Digital Library Publication Archives

Search results for: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/06276.54243.pdf

- 1506 articles or papers

 

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).

 

Games for Learning: Are Schools Ready for What’s To Come?

Becker Katrin Jacobsen D. Michelle
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Games Studies is still a relatively new field where much basic research remains to be done. This study asks K-12 teachers about their attitudes towards the use of games for teaching, what factors facilitate their use and what barriers exist? Information about attitudes, and what things assist and prevent the adoption of games in the classroom can help identify areas of need for the development of support. Concerns about the state and accessibility of computers in classrooms are known, and may not be addressable by those interested in providing games for learning, bit other factors may be. This study outlines several target areas suitable for further research as well as a few suggestions for approaches that might help in the promotion of games as learning objects.

 

The Pervasive Interface: Tracing the Magic Circle

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

This paper is an addition to the discourse surrounding interface theory and pervasive games. A buzzword by nature, the term ´interface´ needs to be investigated and redefined in order to remain academically valid; at the same time the pervasive game, being part of recent developments in game culture, needs to be given a place in the discourse of digital games. By approaching the interface through formal game theory, I will investigate the place and status of the interface in the pervasive game, as well as the border between everyday reality and the virtual game world, in search of defining the interaction between fantasy and reality in pervasive gaming. Next to the conventional interface of hard- and software, I argue that in pervasive gaming there exists the two-levelled “liminal” interface, which initially transfers the player into a playful state of mind (paratelic interface) before implementing more rigid structures that belong to the game itself (paraludic interface).

 

Game Engineering for a Multiprocessor Architecture

El Rhalibi Abdennour England David Costa Steven
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper explores the idea that future game consoles and computers may no longer be single processor units, but instead symmetrical multiprocessor units. If this were to occur games would need to be programmed with concurrency in mind so that they could take advantage of the additional processing units. We explore past research and works in the field of parallel computing to find principles applicable to computer game programming. Concepts such as the Flynn’s classification, task, task-dependency graphs, dependency analysis, and Bernstein’s conditions to concurrency are applied to computer game programming to develop a new model for computer games that is meant to replace the standard sequential game loop.

 

Building and Reconstructing Character. A Case Study of Silent Hill 3

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

Characters are in an important role in many games. A good player character is likely to leave good lasting impression about the game. It has been argued that creating the personality for a player character is problematic. However, there are multiple methods used in games to inform a player about the nature of a player character: predefined functions, goals, possible and impossible actions, and more traditional audiovisual means. In this paper the player character of Silent Hill 3 is analyzed using presented categorization. This paper shows that the classification is a useful analytic tool, but it needs to be developed further to include belongings and space as elements describing a player character. The categorization also highlights aspects that need to be addressed when designing player characters.

 

Tangible Interfaces for Pervasive Gaming

Jung Bernhard Schrader Andreas Carlson Darren V.
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

With pervasive gaming, novel types of games have recently emerged. The idea is to apply pervasive computing technology - which embeds computers in real-world, everyday environments - to games. By bringing gaming back to natural, social interaction spaces, pervasive gaming aims to overcome some restrictions of conventional computer games: Players are no longer tied to computer screens and human-human interaction is not constrained by graphical user interfaces (GUIs), which is a crucial aspect of traditional non-computer games. Our approach to pervasive gaming also builds on tangible user interfaces (TUIs) where players interact with the game environment by physically grasping and moving real-world objects. In this paper, we propose a simple and cost-effective, but efficient and powerful approach to tangible and pervasive gaming based on Phidgets. The framework, as well as two example games, have been developed as part of a Game Design course at the ISNM.

 

Research as Design-Design as Research

Stapleton Andrew J.
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper details a research methodology that emerged during an inquiry into game design aimed at promoting conceptual learning in physics. The methodology, Research as Design-Design as Research (RADDAR), is outlined and a case study example is provided as means to illustrate its application.

 

The Effects of a Consumer-Oriented Multimedia Game on the Reading Disorders of Children with ADHD

McGraw Tammy Burdette Krista Chadwick Kristine
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Certain interventions that ameliorate impairments in reading and attention disorders operate on the physiological level and, therefore, lend themselves to technology-based applications. This study investigates the effects of Dance Dance Revolution (DDR)—a consumer-oriented, multimedia game—on the reading disorders of sixth-grade students with ADHD. It was hypothesized that by matching movements to visual and rhythmic auditory cues, DDR may strengthen neural networks involved in reading and attention and thereby improve student outcomes. Sixty-two students, randomly assigned to treatment and control groups, participated in the test-retest study using the Process Assessment of the Learner: Testing Battery for Reading and Writing as a measure of reading impairment. The results suggest that the treatment may have had an effect on participants’ ability to perform on the Receptive Coding subtest. Furthermore, the results suggest a positive relationship between the number of treatment sessions a student completed and gains made on Receptive Coding and Finger Sense Recognition subtests.