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Search results for: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/09287.17255.pdf

- 1506 articles or papers

 

Processing Play; Perceptions of Persuasion

Svahn Mattias
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

This is a theoretical position paper exploring a projecting of the paradigm of dual process modeling of perception onto the perception of “play”. In this process, a model is proposed that sheds new light on the understanding of how “play” is understood, perceived and processed by the player. The paper concludes with a discussion on what implications the model can have on play analysis, game design and the understanding of persuasion through play, a.k.a. persuasive gaming, serious gaming, advergaming etc.

 

Conflict management and leadership communication in multiplayer communities

Siitonen Marko
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Online multiplayer games often promote long-term cooperation between players. The resulting player groups and communities can be harmonious and long-lived, but it is equally possible that they encounter problems in building trust, managing the community effort, or negotiating values and goals. Conflict management, therefore, is important for the functioning and stability of multiplayer communities. This exploratory study looks at leadership communication and conflict management in the context of multiplayer computer games and the groups and communities that operate within them. By looking at players’ and playerleaders’ perceptions of conflicts and conflict management, a conception of the patterns behind conflicts is formed. In addition, issues of conflict management and leadership communication are discussed.

 

Patterns of Play: Play-Personas in User-Centred Game Development

Canossa Alessandro Drachen Anders
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In recent years certain trends from User-Centered design have been seeping into the practice of designing computer games. The balance of power between game designers and players is being renegotiated in order to find a more active role for players and provide them with control in shaping the experiences that games are meant to evoke. A growing player agency can turn both into an increased sense of player immersion and potentially improve the chances of critical acclaim. This paper presents a possible solution to the challenge of involving the user in the design of interactive entertainment by adopting and adapting the "persona" framework introduced by Alan Cooper in the field of Human Computer Interaction. The original method is improved by complementing the traditional ethnographic descriptions of personas with parametric, quantitative, data-oriented models of patterns of user behaviour for computer games.

 

Mechanisms of the Soul – Tackling the Human Condition in Videogames

Rusch Doris C.
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Focusing on games’ specific affectivei, procedural and metaphoricalii potential, this paper is going to explore three devices for the purposeful design of games that tackle the human condition. Device I “Fictional Alignment” matches game structures to fictional themes in order to expand games’ emotional palette through leveraging the affective strength of game emotions and shaping their meaning through fictional contextualization. Device II, “Procedurality”, discusses the potential and limits of procedural expression to enhance our understanding of the mechanisms inherent to the human condition. Device III, “Experiential Metaphor”, investigates the metaphorical potential of game aesthetics and how it can help to make abstract experiences such as emotional processes and mental states emotionally tangible. Since these devices are based on characteristics that coexist in games, they are not mutually exclusive. However, discussing them separately should facilitate their deliberate use.

 

Making Sense in Ludic Worlds. The Idealization of Immersive Postures in Movies and Video Games

Therrien Carl
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

In the ongoing efforts to theorize the interactive experience proposed by video games, it is common to make a distinction between fictional elements and the gameplay in itself. E. Adams distinguished between tactical, strategic and fictional immersions. In Half-Real, J. Juul has notoriously declared that video games encompass two things: fictional worlds and real rules. Many approaches stress the distinct nature of the immersive experience in games on account of their participatory nature. By contrast, M. Csikszentmihalyi’s model of flow – a common foundation to discuss immersion in sports and games – has been applied without any modifications to art appreciation, an “activity” that many would argue doesn’t propose clear goals and retroactions. Is there any common ground between games and fictional forms that can help us understand the cultural magnitude achieved by their synthesis through the video game medium? Building on current doctoral research and on Jean-Marie Schaeffer’s effort to theorize our involvement with digital worlds as a continuation of the fictional immersion experienced in other media, this contribution seeks to evaluate the relevance of a general framework to discuss immersion. The optimization of experience in both video games and fiction films, and the various strategies that seek to shape an ideal immersive posture for us

 

What Makes Online Collectible Card Games Fun to Play?

Johansson Stefan J.
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Online Collectible Card Games is a relatively new genre of games that allow the players to collect cards, combine them into decks, and play the decks against opponents through the Internet. Players get engaged in all these three levels of the game, and we relate these levels to the theories of what makes a computer game fun to play. The Eye of Judgment (EoJ) is taken as an example of such a game, and we compare the theoretical study to the results of interviews with former EoJ players to validate the models.

 

The Gigue Is Up: High Culture Gets Game

Jenson Jennifer Castell Suzanne de Taylor Nicholas Droumeva Milena Fisher Stephanie
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

This paper documents the design, development, and extensive play-testing of a Flash-based Baroque music game, “Tafelkids: The Quest for Arundo Donax”, focusing on the tension between constructing an online resource that an audience aged 8-14 would find fun and engaging, and the directive to include historical information and facts, as well as convey some of the sounds, musical structures and conventions of Baroque music, history and culture through play. We further document 3 large play testing sessions, in which we observed, in total, over 150 students aged 12-14 play the game. We conclude with a discussion of the particular challenges in designing a bridge from propositions to play, in effect digitally re-mediating, Baroque music education and thereby address the broader epistemological question of what and how we may best learn, and learn best, from games and play.

 

Commoditization of Helping Players Play: Rise of the Service Paradigm

Stenros Jaakko Sotamaa Olli
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

The paper provides a cultural and economic background for the rise of the service paradigm in the realm of games. Both the complicated relation between products and services and a variety of contemporary examples are examined in order to develop a detailed understanding of the ecology of games-related services. From mapping the current situation we move on to create a particular player service model. The model is created both to help analytically dissect what player services are and to pinpoint some blind spots in current service design. The model can be further used to rethink the current industry ecology and to potentially find entirely new semi-independent service domains.

 

Defining Operational Logics

Wardrip-Fruin Noah Mateas Michael
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

Much analysis of games focuses, understandably, on their mechanics and the resulting audience experiences. Similarly, many genres of games are understood at the level of mechanics. But there is also the persistent sense that a deeper level of analysis would be useful, and a number of proposals have been made that attempt to look toward a level that undergirds mechanics. This paper focuses on a particular approach of this sort—operational logics—first proposed by Noah Wardrip-Fruin (2005) and since then discussed by authors such as Michael Mateas (2006) and Ian Bogost (2007). Operational logics connect fundamental abstract operations, which determine the state evolution of a system, with how they are understood at a human level. In this paper we expand on the concept of operational logics, offering a more detailed and rigorous discussion than provided in earlier accounts, setting the stage for more effective future use of logics as an analytical tool. In particular, we clarify that an operational logic defines an authoring (representational) strategy, supported by abstract processes or lower-level logics, for specifying the behaviors a system must exhibit in order to be understood as representing a specified domain to a specified audience. We provide detailed discussion of graphical and resource management logics, as well as explaining problems with certain earlier expansions of the term (e.g., to file handling and interactive fiction’s riddles).

 

Better Game Studies Education the Carcassonne Way

Hullett Kenneth Kurniawan Sri Wardrip-Fruin Noah
2009 DiGRA '09 - Proceedings of the 2009 DiGRA International Conference: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory

As game design programs become more common, educators are faced with challenges in bringing the formal study of games to students. In particular, educators must find ways to help students transition from viewing games purely as entertainment to a field worthy of critical study. One aspect of this transition is to view games on the level of mechanics rather than purely in terms of aesthetics. The study described in this paper was conducted to test the hypothesis that exposing students in an introductory game studies class to German-style board games would lead to improved understanding of game mechanics. The data gathered shows that the students who were exposed to these types of games did exhibit a greater understanding of game mechanics at the end of the course.