Brecht’s theory of Epic Theater focuses around the Verfremdungseffekt—also known as the Alienation Effect—that examines anti-immersive theater where the audience is made aware of their reality that they are watching a play. Utilizing Fernandez-Vara’s framework to understand games as performance, this paper seeks to examine the intersection between Verfremdungseffekt and games as the player serves as both the participant and the audience within the performance. To examine this new form of Epic Theater, Spike Chunsoft’s Danganronpa V3: Killing Harmony—or DV3:KH—will serve as a case study of what can be achieved when the player is made hyper aware of the fact that they are playing a game. Through DV3:KH and other meta breaking games, the duality of the player of being both the participant and audience to the performance of a game creates an active form of Epic Theater that no longer has a singular alienation effect that just the audience experiences. By introducing the alienation effect to the participant as well, both the active and passive roles in the performance are forced to reckon with the actions taken by the player. Through understanding DV3:KH, we can understand how this dual alienation can drive the player to end the performance early in refusal to play, creating a purer form of Epic Theater that forces the audience to be an active participant within the action and messages of the performance.

A Raff Corwin: Thinking Through Feelings: How RTTP RPGs Foster Critical Thinking Through Character, Competition, and the Distancing Effect My paper investigates how the mechanics of the educational roleplaying game (RPG) framework “Reacting to the Past” (RTTP), created and managed by the RTTP Consortium at Barnard College, effectively promotes critical thinking in student players. My central questions are: What elements of RTTP games successfully trigger critical reflection in players? And how might those mechanics be adapted into mainstream game design to subtly cultivate critical thinking skills via mainstream gameplay?

Using analyses of RTTP games and reflections from RTTP players and educators, I identify the unique intersection of narrative immersion, competitive motivation, and Bertolt Brecht’s distancing effect (German: Verfremdungseffekt) in RTTP games and how, together, these create pedagogical game mechanics that drive critical cognitive engagement in players. This combination fosters what I term "critical feeling," a state in which players not only reflect on their decisions but also interrogate the emotional drivers behind those decisions and their wider consequences.

I conclude with the hypothesis that this blend of emotional investment and reflective distance is particularly potent in encouraging critical thinking. Incorporating these mechanics into mainstream game design may offer a promising avenue for teaching critical thinking skills in an engaging, organic way in non-educational settings, softly deepening political thinking, decision -making, and critical reflection in both our personal lives and wider society

“Female Only” Otome game raves in China, featuring female-to-male cross-dressing cosplayers, reveal a form of gender and gaming culture uniquely rooted in Chinese sociocultural contexts. By analyzing the formal design and fandom surrounding four mobile Otome games — Love and Producer, Tears of Themis, For All Time, and Light and Night — and incorporating gender theory along with meta - research on player reports, this paper explores how the culture surrounding Otome game players actively resists normative gender expectations in contemporary Chinese society. While the distinction between gender and sex, as articulated by theorists like Judith Butler, is often blurred in the Chinese linguistic and cultural context, the construction of male masculinity within Otome raves demonstrates a clear differentiation between the two. Although biological males are e xplicitly excluded from these rave spaces, the portrayal and celebration of an idealized male masculinity is embraced. This curated masculinity represents a culturally specific paradigm—one that exists only within the imaginative and affective space of Oto me games. The phenomenon echoes David Graeber’s concept of the “oppositional nature of culture,” as the Otome subculture in China manifests an implicit separation of sex and gender through practice, even before such distinctions are formally articulated in discourse

This paper uses Goffmanian analysis to analyze social performance in the context of long-form social games. In particular, I explore post-irony as the dominant expressive device of “Fishtank.live”, a live-streamed social game-show where viewers have a direct impact on the game (a la “the Sims”) and show-runners manipulate contestants’ function and information. I argue that Fishtank requires a modification of the Goffmanian paradigm in circumstances where the front- and back-stage become indistinguishable and argue that this complex, amplified metaironic performance enables swift manipulation of participating contestants. I support this by examining how “irony-poisoned” rhetoric through internet memes has inspired new archetypes and performant social expectations, obfuscating conventional analysis holding ones front and back selves to be independent; crucially, I analyze the history and impact of Fishtank creator Sam Hyde in facilitating this cultural development. I conclude that both the way we perform ourselves as people and the strategies a game demands are both prescriptive, coercive systems of control, and show that in any unbalanced, asymmetric gameplay environment in which power or unequally distributed, post-irony can be used as a mechanism for control and manipulation. Fishtank, through meta-irony in particular, serves as a horrifying, unintentional metaphor for our surreal, modern, post-truth political reality.

