Casual Empire: Video Games as Neocolonial Praxis

Games of Empire : Global Capitalism and Video

In Games of Empire, Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter expand an earlier study of “the video game industry as an aspect of an emerging postindustrial, post-Fordist capitalism” (xxix) to argue that videogames are “exemplary media of Empire” (xxix). Their notion of “Empire” is based on Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s Empire (2000), which characterizes the contemporary world order as a dece...

Corrigendum: Cognitive training with casual video games: points to consider

1 Department of Psychology, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science and Technology, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign, Urbana, IL, USA 2 Department of Psychology, University of Iowa, Iowa City, IA, USA 3 Brain Plasticity Institute, San Francisco, CA, USA 4 Department of Psychology, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, USA 5 Digital Artefacts, LLC, Iowa City, IA, USA *Correspondence: ba...

Cognitive training with casual video games: points to consider

Brain training programs have proliferated in recent years, with claims that video games or computer-based tasks can broadly enhance cognitive function. However, benefits are commonly seen only in trained tasks. Assessing generalized improvement and practicality of laboratory exercises complicates interpretation and application of findings. In this study, we addressed these issues by using activ...

Nick Dyer-Witheford and Greig de Peuter, Games of empire: Global capitalism and video games

Self-Control in Casual Games

Casual Games and free-to-play games have recently rapidly increased in popularity, perhaps in part because of the success of in-app purchases and micro-transactions as an economic model. While these games are often touted for their success in the gaming market, the effect on players when faced with such frequent purchasing decisions in-game is not well-studied. Theories of self-control suggest ...