Moving between virtual and real worlds: second language learning through massively multiplayer online role playing games (MMORPGs)

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) bring players together in a large virtual community. This type of online gaming can serve many purposes such as entertainment, social interaction, information exchange and education and is now an integral part of many people's lives particularly the younger generation. This research study investigates the use of openly available MMORPGs to supplement second language teaching for higher education students. MMORPGs provide informal virtual worlds in which students can communicate in their second language with people from across the globe. The research approach combines ethnography and action research in the virtual and real worlds. In the real world the researcher observes the interaction with the MMORPGs by the students both through their informal discussion in the classroom and through screen video captures of their game play in the MMORPG. In addition the researcher takes on the role of a character within the MMORPG allowing for observation inside the virtual world from the viewpoint of another game character. Through action research, the researcher observes, plans and then interacts with the students' MMORPG characters within the game. This enables the researcher to provide anonymous but tailored support to the students including advice on the game play, a confidence boost where needed, a friendly face where needed and some support around language issues. In the real world, action research is also used to provide tutorial exercises and discussions based on the students' experiences with the MMORPG, facilitating further enhancement opportunities for their language development. This paper concludes that MMORPGs provide a safe, relaxed and engaging environment in which students can practice and improve their language skills

Social gaming: A systematic review

Digital games often constitute a shared activity where people can spend time together, communicate and socialize. Several commercial titles place social interaction at the center of their design. Prior works have investigated the social outcomes of gaming, and factors that impact the experience. Yet, we lack a comprehensive understanding of how social gaming has been approached and explored before. In this work, we present a systematic review covering 263 publications, gathered in February 2021, that study gaming experiences involving more than one person, with a focus on the social element that emerges among partakers (players and/or spectators). We contribute with a systematized understanding of (1) how the topic is being defined and approached, (2) what facets (mainly in terms of outcomes and determinants of the experience) are being acknowledged and (3) the methodologies leveraged to examine these. Our analysis, based on mixed deductive and inductive coding, reveals relevant gaps and tendencies, including (1) the emphasis in novel technologies and unconventional games, (2) the apparent negligence of player diversity, and (3) lower ecological validity associated with totally mediated evaluations and a lack of established constructs to assess social outcomes

Perfil de la investigación académica sobre Juegos Masivos en Línea para Múltiples Jugadores (JMLMJ) 2000-2009: Horizontes para la investigación educativa

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.17227/01234870.38folios75.94Whilst there exists a large body of publications around Massively Multiplayer On-line Role-Play Gaming (MMORPG), there is little profiling academic research on this type of game. This study aims at unveiling what, when, where and who constitute scholarly work in research about MMORPG. A 777-register dataset was configured with primary documents taken from 16 databases and two web-portals. The dataset was drilled down using specialized text-mining software. Findings revealed four main research interests that comprise the games themselves, gaming experiences, systems architecture and educational MMORPG. It was also found that research on this topic started out in 2002 and some milestones of emerging research were charted out. The most prolific organizations and authors were also identified in which the USA, Canada and Italy occupy outstanding places. It is recommended that research profiling studies be carried out to extendmore informed literature reviews and support further research questions.La investigación sobre Juegos Masivos en Línea para Múltiples Jugadores (JMLMJ) es amplia; sin embargo, no hay mucha literatura especializada que perfile la investigación sobre este tipo específico de juegos. El presente estudio persigue describir el qué, el cuándo, el dónde y el quién que constituyen trabajo investigativo y académico sobre los JMLMJ. Se configuró una base de datos de 777 registros con documentos de investigación provenientes de 16 bases de datos académicas y dos portales web. La base de datos que se organizó fue explorada utilizando un software especializado en minería de textos. Los resultados revelan cuatro tendencias principales en la investigación sobre los JMLMJ: los juegos en sí mismos, las experiencias de juego, los sistemas de arquitectura de estos juegos y los JMLMJ relacionados con el fenómeno educativo. Se encontró que la investigación sobre estos juegos se origina en 2002 y se encontraron rutas de investigación relacionadas como desarrollo del campo. Se identificaron los autores más prolíficos quienes son provenientes de organizaciones en USA, Canadá e Italia. Se recomienda la realización de estudios de perfil para ampliar las revisiones de literatura que sustente la formulación de preguntas de investigación

Modeling Paying Behavior in Game Social Networks

Online gaming is one of the largest industries on the Internet, generating tens of billions of dollars in revenues annually. One core problem in online game is to find and convert free users into paying customers, which is of great importance for the sustainable development of almost all online games. Although much research has been conducted, there are still several challenges that remain largely unsolved: What are the fundamental factors that trigger the users to pay? How does users? paying behavior influence each other in the game social network? How to design a prediction model to recognize those potential users who are likely to pay? In this paper, employing two large online games as the basis, we study how a user becomes a new paying user in the games. In particular, we examine how users' paying behavior influences each other in the game social network. We study this problem from various sociological perspectives including strong/weak ties, social structural diversity and social influence. Based on the discovered patterns, we propose a learning framework to predict potential new payers. The framework can learn a model using features associated with users and then use the social relationships between users to refine the learned model. We test the proposed framework using nearly 50 billion user activities from two real games. Our experiments show that the proposed framework significantly improves the prediction accuracy by up to 3-11% compared to several alternative methods. The study also unveils several intriguing social phenomena from the data. For example, influence indeed exists among users for the paying behavior. The likelihood of a user becoming a new paying user is 5 times higher than chance when he has 5 paying neighbors of strong tie. We have deployed the proposed algorithm into the game, and the Lift_Ratio has been improved up to 196% compared to the prior strategy