Manufacturing Consent and Counter-Strike 2
This paper explores how media not only informs but also manufactures and reinforces belief systems, extending Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman's "propaganda model" from their 1988 book Manufacturing Consent into the realm of video games. Using Counter-Strike 2 as a case study, this analysis examines how design, aesthetic, and narrative framing contribute to implicit ideological messaging, focusing in particular on environmental storytelling, inventory and outfit design, and the loaded terminology of the game’s factions — “terrorists” and “counter-terrorists.” These semiotic choices — including handmade bombs and crumbling Islamic architecture — reiterate political narratives and imagery common in Western news media, especially those surrounding the War on Terror. While Counter-Strike 2 is (likely) not an overt attempt at propaganda, nor does it feature a story-driven “plot”, it nonetheless participates in a broader media ecology that normalizes certain ideologies and attitudes. This paper argues that video games, like traditional mass media, are capable of conveying powerful political messages, and that — specific to video games — this can be done through immersive and affective design rather than explicit rhetoric or dialogue.

From its earliest iterations, The Sims franchise has served as a bastion of self-expression in video games. Over time this status has only been bolstered, as the series has amassed an extensive community of highly motivated custom content creators—devoted fans who constantly go above and beyond to support their beloved franchise by creating and sharing custom cosmetics, and in many cases, additional gameplay features. However, since the most recent installment of the series, these same fans have grown increasingly incensed by the failings of developers to deliver what they consider to be baseline essentials, particularly when it comes to representation. Building off the work of Mel Stanfill in her book Exploiting Fandom: How the Media Industry Seeks to Manipulate Fans, this work will examine the push for increased skin tone customization options in The Sims 4 as a case study on the ways companies have come to rely on—and potentially exploit—their fanbases, providing a historical account of the events involved, and ultimately making an individual determination as to whether or not these events constituted exploitation.

Neo-colonization in Games: The Case of Rangers in the South
As cultural artifacts, video games are not free from bias and ideologies. Looking for a Chilean identity in game design, neo-colonization becomes apparent in the local industry, leaving little space for an authentic Chilean video game identity to proliferate.

Using the Chilean RPG video game Rangers in the South as a case study, this paper investigates neo-colonization in games of the RPG and JRPG genres. This research takes as a starting point the ideas of eurocentrism, decolonization and multiculturalism to understand neo-colonization from a globalist perspective, as well as the origins of RPG and JRPG genre conventions, delving into the research of medievalism in video games.

Based on this theoretical framework and through meticulous study of content and procedural rhetoric in the aforementioned title, the deeply rooted influence of both eurocentrism and genre conventions in the design are laid bare and analyzed.

The research concludes that Rangers in the South, even if it is said to be committed to cultural representation, fails to do so by being built mostly using eurocentric cultural elements and JRPG conventions without addressing local culture. Finally, a proposition is made to decolonize its design through the use of alternatives to content and gameplay features that are inspired by local history and culture, in order to shift the design in a more authentic direction.

