MARKET DRIVEN MOBILE GAMING TAXONOMY

This discourse describes a mobile game taxonomy that classifies mobile games into various main genres (e.g., action games, arcade games, role-playing games, music games, etc.) and further classifies the mobile games into various subgenres. For example, mobile games that are categorized as adventure games may be further classified into text adventure games, graphic adventure games, visual novel games, interactive movie games, etc. The main genre and/or the subgenre of a mobile game may be identified based on one or more game elements (e.g., game themes, game art styles, etc.) contained in the mobile game. Based on the identified main genre and/or the subgenre of the mobile game, a market analysis for the mobile game may be generated. For example, a market analysis for a particular mobile game may include a subgenre rank for the mobile game, suggested game elements for the mobile game, and a potential player profile for the mobile game

Calling for Information Systems Research on Esports: An Overview Study

Online gaming has become a pervasive entertainment activity, and its professionalization has resulted in esports (i.e., electronic sports)—a new blend of sport and business. Esports has a promising future given its widespread acceptance and significant business value. Its innovative nature necessitates more research to help understand and shape its future. We hold that scholars, especially information systems (IS) researchers, should pay more attention to this phenomenon since the IS discipline has a key interest in examining esports’ constituents (i.e., people, organizations, and technologies). To increase research attention and help readers understand esports, we compiled this research overview. In it, we first comprehensively define esports. Then, we summarize the esports development. We outline the current state of research in general and systematically review the IS perspective. Based on these efforts, we propose an esports research framework with four promising IS research avenues. We end by discussing “IS contributions” to esports and this overview’s implications. This study serves as a foundation for comprehensively mapping the esports practice and research landscape. We hope our findings can help others, especially IS researchers, more clearly understand esports and guide them towards creating increasingly impactful works

Understanding appeals of video games for readers’ advisory and recommendation

Information for original publication: Lee, Jin Ha et al. Understanding Appeals of Video Games for Readers' Advisory and Recommendation. Reference & User Services Quarterly, [S.l.], v. 57, n. 2, p. 127-139, dec. 2017. ISSN 1094-9054. Available at: . doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.5860/rusq.57.2.6529.Despite their increasing popularity and inclusion in library collections, video games are rarely suggested in library advisory or recommendation services. In this work, we use the concept of appeals from existing literature in readers' advisory and media studies to understand what attracts people to play certain games. Based on 1,257 survey responses, we identify sixteen different appeals of video games and elaborate how these appeals are expressed in users' terms. We envision these appeals can serve as an additional access point for video games and will be particularly useful for recommendation and advisory services. In addition, we also examined the correlation between appeals and common game genres. The relationships between appeals and genres observed from our data support our argument that appeals can serve as a complementary access point to result in more diversified sets of recommendations across genres. In our future work, we plan to further investigate individual appeals such as mood and narrative across multiple types of media

Communicative Implications of the Modern Video Game: An Audience-Centered Approach

The advent of the home video game console and three decades of continuously evolving gaming technology has had a profound impact on American culture. While many studies have investigated various sociocultural outcomes and conducted behavioral correlation analyses of video games, few have examined how individuals talk about, or share meaning from the game outside of game play. This analysis first briefly reviews extant video game research and arguments for the increasingly immersive aspect of playing video games, then identifies a lack of focus in the literature on the communicative aspect of audience-centered analysis of these games via gamer-generated blogs and message board interactions. Subsequently, a rhetorical analysis of two independent blogs for World of Warcraft (WoW), a massively multiplayer online (MMO) video game examines, from a communication perspective, the inherent structure of the game, as well as the various methods by which the gamers discuss and share meaning about in-game and out-game experiences. A rhetorical analysis of gamers' out-game talk on WoW-centered message board forums and blogs is then conducted via the lens of dramatism. The theoretical underpinnings of this analysis further concretize the value and necessity of a communicative lens as a privileged voice in the field of video game studies

Mobile gaming and problematic smartphone use: a comparative study between Belgium and Finland

