Características da Disseminação de Conhecimento Sociocultural em Jogos Digitais

Games are one of the most characteristic and lucrative forms of entertainment today. They are means of communication that gather in themselves audio-visual, verbal and interaction languages, composing multimodal messages. The interaction of users with the product is conditioned by their rules, which are ultimately the language that defines this medium. In analog games, players need to know the rules to put them into work. In digital games, the rules work automatically, updating the system as if they were laws of nature. Realistic simulations found in high- budget games present fantasy worlds as if they were natural and spontaneous rather than meticulously planned. This reinforces their persuasive power. Game Designers communicate ideas and knowledge by articulating various media with the rules they create. This research investigates the characteristics of this rule-based communication and how it can disseminate world views and cultural values. In order to identify sociocultural knowledge in games and to relate them to the rules that transmit them, a method of analyzing social discourse in videogames was selected and applied to a sampling of six award-winning digital games. The analyzes describe how game rules shape and propose a type of cultural knowledge. Preliminary results were submitted to expert opinion through the Delphi method. As results, in addition to describing the possible relationships, it was possible to propose an extension to the method used. It is considered at the end that the definition of the rules of interaction and behavior of simulated systems in a game, induces symbolic associations that allow the dissemination of implicit knowledge and assumptions about how such systems work or could work.