Virtual world
3D Attentional Maps - Aggregated Gaze Visualizations in Three-Dimensional Virtual Environments
Tue, 10/08/2010 - 21:57 | 
acagamic
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Gaze visualizations hold the potential to facilitate usability studies of interactive systems. However, visual gaze analysis in three-dimensional virtual environments still lacks methods and techniques for aggregating attentional representations. We propose three novel gaze visualizations for the application in such environments: projected, object-based, and surface-based attentional maps. These techniques provide an overview of how visual attention is distributed across a scene, among different models, and across a model's surface. Two user studies conducted among eye tracking and visualization experts approve the high value of these techniques for the fast evaluation of eye tracking studies in virtual environments.
Game design as marketing: How game mechanics create demand for virtual goods
Tue, 04/08/2009 - 16:15 | Juho Hamari
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Selling virtual goods for real money is an increasingly popular revenue model for massively-multiplayer online games (MMOs), social networking sites (SNSs) and other online hangouts. In this paper, we argue that the marketing of virtual goods currently falls short of what it could be. Game developers have long created compelling game designs, but having to market virtual goods to players is a relatively new situation to them. Professional marketers, on the other hand, tend to overlook the internal design of games and hangouts and focus on marketing the services as a whole. To begin bridging the gap, we propose that the design patterns and game mechanics commonly used in games and online hangouts should be viewed as a set of marketing techniques designed to sell virtual goods. Based on a review of a number of MMOs, we describe some of the most common patterns and game mechanics and show how their effects can be explained in terms of analogous techniques from marketing science. The results provide a new perspective to game design with interesting implications to developers. Moreover, they also suggest a radically new perspective to marketers of ordinary goods and services: viewing marketing as a form of game design.
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Tags: Business model, captology, Electronic commerce, Marketing, online games, php, social networking, sustainability, Virtual good, virtual goods, Virtual reality, Virtual world, Virtual world
Business models and operational issues in the Chinese online game industry
Fri, 13/07/2007 - 08:09 | Jason Rutter
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
The rapid growth of Internet usage has enabled many new online communities to develop. A particularly interesting phenomenon that has arisen through Internet communities is the virtual world (VW) style of online game. This paper identifies the challenges that developers of VWs will face in their efforts to find viable business models. This is a single case study of China as an exploratory project to determine the issues surrounding business models for virtual world developers and users. The paper discusses the feedback effects between broadband adoption and online games as well as issues such as culture, history, Waigua, private servers, virtual property trade, developer control, governance, and regulation. In spite of the profitability of major Chinese VW operators, close observation of the Chinese case suggests that even the most successful VW operators are still in the early stages of their business model development.
Digiplay Bibliography Updates
- Political Internet games: Engaging an audience
- 'It's in the Game' and Above the Game: An Analysis of the Users of Sports Videogames
- Theoretical Consoles: Concepts for Gadget Analysis
- Avatar motion control by natural body movement via camera
- Adoption of Mobile Games as Entertainment Technology : A Test of Extended Technology Acceptance Model
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