Touken Ranbu and Historical Conservation
In this essay , I will be exploring Games and historical conservation. In particular, I will be looking at how the collectible card game Touken Ranbu (DMM Games, 2015) presents history to influence historical conservation of Japanese Swords. Since its release, players of Touken Ranbu have been actively participating in conservation efforts for Japanese swords, ranging from visiting museums and shrines that collaborated with the game, to crowdfunding reconstruction efforts. In this paper, I will analyze how Touken Ranbu was able to influence its players to participate in historical conservation and educate them on Japanese swords by looking at two aspects of the game: narrative and character design. Using Richard Cole's concept of ‘Technocultural mashup,' I will be analyzing Touken Ranbu's representation of history in its narrative. Then, using interviews with the developers and my own experiences with playing the game, I will be looking at the anthropomorphic qualities of Touken Ranbu’s characters and how those character design choices lead to fans’s attachment to the characters, which in turn introduces them to the history of the swords. Finally, using news articles and the history of collaborations between Touken Ranbu and museums and shrines, I will explore how the game has created a dedicated culture that is engaging in conservation and going beyond playing the game. Through this analysis, I will conclude that Touken Ranbus’s depiction of history, which integrated historical context into its narrative and character design, has cultivated a dedicated fanbase that is willing to learn and go beyond playing the game to engage with Japanese history and conservation efforts.

Sonic Spectacle: The Sounds of Fascism in Helldivers 2
This paper seeks to analyze the relationship between the idea of a “Sonic Spectacle” and contemporary sound design practices in video games, using Helldivers 2 (2024) by Arrowhead Game Studios as a case study. Helldivers 2 specifically serves as an interesting lens for this topic, as the game is set in the world of a science-fiction parodic depiction of a hyperbolic jingoistic regime. In this way, it seeks to create this fictional fascist setting with its loud, distorted guns and explosions, creating spectacle out of the grand, chauvinistic, and inordinate soundscape. However, when compared to its contemporaries, it is actually quite on par with the loudness of other games, hinting at trends toward this spectacle being present in modern FPS games as a whole. This analysis seeks to link spectacle in media as a historic tool of fascism to how games can sonically represent their worlds, both procedurally and narratively. In order to do this, measurements and comparisons were taken of the integrated loudness of Helldivers 2, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 (2024) by Treyarch, The Finals (2023) by Embark Studios, FragPunk (2025) by Bad Guitar Studio, Counter-Strike 2 (2023) by Valve, Marvel Rivals (2024) by NetEase Games, Valorant (2020) by Riot Games, I Am Your Beast (2024) by Strange Scaffold, Call of Duty: Black Ops III (2015) by Treyarch, and Call of Duty: Warzone (2022) by Infinity Ward.

While the cyclical, repeating structure of roguelikes may challenge traditional storytelling, contemporary roguelikes like Returnal (2021, Housemarque) and Hades (2020, Supergiant) prove that the genre can offer players complex embedded and emergent narrative experiences. Drawing from literary studies, and primarily the field of poetry, I consider what theories of poetic repetition can teach us about the narrative design of contemporary roguelikes. I am interested in how games like Hades and Returnal (my main case studies) utilize repetition to integrate gameplay and storytelling and do so in a way that minimizes the risk of becoming repetitive, a condition associated with tedium and monotony. In poems, as in roguelikes, repetition may be experienced simultaneously as comforting and familiar, routine and boring. But it is also a call for attention, signaling change and novelty. Through a range of devices—for example, anaphora, rhyme, and parallelism—poets charge the recurrence of words, images, and forms with new meaning. Using comparable devices, and by centering repetition in their storytelling, the narrative design teams of Hades and Returnal maximize the capacity of repetition to hold multiple meanings in its own unique present moment, thereby forging a powerful relationship between repetition and affect that proves durable across multiple, procedurally generated playthroughs.

User interface (UI) design in video games often follows established standards enshrined in their respective genres and perspectives. This has led many designers to treat the layout and functionality of UI as a foregone conclusion. However, when we examine the human elements of preference, accessibility, and utility, it becomes clear that these standard choices are not merely inherited conventions. Instead, they reflect deeper theoretical and practical considerations.

This project investigates the intentions behind common UI design decisions and shows that these elements carry significant weight, shaping not only the interaction players have with a game but also a deep, intentional processing of a game's information—information that can be applied across a broad range of purposes, including narrative or aesthetic aims, not just utility.

