Page 110 - AC/E Digital Culture Annual Report

110wages. The game poses constant dilemmas, such as whether or not to listen to the pleas for mercy of travellers with forged papers desperate to be reunited with their families, or whether to accept a bribe to let someone in and run the risk of losing everything in exchange for money to maintain your family. The tension lies in whether to obey the impulse to win the game by abiding by the rules and, accordingly, succumbing to the dehumanisation promoted by the system, or whether to rebel and become a subversive agent but risk losing everything. Players espouse their character’s dilemmas by taking part in the game.– though this goes against the nature of games according to Huizinga’s de nition (5–8). Ian Bogost (2007) calls such games persuasive games, because the intention is for the player to adopt or modify a conduct while playing. There are thus serious games that educate, raise awareness of social problems or sell commercial products. The eld of serious games arose in response to games’ connotations of being a frivolous and childish activity; in the case of video games, it also sought to shed the stereotypical view of video games as an incitement to violence. This correction is based on myths about games and their nature. We have already discussed how games are part of cultural heritage and are related to rituals and other sociocultural activ- ities. We are witnessing a rise in the number of adult players, especially women (AEVI 2015: 34), thanks to the popularisation of mobile platforms (smartphones and digital tablets) which facilitate access to a host of digital games.Games, particularly the digital variety, are usually required to prove their positive aspects scienti - cally in order to redeem their purported negative in uence. Both extremes pose problems, as it is assumed that video games can change players’ conduct, both negatively (by encouraging violent behaviour) and positively (by helping them learn, motivating them), but it is not realised that their potential e ects depend not only on the typeof game but also on the context and on who is playing (see for example Manero Iglesias et al. 2016). Any cultural expression has the potential to cause an e ect; however, processes are not one-way but part of the sociocultural environ- ment in which a game is created and played.There are still misgivings about games, but they are increasingly becoming part of everyday life, and the principles of game design are being applied to other areas such as marketing, the workplace and education. We are thus witness- ing the gami cation phenomenon, which refers to the use of game design elements outside the context of games (Deterding et al. 2011). Gami cation was initially limited to associatingStamping visas in Papers, Please (2013)Beyond gami cation: designing participatory experiencesVideo games are the medium with the longest history of creating interactive experiences, either through digital media or in the form of board or card games. Game design as a discipline entails creating interactions, both between individuals and between humans and computers. In a sense, video game design has been a pioneer in de ning the professional skills of the future.Other elds, such as education or advertising, have experimented with incorporating game design as a possible means of advancing as disciplines. This genre was initially called serious games, as games of this kind are not designed to entertain but have a purportedly serious purposeGAME DESIGN AS A CULTURAL DISSEMINATOR · CLARA FERNÁNDEZ VARASmart culture. Analysis of digital trends