Tessera

Oscar Moralde

@oscarmoralde.com

Visiting Lecturer in Media Studies, Washington University in St. Louis. I study embodied aesthetics and ideology in video games and digital media. Steam tells me I have 2,710 hours played in Time Clickers

33 Posts66 Follower 279 Folgt

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · 2w ago

New publication! My article "Video Game Industry Showcase Presentations and the Construction of Perpetual Anticipation" will be in the upcoming Special Issue on Game Advertising in ACM GAMES: RESEARCH AND PRACTICE. You can check it out here: dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/...

Video Game Industry Showcase Presentations and the Construction of Perpetual Anticipation | Games: Research and Practice

Moving from closed-door keynotes at trade shows to livestreamed spectacles with an audience of millions, video game showcase presentations like Summer Game Fest have become an important venue not just for advertising new products but also for discursively ...

dl.acm.org

Kate Galloway @kategalloway.bsky.social · 4mo ago

Michael Austin @michaelaustin.bsky.social & I are working on a new collection Resonant Worlds: Sound, Matter, and Environmental Design in Games. Here’s the CFP.

Matt Knutson @mattknutson.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Nearing the end of #SCMS26, and guess what's still left to talk about? P18, Reexamining Esports with @a-c-cote.bsky.social, @maxwellfoxman.bsky.social, Keung Yoon Bae, and Taylore Woodhouse. Starting in 30 min in Alpine 1.

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · 5mo ago

Really great stuff if you want a recap of the panel!

Matt Knutson@mattknutson.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Hello #SCMS2026! Excited for this panel, C20 with @kategalloway.bsky.social, @oscarmoralde.com, and @hyeonjin.bsky.social: Embodying and Performing Gameworld Sonic Environments. (Sponsor: Sound and Music Studies SIG.) First up: Galloway.

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · 5mo ago

I'll be at #scms26 at 2:15pm today (Session C) with @hyeonjin.bsky.social and @kategalloway.bsky.social! Drop by

SCMS Schedule Listing
Panel C20 Embodying and Performing Gameworld Sonic Environments
Swissôtel Gstaad/Zermatt
LUCERNE LEVEL

Chair Kate Galloway, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute

Kate Galloway, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
“A Walkie-Talkie, A Telephone, A Field Recorder: Embodied Environmental Knowledge and Sound Technologies of Placemaking”

Oscar Moralde, Washington University in St. Louis
“‘Wait, someone’s singing now?!’: The Performative Spectacle of Boss Fight Music in Final Fantasy XIV”

Hyeonjin Park, University of California, Los Angeles
“Feels Bad to Suck: Dealing with Failure in Celeste and Its Music”

sponsored by Sound and Music Studies Scholarly Interest Group

Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · 9mo ago

The Journal of Games Criticism has published a new issue!! Come and read 6 great new open-access game studies articles! gamescriticism.org/issue-6-1/ #gamestudies

VOLUME 6, ISSUE 1 (JANUARY 2026)
The Wounds That Never Healed: Videoludic Trauma in Cry of Fear

by Samuel Poirier-Poulin

This article offers a conceptualization of trauma in horror video games, arguing that games can cut across the reality/fiction divide, deeply affect the emotional organization of the player, and leave them with wounds that take time to heal. More specifically, it develops the idea that Cry of Fear (Team Psykskallar, 2013) can induce a form of trauma in the player by putting them in horrifying and intense situations.

Character Affectivity in Newton and the Apple Tree

by Henri M. Nerg

This paper studies character affectivity and temporality in the Japanese visual novel Newton and the Apple Tree (Laplacian, 2017). The paper analyzes different affects and emotions that game characters evoke in players. Importantly, affect is understood here as a neuropsychological concept.

Black Sun in the Land of Shadow: DLCs and Textual Depletion in Shadow of the Erdtree (2024)

by Max Coombes

This article explores the relationship between downloadable content (DLC) and base games in producing ‘lack’ in the player and text, using Shadow of the Erdtree (2024) as its focus.