Examining two of the most prominent and distinct perspectives—first-person and omniscient—in two of the most widely known franchises, Halo Infinite (2021) and StarCraft II (2010), we explore the ways in which players apply inherent cognitive hierarchical models to process visual information. In doing so, we reveal the depth and richness of HUD information, which holds the potential for much more than its traditionally sparse, utilitarian application.

This research explores how Destiny 2 constructs and manipulates players’ understanding of “victory” through its progression systems. Meanwhile, did the player community reinforce this rhetoric? While Ian Bogost introduced the concept of procedural rhetoric, which video games use systems and mechanics to convey ideological messages, this research is trying to explore whether the Destiny 2 community actively reinforces the game’s persuasive logic, which the game equates time investment and repetitive labor with progress and prestige, players amplify this message by socially legitimizing such values.

Players celebrate quantifiable achievements and establish norms that equate victory with visible labor and statistical accomplishment through platforms like Reddit, Discord, and third-party stat-tracking tools such as Destiny Tracker and Raid Report. This kind of community atmosphere not only embodies the game's core concept but also reinforces it, in which success equals continuous effort and measurable output.

Methodologically, this research combined the analysis of the progression system, textual analysis of the player communities, and interviews with the player. It concludes that rather than passively absorbing the procedural information of the game, the community of players actively participates in a feedback loop in which time invested is equivalent to value. Eventually, Destiny 2 and its community co-construct a rhetoric of victory in which success is quantified, achieved, and demonstrated through sustained time investment.

Fast-paced first-person shooters often evoke adrenaline and excitement, but some, like Ultrakill, reach beyond entertainment to express a deeper spirit. This paper explores how Ultrakill, a fast-paced retro shooter, uses its unique mechanics to convey a fearless spirit to players. While many FPS games encourage cautious, cover-based strategies, Ultrakill instead rewards constant motion and direct confrontation. Its high-speed movement system and aggressive game design pressure players to stay mobile, teaching them to fight while in motion rather than retreat. Central to this experience is the parry mechanic, which allows players to reflect nearly any attack if timed correctly. This mechanic is not only empowering but also reinforces a feeling of mastery and fearlessness. Furthermore, Ultrakill removes a common source of anxiety in shooters—resource scarcity—by providing players with unlimited ammunition and allowing them to regain health through close-range combat. Drawing from peer-reviewed papers of retro shooters and Ultrakill’s developer interviews, this paper argues that Ultrakill grants players radical agency and encourages them to face danger head-on, which carries forward the legacy of Doom. Ultimately, this paper suggests that Ultrakill is not just exhilarating to play but also meaningful, as it uses its mechanics to teach players how to be brave in dangerous situations.

Deck-building games (DBGs) have flourished on both physical and digital platforms, yielding some unique design opportunities and player experiences. This study investigates the role of platform-based affordances and constraints in shaping DBG mechanics by comparing the physical board game Dominion (2008) and the digital hybrid Slay the Spire (2019). The two-part question that drives this analysis is: in which ways do platformic characteristics (physical/digital) of DBG design modulate player interactions, procedural complexity, and materiality or expandability? Drawing on both foundational academic literature across fields of game design and platform studies, but also close work with specific cards designed for the two games, this paper contends that the physical artifact of Dominion supports multiplayer social dynamics via mechanics of shared card pools and ritualistic touching, whereas Slay the Spire uses digital automation to create an experience of solitary, procedural complexity. Through direct player interaction with physical components and social negotiation, physical DBGs emphasize immediate player engagement—exemplified by Dominion’s “Attack” cards and manual shuffling (Engelstein and Shalev; Booth). In contrast, digital DBGs like Slay the Spire deploy algorithmic systems to control detailed synergies and variables, focusing on self-optimization (Jagoda). Moreover, the concept of "materiality" that exists in physical games makes the ownership and customization a tangible experience, while digital platforms favor the expandability aspect through modular updates and community credibility. The takeaway emphasizes that the platform determination on a granular level defines the design focus for these games, with physical games favoring social and touch elements and digital games allowing for both depth and scale. These distinctions reflect the genre’s flexibility, and imply chances for play across platforms. By clarifying how such platform restrictions frame player experience, this work contributes to ongoing conversations in game design that offer guidance for creators traversing these channels between the physical and the digital.

