“I’m overburdened!” An Empirical Study of the Player, the Avatar, and the Gameworld


Jørgensen Kristine
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

This paper presents the first results of an empirical study of how players interpret the role of the player and the relationship between the player and playable figures in gameworlds. In the following, we will see examples of four genres that situate the player in different positions with respect to the gameworld. Command & Conquer 3: Tiberium Wars illustrates a game where the player does not have a playable figure in the gameworld, while Crysis exemplifies a game where player and playable figure viewpoints merge into one entity. Diablo 2 represents a game with a developing figure, and The Sims 2 demonstrates a hybrid combination of named, developing figures controlled by the player from a god perspective. The study shows that players tend to accept all features that aid them in understanding how to play the game, and that it does not matter whether features have a stylistic or naturalistic relationship to the gameworld. Regarding the relationship between player and playable figure, the respondents do not see the dual position of the player situated in the physical world while having the power to act within the gameworld as a paradox, but a necessary way of communication in games.

 

Abusing the Player, and Making Them Like it Too! [Abstract]


Wilson Douglas Sicart Miguel
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In this paper we suggest an alternative perspective: game design as abusing the player. Inspired by a number of independent and experimental games, we propose the notion of abusing the player as a creative, aesthetic position taken by the game designer. Abusing players means forcing them into adopting the arbitrary or intentionally antagonistic elements of a game. The metaphor of abuse implies that players are pushed outside of their comfort zone and into the realm of an abusive power relation in which they are punished by the game and its designer.

 

Press Enter or Escape to Play – Deconstructing Escapism in Multiplayer Gaming


Warmelink Harald Harteveld Casper Mayer Igor
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

The term escapism tends to be used in game research without providing any extensive definition of what it means or acknowledging its composite nature. In this paper, the authors question the possible conceptualizations of escapism and the extent to which gamers identify with them. Beginning with a theoretical deconstruction of escapism, the authors developed a framework that they applied in an empirical study with three focus groups. Respondents in these groups completed a survey and participated in a group discussion. The resulting data allowed the identification of eight different discourses of escapism in the context of playing multiplayer computer games. In addition, the study showed that citing escapism as a reason for playing games elicits debate and emotional responses. Given the existence of multiple interpretations and connotations, this paper concludes that escapism is problematic for use in surveys, interviews, and other research techniques.

 

Understanding Empathy in Children through 3D Character Design


Chan Kah Easterly Douglas Thomassen Aukje
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Health, particularly diet and everyday nutrition, as the ultimate causal factor in life is an important aspect of every child’s education. Meanwhile, computer generated (CG) 3- dimensional (3-D) graphics is a medium often used by entertainment and advertising. Educational intervention to help children make appropriate dietary choices can be designed by employing similar methods used by entertainment and advertising, such as 3-D characters aimed at children. The question that this research asked is: can creating an empathic bond between 3-D characters and children communicate a healthy nutrition message effectively? This thesis is based on qualitative research founded on the constructionist theory that focuses on exploring the perspective of children via focus groups. Educational designs based on familiar computer-generated graphics will help equip children to deal with nutritional and dietary choices, ultimately initiating behavioural change as their relationship with food matures earlier. Empathy on the children’s and adult’s sides of the healthy nutrition conversation is important to establish this relationship in children’s nutritional decisions. The main challenge for nutrition education is not in shortterm diversions, but long-term changes in behavioural responses in media literacy. A constructionist approach of helping children work through advertising by improving their media vocabulary would be a more sustainable approach to enhancing their ability to decode advertising rhetoric and in turn forming their own informed opinion and responses. Industry referenced educational content intent on healthy lifestyles can balance the prevalent advertising messages leading to a more balanced overall media that children are exposed to.

 

On the Edge of Reality: Reality Fiction in ‘Sanningen om Marika’


Waern Annika Denward Marie
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

The Alternate Reality Game genre inspires a mode of play in which the participants choose to act as if the game world was real. Jane McGonigal has argued that one of the most attractive features of an ARG is the ‘Pinnochio’ effect: at the same time that the players deeply long to believe in them, it is in reality impossible to believe in them for real. In this article, we study “Sanningen om Marika”, a game production where fact and fiction was blurred in a way that made some participants believe that the production was reality rather than fiction, whereas other participants found the production deeply engaging. We discuss the different participant interpretations of the production and how it affected the players´ mode of engagement. We also outline some of the design choices that caused the effect.

