Everyone's a Winner at Warhammer 40K (or, at least not a loser)
نویسندگان
چکیده
Warhammer 40,000 (W40K) is a non-digital strategy war-game involving the tactical manoeuvring of miniature figurines on a 6' by 4' tabletop. These figurines are painstakingly assembled, painted and often modified by players to accord with the game's backstory. Our research explores the ongoing success of W40K in the face of ubiquitous and pervasive computer technologies and presents the results of post-match interviews with players. One element of the W40K experience that we found striking was the capacity for players who lost matches to rationalise their failures into a narrative of success, one that underplays the importance of winning and prioritizes other aspects of the W40K experience. Drawing on Paul’s (2012) notion of rhetoric, wordplay and games, we argue that the modelling and painting, time and money constraints, engagement with W40K's themes and narratives, and the battle itself can be linked to the post-match accounts given by players in which they construct narratives of success and portray themselves as ‘winners’ even though they lost the battle.
منابع مشابه
A discursive representation of the winner and loser: the case of sports reports
Communicating ideas/news is the primary function of language. However, language does not usually fulfill this as it is expected to. To Dellinger (1995, p. 3) language, “can never appear by itself-it always appears as the representative of a system of linguistic terms, which themselves realize discursive and ideological system.” The present study, analyzing sports articles, aims at investigating...
متن کاملIndividual recognition, dominance hierarchies and winner and loser effects.
Winner and loser effects are defined as an increased probability of winning an aggressive interaction at time T, based on victories at time T-1, T-2, etc., and an increased probability of losing at time T, based on losses at time T-1, T-2, etc., respectively. Prior theoretical work on dominance hierarchy formation has demonstrated that when players are not capable of individual recognition, los...
متن کاملExamination of prior contest experience and the retention of winner and loser effects.
In many animal taxa, prior contest experience affects future performance such that winning increases the chances of winning in the future (winner effect) and losing increases the chances of losing in the future (loser effect). It is, however, not clear whether this pattern typically arises from experience effects on actual or perceived fighting ability (or both). In this study, we looked at win...
متن کاملEavesdropping on visual cues in green swordtail (Xiphophorus helleri) fights: a case for networking.
Aggressive contests probably occur in networking environments where information about fighting ability is conveyed both to an opponent and to individuals peripheral to the fight itself, the bystanders. Our primary aim was to investigate the relative influences of eavesdropping and prior social experience on the dynamics of aggressive contests in Xiphophorus helleri. A bystander's ability to wit...
متن کاملGroup fusion: the impact of winner, loser, and bystander effects on hierarchy formation in large groups
We present the results of a series of computer simulations that examined the impact of winner, loser, and bystander effects on hierarchy formation in fused groups. These effects and their implications for hierarchy structure and aggressive interactions were first examined in small four-member groups. Subsequent to this, the two small groups were fused into a single larger group. Further interac...
متن کامل