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Search ResultsExporting Wars: Literature Theory and How It Explains the Video Game Industry
Dymek Mikolaj The video game industry is the combination of two worlds: technology (IT) and show-biz/media/cultural industries. This paper explores this tension by exposing the shortcomings of the culture economics perspective and its lack of understanding for the unique characteristics of the video game medium, thus subsequently proposing a deeper analysis of the medium by turning to literary theoretical perspectives on games, such as ludology and narratology. Due the lack of technological dimensions in its theoretical framework, narratology is deemed less fruitful as an analytical tool and ludology is preferred. Ludology, with Espen Aarseth’s cybertext theory elucidates aspects of “interactivity”, author-medium-reader power relations and the mechanical organization of textual machines, which provides perspectives on practice in the video game industry. Keywords: Video game industry, cultural industries, culture economics, ludology, narratology The State of the Art: Western Modes of Videogame Production
Wade Alex This paper intends to offer some preliminary insights into the milieu that produce the world of videogame play. Beginning with an historical overview of the industry from it’s inception as a major entertainment medium, I will examine the means by which production of videogames has been set-up and sustained and it’s subsequent successes and failures. From here, I will map these instances onto culturally relevant theoretical models. By using empirical data from interviews with developers, programmers, artists and producers throughout the West, I will investigate the current state of the art in the industry and analyse the relationships, differences and similarities that contemporary videogame production has with its antecedents. Finally, I will offer some thoughts on the future of videogame production and the increasing opportunities of expansion it offers to sociological exploration of situated – and displaced – play. Keywords: Videogame production and consumption, history of production, videogame spaces Real-Time Sweetspot: The Multiple Meanings of Game Company Playtests
Niedenthal Simon Game design, like gameplay, is situated. Though we find ourselves in a period of global growth and consolidation in the games industry, marked by broad changes in how design work is organized, our understanding of game design as it is currently practiced needs to be rooted in local contexts of production. One useful way to explore the situated-ness of game development is by tracing the implementation of playtesting of prototypes in game companies. The implementation of playtesting serves as an acknowledgement of the complexity of designing for the emergent properties of games, and also reveals attitudes towards the player. This case study of playtesting a real-time strategy (RTS) game under development at a Swedish game company is based upon observations of test sessions and interviews with employees from March 2006-February 2007. Specifically, this study will trace the various outcomes of a single game-balancing (“Sweetspot”) playtest conducted in March of 2006. This test serves as a locus of playtest meaning, and demonstrates that playtesting at the company is used to achieving clarity in the game design process, to support an evolutionary design methodology, and as a means of communicating the state of the game to outside actors. In short, playtesting has meaning in several contexts, both within and beyond the immediate design task at hand. Whether the results of a playtest session take the form of a numerical figure, a written report, or a fast scrawl in the lead designer’s notebook, they need to be interpreted carefully in the light of their complex nature. Keywords: Game development, playtesting Virtual Worlds and Fraud: Approaching Cybersecurity in Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Bardzell Jeffrey, Jakobsson Markus, Bardzell Shaowen, Pace Tyler, Odom Will, Houssian Aaron We survey known security vulnerabilities in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs), and describe how these are used to cheat. While such abuse often is aimed at gaining an edge in the game, there is a recent trend of financial fraud in MMOGs. We review common types of online fraud (such as phishing and click-fraud) that we believe increasingly will migrate into the MMOG sphere. We refer to the resulting abuse as virtual fraud. By defining a visual classification of virtual fraud, we lay a foundation to future investigations of the problem. We also use our visual classification to describe some types of virtual fraud that we believe may become particularly threatening. Keywords: Click-fraud, crimeware, deceit, fraud, MMOG, phishing “I am not a fan, I just play a lot” – If Power Gamers Aren’t Fans, Who Are?
Wirman Hanna The goal of this paper is to discuss one of the well-known and widely accepted characteristics of fandom, textual productivity, in relation to the productive practices surrounding computer games. The paper will show that the social and cultural aspects of computer game playing as well as games’ structural and game-mechanical support for various forms of player participation give the traditional fan theories a slip. The paper aims to illustrate that it is not trouble-free to read certain players as fans just because their actions at first sight correspond to what we have usually considered as fandom. In addition, it suggests that we should look for new manifestations of fandom among players. The issues will be considered in part of the artificial division between the so-called (power/hardcore/pro) gamers and game fans. Examples are drawn specially from the productive practices within and beyond the games World of Warcraft and The Sims 2. Keywords: Computer games, co-production, fans, participation, power gamers, productivity The place of mobile gaming: one history in locating mobility in the Asia-Pacific region
Hjorth Larissa In media cultures of late, the synergy between two global dominant industries – mobile communication and gaming – has attracted much attention and stargazing. As part of burgeoning global media cultures, gaming and mobile media are divergent in their adaptation at the level of the local. In some locations where broadband infrastructure is strong and collectivity is emphasized (such as South Korea), online multiplayer games prevail. In locations where convergent mobile technologies govern such as Japan, mobile gaming platforms dominate. In order to address the uneven adoption and definitions of mobile gaming – that range from encompassing casual mobile games to pervasive (location aware) gaming – this paper will attempt to sketch how we can think about mobility, and mobilism, in a period marked by divergent forms of regionalism and localization. Drawing from cultural studies, anthropological and sociological accounts of mobility and emerging consumer practices in the region, this paper seeks to move beyond current conflations and futurism surrounding convergent mobile gaming. Keywords: mobile gaming, mobility, Asia-Pacific region Designing Games to Effect Social Change
Swain Chris Serious games, persuasive games, news games – these are all terms used for games which let players gain an experiential understanding of real world issues through play. Many in this growing class of games deal with social causes; recent examples include Peacemaker, about solving Middle East peace, The Redistricting Game, about congressional redistricting and redistricting reform, and the online game series published by the New York Times that includes Food Import Folly (which is about the FDA limited inspection policy on U.S. food imports). The field has a number of good examples that let users learn about social issues, however, to date, the field is short on examples of games that achieve measurable results in the real world. This paper addresses issues of design, theory, and activism pertaining to games about social causes. The author is an experienced designer and scholar who deals with all three of these issues in his work. Here is an outline of best practices for designing games to affect social change. Each is discussed in detail below: 1. Define intended outcomes 2. Integrate subject matter experts 3. Partner with like-minded organizations 4. Build sustainable community 5. Embrace “wicked problems” 6. Maintain journalistic integrity 7. Measure transference of knowledge 8. Make it fun Keywords: Game design, games for change, persuasive games, design practice, design theory The Cultural Economy of Ludic Superflatness
Chan Dean This paper examines the situated play aesthetics of Japanese digital games with reference to what Takashi Murakami calls Japan’s superflat visual culture. According to Murakami, superflat visuality is born out of imbricated cultural, political, and historical contexts concerning the relationships between high art and subculture, between Japan and the United States, between history and contemporaneity. In this paper, I examine these dialectical tensions and use superflatness as a hermeneutical tool for examining associated aesthetic forms and ludic properties that are recurrent in Japanese games culture. Key videogames under discussion include We Love Katamari, WarioWare: Mega Microgame$ and Viewtiful Joe. My conception of ludic superflatness acts as an interpretive cue for analysing Japanese digital cultural production in context. In particular, I focus on how ludic superflatness might be regarded as a complex agentive – and polemical – expression of culturally hybrid national identity within the contexts of contemporary digitalised globalisation. Keywords: Superflat, cultural economy, hybridity, history, otaku, 2D, Takashi Murakami Critical Potential on the Brink of the Magic Circle
Poremba Cindy This paper explores the problem space of forbidden games: games not only on the border of games and reality, but explicitly referencing the double-coded nature of that boundary—in other words, games that use their status as “only a game” as a strategic gesture. It asks three key questions: what does it mean to be a forbidden or “brink” game, what is the function of these works, and, perhaps most importantly, to what extent do they have critical potential. To answer these questions, a methodological approach is drawn from functional systems theory, as read primarily through the work of Niklas Luhmann. Through this approach, I demonstrate the importance of these games in relation to the separation of games and reality, and suggest the strength of such works lies in their ability to both observe and critique everyday life. Keywords: magic circle, forbidden games, brink games, Luhmann Girls and Gaming: Gender Research, “Progress” and the Death of Interpretation
Jenson Jennifer, de Castell Suzanne This paper is about the persistent absence of critical interpretation in work focused on gender and gameplay. Since its beginnings, research (and resulting practice) in this area has moved little if at all from the early work in the path-breaking Cassells and Jenkins volume dedicated to girls and gaming. In the currently very well-regarded and oft-cited volume on “girl-friendly” game design, Sheri Graner-Ray re-instates the gamut of gender stereotypes by now so familiar as to have become “canonical” for the field. In this paper we illustrate some theoretical, research, and practice dilemmas, and, drawing upon sophisticated interpretive work in gender studies and on socio-cultural approaches to research, we propose some tactics for rethinking the very terms and conditions of this by now clearly resilient orthodoxy about “what girls like best,” arguing that until we are able to be surprised by its findings, we can be fairly confident that games studies research into gender accomplishes little beyond re-instating and further legitimating inequality of access, condition and opportunity. This is no game: no fun, and no fair. Keywords: Gender, gameplay, research, sociology, game culture Videogame Music: chiptunes byte back?
Mitchell Grethe, Clarke Andrew This paper will explore the sonic subcultures of videogame art and videogame-related fan art. It will look at the work of videogame musicians – not those producing the music for commercial games – but artists and hobbyists who produce music by hacking and reprogramming videogame hardware, or by sampling in game sound effects and music for use in their own compositions. It will discuss the motivations and methodologies behind some of this work. It will explore the tools that are used and the communities that have grown up around these tools. It will also examine differences between the videogame music community and those which exist around other videogame-related practices such as modding or machinima. Keywords: videogame music, videogame art, fan-art, sonic art, subcultures, communities, chiptunes Playing with the Rules: Social and Cultural Aspects of Game Rules in a Console Game Club
Jakobsson Mikael In this study of a Swedish console game club I have looked at how the rules of the games are connected to the social and cultural aspects of the context that the games are played in. I have devoted special attention to the game Super Smash Bros. Melee and how different contexts of play have formed around this game, for instance the emergence of a professional smash scene and the polarization of console club members into smashers and anti-smashers. My conclusion is that the idea that rules can play a core role in defining a game without the need to take the situated aspects of play into account is problematic. Rules do not inherently belong to the formal aspects of games. Even at the most fundamental level, rules are influenced by, and affect, the social and cultural aspects of the gaming context. Keywords: console games, game culture, play context, rules, social interaction, game clubs, game appropriation “Gamic Realism”: Player, Perception and Action in Video Game Play
Sommerseth Hanna This paper explores a phenomenological approach to the video game medium, in order to argue that realism in video games is dependent on the player’s embodied experience of play as opposed to mimetic representation. My paper discusses the relation of the player, and specifically the player’s body, to the idea of realism in video games. Chris Crawford wrote in 1982 that “games represent a subset of reality”. Similarly, Jesper Juul argues in his recent book that games are “half real”. I discuss this idea of half-reality through a consideration of the terms virtual reality and telepresence. Media artist Eduardo Kac distinguishes between the two concepts thus: VR presents purely synthetic sense-data lacking physical reality, while telepresence presents sense-data that both claims to correspond to a remote physical reality, and also allows a remote user to perform a physical action and see the results. Where does such a distinction leave the video game medium? I draw upon the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty in order to argue that the controller interface (keyboard, joypad etc.) in video game play create an experience different from the disinterested perception involved with experiencing non-interactive media. Through Merleau-Ponty’s notion that the body is our main medium for having a world, I argue that gamic realism is always body-subjective, and reliant not on depiction but on action. Keywords: Realism, Phenomenology, Game play MMOs as Practices
Reynolds Ren This paper examines those acts that occur within MMOs and are chiefly given meaning by the context of an MMO, and asks whether they fall under MacIntyre’s definition of a Practice. The paper argues that many MMO acts are best understood as occupying a nexus between the purely social and the purely ludic. That is, acts occur in the context of a rich and nuanced set of traditions and practices, in which acts can attain a level of excellence and other acts can be understood as negative. Given this acts, in MMOs can meet MacIntyre’s definition of Practice, thus we have a framework in which to morally evaluate acts such as Ganking and Ninja Looting. However, this is just a framework, as a matter of practical ethics we need to then examine the factors and particular context that surrounds a given act, such as the MMO, whether there was a prevailing guild, whether it occurred during a raid with well-understood rules, etc. But what this paper suggests we do have to hand is at least one theoretical argument with a practical application for the ethical basis of some acts that occur within the context of MMOs. Keywords: MMO, ethics, practice Visiting the Floating World: Tracing a Cultural History of Games Through Japan and America
Consalvo Mia The goal of this paper is to establish a framework for better understanding the relationships between Japanese and American games in relation to that industry, visual styles, and cultural influence. To do that, this paper draws on a larger cultural history of Japan and America, and critiques and questions current and potential uses the concept of Orientalism in relation to digital games. In doing so, my hope is that we can arrive at a more sophisticated, nuanced understanding of that relationship, and use this framework for subsequent critical analysis. Keywords: Japan, art, culture, Orientalism, hybridity Situated Play – Just a Temporary Blip?