Investigating Development Crunch in Games and its Impact on Creative Expression

by Shaif Hemraj

This article explores the often negative and detrimental relationship between “crunch” and creative expression and synthesizes academic and industry conversations into a serious game prototype, Game Maker Mayhem

A Contemporary Take on Victorian Lunacy: Representations of the Asylum in the Neo-Victorian Video Game Alice: Madness Returns

by Jéssica Iolanda Costa Bispo

Considering the historical reality of Victorian asylums, this article explores Alice: Madness Returns, as it encourages a critical look at these institutions through the lens of neo-Victorianism, demonstrating a potentiality for reinterpreting the Victorian historical narrative.

Goblins for Slaughter: The Perpetuation of Racism and Classism in Baldur’s Gate 3

by Benjamin J.M. Horn

This article explores how Baldur’s Gate 3 has perpetuated Victorian-era racism and classism. To demonstrate this, the article discusses current literature on racism and monstrosity, delves into the history of the goblin, and conducts a close reading of Baldur’s Gate 3’s first act.

Brendan Keogh @brkeogh.bsky.social · 12mo ago

BOOK ANNOUNCEMENT! @mahliann.bsky.social, @marcuscarter.com, and myself have combined our collective brains and written a wide-reaching introduction to the complex and interdisciplinary field of Game Studies in this forthcoming book for Polity. www.politybooks.com/bookdetail?b...

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

Tackling two new course preps after spending most of the past month making a cross-country move which was also the first time moving in 15 years

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

In the 15 years I have lived near the LA County Museum of Art, I have been there exactly once lol (I saw THE CLOCK), maybe I should go back while I still have time

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

Major update -- I will be joining the Film and Media Studies faculty at Washington University in St. Louis as a Visiting Lecturer! Looking forward to helping them develop their digital media studies curriculum. Happy to connect with folks in the Midwest! fms.wustl.edu/people/oscar...

Oscar Moralde

fms.wustl.edu

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

I read this line in Stuart Hall's memoir FAMILIAR STRANGER and had to stop and stare out the window: "I had by then given up the project to become a creative writer and I didn't know enough music or play well enough to become a musician. Out of such 'failures' are critics and theorists made!" (132)

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

Looking forward to chairing this #SCMS25 panel on Video Games and Advertising later today! 5:15 to 7:00 (and then the SIG social is right after...)

N18 Video Games and Advertising
Industry, Ideology, and Identity
Swissotel Alpine 1 (Lucerne Level)
Ben Latini, "Is that Dude Cool or What?": Video Game Comics, Masculinity, and the Cultural Construction of the Gamer
Evan Lauteria, "Japanese Game Advertisements, Localization, and Mythologies of Cultural Difference"
Megan Condis and Jess Morrissette, "Console Wars: How Nintendo and Sega Shaped the Image of Gaming in the 1990s"
Oscar Moralde, "Video Game Industry Showcase Presentations and the Construction of Perpetual Anticipation"

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

Landed in Chicago for #scms2025!

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

Hello! I teach and research embodied video game aesthetics and ideology, particularly in looking at how games fit into the timetables of everyday life, as in my study of the idle/clicker game genre: www.invisibleculturejournal.com/pub/wait-wai...

Wait Wait… Don’t Play Me: The Clicker Game Genre and Configuring Everyday Temporalities

invisibleculturejournal.com

Oscar Moralde @oscarmoralde.com · last yr.

I have basically been radio silent on social media since 2020ish for The Reasons You Might Guess. However, at this point necessity is the mother of posting, so here we go...

Rebekah Valentine @duckvalentine.bsky.social · last yr.

✊✊✊✊✊ www.ign.com/articles/vid...

Video Game Workers Form First North American Industry-Wide Union With Communications Workers of America - IGN

Today, a group of cross-discipline video game workers have announced the first-ever direct-join industry-wide union in North America, known as United Videogame Workers, organizing with Communications ...

ign.com