Presentation on Criminal Case, Crime based Hidden Object Games and hidden audiences for Video Games and Literature, Beyond Stereotypes - 21st June 2018 St. Andrews University

1. BEYOND STEREOTYPES
“CASE 88: ONCE UPON A CRIME”
DEFINING HIDDEN OBJECT GAMES AS
LITERARY NARRATIVES.

2. HIDDEN GAMES
This research started out as a way to show
our students how to research
The more we ‘showed’ the more we realised
there were threads worthy of research and
a whole complex world of games, and the
people who played them that are effectively
hidden from mainstream – research and
media
The more we conducted informal interviews
with players of Hidden Object Games, the
more we realised the links between playing
these games and the act of reading /
watching tv
Players describe curling up with a Hidden
Object Game to play on a Sunday afternoon

3. The more we played, and the more we looked into what research there was the more we realised
this was a massively misunderstood, and under researched genre.
What are often dismissed as ‘casual adventure games’ are a little bit more complex then that:
Case by Case HOGS
Room by Room HOGS
First Person Point and Clicks
Gateway HOGS
• Interconnected stories
• Tasks to complete around each case
• Overall mission to solve ‘something’
• Collectable object based progression
• Liner games with a series of scenes to
interact with
• Detective games
• Casual games where you find things
• Use of Timers, no narrative or missions
COMPLEXITIES IN AN EMERGING GENRE

4. HIDDEN OBJECT GAME 101
 Easily dismissed as games other
people play
 “Games you mum playes and your
misses enjoys”
 Consistently dismissed as a single
genre within the wider scope of
‘casual games’
 Little research on the games beyond
Chess & Consalvo looking at the
Gothic Romance series of
‘Ravenhurst’
 Hidden Object Games especially
seem to occupy the space of genre
fiction in a crowded gaming market
Case by Case Hidden Object Games have short bursts of gameplay
that fit in around other tasks
Individually they are not long form games – but series /
thematically linked they allow lot of play opportunities

5. Laureline Chiapello argues that not only are the definitions of casual gaming unsatisfactory, but that the literature available
on this topic is contradictory and lacks consensus. The central question ‘what is a casual game’ remains unanswerable, and
whilst different definitions abound, Chiapello comments wryly that the only element most critics agree on is that casual
games should be ‘cheerful’ (Chiapello 2013) – Criminal Case did not get this memo….
A typical murder scene
from Criminal Case –
usually the body is only in
the first play through of the
scene
While it may have an
initial shock it’s also a
familiar scene for anyone
who watches crime
television or reads crime
novels
The same issues with
glamorous dead women are
as prevalent in crime
games as they are in crime
tv shows / novels

7. TIME WASTIN’ TRASH GAMING
There is an understanding that these are not
‘proper games – from media, researchers and
players -
The players themselves refer to their ability
to ‘waste time’ on these games.
This aligns with other research on the
players of casual games
‘These players did not fit any stereotype of the
adolescent male video game player. In fact, the
often did not think on themselves as playing
video games (even though they clearly were)’.
(Juul 2009)
There are parallels to be drawn between
the treatment of Hidden Object Games
and other marginalised literature like
Crime and Romance Fiction

8. PLATFORM IS KEY – KINDLES
& MOBILES
 2017 Ofcom report on Adult’s media use and attitudes
documented the following trends
 Adults aged 65-74 are more likely in 2016 than in 2015 to
have a tablet (51% vs. 39%)
 those aged 75+ are also more likely to have a tablet (30%
vs. 19% in 2015)
 Robust, hand me down technology culture
 Many tablets are passed around in families as others family
members upgrade
 Costs of tablets have fallen dramatically
 Amazon Kindle, especially, use this captive market to
advertise hidden object games

9. CRIMINAL FANS – PARATEXT AND COMMUNITY
Unlike other games of other genres the mobile
element of these, and the player demographic
means the conversations around these game
happens on fan made facebook pages and fandom
wikia
These are not your typical gamers – despite the
devotion to the games that they show.
Consalvo, Mia. (2009). Talks more about this in her
paper about the community that surrounds
Ravenhearst games

10. “MAKING A WORLD AND INVITING PLAYERS TO EXPLORE IT’ –
BROOKMYRE, C, YESTERDAY LUNCH TIME
•Original Present
Day Setting City
Setting
•‘CSI Vegas / New
York’
Criminal Case
(Season 1)
•Beach related
multi district Area
•‘CSI Miami’
CC : Pacific Bay
(Season 2) •Globe Trotting
Crime Solving
with ‘The Bureau’
•‘Criminal Minds
Beyond Borders’
World Edition
(Season Three)
•19th Century
Concordia
•‘Ripper Street,
Copper’
Mysteries of the
Past (Season 4) •Follows on from
Series 3
•Return to
Grimsborough
The Conspiracy
(Season 5)
Wikipedia lists 253 ‘episodes’ of the Criminal Case
series
Initially links to download the next season only appear
at the end of the previous season

11. Even when players are given
choices in Crime based HOGs
there’s no actual change to the
pre destined story.
These games offer no reliability
for anything other then
completion and unlocked bonusus

12. COMMONALITIES IN A CROWDED GENRE
The success of the Criminal Case games and
the nature of the mobile market has led to a
massive amount of look-a-like games
Not all are clones, and some vary from the
standard crime based case by case aspect
we’ve seen (G5’s Homicide Squad: Hidden
Crimes follows the Room by Room sub genre
we’ve seen on more Paranormal themed
games)

14. LICENSED TO SEEK
• CSI / NCIS licensed hidden object games – furthering the link with Crime / True Crime fans

15. GAMES CONSTRUCTED, NOT DESIGNED?
Our other strand of research is who makes these games? – do native cultures have an impact?
What’s with Eastern Europe and HOG development studios?
For the most part all the
narratives we looked at
were identitykit American
style police procedural.
Narratives involve
forensic investigation in
American style labs,
terminology etc – the art
style would suggest a
mainly American-centric
development force#
That is not the case

16. WHY MOBILE GAMES & HOGS IN PARTICULAR
 Mobile / Casual games as a whole are dismissed as not being worthy of study – the occasional
game crops up but their mass appeal seems to preclude study of the games and the audiences.
 We argue that one of the reasons for this is the dismissive way in which casual games are
viewed by critics, as well as a kyriarchical disposition to ignore games played by women, older
people or those on lower incomes (Alderman 2010, Jayanth 2014).
 Of all of the Hidden Object games we’ve looked at on Crime ones have garnered such
enthusiastic fans

17. Dr. Esther MacCallum-
Stewart
@neveahfs
Nia Wearn
@wormella
THANK YOU, ANY QUESTION OR GET IN TOUCH
 We’re both lecturers at Staffordshire University
 This is all research in flux, and ongoing
 We started this as a way of showing our students ‘ho to
research’ and it snowballed
 You can follow the research here -
https://hiddenobjectfiles.tumblr.com/
 Get in touch if you research / play / just want to get in
touch with someone else about HOGS, or anything else
about Game Studies,