Susi Tarja, Rambusch Jana In this paper we discuss how cognitive science may contribute to understanding the concepts of situatedness and situated play. While situatedness has become something of a catch-all term, it actually has several different meanings, ranging from “higher” social-cultural forms to “lower” sensori-motoric activities. We also discuss an often overlooked, but crucial aspect of situatedness, which is the use of external resources such as tools and their use. As will become apparent, a more thorough understanding of situatedness and tool use are key to understanding computer games and people’s everyday playing activities. Keywords: Situatedness, tool use, situated play, computer games Profiling Academic Research on Digital Games Using Text Mining Tools
Bragge Johanna, Storgårds Jan Academic research on digital games has been conducted for over 30 years. However, the abundance of disciplines conducting research on the topic makes it challenging for the interested to get a holistic and comprehensive account of past digital game studies. Yet, sophisticated text mining tools designed for structured science information resources, such as the ISI Web of Science or INSPEC, make it possible to conduct insightful literature studies that profile and visualize large knowledge domains. The primary aim of this paper is to profile the research literature from the ISI Web of Science on digital games. More than 2.100 studies between years 1986-2006 were found using a set of digital games-related search words. Secondly, the aim is to find out what are the current “hot” research topics and research trends of the near future. Our profiling study demonstrates that digital game research is indeed highly multidisciplinary, covering more than 170 subject categories of the ISI Web of Science. When combining these categories into larger areas of science, it was found that the three most prominent areas are the Social Sciences (including e.g. psychology and communication), the Health Sciences (e.g. experimental psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics), and Information and Communication Technologies and Mathematics (e.g. computer science theory and methods, software engineering). The fields of Engineering and Arts & Humanities are also well represented in digital game research, although to a much lesser amount. The research in ICT (computer science, information systems etc.) seems to have grown the fastest in the last 10 years. Keywords: Digital games, computer games, video games, research profiling, text mining Modeling Epidemic Spread in Synthetic Populations — Virtual Plagues in Massively Multiplayer Online Games
Boman Magnus, Johansson J. Stefan A virtual plague is a process in which a behavior-affecting property spreads among characters in a Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG). The MMOG individuals constitute a synthetic population, and the game can be seen as a form of interactive executable model for studying disease spread, albeit of a very special kind. To a game developer maintaining an MMOG, recognizing, monitoring, and ultimately controlling a virtual plague is important, regardless of how it was initiated. The prospect of using tools, methods and theory from the field of epidemiology to do this seems natural and appealing. We will address the feasibility of such a prospect, first by considering some basic measures used in epidemiology, then by pointing out the differences between real world epidemics and virtual plagues. We also suggest directions for MMOG developer control through epidemiological modeling. Our aim is understanding the properties of virtual plagues, rather than trying to eliminate them or mitigate their effects, as would be in the case of real infectious disease. Keywords: Virtual Plague, Digital Plague, Infectious Disease, Epidemiology, Synthetic Population From Rule-Breaking to ROM-Hacking: Theorizing the Computer Game-as-Commodity
Jordan Will This paper develops a theory of the game as a commodity form by looking at the unique practices of console hackers and videogame emulation communities. This theory argues for the necessity of understanding a game's system of rules in relation to the material conditions and constraints of the media within which it is constructed and distributed. After deriving the computer game-as-commodity from a combination of institutional and material restrictions and protections on the free-play of the execution of game rules, I provide an account of emulation and ROM-hacking communities as a cultural critique and playful resistance of such commodification within the rigid legal and technological infrastructures of autonomous, executable, and copyrighted machine code. Rather than asking whether videogame emulation is “right or wrong” in the abstract, I examine the legal, economic, and aesthetic implications of emulation practices, asking what the efforts of the emulation and ROM-hacking community have to contribute to the study of console videogames. Finally, I argue that analyzing and embracing the efforts of a variety of practices within the emulation and ROM-hacking communities is helpful and essential to both mapping past struggles and tracing future paradigms of the computer game's contradictory status as a commodity to be consumed and an algorithm to be uncovered. Keywords: Computer architecture, Console videogames, Emulation, Hacking, Piracy Play with me: Exploring the autobiographical through digital games
Poremba Cindy This paper uses two game-based artworks by Mary Flanagan (primarily [domestic] and to a lesser extent [rootings]), to examine autobiography in the form of digital games. Specifically, it explores the ways in which these games construct/represent subjectivity, how they negotiate agency (both within the work and within the realm of cultural production), and how the game form structures selfnarrative. This is framed in relation to theoretical work from both autobiography and game studies. Keywords: Autobiography, non-fiction, documentary, agency, subjectivity Pricing models and Motivations for MMO play
Nojima Miho The purpose of this study is to investigate and conceptualize the relationship between pricing models and motivations for MMO play. After the review of previous studies, we conduct an empirical research in the Japanese MMO industry to find determinants of pricing models. As a result, we found that (1) relationship between monthly fixed fee, continuous play (play period) and social motivation, (2) relationship between per-item billing, relatively short play period and high immersion. Keywords: MMORPGs, pricing models, motivation, strategy, marketing Interaction Manifestations at the Roots of Experiencing Multiplayer Computer Games
Vallius Laura, Manninen Tony, Kujanpää Tomi Today’s computer games offer players stunning audiovisual environments, intense action, adventures, puzzles and crowded worlds with vast amounts of other players to play with. Consequently, play experience is a combination of numerable variables. This study focuses on understanding how interaction manifestations of games participate in the process of experiencing multiplayer game environments. Rich Interaction Model is used as a theoretical framework for analysing experiencing of interaction. Two experimental games are used in the analysis as examples. The results of this study are preliminary guidelines of how interaction manifestations affect experiencing games Keywords: Play experience, interaction forms, multiplayer games From Catch the Flag to Shock and Awe: how World of Warcraft Negotiates Battle
MacCallum-Stewart Esther Within the MMORPG World of Warcraft, attitudes towards warfare are expressed in conflicting ways. This is partly a result of the difficult relationship modern Western society has with warfare, and the various political agendas that surround this. Within World of Warcraft, this is expressed specifically in the minigames known as ‘Battlegrounds’, which allow players to fight against each other in teams. The way in which these popular areas have been developed in the game is symptomatic of increasingly accepting attitudes towards warfare. Keywords: Game Studies, World of Warcraft, online games, MMORPG, Massively Multiplayer Online Games, war games Player-Character Dynamics in Multi-Player Role Playing Games
Tychsen Anders, McIlwain Doris, Brolund Thea, Hitchens Michael This paper presents the results of a comprehensive empirical study of the impact of integrating complex game characters in multi-player Role Playing Games across tabletop and digital formats. Players were provided with characters that had detailed background history, personality and goals. Player and character personality were assessed using the Extended Personal Attributes Questionnaire (EPAQ) and further questionnaires administered to measure player enjoyment and the player-character relationship. Results include a high level of player enjoyment across all formats, a high correlation between enjoyment and player engagement with their character and no correlation between enjoyment and similarity between player and character personality. Keywords: Player, character, design, personality, role playing games Approaching game-studies: towards a reflexive methodology of games as situated cultures
Lammes Sybille This paper will address why and how a reflexive and situated methodology could be employed to study cultural functions of play. Starting from the supposition that playing is pivotal to all game-research, I will follow Aarseth's claim that any (cultural) approach of games asks for an inclusion of the position of the player/researcher in its methodology. Being particularly interested in games as a cultural practice, I will add to his claim that for such kind of research a methodology is needed that enables us to see games as culture. My hypotheses will be that reflexivity and situatedness lie at the heart of any approach that wants to include both issues. I will show that reflexivity and situatedness may be needed as complementary tools to come to a cultural study of games that takes Aarseth's call for reflectivity serious. I will claim that the researcher needs the combined tools of reflexivity and situatedness because both situatedness (intertwining agent and environment) and reflexivity (distance/proximity) take into account the involvement of the researcher/player with its material and view this as a cultural praxis. Situatedness allows for game-research that shows the physical locality of playing whilst still relating play to a more global or national context. Reflexivity permits us to show how the researcher is culturally and locally involved in her quasi-object of study through play. Keywords: Methodology, player/researcher, reflectivity, situatedness, games as culture Counting barrels in Quake 4: affordances and homodiegetic structures in FPS worlds
Pinchbeck Dan Since the release of Half Life (1998), first-person perspective games can be seen to drive towards an unbroken immersive experience, with fewer breaks from real-time delivery. Simultaneously, a move towards ever greater complexity and depth of game content can be seen, although the basic ludic structure of the genre has remained relatively unchanged. A discontinuity is thus established which places pressure upon the homodiegetic devices used to deliver an immersive experience. In this paper, the concept of affordances is used to illustrate the essential ludic structure of first person gaming, and ludodiegesis, a concept used to understand homodiegetic devices as means of managing immersion, is introduced to offer examples of how this discontinuity can be effectively managed. Keywords: First person, games, player experience, psychology, game content Dimensions of Play: Gameplay, context, franchise and genre in player responses to Command and Conquer: Generals
King Geoff An analysis of online reviews of Command and Conquer: Generals, the focus of this paper is on the various dimensions within which play is situated in the accounts of players. Starting with responses that highlight potentially contentious political associations of aspects of the game, it considers how these are balanced against or combined with concerns relating to gameplay mechanics, graphics and the situation of Generals within both the Command and Conquer franchise and the wider real-time strategy genre. The paper concludes by arguing that the evidence of player reviews supports the suggestion that game-playing is, essentially, a multi-dimensional experience. Keywords: dimensions of play, player reviews, gameplay, political context, franchise, genre Cross-format analysis of the gaming experience in multi-player role-playing games
Tychsen Anders, Newman Ken, Brolund Thea, Hitchens Michael Forming one of the major genres of games, Role Playing Games (RPGs) have proven an extremely portable concept, and the games are situated across various cultural and format-related boundaries. The effect of porting RPGs between formats is however a subject of which very little is known. This paper presents results of an empirical study of multi-player RPGs, evaluating how the transference between formats affects the player experience; including the effect of including a human game master in computer-based RPGs. The tabletop format emerges as the consistently most enjoyable experience across a range of formats, even compared to a computer-based RPG directed by a human game master. Keywords: Cross-platform games, role-playing games, computer roleplaying games, game master, gaming experience. Your Second Selves: Resources, Agency, and Constraints in Avatar Designs and Identity Play in a Tween Virtual World
Kafai Yasmin B., Fields Deborah A., Cook Melissa S. Avatars in online games and worlds are seen as players’ key representations in interactions with others. It is surprising then that this aspect of game play has not received much attention in research, in particular what concerns playergenerated avatars. In this paper, we investigate the avatar design and identity play within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net with more than 1.5 million registered players ages 8-16. One unique feature of Whyville is the player’s ability to customize one’s avatar with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the expressive resources available for avatar construction, individual tween players’ choices and rationales in creating their avatars, and online postings about avatar design in the community at large. With the growing interest in playergenerated content for online worlds such as Second Life, our discussion will address the role of avatars in identity play and self-representation as well as the social issues that arise within the game world. Keywords: Avatars, identity, participatory culture, situated play Waiting for Something to Happen: Narratives, Interactivity and Agency and the Video Game Cut-scene
