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“The Ending Has Not Yet Been Written”: How Myst, S., and Other Transmedia Creations Pay Tribute to the Analog in a Digital World

Chelsea Bock
With the arrival of new media comes the age-old anxiety that more traditional media – namely tangible forms like the print book – will be displaced, abandoned, or forgotten entirely. However, the book continues to be incorporated into sculptures that surround libraries and clothing and tote bags that we purchase, signifying that the traditional codex holds a lasting place in our hearts. This paper argues that newer forms of media can function as outlets for our love of physical manuscripts and can renew our infatuation with them rather than threaten to replace them. Digital media like Rand and Robyn Miller’s 1993 computer game Myst, as well as transmedia like J.J. Abrams’ and Doug Dorst’s digitally-supplemented novel S. use immersive techniques to recreate the feeling of “losing ourselves” in a good book, intensifying a desire to explore and discover in the physical world and the virtual world alike. Moreover, this paper utilizes Jay David Botler’s and Richard Grusin’s theory of remediation to suggest that transmedia has the potential to inform new engagement with the physical world, as is evident in trends like escape rooms and geocaching.

Rusty World: A Working Paper on Video Games and Social Class

Alan O'Connor
This working paper provides a preliminary treatment of issues of social class in relation to the video game Rust as it is played on servers and streamed on Twitch. The paper uses the sociology of Pierre Bourdieu to explore Rust as a field and to describe the social class habitus of those who play and stream the game.

The Cybiko Computer: Precursor to Today’s Mobile Devices?

William Helmke
Developed by Montfort and Bogost (2009) for their research on the Atari Video Computer System, platform studies analyzes the hardware and software environment through which media are interacted with. However, there needs to be more research in this area focusing on early mobile media platforms. This article considers the Cybiko Computer, a short-lived handheld computer marketed primarily to youth in the United States in the early 2000s. Featuring a monochrome LCD screen and a small QWERTY keyboard, the Cybiko was an early example of a device capable of various gaming, utility, and communication functions through numerous applications well before such multifunctionality became standard among mobile devices. These many applications were provided for free through Cybiko’s website, similar to modern app stores. The device was also promoted as an open platform for developers, leading to a variety of 3rd party applications. The Cybiko could also serve as an MP3 player via an add-on accessory. These features, mirroring those of later smartphone devices, should have seemingly ensured Cybiko's success. However, ineffective and inconsistent marketing, lack of cellular connectivity, and the rapid release of an upgraded version one year after the device’s debut led to its failure. Despite this, the Cybiko is a significant case study providing insight into how a device ahead of its time in terms of features can fail to gain wide adoption.

Examining the Bordered Heterocosm of The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim: Spaces, Boundaries, Transgression and Sociocultural Significance

Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo
This article explores the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, examining its bordered heterocosm by carefully looking at how in-game cities are constructed and how certain spaces within them can be regarded as heterotopias, thus denouncing and exposing sociocultural inequalities, which are enforced and maintained through numerous physical and abstract boundaries. Then, the role of the Dragonborn will be taken into consideration, so as to understand how this character, as the video game’s protagonist, transgresses these same boundaries without being subjected to the repercussions faced by the majority of non-player characters. As such, the Dragonborn is capable of subverting the very core dynamics of transgression, while holding a privileged social status within the video game’s rich and deeply fragmented world.

Close Reading a Close Reading: Revisiting Mystery House in Mechanisms

John Aycock
Mystery House is a game that was released in 1980 for the Apple II computer. It was the first text adventure game known to be illustrated and was the game design debut of celebrated game designer Roberta Williams. The landmark 2008 book Mechanisms: New Media and the Forensic Imagination performed a close reading of a Mystery Housefloppy disk, and in this paper I turn a critical eye to this previous work. My close reading of Mystery House’s earlier close reading reveals a number of problems, which I use as a vehicle to highlight a notable and important technical gap in game studies scholarship, and argue for an inclusive approach to advancing the field.

Playing with Perceptions: Reducing Mental Health Stigma through Proxy Experiences in Video Games: Insights and Recommendations from Self-Identified Gamers Using Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017) as a Case Study

Luke Simeon Pierce
This pilot study examines how self-identified gamers perceive video games as tools for reducing public stigma around mental health issues (MHIs) using a sequential, linked mixed-methods design. A closed online survey (N = 50) assessed demographics, gaming/media engagement, and attitudes toward MHI representation and served as the recruitment pool for an in-person qualitative phase, in which a subset completed individual playtests of Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (2017) followed by semi-structured interviews (n = 7).Participants across both phases supported the use of video games for destigmatization. Playtesters emphasised that stigma-reduction impacts are more plausible when designers prioritise engaging narrative design, immersive play, and meaningful player autonomy over overt, moralizing, or didactic instruction. They linked Hellblade’s authenticity and ethical representation to the proactive collaboration between developers, mental health professionals, and people with lived experience of MHIs. They also advocated for wider consultation with related affected groups (e.g., family members) to better reflect the cumulative and far reaching societal impacts of mental health issues.Three developer-oriented recommendations emerged: define target audiences beyond “gamers” alone; design research-informed games that balance compelling play with sensitive portrayal; and disseminate across several platforms concomitantly to reach active players, wider gaming-related communities, and non-gaming publics.