When Actual Meets Virtual: Values, Perceptions and Experiences in World of Warcraft

World ofWarcraft, a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game, is a rich, complex virtual world where people play and interact without leaving their physical space. This thesis examines the ways in which World of Warcraft players bring their values, perceptions, and experiences into the game space through several different avenues: gender, sexuality, sex, race, ethnicity, and multinationalism. I discuss how this affects players experience of the game and community, as well as how it influences player identity. Through their behavioural assumptions and actions, players bring aspects of each of the listed avenues into the game, which changes the way interactions occur, and how identity is experienced

Pretend that it is real!: Convergence Culture in Practice

Media convergence has mainly been defined and explained as a technological and industrial phenomenon; as the process where new technologies are accommodated by existing media and communication industries and their cultures of production. One consequence of convergence in today’s hybrid media landscape is that the previously distinct borders between production and consumption have become blurred. This means that convergence also takes place as a bottom-up social process initiated by media users that move almost anywhere and everywhere in search of entertainment experiences of their liking. This thesis sheds light on the different types of media convergence that took place in the process of making the transmedia storytelling production Sanningen om Marika. The Swedish public service provider, SVT, and the pervasive games upstart company, The company P, combined their expertise in broadcasting and games development to craft this ‘participation drama’. During five months in 2007, the production offered Swedes nationwide rich possibilities to interact and participate, or just to watch or lurk on the production’s various platforms. Using an ethnographic approach, field studies were conducted throughout the design, implementation and production phases. The analysis shows that even if instances of convergence could be identified, the collaboration did not proceed smoothly. The companies’ different media logics with their differing cultures of production created tensions and frictions. The different logics of television, internet and games - different in quality demands and with different audience participation models - made it difficult to create a hybrid production. Television genres blurred fiction and facts, and the ordinary was blurred with activities of games and play in the production, making the audience reception and interpretations differ extensively. Lastly, the designed audience participation did not remove the asymmetrical relationship between producers and users in media, but instead highlighted issues of hierarchies, lack of participant empowerment and inequality between participants

How Far is Up? the functional properties and aesthetic materiality of children’s storybook applications

This study centres on a project, a children’s book application titled How Far is Up? This artefact is an interactive, narrative-based digital book containing written text, animation, video, audio narration, music and sound effects. Book applications have become a new format for the picture book. Printed picture books are used to teach children literary and social skills; they are cornerstone tools in early developmental education. Increasing numbers of children now read digital books and engage in literature via digital devices. Given the crucial educational and social role that picture books have played in Western cultures, it is timely that we investigate how this medium has changed due to digitisation. This research evaluates the design of book applications and the educational and social implications of remediating the picture book. Theorists of children’s literature and cognitive science suggest the need for a more comprehensive set of principles aimed at guiding book application designers. In particular, there are concerns relating to the design of interactive, animated activities within these artefacts. Evidence shows that these features may distract users from a story. Further to this, existing applications commonly contain an audio narrator who ‘reads’ the written text aloud. An adult is not required to read these items with a child. This is despite the clear educational and social benefits associated with shared reading. My results demonstrate new insights, focused towards three main areas. Firstly, my findings show how designers can apply a counterpointed triad formed from typographic text, imagery and audio, alongside the alluring qualities of animated and interactive features, in order to form a richly described narrative environment. In presenting a refined level of visual movement, designers can direct users’ attention towards narrative detail. Animated interactive activities may also help users to imaginatively engage in application content. Secondly, as a result of deploying my counterpointed triad technique, whereby typographic text, imagery and audio each impart separate narrative messages, the narrator in How Far is Up? does not ‘read’ the written text; the narrator supplies additional story information. In order to comprehend this application’s textual content, a pre-literate child will need to engage in shared reading. Participant studies show that young children can understand and enjoy the How Far is Up? story when they read the application independently. My findings also show that children enjoy reading this application together with an adult, and that this shared reading activity may invoke deeper narrative comprehension and it may support the formation of close social bonds. This application’s design encourages intergenerational social interaction to occur over a shared mobile device. Finally, this research uncovers connections between material practices and social and experiential activities. By extending the counterpointed triad technique, I form a connection between digital and physical environments; highlighting the ways in which functional and aesthetic practices can lead to usable artefacts existing in social and physical contexts. This project contributes to the fields of digital humanities, education and human-computer interaction, and to the disciplines of interaction design, digital design and picture book design