Cheng Paul Since the appearance in 1978 of Adventure on the Atari 2600, the cut-scene (alternatively cutscene or cut scene) has been a key component to many video games. Often, the cut-scene gives narrative shape to the game experience, moving the player along through a series of events culminating in the story's end. Cybertheorists such as Hayles, Murray and Frasca have explored the ways in which digital interactive media and the video game introduce new paradigms of narrative and storytelling, as well new conceptions of interactivity and agency. However, in many ways the inclusion of cut-scenes raises many of the problems concerning the theoretical structures with which to investigate video games. Since cut-scenes often follow cinematic codes of representation, current theory often renders the cut-scene as passive and non-interactive, as opposed to the interactive nature of gameplay. Yet as film theory has shown, especially in the effects of suturing and such, cinema offers a kind of psychic interactivity that blurs the hard boundary often drawn between cinema and gameplay. The cut-scene then becomes the locus of the tension in video games between cinematic representation and gameplay, and subsequently, an investigation of the cut-scene and its role in the video game can offer substantial insight into the nature of agency and interactivity within the video game. Using the release of Capcom’s Resident Evil 4 and Ubisoft's Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie, both of which challenge the traditional definitions and uses of the cutscene, this paper will study the different ways in which the cut-scene operates within the video game. It will not only discuss current conceptions of agency and interactivity within the video game, but also offer an transmedia framework, after the work of Marsha Kinder, with which to explore the relationship between narrative and gameplay, cinema and simulation in the video game. Keywords: cut-scene, interactivity, agency, transmedia Around Sigeru Miyamoto: Enactment of "Creator" on Computer Games
Inoue Akito, Ushijima Seido This report argues the duality of creators in designing games through works of Sigeru Miyamoto. Computer game is created not just by developers, but also players. This duality forces game developers to be conscious of a balance between developers and players, and how players commit in the game. Our analysis repeal that his designing way such as level design and self-motivation, obviousness of Rules, operations on handling strongly focused on designing the duality and his such intention also fall into his specific bound trapping players to his miniature world. Keywords: Shigeru Miyamoto, creativity, duality of creators, internalization, designing rules The Contextual Game Experience: On the Socio-Cultural Contexts for Meaning in Digital Play
Mäyrä Frans The experiences game players and other people have around digital games are not limited to the intensive, immersive ways of playing them. Therefore the earlier SCI model of gameplay experiences is not sufficient to cover the full range of game experiences. In this paper a more comprehensive model is presented by describing the multiple contextual layers that surround and underlie every encounter with digital play and games. Keywords: player experience, gameplay experience, context, meaning People, Places, and Play: A research framework for digital game experience in a socio-spatial context
de Kort Yvonne A. W., IJsselsteijn Wijnand A., Gajadhar Brian J. Electronic games frequently give rise to engaging and meaningful social interactions, both over the internet and in the real and tangible world of the gamer. This is the focus of the present paper, which explores digital gaming as a situated experience, shaped by socio-spatial contingencies. In particular we discuss how co-players, audience, and their spatial organization shape play and player experience. We present a framework describing social processes underlying situated social play experience and how these are shaped by the game’s socio-spatial context. The core of this framework describes various 'sociality characteristics', and discusses these both in terms of co-located and mediated social game settings. Keywords: game experience, social context effects, situated play, theory Human, all too non-Human: Coop AI and the Conversation of Action
Simon Bart This paper considers the cultural sociological questions that might begin to be asked when players understand themselves to be cooperating rather than competing with the computer when they play digital games. Coop play with game AI in games like Call of Duty provides the basis for understanding human relationships with computers and machines in a way that may differ from the cultural historical antagonism embodied in a game like computer chess. This investigation also opens the doors for the analysis of emergent play in human-computer interaction. Keywords: Sociology, posthumanism, cooperation, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, uncanny valley Ghastly multiplication: Fatal Frame II and the Videogame Uncanny
Hoeger Laura, Huber William Through a close-play and close reading of the game Fatal Frame II, we identify the uniquely game-based aspects of the uncanny in a horror game. Subsequently, we engage in an interpretation of the game which centers on a psychoanalytic model of the avatar and theories of the twin. Keywords: Horror, uncanny, twins, psychoanalysis Mapping Time in Video Games
Nitsche Michael Video games can position players in a specific time and space. This paper will argue that the experiences of both are closely interdependent. As a consequence, we need to re-evaluate our models of time in video games. The discussion will exemplify the suggested interdependencies of temporal and spatial experience. The result is a playercentered perspective towards time in game spaces. Keywords: Time, space, virtual world, video game Understanding Pervasive Games through Gameplay Design Patterns
Björk Staffan, Peitz Johan This paper reports on a cluster analysis of pervasive games through a bottom-up approach based upon 120 game examples. The basis for the clustering algorithm relies on the identification of pervasive gameplay design patterns for each game from a set of 75 possible patterns. The resulting hierarchy presents a view of the design space of pervasive games, and details of clusters and novel gameplay features are described. The paper concludes with a view over how the clusters relate to existing genres and models of pervasive games. Keywords: Pervasive Games, Game Design, Gameplay Design Patterns Designing a Game to Model Consumer Misbehavior
Drennan Penny, Keeffe Dominique A., Russell-Bennett Rebekah, Drennan Judy C. Traditionally, computer games have been used for entertainment and more recently, education. However, the potential for games to be used in other contexts is now becoming an area of interest for researchers. We propose that games can be used in areas such as social behavior research, particularly in the area of consumer misbehavior. Using game design that supports research problems and provides an affective, engaging experience for players who participate in the research allows for the exploration of problems that have previously been difficult to address for social behavior researchers. Keywords: game design, consumer behavior, affect Peep-boxes to Pixels: An Alternative History of Video Game Space
Sharp Philip “Peep-boxes to Pixels” offers an alternative cross-section of gaming history. Focusing on the dichotomous profiles of the video game arcade in the US and in Japan, the paper traces various cultural and technological planes as they scroll amongst each other in forming the collective zone we call an arcade today. This metaphor I extend by appropriating into my discourse a term that video games appropriated from astronomy: parallax. Of particular interest in this alternative history are the Dutch peep-boxes which, when introduced to Japan and given a pay-per-play cost, can be thought of as protoarcade games. However, these objects are generally mentioned in regards to a history of cinema. Why not a history of games? Certainly, peep-boxes, pointillism, penny arcades, pinball machines, pachinko and the pixels of Pac-man begin to interrelate as parallax once one weaves together the pedigree of their respective spaces. This paper asks a lot of questions. What does the respawning of fetishistic game historians leave behind? What cultural remnants have been blasted right past? What framework(s) made their debut in Japan so successful, and why should or shouldn't we be surprised that the Japanese arcade scene is so much more informed and vibrant than ours? (It is.) In looking at a history somewhat glitched and incongruent with the common offerings, I hope a more cosmopolitan cerebration may produce more interesting game content and more compelling places to play. The future of play may lie in the past. Keywords: Arcade, geisen, geimu sentaa, Holland, history, oranda, parallax, historiography, glitch, hanafuda, SNK, Sega, Nintendo, pinball, pachinko Temporal Frames: A Unifying Framework for the Analysis of Game Temporality
Zagal Jose P., Mateas Michael This article introduces the notion of temporal frames as a tool for the formal analysis of the temporality of games. A temporal frame is a set of events, along with the temporality induced by the relationships between those events. We discuss four common temporal frames: real-world time (events taking place in the physical world), gameworld time (events within the represented gameworld, including events associated with gameplay actions), coordination time (events that coordinate the actions of players and agents), and fictive time (applying socio-cultural labels to events, as well as narrated event sequences). We use frames to analyze the real-time/turn-based distinction as well as various temporal anomalies. These discussions illustrate how temporal frames are useful for gaining a more nuanced understanding of temporal phenomena in games. Keywords: time, videogames, temporality, temporal frame The Lambent Reactive: Exploring the Audiovisual Kinesthetic Playform
Keating Noah H. In this paper, design scenarios made possible by the use of an interactive illuminated floor as the basis of an audiovisual environment are presented. By interfacing a network of pressure sensitive, light-emitting tiles with a 5.1 channel speaker system and requisite audio software, many avenues for collaborative expression emerge, as do heretofore unexplored modes of multiplayer music and dance gaming. By giving users light and sound cues that both guide and respond to their movement, a rich environment is created that playfully integrates the auditory, the visual, and the kinesthetic into a unified interactive experience. Keywords: Responsive Environments, Audiovisual Play, Kinetic Games, Movement Rich Game Play, Immersive Dance, Smart Floor The Impact of Experience: The Influences of User and Online Review Ratings on the Performance of Video Games in the US Market
Joeckel Sven Commercially successful video games easily sell more than one million units in the US market alone and gross more than $ 100 million. Few research approaches have asked the question what makes a video game succeed in the market. This paper focuses on the role of external information sources. As video games are experience goods whose value for the consumer only becomes apparent after he or she has experienced the product, consumers seek external information in form of user and expert reviews to be able to judge if a video game will fulfil their needs or not. Good ratings by users and experts may promote the success of a given video game. Using a sample of 201 top selling games in the US market, a causal model predicting the influence of user and expert reviews on the success of video games in the US market is constructed, indicating that the perceived quality of a video game through external sources may explain up to 15% of a video game's distribution. Keywords: Experience goods, video game market, user ratings, online reviews The unbound network of product and service interaction of the MMOG industry: with a case study of China
Ström Patrik, Ernkvist Mirko The paper explores the MMOG industry from a network perspective. The aim is to make a theoretical contribution of how this rapidly growing sector can be conceptualized by using a relational and spatial framework from economic geography and international business. Additionally, the paper uses the case of China to show how the theoretical model can be utilized in an empirical context. Keywords: MMOG, network, service, China Notes Toward a Sense of Embodied Gameplay
Bayliss Peter Despite the increasing maturity of the field of videogame studies, central concepts such as gameplay remain underdeveloped, implicit in many theories yet without clear investigation of the underlying assumptions informing approaches to understanding it. Understanding gameplay as a particular form of interactivity, the approach taken here focuses on the notion of embodiment, drawing on Dourish's work concerning embodied interaction. The implication of this approach is a focus on the concept of interface, which is developed here beyond the meanings adapted from design and production contexts towards a more generalised yet more powerful understanding that sees it as a particular site or space of interaction between two parties - the player and the game. An exploratory theoretical model of embodied gameplay is developed through a synthesis of Dourish's application of various phenomenological theories to interactivity, Gibson's ecological approach to perception, and Järvinen et al's approach to the concept of flow. Keywords: Embodiment, Interface, gameplay, videogames Pervasive Persuasive: A Rhetorical Design Approach to a Location-Based Spell-Casting Game for Tourists
