Good Game Well Played: An Esports Documentary

This film explores the operations and cultural practices of the esports community with an emphasis on Twitch as the dominant community platform. Explored sub-communities include Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, Duelyst, and League of Legends. A focus on Duelyst allows us to explore the characteristics of an accessible esports culture while also referencing League of Legends and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive offers an objective look at two of the industry’s most developed esports scenes. This documentary tracks the production of broadcast content, the lifestyles of professional players, and the narratives of the industry’s most involved employees. In doing so, the research draws conclusions concerning esports culture, communication behaviors, and a comparison to traditional sports. The film includes expert interviews with industry professionals from both production and competitor viewpoints

The Psycho-pedagogic Value of Video Games and E-sports

The human race inherited its neurobiological endowment not as an exclusively human thing but rather from all the species from which we evolved. Let us take play as an example. The concept of play has always characterized the human sphere, accompanying the child in all his stages of development and promoting psycho-evolutionary growth. To play has been recognized as the primary source of memory stimulation, attention and concentration, favoring the development of the schemes of perception and the powers of comparison and communication in the individual. Recent research in 2013 highlighted the notion that video games give adolescents and young adults the opportunity to increase and perfect social, cognitive and emotional skills, contrarily to the risks and negative effects one hears so much about. They do this through the use of the video game as a true social “gym”, used in the same way as any other peer interaction, thus promoting mental health and well-being

Mom, Dad It’s Only a Game! Perceived Gambling and Gaming Behaviors among Adolescents and Young Adults: an Exploratory Study

Gambling and gaming are increasingly popular activities among adolescents. Although gambling is illegal in Portugal for youth under the age of 18 years, gambling opportunities are growing, mainly due to similarity between gambling and other technology-based games. Given the relationship between gambling and gaming activities, the paucity of research on gambling and gaming behaviors in Portugal, and the potential negative consequences in the lives of young people, the goal of this study was to explore and compare the perceptions of these two behaviors between Portuguese adolescents and young adults. Results from six focus groups (three with adolescents and three with young adults, comprising 37 participants aged between 13 and 26 years) indicated different perceptions for the two age groups. For adolescents, gaming was associated with addiction whereas for young adults it was perceived a tool for increasing personal and social skills. With regard to gambling, adolescents associated it with luck and financial rewards, whereas young adults perceived it as an activity with more risks than benefits. These results suggest developmental differences that have implications for intervention programs and future research

Games for learning: creating a level playing field or stacking the deck?

Advocates of digital game-based learning make the case that games can support inclusivity and equality in education because they motivate non-traditional students, promote wider access, and engage learners who are disengaged from formal education. This article will argue that this is a limited analysis which – by the very nature of its inherent assumptions – propagates stereotypical notions of the role of games in learning and could actually reduce social equality. Assumptions about and demographics of computer game players are discussed, as are issues of gaming literacy, differences between education and entertainment games and the impact of these on learner motivation, gender issues of game choice, and accessibility considerations. The article also addresses the methodological challenge of giving a voice to those who are disengaged in research, a particular issue in the field of games and learning. Finally, four ways in which games have the potential to promote inclusion and equality are presented and discussed, drawing on recent examples of projects carried out at the Education and Social Research Institute (ESRI) at Manchester Metropolitan University. First, the use of non-digital games and playful activities; second, informal learning through commercial games, such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games; third, giving learners agency as game creators; and finally, the growing movement of games for good, such as games to support campaigning and fundraising activities

Roolipeli hoitotyön lähiesimiesten muutosjohtamisen koulutukseen : ”Pelisilmää muutosjohtamiseen”