From Reactive Moderation to Proactive Relational Design: Speculating on Relational Design Through Echo VR’s Community Experience
As virtual reality becomes increasingly immersive, the emotional and psychological stakes of social interactions in these spaces intensify, often exacerbating issues of toxicity and anti-social behavior. Echo VR, a competitive multiplayer game developed by Ready at Dawn, provides a compelling case study of how developers have navigated these challenges through reactive moderation tools—ranging from voice muting and personal space bubbles to behavioral reminders and lobby segmentation. While these interventions offered short-term relief, they arguably contributed to further isolation among players, failing to address the relational roots of in-game toxicity. This paper employs participant observation, interviews with key community gures, and insights from game design and community studies to investigate the limitations of these approaches. Through a speculative lens, it explores the potential of relational design— game mechanics and systems that foster empathy and connection—as an alternative to competitive metrics and separation-based solutions. The ndings suggest that fostering community health in VR spaces may require a paradigm shift: from shielding players from one another to empowering them to relate meaningfully within shared digital environments.

Simmering In Hate: Toxicity in The Sims 4 Community
Toxicity within gaming communities often reflects deeper tensions between players and developers. It is frequently fueled by unmet expectations, financial and emotional investment, and conflicting visions of the game's future. With The Sims 4, the toxicity is visible enough that it has sparked a debate about the game's direction and the perceived shortcomings of its content. This research will explore why The Sims 4 community is considered toxic, focusing on finding patterns of player dissatisfaction, the recurring backlash to new releases, and the nature of discourse across the various platforms where the community can be found.

Drawing from Twitter threads, EA forum discussions, fan commentary, and academic literature on gaming culture, the study examines how different types of players—from mod-free purists to creative builders and storytellers—engage with and critique the game. Special attention is given to how responses differ across platforms, with some digital spaces cultivating more negativity than others. By situating this analysis within broader discussions about toxicity in gaming, the research considers whether The Sims 4 community is an outlier or symbolic of more significant trends in digital communities and fandoms.

Beyond identifying what players feel the developers have done right or wrong, the research also investigates the paradox of continued engagement: Why do players remain so deeply involved in a game they often criticize? Finally, this study will reveal how passion, nostalgia, and frustration can fuel the toxicity within the community, one that mirrors the complex relationship between game developers and their audiences.

This research investigates how streamers influence the design, play culture, and eventual decline of social deduction games, using Goose Goose Duck as a case study. At the height of the game’s popularity, Chinese streamers played a critical role in shaping both the in-game behavior and broader community norms—often introducing additional rules, expectations, and communication styles that diverged from the original design. This raises a key question: when a social game becomes a live-streaming phenomenon, does the presence of influential streamers help or harm its long-term viability?

To answer this, I conducted comparative analyses between Goose Goose Duck and Among Us, observing how streaming affected gameplay conventions, communication strategies, and player onboarding. I also examined cultural differences across regions—especially between Chinese and Western servers—focusing on varying attitudes toward order, authority, and social performance. Drawing from personal experience as an early player and supported by community forums and gameplay data, the study explores how grassroots rulesets imposed by streamers created high barriers to entry for new players and gradually undermined the spontaneity central to the game’s appeal.

Ultimately, I argue that while streamers can amplify a game’s reach and visibility, their influence can also crystallize a rigid metagame that alienates casual players and shortens a game's lifecycle. This research contributes to broader conversations about player agency, live ops design, and the challenges of sustaining healthy online communities in multiplayer social games.