Walz Steffen P., Ballagas Rafael "Tico" REXplorer is a pervasive game service launching in June 2007. The game aims at persuading on site tourists to explore and enjoy the history of the UNESCO world heritage city core of Regensburg, Germany. In the game, historical and mythological spirits are stationed at touristic points of interest throughout the mostly Gothic and Romanesque city core of Regensburg. Players rent a special "paranormal activity detector" - a device composed of a mobile phone and a GPS receiver in a custom designed shell - at Regensburg's tourist information. Players interact with the location-based and site-specific spirits by performing a gesture, i.e. by waving the wandlike detector through the air in a specified fashion, thus "casting a spell". Situated gestures allow players to evoke and communicate with spirits to receive and resolve quests. With their detector, players can also take pictures, which appear on each player's individually generated souvenir, a weblog. The weblog also maps a player's route, describes spirits a player has encountered, and lists books and deepening URLs for each character and site. In this paper, we focus on the rhetorical approach behind REXplorer, and discuss exemplary formal and dramaturgical persuasive design tactics. These tactics, we believe, can not only help to make "serious" activities such as city exploration and history learning fun and sustainable, but also influence player behavior during pervasively computed and situated gameplay. Keywords: Pervasive game design, game rhetoric, persuasive technology, serious games, situated gameplay A Method For Discovering Values in Digital Games
Flanagan Mary, Belman Jonathan, Nissenbaum Helen, Diamond Jim In this paper, our research team demonstrates how groups of game designers can open the discussion on human principles in game design by using a tool we call “Values Cards.” Drawing on prior play experiences, participants identify examples of games or game segments that express the value represented on one of the values cards. This sparks deep analysis of how values are expressed through particular game mechanics and representational elements. The analysis can be posted to a collective wiki and shared amongst other designers who are interested in examining game mechanics and representational elements from a values perspective. These exercises can be considered first steps in a broader attempt to produce and implement a systematic methodology to better integrate human principles into the design process. Keywords: values, games, digital games, computer games, video games What Videogame Making Can Teach Us About Literacy and Learning: Alternative Pathways into Participatory Culture
Peppler Kylier A., Kafai Yasmin B. In this paper we articulate an alternative approach to look at video games and learning to become a creator and contributor in the digital culture. Previous discussions have focused mostly on playing games and learning. Here, we discuss game making approaches and their benefits for illuminating game preferences and learning both software design and other academic content. We report on an ongoing ethnographic study that documents youth producing video games in a community design studio. We illustrate how video game making can provide a context for addressing issues of participation, transparency and ethics. Keywords: Education, Video Game Making, Learning, Literacy Practices, Media Education, Urban Youth Team Structure in the Development of Game-based Learning Environments
Kirjavainen Antti, Nousiainen Tuula, Kankaanranta Marja This paper examines the factors related to the composition of a development team of digital Game-Based Learning Environments. The aim is to examine the structure of a development team and the expertise, roles and tasks of team members. This study is part of the research project Human-Centered Design of Game-Based Learning Environments. The overall aim of the project is to construct a multidisciplinary and user-driven process for the development of digital Game-Based Learning Environments. The study was conducted according to the principles of development research and action research. The action research cycles consisted of four game development projects. It was discovered that varied expertise in different disciplines was needed in different phases of development. Guidelines for team structure of Game-Based Learning Environments development were presented in the results. Further research is needed on the development process of Game-Based Learning Environments to enable better collaboration of a multi-disciplinary development team. Keywords: Game-Based Learning Environments, serious games, game development, teams Gameplay Design Patterns for Believable Non-Player Characters
Lankoski Petri, Björk Staffan Descriptions of humans require several qualities for people to experience them as believable: human body; selfawareness, intentional states, and self impelled actions; expression of emotions; ability to use natural language; and persistent traits. Based on these we analyze non-player character Claudette Perrick in The Elders Scroll IV: Oblivion to detect how these qualities can be created in the interactive environment of a game. We derive the gameplay design patterns Awareness of Surrounding, Visual Body Damage, Dissectible Bodies, Initiative, Own Agenda, Sense of Self, Emotional Attachment, Contextual Conversational Responses, and Goal-Driven Personal Development, which point to design choices that can be made when designing believable non-player characters in games. Keywords: Gameplay design patterns, non-player character, game design, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Play: A Procrustean Probe
Tyler Tom The brigand Procrustes dispatched his victims by stretching or trimming their bodies in order that they be made to fit his bed. Considered as a scientific theory, McLuhan’s four “laws of media” risk violating research in a dangerously Procrustean manner. Conceived as an exploratory probe, however, his “tetrad” can provide illuminating insights into the social and psychological effects of individual technologies. Applied to digital games, the tetrad reveals the particular ways in which this distinctive cultural form enhances diverse modes of play, obsolesces traditional television viewing, retrieves lost means of participation, and reverses into pervasive and persistent play. The tetrad helps us to situate play within the broader technological and cultural environment. Keywords: augment, enhance, extranoematic, game, McLuhan, obsolesce, participation, persistent, pervasive, play, Procrustes, remediation, retrieve, reverse, technology, television, tetrad, Theseus. Serious Games in language learning and teaching - a theoretical perspective
Sørensen Holm Birgitte, Meyer Bente The paper focuses on a part of a new project Serious Games on a Global Market which focuses on language learning and teaching. Serious Games are digital games and equipment with an agenda of educational design. The paper makes a theoretical argument for a Serious Games product based on theories of educational design and learning in relation to games. Furthermore technology based perspectives on language teaching and learning are described and in addition to this, the paper draws on data from two recent research projects that have studied the role of game based activity in children's digitally based practices in off school contexts. This theoretical construction will be employed in the developing of the prototype of the digitally based educational platform "Mingoville". Keywords: Serious games, language teaching and learning, the educational design of games, formal and informal learning From Gamers to Scholars: Challenges of Teaching Game Studies
Zagal Jose P., Bruckman Amy S. This article reports on the results of a study that explores the issues and challenges faced by instructors of games studies classes. Using a semi-structured protocol, we interviewed twelve professors and instructors of game studies courses. The interviews were transcribed and iteratively coded in order to refine theoretical categories, propositions and conclusions. Our results indicate that learning about games can be challenging for multiple reasons. For instance, an extensive prior videogame experience often interferes with students' abilities to reason critically and analytically about games. They also have difficulties articulating their experiences and observations. The medium itself also presents obstacles in access. Students must be skilled at games in order to fully experience them and technological barriers make it difficult to provide older games for students to experience. The article describes many of the solutions that instructors are adopting in order to overcome these challenges. We conclude by drawing attention to the issue that current game studies courses run the risk of limiting the diversity of people who could become game scholars. Keywords: games learning, teaching game studies Gender in Play: Mapping a Girls’ Gaming Club
Taylor Nicholas, Jenson Jennifer, de Castell Suzanne To better understand boys’ privilege and girls’ educational disadvantage with regard to video games, this presentation aims to challenge the ways girl gamers are rendered invisible by gaming communities, researchers, and designers. Drawing from audiovisual research of a girls’ gaming club at an elementary school in Toronto, this paper explores the micro-interactions of a gaming session between five girls which is interrupted when two boys enter the scene and try to hijack their play. Using the MAP (Multimodal Application Program, developed by Suzanne de Castell and Jennifer Jenson) tool to visually chart and analyze the co-ordinated reactions of the girls as they put down their controllers and hold their bodies immobile during the boys’ disruption, this paper explores the tenuous relationship to video games these girls enjoy, even within a space ostensibly devoted to their play. Keywords: gender, education, ethnography, social contexts Mobile Gaming with Children in Rural India: Contextual Factors in the Use of Game Design Patterns
Kam Matthew, Rudraraju Vijay, Tewari Anuj, Canny John Poor literacy remains a barrier to economic empowerment in the developing world. We make the case that “serious games” can make an impact for these learners and highlight that much remains to be learned about designing engaging gameplay experiences for children living in rural areas. Our approach revolves around game design patterns, which are building blocks that can inform game designs. We argue that patterns are beneficial because they facilitate the reuse of existing knowledge about successful games, and can capture contextual information such as domain applicability that has evolve through iterative testing. We describe the design of three mobile games based on patterns and report on a field experiment with rural children in India that evaluated these games against games that were not designed with patterns. We found that patterns are decontextualized design tools that can both help and hinder good designs. We distill lessons on the contextual factors that designers must consider when using patterns to design for this user group. These factors include designing for fun by focusing on the gameplay process and not only the winning conditions, and taking the power structure in local communities into consideration in the game designs. Keywords: Design pattern, Developing world, India, Mobile game. Cash Trade Within the Magic Circle: Free-to-Play Game Challenges and Massively Multiplayer Online Game Player Responses
Lin Holin, Sun Chuen-Tsai Cash trades for virtual items in game worlds are now a recognized part of the “free game” business model, but perhaps at the expense of players’ senses of immersion, fairness, and fun. We review several perspectives related to Huizinga’s [8] “magic circle” concept in order to establish an analytical framework, then discuss player opinions in support of or opposed to free games, based on data collected from various sources. Our hope is that this study will be useful for those researchers who are monitoring the rapidly changing line separating game worlds and the physical world. Keywords: free-to-play game model, magic circle, MMOGs, cash trade for virtual goods. What’s My Game Character Worth – The Value Components of MMOG Characters
Kujanpää Tomi, Manninen Tony, Vallius Laura How does one’s game character gain value in online multiplayer game? What are the elements that contribute to the overall virtual identity of a player? Throughout the history of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) game characters have remained central figures for all types of in-game interaction and value perception. Recently, MMOGs have evolved to a stage where at least parts of one’s identity are for sale. In this paper, we apply a motivational framework to analyse the specific value structures of one’s virtual identity. As a result, we indicate how achievement, social and immersive aspects of one’s game character form the personal value that player bestows on the game character. Furthermore, we conclude how these aspects offer possibilities for new business implications on the future MMOGs. Keywords: Game character, Virtual identity, Value perception Stealing from Grandma or Generating Cultural Knowledge? Contestations and Effects of Cheats in a Tween Virtual World
Fields Deborah A., Kafai Yasmin B. Much research has described the various practices of gaining access and participation in multi-user game communities. Cheat websites that are a prominent part of the game culture and industry have been debated because of their illegitimate nature but received little attention in terms of their educational value. In this paper we analyze the cheat sites created by players for a tween virtual world called Whyville.net, which encourages youth ages 8-16 to participate in a range of social activities and play casual science games. Analysis of a sample of 257 cheat sites resulted in typologies for both the cheats and sites in terms of quality and quantity of science content. In addition we followed a particularly active cheat site over the course of eight months and investigated formal discussions of the Whyville community concerning cheating. Implications of these findings as cultural artifacts of the game community and as guides for designing informal online learning activities are discussed.# Keywords: Cheats, economy, learning, situated play Effect of Video Games on Children’s Aggressive Behavior and Pro-social Behavior: A Panel Study with Elementary School Students.
