Genre Literacy

By February 2, 2016 BlogPost No Comments
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It came to my attention the interesting intermingle of casual and work-related terminologies in the game genre while writing a discourse analysis paper for WRD 209, Genre and Discourse. Particularly frequent in the MOBA (multiplayer online battle arena) genre, perhaps it’s because of the transparency of developers outlining their design philosophies, step-by-step processes that players have become more knowledgeable about the subject and engage in discourses with the developers and publishers.

Or perhaps it’s because the genre (both digital gaming and MOBA) is relatively new, so there’s an increase in the individuals working in the field as players, designers, programmers (all of which aren’t mutually exclusive) that the discourse has started to envelop both casual and hardcore alike.

Which brings home the question, what is literacy in the MOBA genre? Are players required to understand terms such a power creep, mobility creep, power curve, CS, denial, rotation, split-push before they start playing?

Granted, there’s a certain degree of “moba” literacy required to be decent at the game, but will it come to a point where tutorials need to include these terminologies? Many of these originated in the design field, and only later became game-centric. Do players have a responsibility to know these terms, even if they’re casual, just to play the game?

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