Cultural Perspectives on Griefing in World of Warcraft
Griefing - the intentional disruption of other players' gaming experiences - is a controversial issue in online multiplayer games. This research examines how cultural differences shape perceptions and regulatory responses toward griefing behaviors within the global gaming community, focusing on the famous multiplayer online game World of Warcraft (WoW). By analyzing the differing attitudes and policies of players and developers in the United States and China, the paper identifies how cultural norms and expectations directly influence both player behaviors and moderation practices. By studying scholarly literature, official developer documents, and community case studies, this study demonstrates that griefing is not universally defined but contextually constructed. Gaming communities in the US tend to praise individual freedom and encourage competitive play. They often identify certain griefing actions as legitimate strategies. In contrast, Chinese gaming communities prefer collective harmony and benefits for everyone. This leads to stricter interpretations and stricter regulations against behaviors classified as griefing. The analysis also explores historical trends, examining an evolving global emphasis toward tighter moderation policies and community norms due to changing player expectations and increased sensitivity of toxic behaviors. Lastly, this research concludes that understanding griefing through a cultural lens is necessary for game developers who wish to build a diverse and engaging online environment. By understanding these differences, game developers can create culturally sensitive policies and moderation tools to improve player experiences across diverse gaming communities.

The highly community driven MMORPGs of the decade of the 2000s have suffered a precipitous decline in recent times. In their place rose multiplayer games that seem to de-emphasize organic and spontaneous player-to-player interactions. We will analyze the history of the 20051 MMORPG MapleStory as a representative case study to dissect the circumstances that brought about the golden age of MMORPGs, and the circumstances that ultimately led to its decline.

MMORPGs like MapleStory, Runescape and World of Warcraft were allowed to dominate the PC gaming landscape of the decade of the 2000s due to the sheer prevalence of PC gaming piracy that deincentivized monetization models that weren’t subscription or microtransaction based. The lack of strict internet communication regulations, especially those targeting children, allowed these games to have extremely vibrant in-game communication systems, making them feel like living virtual worlds. Even among other multiplayer genres, the appeal of MMORPGs scales directly with the size of the playerbase, creating a positive feedback loop. Ironically, the subsequent complacency of the companies that made these games created a non-interventionist attitude towards player-to-player interactions and deliberate in-game inconveniences that actually facilitated socialization. Ultimately, the decline of the MMORPG era was brought about by platforms like Steam driving down PC game piracy, along with an increase of internet communication regulations leading to centralization around a few external communication platforms like Discord. Even among other multiplayer genres, MMORPGs are notable in that their appeal scales directly with the size and activity of their playerbase. It is difficult to imagine that the conditions of this era would be recreated, making the decade of the 2000s a unique insight into the games of the free internet - experiences that will never again be experienced by human civilization.

This paper critically analyzes Unpacking (Witch Beam, 2021), a zen puzzle video game widely praised for its use of environmental storytelling to depict a narrative that draws emotion from nostalgia and achieving personal milestones. While the game has over one million downloads and numerous awards including Game of the Year, its embedded narrative implicitly highlights a life of financial stability and privilege. This paper argues that Unpacking depicts a class-specific experience that inadvertently ignores lower socioeconomic identities through its object choices, living environments, and implied life trajectory.

This paper examines theories of material culture, historical anthropology studies, game studies and the developers’ intentional game design. The analysis incorporates insights from The Meaning of Things (Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg-Halton, 1977), Igor Kopytoff’s commodification theory, and Colin Renfrew’s work on prestigious objects to examine how players engage with in-game items to construct identity. It also references Klara Svensson and Wilma Bergman’s work on Unpacking’s player interpretation and considers the developers' own reflections on cultural design decisions.

Ultimately, this paper highlights how the game’s environmental storytelling reinforces socioeconomic class statuses, presenting a version of adulthood marked by consistent upward mobility, job and relationship success. This paper contributes to ongoing conversations within games studies about identity, representation, and inclusion. It concludes with a call for greater awareness of class dynamics in narrative game design and argues that more inclusive material storytelling can foster deeper resonance across diverse player communities.