Ihori Nobuko, Sakamoto Akira, Shibuya Akiko, Yukawa Shintaro We conducted a panel study with elementary school students in order to examine the effect of video games on children. We conducted two surveys, and measured the amount of use of video games, exposure to certain types of scenes, and preference for types of games as "video game variables," and also measured the level of aggressive behavior and pro-social behavior as "dependent variables." The result of cross-lagged effect model analysis suggested that for boys pro-social behavior was suppressed more as they used video games more. Also, for all participants and for boys, their pro-social behavior was promoted more as they were exposed to more pro-social scenes, or they indicated stronger preference for non-violent games, while their pro-social behavior was suppressed more as they indicated stronger preference for violent games. Keywords: video game, aggressive behavior, pro-social behavior, panel study Leaving a Never-Ending Game: Quitting MMORPGs and Online Gaming Addiction
Lee Ichia,Yu Chen-Yi,Lin Holin Online game addiction has a negative image and is becoming a public concern in Taiwan. We look at this phenomenon from another perspective, through interviews with gamers who were addicted to a MMORPG but have quit playing, we believe that the multiple reasons causing gamers to leave their game can reflect some more aspects of online game addiction. We then map out how a gamer’s attachment to a game changes over time due to many factors, stressing the importance of dynamic quitting and addiction patterns to better understand the addicted gamer’s game experience over time. Lastly, we observed self consciousness in these addicted players as they selfmonitored and sought help in many ways to quit a game. We hope this study will be useful for researchers who are trying to better understand online game addiction. Keywords: addiction, attachment, MMOGs online gaming Digital Games for Education: When Meanings Play
de Castell Suzanne, Jenson Jennifer, Taylor Nicholas This paper documents the development of an educationally focused web-based game, Contagion, detailing how such a practical development project has led us to re-theorize questions about what is "educational," and how and in what ways that relates to the ludic. With reference to and within the framework of design-based research, we detail here the challenges we encountered designing this "alternative" game, and how we came to see content, not simply as "what the game is about" but as essentially tied to and enacted through all aspects of the game. We argue that content, that is educationally valuable knowledge, is infused through all relational aspects of the game as the player's activities accomplishments: character selection, art, narrative, programming, goals, game structures and play. Each of these aspects and challenges of game-design are explored in an effort to show how knowledge is constructed through these inter-related elements, and to further understand how and why that might matter to future game development projects. Keywords: serious gaming, design-based research, gender, education The Spontaneous Playfulness of Creativity: Lessons from Interactive Theatre for Digital Games
Shyba Lori M. This paper maintains that the practice and theories of improvisational and activist theatre can infuse interactive computer games with spontaneous, playful creativity. This playfulness can inspire not only character, relationship and social issue possibilities in the digital game development, but can also tease out creative ideas through live improvisational gameplay among development teams. Working from the premise that computer games are both a unique art form and an experiential way to rehearse social change, this paper suggests novel ways of drawing on the games and artistry of Stephen Nachmanovich, Ruth Zaporah, Uta Hagen, and Keith Johnstone, and the activism of Augusto Boal, David Diamond, and Richard Rohd to enhance computer gameplay experience. It also makes a call to action for kinaesthetic involvement in live gameplay, because getting up and trying the games is better than just reading about them. Keywords: Improvisation, Activist Theatre, Character, Relationships, Social Issues, Kinaesthetics Gaming DNA: On Narrative and Gameplay Gestalts
Brown Douglas This paper takes the concept of the ‘Gameplay Gestalt’ as advanced by Craig Lindley[7] as a basis for a fresh look at how games are read and designed. Disagreeing with Lindley’s assertion of gameplay over narrative, it puts forward a model of the game as a construct of authored gestalt interplay, and concentrates on the links between the physical process of playing the game and the interpretative process of ‘reading’ it. A wide variety of games are put forward as examples, and some analyses of major ‘moments’ in classic games are deconstructed. The concept of the ‘sublime’ as applicable to games is examined as is the use of gameplay and narrative to generate ‘illusory agency’, which can make a game more than the sum of its parts. Keywords: Design Theory, Agency, Gameplay, Narrative, Gestalt, Game Readings, Game Construction Ergonomic evaluation of portable videogame software
Kato Ryo, Kawai Takashi, Ikeshita Hanae, Nihei Kenji, Sato Tadashi, Yamagata Hitoshi, Tashiro Hirofumi , Yamazaki Takashi In this study, the authors evaluated the psychophysiological effects of video games on users. Although video games affect users in various ways, this study focused on the shortterm and direct effects. In an experiment, subjects played five kinds of video games on portable game machines for fifteen minutes. While each subject played a game, the authors measured the potential skin reaction during game play and profiled the subject's mood states and stress markers before and after he or she played. The authors examined the differences between the various games, the players' skills, and the information to play the game. Keywords: psychophysiological effect, ergonomics, human factors Emotions about the Deniable/Undeniable: Sketch for a Classification of Game Content as Experienced
Leino Olli This paper deals with the emotions experienced by a player. It problematises the empirical psychological study of players' emotions. The paper suggests emotions to be understood as structured relationships instead of as reactions. It proposes players' emotions to be analysed through their intentionality, by looking at games as constituting the objects of the emotions. The article questions the validity of objective knowledge about games for the purpose of understanding games as experienced. It presents a method of categorizing game content as it appears as objects of the players' emotions. The categorization is further demonstrated by looking at two erotic variations of Tetris. Keywords: player, experience, intentionality, emotions Survey of the adjourned sale rate of the Japanese home video game industry
Koyama Yuhsuke We carried out a survey of the adjourned sales rate of the Japanese home video games from famitsu, a major weekly magazine, in order to construct a reference index of project management. We chose Playstation®(PS), Playstation2® (PS2) and Game Boy Advance® (GBA®) as the platform and measured the fraction of the titles which were postponed for sale once or more times. The results are as follows: 1) During the first year after the release of the new platform, the rate of adjourned sale was high and gradually declined year by year. 2) In PS® platform, adjourned rate was nearly 50% in the first three years 1994-1996, and declined to 22% in 2001. 3) In PS2® platform, adjourned rate was 33% in the first year 2000, and declined to 26% in 2004, 4) In GBA® platform, adjourned rate was 24% in the first year 2001, and declined rapidly to 7% in 2004. 5) Game titles scheduled to go on sale around the new-year holidays or at the end of the fiscal year showed a significantly higher rate of adjourned sales Keywords: Playstation®, Playstation2®, Game Boy Advance®, adjourned sale rate Avatar Categorization
Kromand Daniel The paper examines the various modes of designing video game avatars. The purpose is to establish an operational model for categorizing the avatars' design. Within a theoretical framework raised by Marie-Laure Ryan and Murray Smith I will establish two continua, which, merged together, lead to twin axes that can be used to describe certain archetypes in avatar design. This paper examines typical avatar design and provides theory for different design models. Keywords: Avatar theory, avatar categorization, game design, possible worlds Playing another Game: Twinking in World of Warcraft
Glas René This paper investigates one the more controversial player practices in MMORPG's, twinking, not in terms of value judgment but as a play from negotiating, working against and even transforming a MMORPG's intended structure and design. Making use of participatory ethnographic observations of one of World of Warcraft's particular forms of twinking, this devious behavior is discussed as being luxury play, dominance play, transformative play and standardized play, each form having its own influence on the way these virtual worlds are experienced by the player community and, notably, twinkers themselves. Keywords: MMORPG, World of Warcraft, twinking, individualized group play, player-versus-player, devious play Reciprocal Innovation in Modding Communities as a means of Increasing Cultural Diversity and Historical Accuracy in Video Games
Moshirnia Andrew V., Walker Anthony C. Due to the growing power and versatility of home hardware and software, the participatory design and modification, or modding, of commercial video games has become increasingly common. This paper examines and defines emergent features, the tendency of modders to inject aspects of themselves in the game, to advertise their outside interests, and to increase the historical value of the game by dramatically altering previously unimportant game features. The production process for emergent features tends to generate multiple, equally viable user-modifications which often serve mutually exclusive purposes. The paper concludes with the educational implications of reciprocal innovation. Keywords: New Roles of the Instructor & Learner, Collaborative Design, Emergent Features, and Reciprocal Innovation The Primordial Economics of Cheating: Trading Skill for Glory or Vital Steps to Evolved Play?
