Game-Play Breakdowns and Breakthroughs: Exploring the Relationship Between Action, Understanding, and Involvement

Game developers have to ensure their games are appealing to, and playable by, a range of people. However, although there has been interest in the game-play experience, we know little about how learning relates to player involvement. This is despite challenge being an integral part of game-play, providing players with potential opportunities to learn. This article reports on a multiple case-study approach that explored how learning and involvement come together in practice. Participants consisted of a mix of gamers and casual players. Data included interviews, multiple observations of game-play, postplay cued interviews, and diary entries. A set of theoretical claims representing suggested relationships between involvement and learning were developed on the basis of previous literature; these were then assessed through a critical examination of the data set. The resulting theory is presented as 14 refined claims that relate to micro and macro involvement; breakdowns and breakthroughs in action, understanding, and involvement; progress; and agency, meaning and compelling game-play. The claims emphasize how players experience learning via breakthroughs in understanding, where involvement is increased when the player feels responsible for progress. Supporting the relationship between learning and involvement is important for ensuring the success of commercial and educational games

xDelia final report: emotion-centred financial decision making and learning

xDelia is a 3-year pan-European project building on the knowledge, skills, and competences of seven partner organisations from a variety of research disciplines and from business. The principal objective of xDelia is to develop technology-enhanced learning approaches that help improve the financial decision making of investors who trade frequently using an electronic trading platform. We focus on emotions, and how they affect maladaptive decision biases and trading performance. Our earlier field work with traders has shown that the development of emotion regulation skills is a key facet of trader expertise. For that reason we consider expert traders our benchmark for adaptive behaviour rather than normative rationality. Our goal is to provide investors with the tools and techniques to develop greater self-awareness of internal states, increase their ability to reflect critically on emotion-informed choices, develop emotion management skills, and support the transfer of these skills to the real-world practice setting of financial trading. This report provides a comprehensive overview of what xDelia is about and what we have achieved over the life of the project. In the sections that follow, we explain the decision problems investors are faced with in a fast paced environment and the limitations of traditional approaches to reduce cognitive errors; introduce an alternative, technology-enhanced learning approach of diagnosis and feedback, skill development, and transfer; describe the learning intervention comprising twelve autonomous learning elements that we have developed; and present evidence from thirty-five studies we have conducted on learning effects and stakeholder acceptance

Giving voice to equitable collaboration in participatory design

An AHRC funded research project titled Experimenting with the Co-experience Environment (June 2005 – June 2006) culminated in a physical environment designed in resonance with a small group of participants. The participants emerged from different disciplines coming together as a group to share their expertise and contribute their knowledge to design. They engaged in storytelling, individual and co-thinking, creating and co-creating, sharing ideas that did not require justification, proposed designs even though most were not designers …and played. The research questioned how a physical environment designed specifically for co-experiencing might contribute to new knowledge in design? Through play and by working in action together the participants demonstrated the potential of a physical co-experience environment to function as a scaffold for inter-disciplinary design thinking,saying, doing and making (Ivey & Sanders 2006). Ultimately the research questioned how this outcome might influence our approach to engaging participants in design research and experimentation

The Cost of Playing the Game: Modeling In-Game Purchase Intention and Investigating Purchase Behavior of Mobile Gamers

