Dance and Mind Control in The Lands Between. Video-based Study-in-progress of Alternative Game Interfaces in Elden Ring Livestreaming

Abstract

Game controllers are a crucial element of gameplay experience and agency. Still, they are rarely centered in game livestreaming potentially due to familiarity of users and audiences with them. Within this explorative study-in-progress, we center alternative game controllers, which break with this expectation structures both for player and audience and therefore present new challenges for gameplay structure and technology mediation. To explore this phenomenon, we conducted a video interaction analysis of two Elden Ring livestreams presenting different alternative control modes, a brain-computer-interface (invisible control) and a repurposed Dance Pad (embodied control). It will be shown that the analysed alternative game controllers 1) alter the embodied representation of play, 2) require the adoption of new gameplay structures, and 3) make the development and appearance of evidence practices necessary, to communicate potentially unfamiliar functionality to users.