Digital Library Publication Archives

Search results for: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.01371.pdf

- 1506 articles or papers

 

The Psychophysiology of Video Gaming: Phasic Emotional Responses to Game Events

Rajava Niklas Saari Timo Laarni Jani Kallinen Kari Salminen Mikko
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

The authors examined phasic psychophysiological responses indexing emotional valence and arousal to different game events during the video game Monkey Bowling 2. Event-related changes in skin conductance, cardiac interbeat intervals, and facial EMG activity over corrugator supercilii, zygomaticus major, and orbicularis oculi were recorded. Game events elicited reliable valence- and arousal-related phasic physiological responses. Not only putatively positive game events, but also putatively negative events that involved active participation by the player elicited positive emotional responses in terms of facial EMG activity. In contrast, passive reception of negative feedback elicited low-arousal negative affect. Information on emotion-related phasic physiological responses to game events or event patterns can be used to guide choices in game design in several ways.

 

Playing in the Sandbox: Developing games for children with disabilities

Kearney Paul R.
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Many researchers believe that special games are needed for people with special needs. However, this study highlights some of the issues surrounding computer games and disabled children by conducting interviews to ask them what games they would like to play. Interestingly, they wanted to play the same games that everyone else did. What they do need is a way of interacting with these games, especially those on Xbox and Playstation consoles, which require two very dexterous hands to control. This paper is the start of an ongoing project to investigate input devices for disabled people, to allow them to interact with other players through playing commercial multiplayer games. The study also considers the issues of using computer games to test the abilities of disabled people in an attempt to integrate them into mainstream society.

 

Contexts, Pleasures and Preferences: Girls Playing Computer Games

Carr Diane
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

In this paper, issues of girls and their gaming preferences are explored through observations of computer games sessions at an all-girl state school. What emerged is that preferences are alterable, and site specific. Gaming selections relate to the attributes of particular games – but they also depend on a player’s recognition of these attributes and the pleasures they entail. Players accumulate these competencies according to the patterns of access and peer culture they encounter. Thus preferences are an assemblage, made up of past experiences, and subject to situation and context. The constituents of preference, such as access, are certainly shaped by gender. As a result, gaming preferences may manifest along gendered lines. It is not difficult to generate data indicating that gendered tastes exist, but it is short sighted to divorce these outcomes from the various practices that contribute to their formation.

 

From real-world data to game world experience: Social analysis methods for developing plausible & engaging learning games

Dobson Mike Ha Daniel Mulligan Desmond Ciavarro Chad
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper is based on work to develop an interactive learning game called HEALTHSIMNET that is meant for improving practice in a health care network. It considers three selected models for analysis of documentary data acquired during semi-structured interviews with participants of a network of health practitioners in the HIV field. The paper briefly reviews the expansive theory of learning but mainly explains how the three techniques can yield interactive narrative. We end with a description of the game and a discussion of the extent to which games developed using this method can be said to sustain the kind of learning described by activity theory.

 

A Short and Simple Definition of What a Videogame Is

Esposito Nicolas
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Videogames have been studied seriously only for a few years. So, we can wonder how we could use the recent academic works to approach new design methods. This article proposes a first step: a short and simple definition of what a videogame is, this definition being connected with existing academic works about game, play, interactivity, and narrative. The definition is: A videogame is a game which we play thanks to an audiovisual apparatus and which can be based on a story. The article also shows what the videogame heritage teaches us about what a videogame is.

 

How Multiplayer Games Create New Media Politics

Konzack Lars Lindof Thessa
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

In this article we will propose a framework for massive multiplayer games, giving the players a raise of consciousness in understanding politics and society. We will set a mass media politics up against a new media politics as it emerges from the use of massive multiplayer games. We will start with a definition of mass media and new media, at the same time explaining the differences between the two. Afterwards we will give a definition of serious games. We finish the article with examples of games, which can give raise to counsciousness about political and societal problems and possibilities.

 

A Brief Social History of Game Play

Williams Dmitri
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Who has played video games? Where have they played them? And how have games helped or hindered social networks and communities? This article answers these historical questions for the birthplace of commercial video games—the United States. Moving from the descriptive to the analytical, it begins with the basic trends and figures: who played, when, where and why, and how changes in technology have impacted the social side of gaming. An immediate pattern appears—for both industrial and political reasons, the early 1980s were a crucial turning point in the social history of video game play. What began as an open and free space for cultural and social mixing was quickly transformed through social constructions that had little to do with content, the goals of the producers, or even demand. The legacy of that era persists today, influencing who plays, how we view games, and even how we investigate their uses and effects.

 

The comparison of online game experiences by players in games of Lineage & EverQuest: Role play vs. Consumption

Whang Leo Sang-Min Kim Jee Yeon
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This study attempted to explore how similar MMORPGs(massively multiplayer online role player game) come to have different meaning and functions by the gamers in the game world. Each game world comes to be perceived as having different experiences by virtue of gamers’ perception of the game world. Their experiences are distinguished whether they are presented as consuming a product which has features of fantasy world, or taking a role play that the gamers create their virtual social relationship. The subjects of this study were two MORPGs, 'Lineage' and 'EverQuest'. Two online games are physically similar, but each one has evolved into a different virtual worlds. While Lineage game world has been a part of real world, EverQuest game was experienced as consuming the game product. The differences were expressed by the recognition of gamers and their behavior patterns in the world. Lineage gamers has regarded the game world as a part of their daily living society, while EverQuest gamers has perceived their experiences in the world as a kind of fantasy experiences. Being in EverQuest world was an opportunity to experience a fantasy land, and the game world as considered as a part of product. Although gamers in Lineage & EverQeust were both taking the role play experiences, the differences on perceiving the world has made them to behave differently. They has also showed different gaming behaviors. Different experiences of gamers in similar MMORPGs were expressed by their consuming patterns of digital images or contents.

 

Immersion in Game Atmospheres for the Video Game Heritage Preservation

Esposito Nicolas
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

The video game heritage is being preserved especially on the Web: comments, screenshots, sounds, videos, etc. But one important element is missing: the environment in which we play (game atmosphere) is one of our strongest memories. This article describes an investigation-based method to record game atmospheres, the four atmospheres we are archiving (one bedroom, one living room, and two game room atmospheres), the interactions allowed in these virtual environments, and some technical points about how to access these atmospheres (on the Web or thanks to a virtual reality system).

 

“Have Fun Working with Our Product!”: Critical Perspectives On Computer Game Mod Competitions

Sotamaa Olli
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper suggests that the digital games industry products are not limited to games-related hardware and software or the related spin-off industry products. Further, consumers “labour” with games is transformed into a product that is sold to advertisers and sponsors. In case of gamer-made modifications, this commodification of leisure is taken into extreme. It is obvious that the cultivation of unpaid modder labour necessitates different methods than the traditional forms of labour. It is suggested that mod competitions are used as a strategy of control over the hobbyist developers. Through competitions modders become interpellated as important members of the industry and simultaneously end up surprisingly comfortably harnessed. Finally, the paper suggests that the competitions that offer an attractive means to monitor the mod scene, paradoxically also work against industry’s advantages by revealing the laborious nature of computer game development to the hobbyists.