Digital Library Publication Archives

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

- 1506 articles or papers

 

Gendered Gaming Experience in Social Space: From Home to Internet Café

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

This paper explores how the social relations embedded in varied gaming spaces affect players’ online gaming experiences, and how gender comes into play in such spatial experiences. Three major sites of online gaming in Taiwan are examined: (1) home as a space of domestic surveillance and discipline; (2) NetCafé as a stigmatized public leisure space; and (3) the student dormitory as gender-segregated space. The results show that social interactions in both virtual and physical spaces are of central importance for the enjoyment of online gamers. Compared with their male counterparts, girls are subjected to more restricted regulations and fewer chances of visiting NetCafé with friends. The size of the playing circle also affects the game playing culture in gender-segregated student dormitories. Bigger circles of players could form peer pressure on non-players, whereas smaller circles usually means fewer resources and lonelier experience.

 

Architecting Scalability for Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming Experiences

Gil Rui Tavares José Pedro Roque Licinio
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

In this study, the authors propose to discuss scalability challenges posed by Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) scenarios, while outlining issues specific to the context of online interactive experiences and game genres. These scalability issues concern: game simulation, content distribution, communication and coordination, and structural scalability. The authors present a critical review of approaches to known issues and outline research goals for an integrated scalability approach, to achieve a balanced, general purpose design, for MMOG infrastructure.

 

Playing With Non-Humans: Digital Games as Techno-Cultural Form

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

Game studies has yet to engage with a sustained debate on the implications of its fundamentally technologically based foundation – i.e. the ‘digitality’ of digital games. This paper calls for such a debate and offers some initial thoughts on issues and directions. The humanities and social sciences are founded on the principle that historical and cultural agency reside solely in the human and the social. Drawing on Science and Technology Studies, Actor-Network Theory and cybercultural studies, this paper argues that a full understanding of both the playing of digital games, and the wider techno-cultural context of this play, is only possible through a recognition and theorisation of technological agency. Taking the Gameboy Advance game Advance Wars 2 as a case study, the paper explores the implications for game studies of attention to non-human agency – specifically the agency of simulation and artificial life software - in digital game play.

 

The ‘White-eyed’ Player Culture: Grief Play and Construction of Deviance in MMORPGs

Lin Holin Sun Chuen-Tsai
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This study explores the social process governing the nature, emergence, application, and consequences of labeling the ‘white-eyed’ or grief players in massively multiplayer online role playing games in Taiwan. We found that two types of ‘white-eyed’ players exist in MMORPGs. The explicit type, who come out and organize themselves into griefer pledges, can be understood as players who rebel against game rules. Most of the common players are actually the second type, or implicit griefers. They play grief in an unidentifiable way with weak self-awareness, and put the griefer stigma on other age-groups to alleviate their anxiety in a cross-age co-playing era.

 

Realistic Agent Movement in Dynamic Game Environments

Graham Ross McCabe Hugh Sheridan Stephen
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

One of the greatest challenges in the design of realistic Artificial Intelligence (AI) in computer games is agent movement. Pathfinding strategies are usually employed as the core of any AI movement system. This paper examines pathfinding algorithms used presently in games and details their shortcomings. These shortcomings are particularly apparent when pathfinding must be carried out in real-time in dynamic environments. This paper proposes a strategy by which machine learning techniques such as Artificial Neural Networks and Genetic Algorithms can be used to enhance traditional pathfinding algorithms to solve the real-time aspect of this problem. We describe a test bed system, currently in development, that incorporates these machine learning techniques into a 3D game engine.

 

Studying Games in School: a Framework for Media Education

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

This paper explores how media education principles can be extended to digital games, and whether the notion of ‘game literacy’ is an appropriate metaphor for thinking about the study of digital games in schools. Rationales for studying the media are presented, focusing on the importance of setting up social situations that encourage more systematic and critical understanding of games. The value of practical production, or game making, is emphasized, as a way of developing both conceptual understanding and creative abilities. Definitions of games are reviewed to explore whether the study of games is best described as a form of literacy. I conclude that games raise difficulties for existing literacy frameworks, but that it remains important to study the multiple aspects of games in an integrated way. A model for conceptualizing the study of games is presented which focuses on the relationship between design, play and culture.

 

An Irrational Black Market? Boundary Work Perspective on the Stigma of in-game Asset Transactions

Lee Yu-Hao Lin Holin
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This article looks at the negative images on cash trades of in-game assets in Taiwan, through interview of participants in this activity, we believe the blurring of boundaries between work and play, adulthood and adolescence, real and virtual is what distinguishes this market from previous markets of virtual goods, resulting in its social stigma. We then discuss how the participants confront this stigma and the ambiguity in their social status, through performing various strategies of redefining marginality or constructing alternative boundaries, the participants raise their sense of selfhood and also reflect the inadequacy of the present social categories.

 

Motivational Factors in Game Play in Two User Groups

Kellar Melanie Watters Carolyn Duffy Jack
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Motivation is one of the driving forces behind the recent interest in games with educational goals. People willingly play complex games and we would like to channel that willingness to participate in complex challenges into the educational context. In this paper, we report on a survey administered to computer science and business students, two distinct groups of game players, in order to examine the role of motivation in electronic games. The results of the survey are presented, including a gaming profile of each group, as well as a series of design suggestions for educational games and activities that are based on these results.

 

Legal and Organizational Issues in Collaborative User-Created Content

Sarvas Risto Turpeinen Marko Virtanen Perttu Hietanen Herkko Herrera Fernando
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

In this paper we look at issues that arise when people collaboratively create digital content and want to publicly distribute it. Our focus is on the organizational and legal problems. We identify and analyze these issues based on four case studies on amateur content production. Two of the cases, Habbo Hotel and Neverwinter Nights, are about fan/gamer-created content production based on material licensed by companies. In the two latter cases, a micromovie community Blauereiter and a web publication The Melrose Mirror, the content produced is not based on licensed material, but on the creations of the community members themselves. Based on the case studies, we identify that the main legal issues and concerns in collaborative creation of content are decision-making and liability. We argue that the content creation communities would often benefit in organizing themselves formally as entities such as corporations or cooperatives, or on a contractual basis.

 

Designing Puzzles for Collaborative Gaming Experience – CASE: eScape

Manninen Tony Korva Tuomo
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

This paper examines the issues of puzzle design in the context of collaborative gaming. The qualitative research approach involves both the conceptual analysis of key terminology and a case study of a collaborative game called eScape. The case study is a design experiment, involving both the process of designing a game environment and an empirical study, where data is collected using multiple methods. The findings and conclusions emerging from the analysis provide insight into the area of multiplayer puzzle design. The analysis and reflections answer questions on how to create meaningful puzzles requiring collaboration and how far game developers can go with collaboration design. The multiplayer puzzle design introduces a new challenge for game designers. Group dynamics, social roles and an increased level of interaction require changes in the traditional conceptual understanding of a single-player puzzle.