OOIR: Observatory of International Research

Papers

(The TQCC of Games and Culture is 3. The table below lists those papers that are above that threshold based on CrossRef citation counts [max. 250 papers]. The publications cover those that have been published in the past four years, i.e., from 2020-04-01 to 2024-04-01.)

Article	Citations
Playing Video Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic and Effects on Players’ Well-Being	123
Behind the Streams: The Off-Camera Labour of Game Live Streaming	21
Game Workers and the Empire: Unionisation in the UK Video Game Industry	21
Designing for Disability: Evaluating the State of Accessibility Design in Video Games	21
Heritage Sites and Video Games: Questions of Authenticity and Immersion	19
“I Can be Who I Am When I Play Tekken 7”: E-sports Women Participants from the Islamic Republic of Pakistan	18
Families Playing Animal Crossing Together: Coping With Video Games During the COVID-19 Pandemic	17
Using Video Games for Learning: Developing a Metalanguage for Digital Play	14
Engagement With the Gurus of Gaming Culture: Parasocial Relationships to Let’s Players	13
Video Games and Aesthetic Contemplation	13
Designing the Future? The Metaverse, NFTs, & the Future as Defined by Unity Users	12
Gaming When Things Get Tough? Examining How Emotion Regulation and Coping Self-Efficacy Influence Gaming During Difficult Life Situations	12
Apps of Empire: Global Capitalism and the App Economy	11
“After All, They Don’t Know Me” Exploring the Psychological Mechanisms of Toxic Behavior in Online Games	10
Online Gaming and Racism: Impact on Psychological Distress Among Black, Asian, and Latinx Emerging Adults	9
Disability and Video Games Journalism: A Discourse Analysis of Accessibility and Gaming Culture	9
The Industry of Landlords: Exploring the Assetization of the Triple-A Game	9
Masculine Pleasures as Normalized Practices: Character Design in the Video Game Industry	8
Playthings	8
White Masculinity, Creative Desires, and Production Ideology in Video Game Development	8
Gamifying Contentious Politics: Gaming Capital and Playful Resistance	8
Ludic Ethics: The Ethical Negotiations of Players in Online Multiplayer Games	8
Becoming a Gamer: Performative Construction of Gendered Gamer Identities	7
History, Heritage, and Memory in Video Games: Approaching the Past in Svoboda 1945: Liberation and Train to Sachsenhausen	6
Returning to Azeroth: Nostalgia, Sense of Place, and Social Presence in World of Warcraft Classic	6

Pivotal Play: Rethinking Meaningful Play in Games Through Death inDungeons & Dragons	6
Translation Solutions in Professional Video Game Localization in Iran	6
Studying Game Development Cultures	6
Politics of Production: Videogames 10 years afterGames of Empire	6
Postscript: Gaming While Empire Burns	6
Are Video Games Still a Boys’ Club? How German Public Television Covers Video Games	6
Developing an Empathy Spectrum for Games	6
A Swiftly Changing Tide: Fantasy Sport, Gambling, and Alternative Forms of Participation	6
The Economy of Time, the Rationalisation of Resources: Discipline, Desire and Deferred Value in the Playing of Gacha Games	5
Archeology of Abandoned Human Settlements inNo Man’s Sky: A New Approach to Recording and Preserving User-Generated Content in Digital Games	5
Exploring Player Understandings of Historical Accuracy and Historical Authenticity in Video Games	5
Newsgames: The Use of Digital Games by Mass-Media Outlets to Convey Journalistic Messages	5
‘Thank you for your compliance’: Overwatch as a Disciplinary System	5
Growing Pains in Esports Associationalism: Four Modes of National Esports Associational Development	5
Using Case Studies to Explore Need Satisfaction and Frustration in Puzzle Video Games	5
How Accessible is This Video Game? An Analysis Tool in Two Steps	5
Play, History and Politics: Conceiving Futures Beyond Empire	5
Video Game Development in India: A Cultural and Creative Industry Embracing Regional Cultural Heritage(s)	4
Developer Credit: Para-Industrial Hierarchies of In-Game Credit Attribution in the Video Game Industry	4
Exploring the Feminization of Backseat Gaming ThroughGirlfriend ReviewsYouTube Channel	4
Child of the Elder Blood: A Semiotics of Folklorism in the Soundtrack of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt	4
Last Man Standing: Battle Royale Games Through the Lens of Self-Determination Theory	4
Feminist and Furious: Diversity Work(ers) Against Game Studies of Empire!	4
(Re)Playing (with) Video game History: Moving beyond Retrogaming	4
Professional Gaming and Pro-Gamers: What Do We Know So Far? A Systematic Review	4
Heroes and Hooligans: The Heterogeneity of Video Game Modders	4
Balancing Ethics, Art and Economics: A Qualitative Analysis of Game Designer Perspectives on Monetisation	4
Uncovering the Meaning: Exploring Semantic Differences in US Perceptions of “Gamer” and Game Players	4
A Virtual Reality Educational Game for the Ethics of Cultural Heritage Repatriation	3
Chinese Gold-Farming in the 2000s: Worker Empowerment and Local Development Through Video Games-Based Digital Labor	3
‘You Game Like a Girl’: Perceptions of Gender and Competence in Gaming	3
The Significance and Complexities of Anti-Corporate Gamer Activism: Struggles Against the Exploitation and Control of Game-Worlds in 2000s China	3
It Does Matter If You Win or Lose, and How You Play the (Video) Game	3
Enjoying My Time in the Animus: A Quantitative Survey on Perceived Realism and Enjoyment of Historical Video Games	3
White-Collar Criminality Within the Video Game Industry	3
The COVID Season: U.S. Collegiate Esports Programs’ Material Challenges and Opportunities During the 2020–21 Pandemic	3
“She's Built Like a Tank”: Player Reaction to Abby Anderson in The Last of Us: Part II	3
Hypermodern Video Games as Emblems of Empire or How the Gaming Multitude Adapts to Hypermodernity	3
Towards Sovereign Games	3
What Does it Mean to be a Female Character in “Indie” Game Storytelling? Narrative Framing and Humanization in Independently Developed Video Games	3
Mashing Up History and Heritage in Assassin’s Creed Odyssey	3
Assembling Auras: Towards a Methodology for the Preservation and Study of Video Games as Cultural Heritage Artefacts	3
Undertale’s Loveable Monsters: Investigating Parasocial Relationships with Non-Player Characters	3
Morality Meters and Their Impacts on Moral Choices in Videogames: A Qualitative Study	3