The Relationship between Prior Gaming Experience and Consciousness of Computer Programming or Social Views on Information: An Empirical Study of High School Students in Japan

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Fukui Masanori Ishikawa Takeshi Hagikura Jo Sasaki Yuji
2019 DiGRA '19 - Proceedings of the 2019 DiGRA International Conference: Game, Play and the Emerging Ludo-Mix

The purpose of this research is to examine the relationship between prior gaming experience and consciousness of computer programming or social views on information. To evaluate this relationship, a questionnaire survey was conducted on high school students in Japan in 2016. As a result, the relationships between prior gaming experience and consciousness of computer programming or “Importance of understanding the mechanisms of computers” were shown. Besides, in the group playing the games usually, the average values of most items were significantly higher than those in the group which did not usually play the games. And there was also no significant difference between the higher group (over 2 hours a day) and the lower group (less than 2 hours a day). Based on the results, it was suggested that the use of game topics was effective for promoting consciousness of computer programming and social views on information in programming education.

 

Making it Unfamiliar in the “Right” Way: An Empirical Study of Poetic Gameplay

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Mitchell Alex Sim Yuin Theng Kway Liting
2017 DiGRA '17 - Proceedings of the 2017 DiGRA International Conference

There has been much discussion of whether games can be considered art. Regardless of the outcome of these discussions, some games stand out as clearly different in a way that can be considered “poetic”. Much work has been done to discuss how these games achieve their effects, and how they differ from mainstream games. There have not, however, been any empirical studies of how players respond to the techniques used in these games, and whether these techniques result in poetic gameplay. This paper describes an empirical study of poetic gameplay in three games: The Graveyard, Thirty Flights of Loving, and The Stanley Parable. Using retrospective protocol analysis and semi-structured interviews with 21 participants, we observed that although these games did encourage participants to reflect upon issues beyond the immediate game experience, this tended to happen when the gameplay was made unfamiliar in ways that directly supported the emerging meaning of the game.

 

Chores Are Fun: Understanding Social Play in Board Games for Digital Tabletop Game Design

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Xu Yan Barba Evan Radu Iulian Gandy Maribeth Macintyre Blair
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

When designing tabletop digital games, designers often draw inspiration from board games because of their similarities (e.g., spatial structure, social setting, and physical interaction). As part of our tabletop handheld augmented reality (THAR) games research, in which computer graphics content is rendered and registered on top of the players’ view of the physical world, we are motivated to understand how social play unfolds in board games with the purpose of informing design decisions for THAR games. In this paper we report an empirical study of recorded video from a series of board game play sessions. We present five categories of social interactions based on how each interaction is initiated, among which we believe that the category of “chores” (interactions arising from the bookkeeping activities required to maintain and update game state) provides opportunities and support for four other kinds of social interaction, namely, “Reflection on Gameplay” (reacting to and reflecting on gameplay after a move); “Strategies” (deciding how to play before a move); “Out-of-game” (reacting to and talking about out-of-game subjects); and “Game itself” (commenting on and reacting to the game as an artifact of interest). We note that “chores” in board games (e.g. waiting for a turn, rule learning and enforcement, maneuvering physical objects), which at first appear to be merely functional, are critical for supporting players’ engagement with each other. Although most of these chores can be automated using technology, we argue that this is often not the best choice when designing social interactions with digital media. Based on our experience with THAR games, we discuss several design choices related to “chores”. To understand the connection between game design elements and social experience, we apply Interaction Ritual (IR) theory from micro-sociology to interpret our data.