A interação jogador e videojogo na construção da experiência de jogo

Doutoramento em Informação e Comunicação em Plataformas DigitaisAmong the many discussions and studies related to video games, one of the most recurrent, widely debated and important relates to the experience of playing video games. The gameplay experience – as appropriated in this study – is the result of the interplay between two essential elements: a video game and a player. Existing studies have explored the resulting experience of video game playing from the perspective of the video game or the player, but none appear to equally balance both of these elements. The study presented here contributes to the ongoing debate with a gameplay experience model. The proposed model, which looks to equally balance the video game and the player elements, considers the gameplay experience to be both an interactive experience (related to the process of playing the video game) and an emotional experience (related to the outcome of playing the video game). The mutual influence of these two experiences during video game play ultimately defines the gameplay experience. To this gameplay experience contributes several dimensions, related to both the video game and player: the video game includes a mechanics, interface and narrative dimension; the player includes a motivations, expectations and background dimension. Also, the gameplay experience is initially defined by a gameplay situation, conditioned by an ambient in which gameplay takes place and a platform on which the video game is played. In order to initially validate the proposed model and attempt to show a relationship among the multiple model dimensions, a multi-case study was carried out using two different video games and player samples. In one study, results show significant correlations between multiple model dimensions, and evidence that video game related changes influence player motivations as well as player visual behavior. In specific player related analysis, results show that while players may be different in terms of background and expectations regarding the game, their motivation to play are not necessarily different, even if their performance in the game is weak. While further validation is necessary, this model not only contributes to the gameplay experience debate, but also demonstrates in a given context how player and video game dimensions evolve during video game play.Entre as muitas discussões e estudos relacionados com os videojogos, um dos mais recorrentes, amplamente debatido e importante relaciona-se com a experiência de jogar videojogos. A experiência de jogo - como empregado neste estudo - é o resultado da interação entre dois elementos essenciais: um videojogo e um jogador. Os estudos existentes têm explorado a experiência resultante do ato de jogar a partir da perspectiva do videojogo ou do jogador, mas nenhum parece igualmente equilibrar estes dois elementos. O estudo aqui apresentado contribui para o debate em curso com um modelo da experiência de jogo. O modelo proposto, que procura equilibrar de forma igual os elementos videojogo e jogador, considera a experiência de jogo como uma experiência interativa (relacionada com o processo de jogar o videojogo) e uma experiência emocional (relacionada com o resultado de jogar o videojogo). A influência mútua destas duas experiências durante o ato de jogar define a experiência de jogo. Para esta experiência de jogo contribuem várias dimensões, relacionadas com o videojogo e o jogador: o videojogo inclui a dimensão da mecânica, da interface e narrativa; o jogador inclui a dimensão das motivações, expectativas e background. Além disso, a experiência de jogo é inicialmente definida por uma situação de jogo, condicionada por um ambiente em que o jogo se realiza e uma plataforma na qual se joga. Para inicialmente validar o modelo e tentar mostrar uma relação entre as múltiplas dimensões do modelo proposto, um estudo multicaso foi concretizado utilizando dois videojogos e amostras diferentes. Num dos estudos, os resultados mostram correlações significativas entre as múltiplas dimensões do modelo, e evidências de que alterações ao videojogo podem influenciar as motivações do jogador e o seu comportamento visual. Numa análise relacionada com características dos jogadores, os resultados mostram que os jogadores, embora possam ser diferentes em termos de experiência e expectativas em relação ao jogo, a sua motivação para jogar não é necessariamente diferente, mesmo que o seu desempenho no jogo seja fraco. Embora uma validação contínua do modelo seja necessária, este modelo não só contribui para o debate da experiência de jogo, mas também mostra num determinado contexto como as dimensões do jogador e videojogo evoluem durante o ato de jogar