 

Effects of Peripheral Visual Information on Performance of Video Game with Hemi-Spherical Immersive Projection Screen


Seya Yasuhiro Sato Kotaro Kimura Yusuke Ookubo Akira Yamagata Hitoshi Kasahara Kazumi Hiroya Fujikake Yamamoto Yuki Ikeda Hanako Watanabe Katsumi
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

The recent development of immersive displays with high resolution and a wide field of view (e.g., hemi-spherical projection screen) has made it possible to play video games with higher levels of presence. However, it is not yet clear how players utilize the visual and auditory information provided by such displays for game play. In this paper, we report three experiments on an arcade video game "Mobile Suit GUNDAM Senjyo no Kizuna" with a hemi-ellipsoidal panoramic optical display (POD). Highly trained participants (professional game debuggers) were employed. They played the game with various visual masks (Experiments 1 and 2) and sound conditions (with and without sound; Experiment 3). In all of the experiments, the game performance (i.e., game score) was recorded as well as ratings for enjoyment, sensation of presence, and visually induced motion sickness as the game was played. The results suggest that players have a certain size of “effective visual space” in which peripheral information can be utilized. Furthermore, the results suggest that auditory information, together with a wide range of visual information, would enhance a player’s enjoyment and sensation of presence during game play.

 

Evolution and Digital Game Studies


Easterly Douglas Carnegie Dale Harper David
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

While a great variety of fields are addressed in the discussions concerning digital game studies, the natural sciences are rarely among them. We do see references to evolution and biology when we look at new directions in the technical structuring of games, as genetic programming bestows artificial characters with a greater impression of intelligence; but this domain is not discussed in the critical dissemination of player behaviour. If evolution and biology are valuable references for generating artificial intelligences within a digital game, perhaps it is time we consider the significance of such forces for the players engaging the game. As sociobiology pioneer Robert Trivers reminds us: “Natural selection has built us, and it is natural selection we must understand if we are to comprehend our own identities.” Why are the cognitive tools we have inherited for thriving in the Pleistocene era so good at engaging, and being drawn to achieving goals in the fictional pixilated world of digital games? This paper will argue that evolution can play an important role in digital game studies by offering a functionalist explanation to topics such as behaviour, gender, learning, development, and prediction under uncertainty. In building this case, we will examine the history of play research and discuss its dual-lineage: one largely informed by evolutionary biology, and another that is more concerned with play as a cultural artifact. From there, we will consider the potential for Evolutionary Psychology (EP) as a valuable interlocutor for digital game studies. In particular, this field’s approach to addressing judgement under uncertainty lends astonishing insight into how core features of digital gameplay may indeed be triggering innate behaviour. In conclusion, we will present our own experiments being conducted at Victoria University of Wellington, which will provide an example of how Evolutionary Psychology may inform research conducted in digital game studies.

 

‘What sort of Fish was it?’ How Players Understand their Narrative in Online Games


MacCallum-Stewart Esther
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Online worlds have become a fundamental element of the virtual landscape. The development of MMORPGs has helped give credence to the idea that online spaces can support valid social communities. Having proved that these communities exist, scholars must now decide whether these communities are different to those in the 'real' world. What makes gaming communities stand out? This paper looks at how players contextualise their behaviour within game narratives. In particular, the ways that players manipulate the divergent narratives of each game, and the paradoxes that these structures create is investigated. MMORPGs are rife with social tension. Players appear to use a series of different social codes when they justify their behaviour, borrowing from different rules sets dictated by circumstances in the game according to their need. To contextualise this, this paper examines how players express and argue their ideas through their understanding of the game world and narrative. Like fan communities , players appropriate the MMORPG text for themselves, reinscribing it according to their own conceptions. However, whereas fans must do this away from their key source, in MMORPGs, players discuss the text as they enact it. Narratives are deliberately dynamic – purporting to give players agency to move at their own pace or to chose the routes and standpoints they take throughout each game. Thus fans actively work upon the text in a much broader context, and their discussions are often visible to large amounts of people within the game. If all players consider themselves as fans, then how does this affect the perception of the text itself?

 

“How many headshots you’ve done”: Achievement as discursive practice in videogame play


Molesworth Mike
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In this paper I argue that achievement is a significant discourse in practice in videogame use. Drawing from Bauman’s (2001) discussion of an individualised society were progress is episodic and autonomous, and from phenomenological interviews with adult players I discuss how players use videogames to perform progress. The use of games as compensation for an otherwise unsatisfactory life reproduces new forms of progress, but these remain dependent on endless consumption of new technologies. This presents videogames as having a pacifying role that allows players to go on (buying) in the face of persistent failures to experience the progress ‘promised’ by consumer culture.

 

Exploring Aesthetic Ideals of Gameplay


Lundgren Sus Bergström Karl J. Björk Staffan
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

This paper describes a theoretical exploration of aesthetics ideals of gameplay. Starting from observations about the game artifact, several gameplay properties that can affect the aesthetical experience are identified, e.g. tempting challenges, cohesion, and gamer interaction. These properties are then used to describe several aesthetical ideals of gameplay, e.g. emergence, reenactment, meditative, and camaraderie. The properties and ideals provide concepts for how games attribute aesthetical value to gameplay design and how they distinguish their own preferences from inherent qualities of a game artifact.