New Design Methods for Activist Gaming

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Flanagan Mary Howe Daniel C. Nissenbaum Helen
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Significant work in the gaming and HCI communities has focused on systems that support human values such as privacy, trust, and community. Designers and engineers have become increasingly aware of ways in which the artifacts they create can embody political, social, and ethical values. Yet there has been little work toward producing practical methodologies that systematically incorporate values in the design process. This paper is aimed at introducing systematic methods for the iterative discovery, analysis, and integration of values into the work of game designers and technologists. It is our hope that such work will shed light on the benefits and challenges of employing a values-oriented approach across a variety of design contexts.

 

Presence experience in mobile gaming

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Laarni Jari Ravaja Niklas Saari Timo
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

As a growing number of people play computer games with small-screen mobile devices such as handheld computers, mobile phones and handheld game consoles, it is important to know whether the gaming experience is comparable to that for playing with a PC on a large screen. One important aspect of gaming experience is whether people feel themselves engaged in the game activity and whether they feel present in the game world. In the present study participants played a rally game either with a PC or with a PDA, and presence was measured by the MEC-SPQ presence questionnaire. The results showed that, even though there was no difference in attentional engagement between conditions, participants experienced significantly higher levels of presence in the PC condition. Some user characteristics, measured by the Witmer and Singer’s ITQ questionnaire, played a mediating role between device type and different aspects of presence.

 

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

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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

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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

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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.

 

Shadowplay: Simulated Illumination in Game Worlds

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

Despite the fact that there are currently a number of enjoyable digital games in which light plays a key role, we lack a vocabulary with which to discuss simulated illumination in game worlds. An understanding of lighting practices in other media, such as 3d computer-generated animation and film, must be supplemented with an awareness of real-space disciplines such as architectural lighting if we are to grasp the complexity of the game lighting design task. But game design is more than a repository for existing lighting practices; the interactive nature of games allows for self-reflexive sensitivity to light to emerge, most clearly manifested in games described as “first person sneakers” and “survival-horror” games.