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Video Games
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Whether we think of a board game, an athletic competition in a stadium, a videogame, playful social networking on the World Wide Web, an Alternate Reality Game, a location-based mobile game, or any combination thereof: Ludic activities are, have, and take place in or at, spaces.
“Toward a Ludic Architecture” is a pioneering publication, architecturally framing play and games as human practices in and of space. Filling the gap in literature, Steffen P. Walz considers game design theory and practice alongside architectural theory and practice, asking: how are play and games architected? What kind of architecture do they produce and in what way does architecture program play and games? What kind of architecture could be produced by playing and gameplaying?
“Toward a Ludic Architecture” is a must-read for analyzing and designing play and games from an architectural standpoint. Such a contribution is particularly applicable in an era when games extend into physical, designed space that is increasingly permeated by devices, sensors, and information networks, allowing for rules and fictions to superimpose our everyday environments. Including a maze-like, episodic, and critical discussion of interweaving “play-grounds,” “Toward a Ludic Architecture” is a playful look at the conceptual space of play and games.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Young boys who did not own video games were promised a video-game system and child-appropriate games in exchange for participating in an “ongoing study of child development.” After baseline assessment of boys’ academic achievement and parent- and teacher-reported behavior, boys were randomly assigned to receive the video-game system immediately or to receive the video-game system after follow-up assessment, 4 months later. Boys who received the system immediately spent more time playing video games and less time engaged in after-school academic activities than comparison children. Boys who received the system immediately also had lower reading and writing scores and greater teacher-reported academic problems at follow-up than comparison children. Amount of video-game play mediated the relationship between video-game ownership and academic outcomes. Results provide experimental evidence that video games may displace after-school activities that have educational value and may interfere with the development of reading and writing skills in some children.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
An important factor to consider in developing educational computer games concerns whether there are any differences between learners in their acceptance of games for learning. In particular there is concern that the strong male preference found in playing games for leisure might also extend to games-based learning, making males more accepting of games in learning than females.There is clear evidence that the violent content and competitive structure of many games, gender stereotyping of female characters, the lack of opportunities for meaningful social interaction between game characters and the visual skills required to succeed in many games are features of games that make them less appealing to females than to males. Games manufacturers have responded to criticisms that games are male-oriented by developing games which aim to appeal to both males and females. However they have also acknowledged that boys and girls essentially prefer different types of game and they have also developed games specifically targeted at girls. These preferences in computer games have helped to confirm that males and females have different interests and preferences which are very deep rooted and emerge in infancy. Woudheusen has argued that these preferences are resistant to change as they probably reflect biologically influenced inclinations which are crystallised by socialisation processes.While it is acceptable to develop different games for leisure for boys and girls, with games for learning the situation is more complex. Schools and universities need to be inclusive and new learning methods and materials should aim to be gender neutral. However games for learning are being introduced into a prevailing motivational climate in schools which suits the more committed and methodical approach of girls. Many boys subscribe to the "Not cool to study" view and this has led to a culture of underachievement and "laddishness" amongst boys. It is tempting to argue that the easy engagement and the active, competitive style of interaction required in many computer games provides an ideal opportunity to re-engage many disengaged young men in learning.Ultimately it seems likely that the way forward is to develop a range of games for learning which are competitive or not and which include social interaction or not and to guide students in selecting games which are most congruent with their own individual preferences. As with any other educational intervention, games for learning will need to be evaluated to ensure that they help learning and that they do so in a way that as far as possible does not favour one group over another.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
The aims of this research were to describe Finnish adolescents' different motives for digital game playing, and to examine relations between digital game playing and parent-child communication, school performance, sleeping habits, and perceived health. A questionnaire was used to assess a nationwide postal sample of 12-18-year-old Finns (6761 respondents, response rate 69%) in winter 2003. Among respondents, 4085 adolescents played digital games and answered questions on digital game motives. Two main motives emerged: instrumental (learn new things and procedures, have a common topic for conversation, use and develop game playing skills, experience different roles/worlds) and ritualized (pastime, entertainment; recover, relax; escape everyday life, forget worries). The importance of all motives increased for participants with longer playing times. Instrumental motives were more important to boys and younger respondents. They were associated with earlier bedtime, worse perceived health, better mother communication, and better school grades, but only among boys. The importance of ritualized motives increased with age and was related to better school performance, worse sleeping habits, and worse perceived health in both sexes. Digital games seem to have the same basic functions as media in serving adolescents' mood management and stimulation seeking. Among boys, gaming is part of the male socio-cultural communication context. (C) 2009 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