In this presentation, I plan to break down the common factors in the economics of trading card games and then show the impact of multimedia on the Pokemon Trading Card Game. As I present, I will discuss important topics like economic status, disposable income, and scarcity, and how those can affect the value of hobbies through other popular trading card games. I then will discuss the impact of marketing especially when it comes to other forms of media like the Pokemon anime and Pokemon video games. Following that, I will proceed to give a brief summary of the history of the competitive scene of the Pokemon Trading Card Game. I then will relate back to the other merchandise in the series and show the correlation between these and their related cards. Overall, this analysis will showcase how big of an impact that the other forms of media have on the economic state of the Pokemon Trading Card Game.

The phenomenon of a blurred boundary between work, life, and games is emerging more frequently. In this context, “work” particularly means the act of labor that players perform while playing the games. There have been studies on players of MMORPGS like Star Wars Galaxies that describe their game play as obligation, tedium, and more like a second job than entertainment. (Yee 2006) And on Reddit/Forums, it is also common to see players’ complaints about "burnout" or feeling like "clocking in" to complete daily missions in gacha games like Genshin Impact. There are also more and more job simulation games that deliberately simulate real-life occupations, which are surprisingly enticing to many players (aSwordBear 2022). Aside from these, games like Love and Deepspace that blur the boundary between life and game. The essay explores the reasons behind this phenomenon from both players’ perspectives and the game producers’ intentions. The essay discusses the player psychology aspects, such as FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) (Przybylski et al. 2013), seeking easy achievements, and grinding habits. It also uses Love and Deepspace as an example to showcase how the game producers create a real-life-like social environment with virtual characters that fulfill players’ need for companionship. The essay also explains the impacts of this phenomenon, such as how these games impact players’ thoughts and ideologies (Kelly 2015), and how the blurred boundary affects players’ normal life routine. In conclusion, the essay uses analysis, literature reviews of second-hand sources, and empirical evidence to discuss the reasons and impacts of the blurred boundaries between work, life, and games.

This research examines the development and impact of gacha monetization models in East Asian mobile games. It begins with the rise of gacha systems in Japan through games like Puzzle & Dragons, and follows their spread into China with titles such as Million Arthur and Onmyoji. As gacha mechanics became more common, they shaped the region’s mobile game design and player expectations, especially among Gen Z. Based on this background, the project focuses on these key questions: whether gacha pricing is reasonable, what types of monetization players prefer, and why players keep playing even when they feel manipulated.

From a design perspective, gacha systems succeed because they are built on psychological mechanisms that encourage spending, such as randomness, scarcity, and reward anticipation. However, players tend to reject pay-to-win mechanics and non-transparent gacha odds. Many players continue to play due to emotional investment, the sunk cost effect, and social pressure within player communities. For younger players, especially in East Asia, gacha has become a normalized part of mobile gaming.

Although the model is financially effective, this research argues that it represents a form of behaviorally-driven exploitative pricing. The gap between how players talk about gacha and how they actually behave reveals the complex emotional and social forces at work. By understanding how gacha monetization works and why it continues to succeed can help us better reflect on how monetization shapes both game design and player behavior today.

As the gaming industry continues to grow, the definition of what qualifies as a "real game" remains ambiguous, especially outside the gaming community. While scholars like Mia Consalvo have explored this concept from the perspective of active players, less attention has been paid to how non-gamers define legitimacy in games. This paper argues that non-gamers, rather than traditional gamers, are more likely to hold rigid definitions of what qualifies as a "real" game due to media influence and a lack of personal experience. Using the framework outlined in Consalvo’s Real Games, this research draws on academic literature, player reviews, and public discourse to examine the qualities most often associated with “real games”: length, mechanics, publisher status, popularity, and price.

The findings indicate that people outside the gaming community often associate “real games” with big-budget, skill-based titles, such as AAA first-person shooters. These perceptions are shaped by mainstream media and the exclusive attitudes in online gaming spaces. This rigid understanding of what is a “real game” not only reinforces existing stereotypes but also influences industry trends by privileging certain genres and developers. More importantly, it creates cultural and psychological barriers for new or casual players, limiting the accessibility of gaming. By examining how these definitions are formed and identifying who gets excluded, this paper provides insights into how the industry and community can create a more welcoming environment for all players.