MacBride Robert In a period marked by cultural, industrial and technological convergences of new media platforms globally, what constitutes ‘Situated play’? One of the key aspects of the global digital industries has been the increasing importance of locality in determining modes of game play. Far from homogenising game play, globalisation has resulted in “disjuncture” and “difference” at the level of the local. Take, for example, the considerable successes of the Massively Multiplayer Online scene; despite its movement towards the idea of the connected gaming civilisation model, many MMO are not global but, rather, played by certain communities that share linguistic, socio-cultural or political economy similarities. A considerably poignant example would be the way in which different aesthetics appeal to cultural contexts. The formulation of these distinctive taste cultures are marked by what Pierre Bourdieu noted as modes of cultural (productions of knowledges), social and economic capital. These types of knowledges effect and impact modes of game play as well as “appreciation” of types of skills and knowledges. So how can we conceptualise these productions of localised game play? One way to understand some of the nuances of the local and how it impacts certain modes of game play is through the rubric of “ethics”. Can we speak of right or wrong behaviour? Who determines it? Is it the companies, the producers, the gaming community, or the socio-political context that governs and moderates modes of behaviour? In this paper, I will explore the role of ethics in gaming and how it relates to cultural relativity and situated play. The paper will outline a compact historical account of the definitions of “cheating” within the realm of the digital and how online gaming has revolutionised some of these precepts. In order to do so I will explore the evolution of cheating and its newfound degrees of acceptance within the contemporary global online gaming community. I will firstly outline some of the ways in which ethics have been conceptualised in game play, following this; a look at a case study of Melbourne MMO players and their definitions of the “ethics” in games through the rubric of cheating. The case study of MMO users in Melbourne will consist of users from over 10 ethnic backgrounds. The sample study will ask users about their definition of cheating and right or wrong game play so that we may mediate on some of saliencies and nascent socio-cultural dimensions of play and locality. Keywords: Cheat, Debug, Trainer, Twinking, Build & Levelling guides, Camping, Programming flaw exploitation, Walkthrough, FAQ (Frequently asked question document), Patching, Speed run, Gold/Stat farming, Ghosting, Unlockable, Easter Egg, PEEK/POKE, Hacking Long-term motivations to play MMOGs: A longitudinal study on motivations, experience and behavior
Schultheiss Daniel The upward trend in the sector of the digital games goes on.An evolution takes place, which is capable to go to many directions. On the one hand computer graphics become more realistic, games are more complex and the speed, as well as the distribution, of the internet increases steadily. On the other hand another trend appears: browser-games, also called MMOGs (Massive Multiplayer Online Games). Games, which are text-based or contain only few graphical content and are playable without local installation on the computer. Only an internet connection and a browser is needed to use them. These persistant online-worlds, in this special case a browser-game called "Space Merchant Realms", are the object of investigation in this work. Before the empirical analysis is proceeded, the object of investigation is defined in the sector of computer-games and online-games. Subsequently the identification of usagemotivations, gameplay experience and playing-behavior is, as well as its temporal variation, in focus. In this longitudinal research, the usage-motivations are examined with help of the Uses-and-Gratification-Approach and the gameplay-experience is examined with the flow-theory. In two waves of the questionnaire (Nt0=125; Nt1=135), which were surveyed at an interval of ten weeks, several results could be extracted. Ten game motivation factors (total variance 67,175%) and four game experience factors (total variance 58.5%) appeared by the usage of factor analysis. Based on self-evaluation of players, further statements on playing-behavior could be encountered. Moreover the variations of usage-motivations, gameplayexperience and playing-behavior after ten weeks were determined. Four of the ten motivationfactors arose (one of these significant), while six factors stayed constant. Three of the experience-factors became less important (one of these highly significant) and one remained constant. The time of usage demonstrably decreased within ten weeks. This investigation which claimes to be a kind of pilot study, is the first step into an integrated investigation of browser-games. Keywords: MMOGs, browser-games, online-games, usage, gameplay, motivations, experience, behavior, longitudinal research Exploring E-sports: A Case Study of Gameplay in Counter-strike
Rambusch Jana, Jakobsson Peter, Pargman Daniel In this paper, a case study of Counter-strike is presented in which cognitive, cultural, economical, and technological aspects of people’s gameplay activities are discussed. Most attention is given to Counter-strike as an e-sport – competitive gameplay which borrows forms from traditional sports. Also, methodological and theoretical issues related to the study are discussed, including issues of player-centered approaches and issues related to the crossdisciplinarily of the study, which borrows perspectives from cognitive science as well as cultural studies. Keywords: Counter-strike, Gameplay, E-sports, Cultural studies, Cognition Introducing Applied Ludology: Hands-on Methods for Game Studies
Järvinen Aki The author calls for a more systematic methodology for game studies. The paper introduces a set of methods for 'applied ludology', a practical hands-on analysis and design methodology. It complements theories of games as systems with psychological theories of cognition and emotions. A sample of casual games is used to highlight the use of the methods. In conclusion, the author presents a model that enables analysing the eliciting conditions for game-related emotions, such as suspense. Keywords: ludology, methodology, psychology, emotions, suspense, game analysis, game design I Fought the Law: Transgressive Play and The Implied Player
Aarseth Espen This paper is an attempt to understand Game Studies through the contested notion of the “player” both inside and outside “the game object” – that is the object that game users perceive and respond to when they play. Building on Hans-Georg Gadamer’s notion of games as a subject that “masters the players”, the paper will go beyond the traditional split between the social sciences’ real players and the aesthetics/humanities critical author-as-player, and present a theory of the player and player studies that incorporates the complex tensions between the real, historical player and the game’s human components. Since games are both aesthetic and social phenomena, a theory of the player must combine both social and aesthetic perspectives to be successful. The tension between the humanities and the social sciences over who controls the idea of the player can be found mirrored also in the struggle between the player as individual and the “player function” of the game. Transgressive play, the struggle against the game’s ideal player, far from being a marginal, romanticized phenomenon, is the core expression of this struggle. Keywords: Implied player, Transgressive play Play it for Real: Sustained Seamless Life/Game Merger in Momentum
Stenros Jaakko, Montola Markus, Waern Annika, Jonsson Staffan In this paper we describe a high-end pervasive larp Momentum that sought to create a seamless merger of life and game for the game duration of five weeks. During the five weeks the players could be able to play an immersive game set in our ordinary reality augmented with game content, both through narrative content and through game artifacts. The central challenges of the long duration was merging the game and life in a functional manner, game mastering the game for extended periods, and pacing and structuring the game in a working way. This paper looks into the lessons of Momentum; problems, solutions and other evaluation results. Keywords: ARG, larp, role-play, seamlessness, life/game merger, gamemastering viability, pervasive gaming The Hegemony of Play
Fron Janine,Fullerton Tracy,Morie Jacquelyn Ford,Pearce Celia In this paper, we introduce the concept of a “Hegemony of Play,” to critique the way in which a complex layering of technological, commercial and cultural power structures have dominated the development of the digital game industry over the past 35 years, creating an entrenched status quo which ignores the needs and desires of “minority” players such as women and “non-gamers,” Who in fact represent the majority of the population. Drawing from the history of pre-digital games, we demonstrate that these practices have “narrowed the playing field,” and contrary to conventional wisdom, have actually hindered, rather than boosted, its commercial success. We reject the inevitability of these power structures, and urge those in game studies to “step up to the plate” and take a more proactive stance in questioning and critiquing the status of the Hegemony of Play. Keywords: Games, game industry, gender, game production, game development, media production. Piracy in the Caribbean: The Political Stakes of Videogame Piracy in Chávez’s Venezuela
Apperley Thomas H. This paper will examine the role of videogames in global participatory culture. In particular it will explore the role of software piracy in enabling participation from groups that would otherwise be excluded from accessing videogames due to economic factors. This suggests that piracy in the context of videogames – especially vis-à-vis their role as proselytizers of participatory culture – can be shifted outside of a criminal regime and into one which is concerned with the ability to participate in a global economy as both a consumer and citizen. This issue will be explored through a case study of the gaming situation in Caracas, Venezuela. Keywords: Global Media, Hugo Chávez, Participatory Culture,Software Piracy, Venezuela, Videogame Industry Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated meaning-making practices of Asian immigrant adolescents in New York City
Hung Chia-Yuan Many studies of players have described how situated learning occurs in video games. However, the “situated” nature of video games is complicated because players exist not only as player-avatars in a virtual world, but also as a player-human in a physical setting. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a group of Asian adolescents in New York City, who play video games in various settings, such as Internet cafés and at home. Being recent immigrants from China and English language learners, playing video games requires that they understand the action occurring in the game without necessarily having access to the language. The study looks at how the real-world conditions shape their meaning-making practices as situated within particular physical spaces and suggests that researchers need to look beyond the actions of the player-avatar and consider the actions of the player-human as well, because how they make sense of video games may be contingent upon the real-world conditions unfolding around them. Keywords: meaning-making, learning, ethnography, player-focused “Blacks Deserve Bodies Too!” Design and Discussion about Diversity and Race in a Tween Online World
Kafai Yasmin B.,Cook Melissa S.,Fields Deborah A. In this paper, we investigate racial diversity in avatar design and public discussions about race within a large-scale tween virtual world called Whyville.net with more than 1.5 million registered players ages 8-16. One unique feature of Whyville is the players’ ability to customize their avatars with various face parts and accessories, all designed and sold by other players in Whyville. Our findings report on the racial diversity of available resources for avatar construction and online postings about the role of race in avatar design and social interactions in the community. With the growing interest in player-generated content for online worlds such as Teen Second Life, our discussion will address the role of avatars in teen/tween identity development and self-representation, and the role of virtual entrepreneurs and community activists in increasing the diversity of avatar parts available. Keywords: Avatars, identity, race, participatory culture, adolescent development The Ethics of Indigenous Storytelling: using the Torque Game Engine to Support Australian Aboriginal Cultural Heritage
Wyeld Theodor G,Leavy Brett,Carroll Joti,Gibbons Craig,Ledwich Brendan,Hills James Digital Songlines (DSL) is an Australasian CRC for Interaction Design (ACID) project that is developing protocols, methodologies and toolkits to facilitate the collection, education and sharing of indigenous cultural heritage knowledge. This paper outlines the goals achieved over the last three years in the ethics of developing the Digital Songlines game engine (DSE) toolkit that is used for Australian Indigenous storytelling. The project explores the sharing of indigenous Australian Aboriginal storytelling in a sensitive manner using a game engine. The use of game engine in the field of Cultural Heritage is expanding. They are an important tool for the recording and re-presentation of historically, culturally, and sociologically significant places, infrastructure, and artefacts, as well as the stories that are associated with them in a highly situated context. The DSL implementation of a game engine to share storytelling provides an educational interface. Where the DSL implementation of a game engine in a CH application differs from others is in the nature of the game environment itself. It is modelled on the ‘country’ (the ‘place’ of their heritage which is so important to the clients’ collective identity) and authentic fauna and flora that provides a highly contextualised setting for the stories to be told. This paper provides an overview of the ethics behind and the development of the DSL game engine. Keywords: Cultural Heritage, Storytelling, Cultural Heritage, Storytelling, Torque Game Engine, Indigenous Heritage. Gambling is in My Genes: Correlations between Personality Traits with Biological Basis and Digital Entertainment Choice
Park Byungho Online gambling is one of the fastest growing areas in the digital entertainment industry. Gambling provides players with an intensely exciting experience and scholars see this as a primary cause of its attractiveness, and may play a role in the process of addiction. Finding a way to identify those more likely to gamble could be a first step towards discovering those who may be more likely to use certain genres of video games. This study used a sample of 93 college students to investigate whether personality traits believed to have their roots in biological differences can be used to predict one’s preference for gambling online. Results showed that Zuckerman’s Sensation Seeking Scale [27] and Lang’s Motivation Activation Measure [16] both had significant correlation with pathological online gambling symptoms based on DSM-IV [1] modified for online gambling, while only the Motivation Activation Measure significantly correlated with individual’s online gambling experience. Implications of the findings for both the industry and health professionals are discussed. Keywords: Motivational Activation Measure, Sensation Seeking,Online Gambling The Disappearance and Reappearance and Disappearance of the Player in Videogame Advertising
Young Bryan-Mitchell Throughout the short history of videogames the ways in which they have been advertised has changed dramatically. Although videogame advertising has yet to be adequately studied it played a key role in the constitution of and education of potential videogame players. While most modern videogame ads feature the games themselves, early videogame ads prominently featured the players as a tool not only for selling the new gadgets but also as a way of showing consumers how to use them. This paper will explore the ways in which videogame advertisements functioned to change the ways in which consumers thought about the home and the ways in which they could actively co Keywords: videogames, advertising, history, media Self and selfishness in online social play
Myers David In this essay, I argue that human play is fundamentally selfish. Characteristics of individual and selfish play are observed and described within pve and pvp contexts of the MMORPG City of Heroes/Villains (Cryptic Studios). Analysis of player behaviors demonstrates the degree to which groups within MMORPGs attempt to restrict and transform individual and selfish play. In general, social play within MMORPGs tends to reduce the diversity of individual play; this undermines the ability of oppositional play to explore and value game components and processes. Conclusions recommend conceptualizing online social play as a form of social control. Keywords: Solo play, individual play, grief play, social play, play theory, MMORPG Monsters and the Mall: Videogames and the Scopic Regimes of Shopping
Molesworth Mike George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead is a film which has been criticised for its violence, but which also contains insights into our consumer society. In this paper I argue that videogames, which are similarly criticised for being violent, also tell us about one trajectory of consumer culture. Drawing from recent re-evaluations of the flâneur-shopper I consider the temporal, spatial and panoptic scopic regimes of shopping and tourism consumption, and compare these with the experience of playing first person shooters. In doing so I also consider the development of consumer ‘ways of seeing’ in shopping and videogames that construct the consumer as an imagining and desiring user of commercial images. Using reviews of first person shooters that have been promoted for their visual spectacle (Doom 3 and Halo) I argue that the active and speculative nature of videogame play allows for something like the flâneurshopper’s stroll through a commercially constructed space, but unlike shopping spaces which may be becoming increasingly similar, videogames re-enchant the consumer gaze with their spectacular vistas and constantly changing environments. The result however, is that Romero’s criticism of the alienating effect of a consumptionorientated life may also be applied to videogames. Keywords: Videogame, shopping, flaneur, scopic regime Controversies: Historicising the Computer Game
MacCallum-Stewart Esther,Parsler Justin Games which involve historical topics have always been a staple of digital games, but at the same time they have often caused controversy and debate. This paper traces some of the pitfalls inherent to the creation of historical games, as well as trying to reach an understanding of how a history game can be defined. Throughout the paper, we investigate how some aspects of history can be problematic, and how others have been made more difficult by a lack of definition or an expectation that all historical games operate on the same intellectual level. We also examine how controversial games have coped with difficult subjects, and relate this to the development of complexity and scope within gaming. Keywords: Gaming, History, Historical Gaming, Games Studies,Digital Games, DiGRA, War Games. Tangible Pleasures of Pervasive Role-Playing
Montola Markus The traditional forms of role-playing include tabletop roleplaying, larp and online role-playing. In this paper I describe a fourth form, pervasive role-playing, which often follows many conventions of larp, but break out of the magic circle of gameplay in order to interact with surrounding society. The central pleasures of pervasive role-playing are related to playing for real, with the environment and having a tangible, unmediated experience of being a part of a complete and physical world of fiction. Keywords: pervasive role-playing, pervasive game, role-playing game, social expansion, magic circle MMOGs and the Future of Literature
Kücklich Julian Massively multi-player role-playing have created shadow societies that are simultaneously a mirror and a caricature of our own societies. In this respect, they are comparable to the social commentary traditionally provided by literature and film. Over the last 100 years, however, our world has been transformed by new technologies and the myriad ways we have found to use them. Despite these new developments, media generally still rely on linear narrative, a form that seems increasingly inadequate to represent contemporary life. Could it be possible, then, that the MMOG, with its many intertwined and discontinuous narrative strands, is more appropriate to map the changes in global society? This paper tries to answer this question by building on the concept of realism, which plays such an important part both in the discourse of modernism and the popular discourse around digital games, and which will serve as a leitmotif in this media-historical analysis. Keywords: MMOGs, utopia, realism, literature, textual analysis. Cultures of Digital Gamers: Practices of Appropriation.
