Thomas Apperley
Biographic Data
| ID | 141666 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Thomas Apperley |
| GIVEN NAMES | Thomas |
| FAMILY NAME | Apperley |
| SIGNATURE | APPERLEY T |
| AFFILIATIONS | Tampere University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-6390-6593 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 11 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 11 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2006 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2025 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Sidetalking
This article examines sidetalking – a usability feature introduced by Nokia in its N-Gage and 7700 devices during 2002 and 2003 – and positioned as innovative; sidetalking involved holding the phone sideways during calls. This reflected Nokia's attempt to cater to an imagined youth demographic defined by playfulness and individuality. However, the feature was widely mocked, becoming a cultural meme and contributing to the commercial failure of th…
Dungeons, Dragons, and Rogues
This article advocates for a reevaluation of the thief class as a bridge linking literary narratives and tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs). It traces the roots of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) thief class in Picaresque Literature against the wider importance of literature in the early TRGP scene, by comparing the thief class to the Picaresque rogue. Through a thematic analysis of articles from eight key TRPG periodicals published between 1975 an…
Platform-produced Heteronormativity
This article examines the prominent role of Patreon in the rapidly growing sector of crowdfunded pornographic games. Recent research has indicated that, on average, more people (patrons) are funding pornographic digital games on Patreon than other (non-adult) digital games ( Lankoski & Dymek, 2020 ). Graphtreon’s ‘Top Patreon Creators’ list from 9 June 2021 includes six NSFW game projects among the top 50 projects (ranked by number of Patrons). 1…
Gamifying the city
This article builds on previous scholarship on urban play, playable cities, and gamification by focusing on the contemporary relationship between play and mobility in cities. The article applies Floch’s semiotic square of valorisations to urban mobility by examining the values that are employed to make sense of movement through the city. The model is developed through Caillois’ forms of play: chance, competition, simulation, and vertigo. The mode…
(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar
This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of…
Poker avatars
This article examines the use of player-controlled avatars on digital gambling platforms and apps. Through a discussion of the influential, but now defunct, online gambling platform PKR 'The Second Life of gambling' the article illustrates how the avatar has a key role in the routinization of online gambling and cultivating affective investment from gamblers. The process of creating, maintaining and updating avatars promotes spending winnings in-…
Counterfactual Communities
The genre of history strategy games is a crucial area of study because of what is at stake in the representation of controversial aspects of history in popular culture. Previous work has pointed to various affordances and constraints in the representation of history, based on the framing of the game interface, the alignment of goals with certain strategies and textual criticism of the contents of the games. In contrast, this article examines thes…
Platform Studies' Epistemic Threshold
In recent methodological scholarship on digital games, a strong connection is noted between "platform studies" and media archaeology. While platform studies has its critics, who primarily lament the limitations of the project, a recent spate of publications in the field suggests considerable dynamism in platform studies as the concept is further developed. This article argues that by examining platform studies from the perspective of media archae…
A Virada Material dos Game Studies
Este artigo discute que entre as aproximações crescentes aos game studies há uma re-imaginação crucial de jogos digitais em seus contextos materiais através de escalas e registros diferentes: a máquina, o corpo e as situações do jogo. Esta re-imaginação pode ser observada em uma série de abordagens: platform e software studies, que examinam a materialidade do código e / ou a infra-estrutura tecnológica através da qual esta é promulgada; estudos c…
From the cybercafé to the street
Historically, the play of digital games in public was restricted to certain locations such as arcades and cybercafés. The proliferation of personal, mobile, and digitally networked devices, however, has contributed to the ubiquity of digital games in contemporary culture, making them available for play anywhere, any time. This paper uses two examples to examine this recent shift to consider how play and digital games can contribute to revitalisin…
Genre and game studies
This article examines the notion of genre in video games. The main argument is that the market-based categories of genre that have been developed in the context of video games obscure the new medium's crucial defining feature, by dividing them into categories (loosely) organized by their similarities to prior forms of mediation. The article explores the inherent tension between the conception of video games as a unified new media form, and the cu…
Platform Studies' Epistemic Threshold
In recent methodological scholarship on digital games, a strong connection is noted between "platform studies" and media archaeology. While platform studies has its critics, who primarily lament the limitations of the project, a recent spate of publications in the field suggests considerable dynamism in platform studies as the concept is further developed. This article argues that by examining platform studies from the perspective of media archae…
Counterfactual Communities
The genre of history strategy games is a crucial area of study because of what is at stake in the representation of controversial aspects of history in popular culture. Previous work has pointed to various affordances and constraints in the representation of history, based on the framing of the game interface, the alignment of goals with certain strategies and textual criticism of the contents of the games. In contrast, this article examines thes…
Gamifying the city
This article builds on previous scholarship on urban play, playable cities, and gamification by focusing on the contemporary relationship between play and mobility in cities. The article applies Floch’s semiotic square of valorisations to urban mobility by examining the values that are employed to make sense of movement through the city. The model is developed through Caillois’ forms of play: chance, competition, simulation, and vertigo. The mode…