Issues in the study of virtual world social movements

Virtual worlds are online three-dimensional worlds that are often constructed to look much like the real world. As more people begin to use these virtual worlds, virtual communities are emerging enabling various social activities and social interactions to be conducted online. Based on a literature review of social movements, virtual communities and virtual worlds, this paper suggests a framework to guide IS research into this new and exciting area

The Usefulness of Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) as Tools for Promoting Second Language Acquisition

The purpose of this chapter is twofold (1) to review the benefits of online videogames for promoting second language acquisition (SLA), specifically massive multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) and (2) to present new research that seeks to explain why and how MMORPGs may be beneficial. The findings from the research indicate that MMORPGs are beneficial to SLA primarily because they provide opportunities for interaction in the target language through participation in collaborative problem solving tasks. The results of the research presented in this chapter show (1) that the requirements of input and output for successful gaming allow for a type of interaction in which the focus on language form leads to modified-output, (2) that players have opportunities to negotiate input as a means of completing in-game tasks, and (3) that in-game tasks are similar to instructional tasks that are believed to be beneficial for SLA in the context of a classroom

Every Day You Are Improving: How College Students View the Educational Impact of World of Warcraft

The purpose of the study was to explore college students’ experiences with playing World of Warcraft (WoW) and their views on the application of WoW in educational settings. A qualitative case study design was used to interview three participants who were selected purposively from a Midwestern university. Findings revealed that players thought that playing WoW was fun, relaxing, motivating, but sometimes almost to the point of addiction. The findings also support student perceptions of generalization of teamwork, cooperating, socializing, academic skills, and time management skills learned and practiced in playing WoW to academic settings. Playing WoW games can provide an important link between the virtual world and the real world as players develop academic, time management, collaborative, and critical thinking skills

Player–video game interaction: A systematic review of current concepts

International audienceVideo game design requires a user-centered approach to ensure that the experience enjoyed by players is as good as possible. However, the nature of player-video game interactions has not as yet been clearly defined in the scientific literature. The purpose of the present study was to provide a systematic review of empirical evidences of the current concepts of player-video game interactions in entertainment situations. A total of 72 articles published in scientific journals that deal with human-computer interaction met the criteria for inclusion in the present review. Major findings of these articles were presented in a narrative synthesis. Results showed that player-video game interactions could be defined with multiple concepts that are closely linked and intertwined. These concepts concern player aspects of player-video game interactions, namely engagement and enjoyment, and video game aspects, namely information input/output techniques, game contents and multiplayer games. Global approaches, such as playability, also exist to qualify player-video game interactions. Limitations of these findings are discussed to help researchers to plan future advances of the field and provide supplementary effort to better know the role of less-studied aspects. Practical implications are also discussed to help game designers to optimize the design of player-video game interactions

Virual world users evaluated according to environment design, task based adn affective attention measures

This paper presents research that engages with virtual worlds for education users to understand design of these applications for their needs. An in-depth multi-method investigation from 12 virtual worlds participants was undertaken in three stages; initially a small scale within-subjects eye-tracking comparison was made between the role playing game 'RuneScape' and the virtual social world 'Second Life', secondly an in-depth evaluation of eye-tracking data for Second Life tasks (i.e. avatar, object and world based) was conducted, finally a qualitative evaluation of Second Life tutorials in comparative 3D situations (i.e. environments that are; realistic to surreal, enclosed to open, formal to informal) was conducted. Initial findings identified increased users attention within comparable gaming and social world interactions. Further analysis identified that 3D world focused interactions increased participants' attention more than object and avatar tasks. Finally different 3D situation designs altered levels of task engagement and distraction through perceptions of comfort, fun and fear. Ultimately goal based and environment interaction tasks can increase attention and potentially immersion. However, affective perceptions of 3D situations can negatively impact on attention. An objective discussion of the limitations and benefits of virtual world immersion for student learning is presented

A three person poncho and a set of maracas:designing Ola De La Vida, a co-located social play computer game

Events that bring people together to play video games as a social experience are growing in popularity across the western world. Amongst these events are ‘play parties,’ temporary social play environments which create unique shared play experiences for attendees unlike anything they could experience elsewhere. This paper explores co-located play experience design and proposes that social play games can lead to the formation of temporary play communities. These communities may last for a single gameplay session, for a whole event, or beyond the event. The paper analyses games designed or enhanced by social play contexts and evaluates a social play game, Ola de la Vida. The research findings suggest that social play games can foster community through the design of game play within the game itself, through curation which enhances their social potential, and through design for ‘semi-spectatorship’, which blurs the boundaries between player and spectator thus widening the game’s magic circle