Background and aims: Gaming applications have become one of the main entertainment features on smartphones, and this could be potentially problematic in terms of dangerous, prohibited, and dependent use among a minority of individuals. A cross-national study was conducted in Belgium and Finland. The aim was to examine the relationship between gaming on smartphones and self-perceived problematic smartphone use via an online survey to ascertain potential predictors. Methods: The Short Version of the Problematic Mobile Phone Use Questionnaire (PMPUQ-SV) was administered to a sample comprising 899 participants (30% male; age range: 18–67 years). Results: Good validity and adequate reliability were confirmed regarding the PMPUQ-SV, especially the dependence subscale, but low prevalence rates were reported in both countries using the scale. Regression analysis showed that downloading, using Facebook, and being stressed contributed to problematic smartphone use. Anxiety emerged as predictor for dependence. Mobile games were used by one-third of the respective populations, but their use did not predict problematic smartphone use. Very few cross-cultural differences were found in relation to gaming through smartphones. Conclusion: Findings suggest mobile gaming does not appear to be problematic in Belgium and Finland

Internet gaming disorder: feeling the flow of social games

Introduction: Gaming Disorder (GD) was added to the recent publication of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) by the World Health Organization. This aligns with recommendations of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders (DSM-5), issued by the American Psychiatric Association. Accordingly, further relevant research has been invited. The interplay between preference for online social game genres, the degree of online Flow (or immersive pleasure) experienced, and the gamer's biological gender were examined here as contributing factors of IGD. Method: A normative sample of adult internet gamers was collected online (N=237, Age=18–59, Males=157; 66%; Females=80; 34%). Participants completed the nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS-SF9), the Online Flow Questionnaire (OFQ), and also self-reported demographics and internet/gaming behaviours. Results: Mediation and moderated mediation analyses indicated that the level of online Flow experienced considerably mediated the association between the preference for social games genres and the intensity of IGD behaviours across both biological genders. Conclusions: Results suggest that the level of online Flow experienced constitutes a risk factor in relation to the development of IGD. Furthermore, games which mandate social interaction with others present to be conducive to online Flow, and thus enhancing IGD risk irrespective of the biological gender of the gamer. Implications and limitations of the study are discussed. Keywords: Internet gaming disorder, Flow, Online flow, Social games, Massively multiplayer online role playing games, Multiplayer online battle arena, Gaming addictio

The suspension of disbelief in videogames

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and was awarded by Brunel UniversityThis thesis explores the ways in which suspension of disbelief works in digital games. Primarily concerned with how players relate imaginatively to the often major dissonance between gameplay and narrative in digital games, this thesis questions how the literate players of games reconcile these complex texts imaginatively. Proposing that Samuel Taylor Coleridge's concept of suspension of disbelief is a complicated process often cited rhetorically rather than given its theoretical due, this thesis aims to rehabilitate the term and turn it into a useful, sharpened tool for games studies. Digital games themselves are also seen to be an intense new realm of possibilities for the suspension of disbelief, and textual analysis of games which approach the fourth wall or the suspension of disbelief on their own terms helps to make this clear. Beginning by defining the differences of games compared to other media, the thesis goes on to define suspension of disbelief in both its historical and modern contexts and see how it fits with games, isolating three key problems with uniting the concept with the medium. The three chapters which follow looked in more depth at the problems of the skilled reader, fundamental activity and dissonance through investigations into games’ textual construction, the mindsets they engender in players and their reformulation of the fourth wall. The final section looks at the conclusions working together to achieve the dual aims of proposing a new model for game reading which centres around a willed disavowal of presence on the part of the gamer combined with the gamer's taking up of a role offered by the game-text, and rehabilitating both the term and the concept of suspension of disbelief

Music in Video Games

Through decades of evolution of video games industry, the audio element has become an inseparable part of the video game experience. However, for different game genres, the literature is still sparse regarding how background music (BGM) fits a game well in terms of being compatible and reciprocal. This report explores the function of game music and what makes the BGM an irreplaceable part of the gameplay experience. To achieve our goal, an experiment was prepared to evaluate how BGM influences people’s perceptions toward the game. By providing video game clips with switched BGM to subjects and surveying their perceptions and feelings of consistency between the clips and BGM, we were able to gain insight into how music may affect people’s gameplay experience