Wiemker Markus This essay will attempt to show that Anglo-American culture research can make a significant contribution to a better understanding of digital games, their production contexts and acquisition processes. A close examination of a game’s production context will shed light on structures, processes and ideologies which influence the development of a game on a conscious or unconscious level. The analysis of the game itself can reveal models of society presented in the game, intrinsic identification potentials and creative acquisition potentials. But the way the game is eventually adopted by the player can only be made clear by a close examination of its acquisition and the various forms of reception and enjoyment it induces. Keywords: Culture, Player, Gender Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated
Chia Yuan Hung Many studies of players have described how situated learning occurs in video games. However, the “situated” nature of video games is complicated because players exist not only as player-avatars in a virtual world, but also as a player-human in a physical setting. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a group of Asian adolescents in New York City, who play video games in various settings, such as Internet cafés and at home. Being recent immigrants from China and English language learners, playing video games requires that they understand the action occurring in the game without necessarily having access to the language. The study looks at how the real-world conditions shape their meaning-making practices as situated within particular physical spaces and suggests that researchers need to look beyond the actions of the player-avatar and consider the actions of the player-human as well, because how they make sense of video games may be contingent upon the real-world conditions unfolding around them. Keywords: meaning-making, learning, ethnography, player-focused Video games in context: An ethnographic study of situated
Hung Chia-Yuan Many studies of players have described how situated learning occurs in video games. However, the “situated” nature of video games is complicated because players exist not only as player-avatars in a virtual world, but also as a player-human in a physical setting. This paper is based on an ethnographic study of a group of Asian adolescents in New York City, who play video games in various settings, such as Internet cafés and at home. Being recent immigrants from China and English language learners, playing video games requires that they understand the action occurring in the game without necessarily having access to the language. The study looks at how the real-world conditions shape their meaning-making practices as situated within particular physical spaces and suggests that researchers need to look beyond the actions of the player-avatar and consider the actions of the player-human as well, because how they make sense of video games may be contingent upon the real-world conditions unfolding around them. Keywords: meaning-making, learning, ethnography, player-focused Balancing Three Different Foci in the Design of Serious Games: Engagement, Training Objective and Context
Frank Anders Serious games aim to be both fun and playable games but at the same time be useful for a non-entertainment purpose. This poses an interesting challenge to the design process; how can we ensure that the design allows both for fun and engagement while at the same time fulfilling the nonentertainment purpose? The game design for educational games (a branch of serious games) is dependent on the topic (training objective) and under what circumstances the game will be used. We propose a pragmatic design approach where three design goals are maintained simultaneously: (1) to create an engaging game, (2) to properly cater for the training objective, and (3) to allow the training context surrounding the game to influence design decisions. We will go through a range of design issues and show how the three design goals are interdependent and how a balanced design can fulfill all three. For instance, the training objective may impede a straightforward design of rules and goals. The training context will have an affect how the challenges are constructed and the way learning through games can be carried out. To illustrate this approach the design process of Foreign Ground, a serious game for training, is presented and discussed. Keywords: Serious games, educational games, design, engagement Please Biofeed the Zombies: Enhancing the Gameplay and Display of a Horror Game Using Biofeedback
Dekker Andrew, Champion Erik This paper describes an investigation into how real-time but low-cost biometric information can be interpreted by computer games to enhance gameplay without fundamentally changing it. We adapted a cheap sensor, (the Lightstone mediation sensor device by Wild Divine), to record and transfer biometric information about the player (via sensors that clip over their fingers) into a commercial game engine, Half-Life 2. During game play, the computer game was dynamically modified by the player's biometric information to increase the cinematically augmented "horror" affordances. These included dynamic changes in the game shaders, screen shake, and the creation of new spawning points for the game's non-playing characters (zombies), all these features were driven by the player's biometric data. To evaluate the usefulness of this biofeedback device, we compared it against a control group of players who also had sensors clipped on their fingers, but for the second group the gameplay was not modified by the biometric information of the players. While the evaluation results indicate biometric data can improve the situated feeling of horror, there are many design issues that will need to be investigated by future research, and the judicious selection of theme and appropriate interaction is vital. Keywords: Biofeedback, gameplay, horror, cinematics, shaders Exploring the Uncanny Valley with Japanese Video Game Characters
Schneider Edward, Wang Yifan, Yang Shanshan Dr. Masahiro Mori's robotics design theory, the Uncanny Valley, has become a common reference in virtual character design. The theory holds that robots whose appearance is very close to being human, but not fully, will evoke a very negative human reaction. The theory is often referenced in design outside of robots, especially in video games, but there is very little data to support this application. The attempts at photorealistic graphics in the latest round of video game hardware have made reference to the valley common in even mass media discussion. This study asked 60 subjects their opinions on 75 different virtual characters from both inside and outside video games to investigate the relationship between human-like appearance and attraction. The results found definite parallels between Mori's predictions with robots and subject opinion on virtual characters, and have direct application to video game character design. Keywords: Uncanny Valley, virtual characters, video games, character design Situations of Play: Patterns of Spatial Use in Videogames
McGregor Leigh Georgia Gameplay always occurs somewhere. Any discussion of situated play therefore should consider the actual spaces in which we play. Yet everyday real space is also deeply embedded in the games themselves. Videogames take patterns of spatial use from reality and situate them in their spatial structure. This paper explores these "situations of play" and their implementation in representational video game environments, seeking to understand game space through its connection to real space. But because play does not exist in isolation from its surroundings this paper takes into account the way videogames are situated in the world. How game space is presented, from screen-mediated game to pervasive games, affects how the patterns of spatial use are implemented. Game space also feeds back into real space, where their intersection forms what can be termed as played space. To understand the transfer of patterns from reality to games this paper examines games as spatial constructs, arguing that game space is architectural. Investigating the nexus between architecture and games, and using architecture as a tool to unpack spatial conditions in videogames, this paper explores how games are structured by their spatial qualities. Keywords: Videogames, space, spatiality, architecture, gameplay Because Players Pay: The Business Model Influence on MMOG Design
Alves Reis Tiago, Roque Licinio The authors explore Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) business models in order to characterize two main problems: big initial investment and continuous expenditures. The four main actors of a MMOG environment . game producer, Game, Players and Business Model . are analysed resorting to Actor Network Theory in order to understand their alignment in Business Models and how they can influence game design. The conclusion ends in the fact that the Business Model, directly or indirectly, influences and constrains the game design in the following ways: the high economic risks inhibits game design innovation, the players have power to demand poor game design decisions while the virtual economy games simply embrace the business model into its design. Keywords: MMOG, Game Design, Business Model, Actor-Network Theory, Massively Multiplayer Online Games Situated Play and Mobile Gaming
Grüter Barbara, Oks Miriam There is no other play than situated play. A game becomes situated via play activities. Without playing we have the mechanics of a game, the elements and the relations, the roles and the rules. Situated play emerges within playing when the skeleton becomes alive, the role becomes a person, and the abstract game system becomes a concrete unrepeatable gaming experience. For mobile games having permeable borders questioned permanently by everyday life circumstances the creation and recreation of the magic circle is decisive. At the core of the situated mobile play we found the relation of the player to herself, to the objective conditions, and to others. Keywords: Mobile game, pervasive game, situated play, mobile play activity, mobile gaming experience, social interaction. Game Design on Item-selling Based Payment Model in Korean Online Games
Oh Gyuhwan, Ryu Taiyoung The paper covers issues of item-selling based payment model(micro-transactions) in Korean online games. Firstly, we characterize two payment models in online game: subscription based payment model and item-selling based payment model. We then investigate and characterize itemselling based payment model in online games and introduce two online games, "Kart Rider" and "Special Force" which have been successfully adapted item-selling based payment model as their business model. Finally, we discuss game design issues to efficiently accommodate item-selling based payment model in online games: how to balance between items obtained by game-money and items purchased by real money, how to abstract the function of such items, and how to strength events and communities. The survey will provide insight of designing micro-transaction policy for the next-generation console markets with "Xbox 360", "Playstation 3", and "Wii" as its major axis. Keywords: Payment model, online game, item-selling based payment, micro-transaction, game balancing Revising Immersion: A Conceptual Model for the Analysis of Digital Game Involvement
Calleja Gordon Game studies literature has recently seen a renewed interest in game experience with the recent publication of a number of edited collections, dissertations and conferences focusing on the subject. This paper aims to contribute to that growing body of literature by presenting a summary of my doctoral research in digital game involvement and immersion. It outlines a segment of a conceptual model that describes and analyzes the moment by moment involvement with digital games on a variety of experiential dimensions corresponding to six broad categories of game features. The paper ends with a proposal to replace the metaphor of immersion with one of incorporation. Incorporation aims to avoid the binary notion of the player’s plunge into the virtual environment characteristic of “immersion” while dispelling the vagueness of application that all too often surrounds the term. Keywords: MMOGs, immersion, involvement, incorporation, player experience A Typology of Speeches within Board Game Players for Analyzing the Process of Games
Kato Taichi, Sugiura Junkichi, Iida Makoto, Arakawa Chuichi This paper introduces a typology of speeches within board game players in order to examine their communication process from the view point of pedagogical effectiveness using an environmental education game "KEEP COOL". We already have analyzed the speeches issued by players applying KJ method as basic analysis. To generalize the classification of speeches, we introduce new typology mainly focusing on the players' aspect for its playing. Using new grouping method the characteristic of process became apparent. Keywords: board game, environmental education, players' interaction, speeches Video Games and the Training of Sociality: A Survey of Video Game Players
Matsuo Yumi, Tajima Sachi, Nohara Seiko, Sakamoto Akira In the academic research field, attempts to use video games to enhance diverse characteristics of sociality have just started. Therefore it is expected that consumer games would also enhance the sociality. The purpose of this study is to investigate whether any features or devices, which enhance sociality, are included in the commercially circulated video games. We conducted a series of web survey for Japanese game players. Participants were asked what kind of features and devices in the video game enhance sociality. Results suggested that 1) video games have potentiality to be able to enhance any characteristics of sociality, 2) it is possible to enhance sociality by actually experiencing or practicing the behaviors with sociality in games, 3) motivation to learn such sociality yields from actually "practic(ing)/ experienc(ing)" the behaviors with sociality in games. Keywords: Video game, sociality, Web survey Teacher roles in learning games - When games become situated in schools
