Online Games and Play
UndergraduateCUR-WEB3102025
Course information for 2025 intake View information for 2024 course intake
Delve into a world of gaming and play. Explore the interplay between commerce and game mechanics. Check in on ongoing debates about gaming. Critically analyse everything from casual and social games through to massively multiplayer online games.
- Study method
- 100% online
- Assessments
- 100% online
- Enrol by
- 23 Feb 2025
- Entry requirements
- Prior study needed
- Duration
- 13 weeks
- Price from
- $2,346
- Upfront cost
- $0
- Loan available
- HECS-HELP and FEE-HELP available
Online Games and Play
About this subject
At the completion of this subject students will be able to:
- analyse the interrelationship and application of play and game theory practices and technology
- critique the changing role of games and play in contemporary networked culture
- evaluate and assess concrete examples of gaming and gamification in diverse online and cultural settings
- communicate the various contexts in which games are produced and consumed and how these intersect with contemporary media and communication.
- 1.1: Play: An Introduction
- 1.2: Games and Rules
- 1.3: Immersion, Interactivity, & Narrative
- 2.1: Identity, Online Worlds, & RPGs
- 2.2: Social & Casual Games
- 2.3: Space, Mobile Games, & Locative Media
- 2.4: Horror and Violence in Games
- 2.5: eSports, Advertising, and Playing for Cash
- 3.1: Gamers and Online Community
- 3.2: Gamification
- 3.3: Games in Popular Culture
This subject was previously known as Online Games, Play and Gamification.
This subject explores the broader spaces and nature of play online, and how it relates to the development of digital forms of gaming. The nature of immersion, and its relationship to interactivity, is examined, investigating how narrative is constructed and communicated through game play. The subject provides critical perspectives on the notion of gamification and the growing area of research centred around videogame streamers and the labour ecosystem of eSports. It examines a series of gaming tropes and themes, games as texts, and the ways that games enter social frameworks to convey, refract, engage with, and resist power structures. An ongoing focus is on the function of rules in framing play, particularly in relation to how players cheat, hack and mod their games to break those rules..
Please Note: If it’s your first time studying a Curtin University subject you’ll need to complete their compulsory ‘Academic Integrity Program’. It only takes two hours to complete online, and provides you with vital information about studying with Curtin University. The Academic Integrity Program is compulsory, so if it’s not completed your subject grades will be withheld.
Find out more about the Academic Integrity module.
- Creative Artefact Exercise (35%)
- Case Study (40%)
- Essay (25%)
For textbook details check your university's handbook, website or learning management system (LMS).
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Entry requirements
Prior study
To help set you up for success before you start this subject, we suggest completing or having equivalent knowledge in:
one of
- CUR-WEB101-Web Communications
CUR-NET11 (Not currently available)
Others
Students who have completed WEB309 Web Presence previously are still able to complete the new subject WEB310 but please note that this subject will count as an elective in their degree.
Additional requirements
No additional requirements
Study load
- 0.125 EFTSL
- This is in the range of 10 to 12 hours of study each week.
Equivalent full time study load (EFTSL) is one way to calculate your study load. One (1.0) EFTSL is equivalent to a full-time study load for one year.
Find out more information on Commonwealth Loans to understand what this means to your eligibility for financial support.
What to study next?
Once you’ve completed this subject it can be credited towards one of the following courses
Bachelor of Arts (Digital and Social Media)
UndergraduateCUR-NET-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Digital Experience and Interaction Design)
UndergraduateCUR-DIG-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Digital and Social Media) (Professional Writing and Publishing)
UndergraduateCUR-ICP-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Digital and Social Media) (Visual Culture)
UndergraduateCUR-ICV-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Digital Experience and Interaction Design) (Digital and Social Media)
UndergraduateCUR-DDI-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Digital Experience and Interaction Design) (Fine Art)
UndergraduateCUR-DDF-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Digital Experience and Interaction Design) (Visual Culture)
UndergraduateCUR-DDV-DEG
Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) (Digital and Social Media)
UndergraduateCUR-FAI-DEG
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