In the present study, we tested the hypothesis that adolescents might underestimate time while playing a video game. To test this hypothesis, 116 adolescents (14-15 years old) had to judge prospectively or retrospectively the duration of three consecutive tasks: a 8 min and a 24 min task of playing video game (Tetris) and an 8 min task of reading on a computer screen (control task). The main hypothesis received support: for a same duration, the video game task was estimated as shorter than the reading task. Moreover, participants with a game-inclined profile showed a stronger underestimation of time while playing. Finally, the short durations were overestimated and the long duration underestimated. The main findings are accounted for by an attention-based explanation.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
One of the major challenges of video game design is to have appropriate difficulty levels for users in order to maximize the entertainment value of the game. Game players may lose interests if a game is either too easy or too difficult. This paper presents a novel methodology to improve user's experience in computer games by automatically adjusting the level of the game difficulty. The difficulty level is computed from measurements of the facial physiology of the players at a distance. The measurements are based on the assumption that the players' performance during. the game-playing session alters blood flow in the supraorbital region, which is an indirect measurement of increased mental activities. This alters heat dissipation, which can be monitored in a contact-free manner through a thermal imaging-based stress monitoring and analysis system, known as StressCam.In this work, we investigated on two primary objectives: (1) the feasibility of utilizing the facial physiology in automatically adjusting the difficulty level of the game and (2) the capability of the automatic difficulty level adjustment in improving game players' experience. We employed and extended a XNA video game for this study, and performed an in-depth, comparative usability evaluation on it. Our results show that the automatic difficulty adjustable system successfully maintains game players' interests and substantially outperforms traditional fixed-difficulty mode games. Although a number of issues of this preliminary study remain to be investigated further, this research opens a new direction that utilizes non-contact stress measurements for monitoring and further enhancing a variety of user-centric, interactive entertainment activities.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Most estimates suggest that American youth are spending a large amount of time playing video and computer games, spurring researchers to examine the impact this media has on various aspects of health and psychosocial functioning. The current study investigated relationships between frequency of electronic game play and obesity, the social/emotional context of electronic game play, and academic performance among 219 college-aged males. Current game players reported a weekly average of 9.73 hours of game play, with almost 10% of current players reporting an average of 35 hours of play per week. Results indicated that frequency of play was not significantly related to body mass index or grade point average. However, there was a significant positive correlation between frequency of play and self-reported frequency of playing when bored, lonely, or stressed. As opposed to the general conception of electronic gaming as detrimental to functioning, the results suggest that gaming among college-aged men may provide a healthy source of socialization, relaxation, and coping.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
This paper offers an analytical description of the ethics of game design and its influence in the ethical challenges computer games present. The paper proposes a set of game design suggestions based on the Information Ethics concept of Levels of Abstraction which can be applied to formalise ethical challenges into gameplay mechanics; thus allowing game designers to incorporate ethics as part of the experience of their games. The goal of this paper is twofold: to address some of the reasons why computer games present ethical challenges, and to exploit the informational nature of games to suggest how to develop games with ethics at the core of their gameplay.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
The aim of this study was to develop and validate a scale to measure computer and videogame addiction. Inspired by earlier theories and research on game addiction, we created 21 items to measure seven underlying criteria (i.e., salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, conflict, and problems). The dimensional structure of the scale was investigated in two independent samples of adolescent gamers (N = 352 and N = 369). In both samples, a second-order factor model described our data best. The 21-item scale, as well as a shortened 7-item version, showed high reliabilities. Furthermore, both versions showed good concurrent validity across samples, as indicated by the consistent correlations with usage, loneliness, life satisfaction, social competence, and aggression.
New entry in Digiplay games research bibliography:
Purpose - The purpose of this paper is to investigate whether flow experience, perceived enjoyment, and interaction affect people's behavioural intention to play online games and whether gender, age and prior experience have moderating effects on online game acceptance.Design/methodology/approach - This study extends the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) with flow experience, perceived enjoyment, and interaction to propose a theoretical model to explain and predict people's behavioural intention to play online games. This model is examined through an empirical study involving 458 participants using structural equation modelling techniques. In addition, a competing model based on the technology acceptance model (TAM) is proposed to evaluate whether TPB is more suitable than TAM to explain the use of online games. The two action-theoretical models are compared in terms of their predictive power and their practical utility.Findings - Although both models explain the players' intention to play online games very well, the extended TPB model provides a better fit and explanatory power. Notably, this study finds that flow experience is a more important factor than perceived enjoyment in influencing customer acceptance of online games. Further analysis reveals that gender is a key moderator of online game acceptance. Practical implications - Online game developers need to search for flow experience building strategies that might assist in engaging players. This study suggests that game developers should consider focusing more on establishing the interactions between players (social interaction) and online games (human-computer interaction) in their marketing strategies.Originality/value - This study is significant for two reasons. First, it synthesises the theory of planned behaviour with psychological and interaction factors and, second, it presents a blueprint for an entertainment-oriented technology acceptance model.
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