Magnussen Rikke Using learning games in education gives rise to a learning situation where game culture meets school culture and the result can be successful or corrupting for both. In this paper I present a case study of school classes and their teachers playing the game 'Homicide', a game where children play the roles as forensic experts who solve a series of murder cases. When teachers use this type of games, they have to adapt to new teaching situations and roles. This includes the fictional role in a game, but also the role as a supervisor for a group of students that play the role as professional experts. I present examples of teachers who adopt different roles in the game, and discuss how understanding the background for these roles can help us define the game-based learning situation. Finally I discuss what consequences the problems presented here may have for the design of future learning games. Keywords: Learning games, science education, teacher roles This is not a Door: an Ecological approach to Computer Games
Linderoth Jonas, Bennerstedt Ulrika In this chapter we outline an ecological approach to computer games and test out how the theory of ecological psychology can be used for understanding digital games and game-play. Ecological psychology holds that learning is a process of differentiating and not of interpreting or construing. Therefore semiotic/cognitive views on learning and perception with computer games, were the perceptual act is thought to be adding experiences to the things we see in a game in order to make meaning, can be questioned. The theoretical points are illustrated with data from an interaction study made on players playing the game Timesplitters 2 on an X-box. Keywords: Affordances, Computer games, Video games, Professional Vision, Ecological Psychology Recognizing New Literacies: Teachers and Students Negotiating the Creation of Video Games in School
Sanford Kathy, Madill Leanna Designing and creating video games in a high school classroom is fantasy for some students, but a reality in computer classes at a large sized Western Canadian high school. Classes of Information Technology and Programming have been engaging in video games as the entry point into learning programming skills. Powerful learning and teaching practises are apparent and through observations, interviews, and video recordings coupled with students' articulation of their process we have been carrying out the first year of a three year ethnographic research study of the educative value and potential of video games within a school setting. Keywords: Video game creation, education, learning, teaching, informational technology Extending the 'Serious Game' Boundary: Virtual Instructors in Mobile Mixed Reality Learning Games
Doswell Jayfus, Harmeyer Kathleen Virtual Instructor enabled mobile augmented reality learning (MARL) games have the potential to provide a fun and educational experience. In these types of "serious games", learners/game players may wear a mobile headsup display that provide a rich graphical interface over the real world allowing the real world to be augmented with digital annotations including animation, graphics, text, and video. Graphical annotations may highlight specific realworld objects that hint the player to manipulate an object in order to achieve a certain objective in the game. Additionally, a mobile headset may display resource stats including, but not limited to, team hit points and geographical location of individual team members participating in the game experience. Furthermore, a virtual instructor may assist in providing instruction on how to play the video game and assist students in solving challenges that require academic skills. Hence, in a MARL game, a virtual instructor may provide continuous and autonomous instructin or guidance to the game player/learners anytime, anyplace, and at any-pace. The virtual instructor may serve as a mission leader or guide for the player's real-world quest. Keywords: video game, serious games, mobile, augmented reality, virtual instructor, software architecture A Certain Level of Abstraction
Juul Jesper This paper explores levels of abstraction: Representational games present a fictional world, but within that world, players are only allowed to perform certain actions; the fictional world of the game is only implemented to a certain detail. The paper distinguishes between abstraction as a core element of video game design, abstraction as something that the player decodes while playing a game, and abstraction as a type of optimization that the player builds over time. Finally, the paper argues that abstraction is a related to the magic circle of games and to rules as such. Keywords: Abstraction, simulation, representation, fiction, player response, magic circle The Quest in a Generated World
Ashmore Calvin, Nitsche Michael As procedural content becomes a more appealing option for game development, procedurally determined context is necessary to structure and make sense of this content. We find that a useful means to structure content in 3D games is the quest. The task of generating necessary context then becomes one of quest generation. This paper describes how we implemented a basic quest generator based on key and lock puzzles into a procedural game world. It uses notion of quest as spatial progression and discusses the design of the game world and how our quest generator connects to it. Its findings are twofold: on the technical level we managed to implement a highly flexible content and context generator into an existing game engine; one the content level we can trace signs for higher player interest in quest-enhanced procedural game worlds in comparison to unstructured spaces. Keywords: Procedural generation, spatial generation, quests, virtual space, video game Situating Gaming as a Sonic Experience: The acoustic ecology of First-Person Shooters
Grimshaw Mark, Schott Gareth To date, little has been written on digital game sound as Games Studies has almost exclusively treated and discussed digital games as a visual medium. This paper explores how sound possesses the ability to create perceptions of a variety of spaces within the game world, thus constituting a significant contributing factor to player immersion. Focusing on First-Person Shooters (FPS), we argue that player(s) and soundscape(s), and the relationships between them, may be usefully construed and conceptualized as an acoustic ecology. An argument is presented that, even though its sonic palette may be smaller, the FPS acoustic ecology emulates real world ecologies as players form a vital component in its construction and maintenance. The process of building a conceptual framework for understanding and testing the function of game sound as an acoustic ecology is broadly outlined, involving the application and extension of a disparate range of media sound theories in addition to the construction of new concepts to account for the unique features of the interactive medium of FPS games. Keywords: acoustic ecology, first-person shooter, conceptual language, sound taxonomy Narrating machines and interactive matrices: a semiotic common ground for game studies
Ferri Gabriele Between playing a game and enjoying a narration there is a semiotic and semantic common ground: interpretation and meaning-making. A semiotic methodology to describe situated gaming practices will be presented in three phases. At first, the intuitive concept of "meaning" will be discussed and substituted by the generative semiotic notion of "content". Then the structuralist semiotic notion of "text" will be criticized and substituted by the the concept of "interactive matrix" and "game-text", referring also to Rastier's differential semantics, Peirce's diagrams and other recent proposals in semantics of perception. Situated gaming practices will be the focal point of the last part of this paper, showing how these practices and the game-text mutually influence and modify each other during interpretation and meaning-making. Keywords: Semiotics, semantics, Eco, Rastier, structuralism, interpretation, meaning, narrative Perceptions of Player in Game Design Literature
Sotamaa Olli Few studies have examined the role of players in game design. The objective of this paper is to provide some clarity on the issue of player-centred design by analysing the notions on player in current game design literature. This research also discusses the potentials a multifaceted approach on players can offer for the design of games. The article starts by analysing different approaches on player from abstract ideal player to player profiles and players as co-creators. Later, the benefits of involving players in different phases of design process are examined. As a result the paper produces a grouping of different designer-player relationships that reflect the different design ideologies and traditions. This article contributes to the new field of game design research by producing clarity to some of the inarticulate and ambiguous issues related to the role of players in games and their design. At the same time, the analysis is relevant to the larger understanding of players as game cultural actors. Keywords: Game design research, player research, game design literature, player-centred design Developing a pattern language for flow experiences in video games
Lemay Philippe Pattern languages have gained widespread acceptance over the years in the design and computing communities. Thanks to the seminal work of Bjork and Holopainen they also have spread to the video game design community. In order to help game designers grasp fundamental aspects of human experiences, the author is developing a new breed of pattern language: a pattern language for experience design, and in particular, a pattern language for optimal experiences (or flow) in games. The objective of this endeavor is to elaborate a generative modeling tool that will help designers understand, analyze and elaborate better games by taking into account human experiences and providing elements that will trigger and maintain the most positive and intense player experiences. The language presented here, following a dimensional model of experiences, describes patterns pertaining to the sensation, emotion, cognition, behavior and social domains. It can be applied to various types of games, should they be single player or not, online or not. Keywords: Pattern language; video games; experiences; experience design; flow, optimal experience; methodology Creating Multiplayer Ubiquitous Games using an adaptive narration model based on a user's model
Natkin Stéphane, Yan Chen, Jumpertz Sylvie, Marquet Bernard Mixed reality technology and ubiquitous computing allow the user-centred design to provide an adaptable and personal content at any time and in any context. In this paper, we present a method to develop Multiplayer Ubiquitous Games (MUG). Our approach is using a narrative mechanism correlated to a user's model, which stimulates the user's physical interaction with the real world and his social interaction with other users. We refine the information of user's model in three classes: user by himself, user as a player and user as an avatar. User's social characteristics and personality traits are featured in the game by using the big-five-factors model. A decision process proposes quests to the player according to his profile and a narration scheme. Keywords: Multiplayer, ubiquitous, mixed reality, narration model, user's model Eight Ways Videogames Generate Emotion
Frome Jonathan Many fields are interested in how videogames can generate emotion but most have a very limited conception of what emotional response includes. This paper presents a comprehensive model of emotional response to the single-player game based on two roles players occupy during gameplay and four different types of emotion. The emotion types are based on different ways players can interact with a videogame: as a simulation, as a narrative, as a game qua game, and as a crafted piece of art. The paper then describes the various inputs videogames can provide to produce these types of emotions. Keywords: Emotion, player response, theoretical framework, aesthetics, ecological psychology Experiential Modes of Game Play
Appelman Robert In order to gather empirical & qualitative data on game play across all genres, and at the same time addressing multiple research questions, a framework was established at the VX Lab at Indiana University to standardize methodology. This Experiential Mode Framework allows for the inclusion of player perceptions, experiences, and allows for coupling with game structures and functionality. Following a postpositivist methodology devised by Robert Yin, this paper describes the logic, strategies, and incorporation of the Experiential Mode Framework in Game Play Analysis. Keywords: Game Play Analysis, Experiential Modes, Frameworks, Learning, Serious Games, Game Testing Levels of Sound: On the Principles of Interactivity in Music Video Games
Pichlmair Martin, Kayali Fares This paper gives an introduction into the principles of interactivity in music video games. Music video games are an old but small genre of games. The earliest direct ancestors emerged in the 1970ies. Some recent music video games were hugely successful. Until today, there are only a few different approaches to their design. The purpose of this article is to shed light on what these design principles are, and how the player is immersed. By analysing several games qualitatively, we extracted certain typical features of games of this genre: active scores, rhythm action, quantisation, synaesthesia, play as performance, free-form play, and sound agents. All these aspects of music video games are discussed in this paper with the aim of describing how they affect the interactivity of the games. The result is a grammar of the language of music video games. Linked to adequate metaphors, this grammar can build a veritable repository for rhythm based, melodically interactive games and digital electronic instruments. Keywords: Music Video Games, Rhythm games, Immersion, Performance, Synaesthesia, Instruments |
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