Free-to-play games typically have a monetization model that relies on players to purchase in-game items or virtual goods to generate revenue (Nguyen, 2015). There have been several empirical efforts to investigate purchase intention of virtual goods in video games with some focusing on quantitative models of purchase intention. Most of these studies tend to be with virtual worlds and lack the use of validated instruments to measure constructs (Hamari & Keronen, 2017). This research sought to gain a greater understanding of purchase intention of in-game content or virtual goods in mobile games through two studies. Study 1 modeled purchase intention with factors including satisfaction, addiction, attitudes of virtual goods, social motivations, continuance intention, and play characteristics. A total of 284 participants who played mobile games for at least 5 hours a week completed an online survey examining the relationships between the different constructs. Several structural equation models were generated to find the best fitting model. Results of the final model explained 66.1% of the variance in purchase intention with the factors of attitudes towards virtual goods, monetary value, addiction, enjoyment, and creative freedom. Attitudes towards virtual goods (β = .767) was the most associated factor with purchase intention in the model followed by enjoyment (β = .153), monetary value (β = .148), creative freedom (β = -.127), and addiction (β = .106). Study 2 examined purchase behavior of mobile video game players with a longitudinal diary study. Eight mobile video game players selected a game to play over the course of two weeks while logging their experience and purchases. Seven of the eight participants made a purchase of in-game content. Analyses of what game elements contributed to purchasing behavior revealed that some participants reported associated dark patterns around their purchases such as paying for enhancements, which is paying for in-game content to make characters stronger to progress in the game. Players also encountered loot boxes that provide only a chance to earn specific items in the game. These results add to Study 1 results by demonstrating that aspects of how a game is designed may impact in-game purchase intention and should be considered in future research. The combination of Studies 1 and 2 show that both psychological constructs of mobile gamers and aspects of game design may influence in-game purchase intention. Future research could replicate the model from this research in other in-game purchase intention or actual purchase behavior settings such as different types of games genres, platforms, or populations. Other areas of future research include further examination of the impact of dark game design patterns on purchase behavior in other situations (e.g., console, free to play vs. pay to play) and the development of ways to mitigate deceptive designs on player purchasing habits

Using a mixed method audit to inform organizational stress management interventions in sport

Objectives: The purposes of this study were twofold: to conduct a mixed method organizational-level stress audit within a sport organization and to explore recommendations for organizational stress management. Design and method: Semi-structured interviews, focus groups and surveys were conducted with 47 participants (professional sportsmen, coaches, sport science support and administrative staff) who represented a professional sport organization. Content analysis was employed to analyze the data. Results and conclusions: The findings indicated a wide range of organizational stressors (e.g., cultural and academy issues), appraisals and coping behaviors (e.g., emotion-focused behaviors), and stressor outcomes (e.g., emotional responses) for sport performers. Content analysis and survey data supported the categorization of stress management recommendations at both an individual- (e.g., coping education) and organizational-level (e.g., improving communication channels) for particular target groups (e.g., players, staff, team). The identification of stress audit factors and recommendations have important implications for the optimization of organizational functioning within professional sport. Consistent with organizational psychology research, applied considerations for mixed method and multi-level intervention approaches are discussed

Organizational socialization in remote-working companies: enhancing company onboarding through gamification

Organizational socialization concerns the process of which a newcomer gradually adjusts and becomes integrated into an organization, as a functional member. The literature indicates that this is a process that, if done correctly, can see great many benefits to any organization dedicating time and resources developing and implementing a well-designed plan. Onboarding is often referred to as the tool that facilitates this process and is popularly designed and implemented as an HRM-initiative. Research and studies indicate that organizations failing to commit to a such practices are likely to experience lower levels of job satisfaction and motivation, and higher levels of turnover. However, some work-settings will naturally present a greater challenge in terms of socialization, and amongst them are companies utilizing a remotely located workforce. While the tremendous leaps of technological advancements have drastically improved the aspects of remote work, research still indicates that organizational socialization is better achieved through face-to-face interactions. This paper will use the literature on organizational socialization to design a company project with the goal of developing a project with the purpose of enhancing the onboarding plan and, ultimately, improve the socialization process of a company with the majority of their work force being remotely located across Europe, North-America and Asia. By analyzing the company’s current onboarding plan and collecting data from its members, with a strong manifestation in the literature and great emphasis on gamification, the blueprint for a computer-based program with the expectations of greatly improving the newcomer’s adjustment time to socialization outcomes, was designed.A socialização organizacional é sobre o processo no qual um novo trabalhador gradualmente se ajusta e se integra a uma organização, como um membro funcional. A literatura indica que este é um processo que, se feito corretamente, pode trazer muitos benefícios para qualquer organização que dedique tempo e recursos para desenvolver e implementar uma estratégia bem projetada. Onboarding é frequentemente referido como o instrumento que facilita este processo e é popularmente concebido e implementado como uma iniciativa de gestão de recursos humanos. Estudos indicam que as organizações que não se comprometem com essas práticas provavelmente experimentarão níveis mais baixos de satisfação e motivação no trabalho e níveis mais altos de rotatividade. No entanto, algumas configurações de trabalho naturalmente apresentam um desafio maior em termos de socialização, e entre elas estão as empresas onde os trabalhadores trabalham remotamente. Enquanto os avanços tecnológicos melhoraram drasticamente os aspectos do trabalho remoto, estudos ainda indicam que a socialização organizacional é melhor através da interação em pessoa. Este estudo utilizará a literatura sobre socialização organizacional para desenhar uma estratégia empresarial com o objetivo de desenvolver um plano com o objetivo de melhorar o plano de integração e, em última análise, melhorar o processo de socialização de uma empresa com a maioria de sua força de trabalho localizada remotamente em diferentes continentes, como Europa, América do Norte e Ásia. Ao analisar o atual plano de integração da empresa e coletar dados de seus membros, combinado com literatura e estudos relacionados, e com foco em gamification, o modelo para um programa baseado em computador com as expectativas de melhorar muito o tempo de ajuste e os resultados de socialização para novos trabalhadores, foi projetado