(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar
This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of…
Poker avatars
This article examines the use of player-controlled avatars on digital gambling platforms and apps. Through a discussion of the influential, but now defunct, online gambling platform PKR 'The Second Life of gambling' the article illustrates how the avatar has a key role in the routinization of online gambling and cultivating affective investment from gamblers. The process of creating, maintaining and updating avatars promotes spending winnings in-…
A Virada Material dos Game Studies
Este artigo discute que entre as aproximações crescentes aos game studies há uma re-imaginação crucial de jogos digitais em seus contextos materiais através de escalas e registros diferentes: a máquina, o corpo e as situações do jogo. Esta re-imaginação pode ser observada em uma série de abordagens: platform e software studies, que examinam a materialidade do código e / ou a infra-estrutura tecnológica através da qual esta é promulgada; estudos c…
Genre and game studies
This article examines the notion of genre in video games. The main argument is that the market-based categories of genre that have been developed in the context of video games obscure the new medium's crucial defining feature, by dividing them into categories (loosely) organized by their similarities to prior forms of mediation. The article explores the inherent tension between the conception of video games as a unified new media form, and the cu…
From the cybercafé to the street
Historically, the play of digital games in public was restricted to certain locations such as arcades and cybercafés. The proliferation of personal, mobile, and digitally networked devices, however, has contributed to the ubiquity of digital games in contemporary culture, making them available for play anywhere, any time. This paper uses two examples to examine this recent shift to consider how play and digital games can contribute to revitalisin…
A Virada Material dos Game Studies
Este artigo discute que entre as aproximações crescentes aos game studies há uma re-imaginação crucial de jogos digitais em seus contextos materiais através de escalas e registros diferentes: a máquina, o corpo e as situações do jogo. Esta re-imaginação pode ser observada em uma série de abordagens: platform e software studies, que examinam a materialidade do código e / ou a infra-estrutura tecnológica através da qual esta é promulgada; estudos c…
Counterfactual Communities
The genre of history strategy games is a crucial area of study because of what is at stake in the representation of controversial aspects of history in popular culture. Previous work has pointed to various affordances and constraints in the representation of history, based on the framing of the game interface, the alignment of goals with certain strategies and textual criticism of the contents of the games. In contrast, this article examines thes…
Platform Studies' Epistemic Threshold
In recent methodological scholarship on digital games, a strong connection is noted between "platform studies" and media archaeology. While platform studies has its critics, who primarily lament the limitations of the project, a recent spate of publications in the field suggests considerable dynamism in platform studies as the concept is further developed. This article argues that by examining platform studies from the perspective of media archae…
Poker avatars
This article examines the use of player-controlled avatars on digital gambling platforms and apps. Through a discussion of the influential, but now defunct, online gambling platform PKR 'The Second Life of gambling' the article illustrates how the avatar has a key role in the routinization of online gambling and cultivating affective investment from gamblers. The process of creating, maintaining and updating avatars promotes spending winnings in-…
(Re-)Orienting the Video Game Avatar
This article explores the cultural appropriation of the term avatar by Western tech culture and what this implies for scholarship of digital games, virtual worlds, social media, and digital cultures. The term has roots in the religious tradition of the Indian subcontinent and was subsequently imported into video game terminology during a period of widespread appropriation of Eastern culture by Californian tech industries. We argue that the use of…
Gamifying the city
This article builds on previous scholarship on urban play, playable cities, and gamification by focusing on the contemporary relationship between play and mobility in cities. The article applies Floch’s semiotic square of valorisations to urban mobility by examining the values that are employed to make sense of movement through the city. The model is developed through Caillois’ forms of play: chance, competition, simulation, and vertigo. The mode…
Platform-produced Heteronormativity
This article examines the prominent role of Patreon in the rapidly growing sector of crowdfunded pornographic games. Recent research has indicated that, on average, more people (patrons) are funding pornographic digital games on Patreon than other (non-adult) digital games ( Lankoski & Dymek, 2020 ). Graphtreon’s ‘Top Patreon Creators’ list from 9 June 2021 includes six NSFW game projects among the top 50 projects (ranked by number of Patrons). 1…
Dungeons, Dragons, and Rogues
This article advocates for a reevaluation of the thief class as a bridge linking literary narratives and tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs). It traces the roots of the Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) thief class in Picaresque Literature against the wider importance of literature in the early TRGP scene, by comparing the thief class to the Picaresque rogue. Through a thematic analysis of articles from eight key TRPG periodicals published between 1975 an…
Sidetalking
This article examines sidetalking – a usability feature introduced by Nokia in its N-Gage and 7700 devices during 2002 and 2003 – and positioned as innovative; sidetalking involved holding the phone sideways during calls. This reflected Nokia's attempt to cater to an imagined youth demographic defined by playfulness and individuality. However, the feature was widely mocked, becoming a cultural meme and contributing to the commercial failure of th…
Digital Games and Media (9 works) · Computer Science (8 works) · Sociology (8 works) · Art (6 works) · Media studies (5 works) · Political science (5 works) · Cinema and Media Studies (4 works) · Game studies (4 works) · Psychology (4 works) · Advertising (3 works)