space and the player's affordances for navigating that space.

I will be pushing my research toward defining specific spatial paradigms in my existing body of data.

• Fine-tune Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces based on analysis of what attributes should be included or removed in order to be informative for my research. Make edits to Taxonomy document to match.
• Complete existing qualitative analysis of game spaces for a broader selection of digital game titles using Taxonomy of Virtual Spaces.
• Analyze player navigation in the above games and develop system for codifying the results.
• Use statistical analysis to find patterns of similarity that signify Spatial Paradigms, Spatial Refinement, and Paradigm Shifts.