The Informal Learning of History with Digital Games

Digital games that represent history, i.e. ‘historical games’, are a fundamental way that players can engage with the past. Their focus on historical representations, narratives and processes means educators are using them in formal educational practice. Surprisingly, there is little empirical research on the educational outcomes from the use of historical games in formal contexts, and the specific ways they can increase a learner’s historical awareness and understanding. Existing research on historical game engagements outside of these formal contexts is even scarcer. There has been very little study of whether, what, and how players informally learn through historical games, and their informal learning activities in relation to them. This thesis presents two empirical studies that begin to address this imbalance, exploring player perceptions of historical games as a medium for informal historical learning. The first, an online survey completed by 621 respondents, compared audience and player perceptions of fictive historical film, television series, and games. This situated historical games within the wider media landscape of fictional representations of the past in visual culture, and how they are comparably perceived as media for informal historical learning. The second, more extensive study adopted an ethnographic approach, narrowing the focus of the first by exploring players’ informal learning experiences with historical games that specifically represent classical antiquity. It identified the historical knowledge outcomes particularly associated with historical game use, also examining player’s learning practices with the games that move beyond the game experience (e.g. information seeking, modding, after-action report writing, forum use, and LetsPlay videos). This research thus offers a greater and more comprehensive understanding of informal learning with, and in relation to historical games, highlighting the interplay between these various informal engagements and activities, and how these relationships can influence, determine, or affect player understandings of both the past, and the present

Exploring virtual rewards in real life: A gimmick or a motivational tool for promoting physical activity?

Virtual rewards, digital badges or points, are often awarded to extrinsically reinforce desirable user behaviors. Acknowledging their motivational power for increased user engagement and enhanced playfulness, virtual reward systems are widely employed in contemporary activity tracking devices and services. While the characteristics of the current virtual reward systems vary and previous studies point to mixed outcomes around the effectiveness of virtual rewards for encouraging physical activity, there is little empirical research on the actual use and impact of virtual rewards provided from activity tracking tools in a real-life environment. To address the knowledge gaps on the use and effects of virtual rewards, I investigate the lived experiences of users with the virtual reward system of the activity tracking tool and their effects and value in the physical activity practices of individuals. To understand this both qualitatively and quantitatively, I conduct user experience research using mixed methods. Diary-based autoethnography research is preceded using three popular activity trackers, thereby having and documenting situated experiences with two different digital badge systems and one points-based system. My autoethnographic exploration is followed by an online survey with 113 existing users of activity tracking devices. The collected data is analysed through content and statistical analyses. By interpreting the findings from both studies and the reviewed literature, this thesis illustrates in great detail how virtual rewards interact with users and other system features in real-life practices. In addition, it provides a clearer picture of the effects of virtual rewards on people’s engagement in physical exercise and what makes some of them more valuable. Finally, it offers a set of considerations for the design of virtual reward systems that can lead to more user-centric, multi-layered, and meaningful virtual reward experience