Hoitotyön lähiesimies tarvitsee monenlaista osaamista työssään. Muutosjohtamisen osaamisalue ja siihen kuuluvat vuorovaikutus, neuvottelu- ja kommunikointitaidot kuuluvat hoitotyön lähiesimiehen tärkeimpiin osaamisalueisiin. Opetuspelit ovat saaneet positiivisen vastaanoton koulutuksessa ja varsinkin joukkuepelien, kuten roolipelin, on todettu kehittävän johtamistaitoja. Tämän tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli kehittää ja esitestata roolipeli, jonka tarkoituksena oli lisätä tietoisuutta muutosjohtamisesta. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tarkastella, minkälainen kehitetty roolipeli on pelattavuudeltaan ja sisällöltään sekä miten peliä voisi jatkossa kehittää. Kehitetty roolipeli on beta-versio. Tutkimukseen osallistujat valittiin tarkoituksenmukaisella otannalla. Tutkimukseen osallistui opiskelijoita sekä Turun ylemmän ammattikorkeakoulun koulutusohjelmasta, että Turun yliopiston hoitotieteen laitokselta. Tutkimukseen osallistui yhteensä 26 opiskelijaa. Tutkimusaineisto kerättiin syksyllä 2017. Aineistonkeruumenetelminä olivat taustakyselyt, kohderyhmähaastattelut ja kyselylomake. Aineiston analyysitapa on laadullinen sisällönanalyysi, joka toteutettiin deduktiivis-induktiivisesti. Tutkimuksen tulosten perusteella kehitetty roolipeli on kestoltaan kahden oppitunnin (90 min.) mittainen ja sopii pelattavaksi koulutuksen aikana useamman kerran. Pelin säännöt olivat pääosin selkeät ja peli lisäsi tietoisuutta muutosjohtamisesta. Tietoisuuden lisääntymistä muutosjohtamisesta edistivät pelaajien keskuudessa pelissä esiintyvät loppuratkaisut ja reflektio pelitilanteen jälkeen. Tämän tutkimuksen tulosten perusteella voidaan ajatella, että roolipeli olisi sekä hyvä että uusi ja innovatiivinen keino lisätä tietoisuutta muutosjohtamisesta hoitotyön muutosjohtamisen koulutuksessa. Pelin idea oli tutkimuksen perusteella toimiva, mikä mahdollistaa pelin jatkokehittelyn ja suunnittelun tulevaisuudessa

A Study of Leadership Behaviors in Esports Contexts

Soft skills, leadership in particular, are highly sought-after traits for businesses when searching for new employees. Using games as a tool to teach soft skills is fairly well documented. One way that games can do this is by creating a space where learners can practice these skills. Esports in particular seem to be an already existing space where modern, dynamic types of leadership are already practiced. In order to determine if this was indeed the case, I interviewed people who were involved in different levels of esports about the ways they behaved while playing esports. I found that in order to succeed while playing esports, it was often necessary to share leadership across various members of the team. Because of this sharing of leadership, I found that esports could be a great tool for training and building leadership skills

Designing leadership and soft skills in educational games: The e-leadership and soft skills educational games design model (ELESS)

While the field of leadership studies includes a large corpus of literature and studies, the literature and scientific research in the field of e-leadership and soft skills used in learning game environments are at present small in scale. Towards contributing to this newly emerging field of literature and study, this research paper presents a new model, the e-Leadership and Soft Skills Educational Design Model (ELESS) for assessing the use and constructing the effective design of soft skills and leadership skills in multiplayer learning game environments. The central research question considers: what is the role of e-leadership and how can it be designed and tested in the context of educational games? To address this question, the research paper includes a review of the current literature around distributed (shared) leadership models and presents some examples of studies assessing how leadership is designed, used and tested in available game environments. The paper then presents the ELESS model and validates it within the context of a case study of the Leadership Game. As a result, the ELESS model can be used to test the efficacy of existing games and to inform the effective design of new games that focus upon developing leadership and soft skills

Education from inside the bunker: Examining the effect of Defcon, a nuclear warfare simulation game, on nuclear attitudes and critical reflection

This mixed-methods study investigates the hypothesis that playing Defcon, a nuclear warfare simulation game, can affect attitudes toward nuclear weapons and stimulate critical reflection on this issue. Participants were 141 college students who were randomly assigned to game playing (experimental) and article reading (control) conditions. A multivariate repeated measures factorial analysis revealed statistically significant differences between groups for three pairs of pre-/post-test items. In addition, total pre- and post-test scores showed a significant interaction with group assignment, reported frequency of game play, and gender, with women and less frequent gamers exhibiting greater attitude changes. In the second, qualitative phase of the study, 20 additional participants were interviewed to better understand how playing Defcon may stimulate both attitude change and critical reflection about nuclear weapons