There’s an App for That: Foreign Language Learning Through Mobile- and Social Media-Based Video Games

There is no doubt that the video game industry is undergoing a major upheaval, yet in spite of the recent reconceptualization of video games, educational games as a whole remain the pariah of the industry. Very little has been done in the wake of recent social and industry trends to adapt instruction of academic subjects, especially foreign language, for delivery through video games. Prior studies discussing the potential of games developed specifically for language learning have focused primarily on general principles and have offered no recommendations for platform, genre, or other aspects of design. Through an online survey as well as qualitative analysis of gaming forum discussions and student evaluations of an existing educational language game, this study goes straight to the learners and players themselves in order to determine the opinions and behavioral intentions of potential customers. By synthesizing these insights into consumer demand with theory and industry trends, this study argues that mobile or casual games that are intrinsically social and communicative hold the most potential for success, both in academia and in the industry

An empirical study of Cloud Gaming

This work is at: 11th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games (NetGames), took place November 22-23, 2012 in Venice (Italy)Online gaming connects players from all over the world together for fun and entertainment, and has been regarded as one of the most profitable and popular Internet services. Besides, there is a growing trend towards moving local applications to remote data centers: this is often referred to as the cloud. With the purpose of studying the impact of Cloud Gaming on the access network load, in this paper we carry out an empirical network traffic analysis of two well-known cloud gaming platforms: On-Live and Gaikai. Traffic traces have been collected and analysed from five different games of both platforms. Cloud gaming has been observed to be remarkably different from traditional online gaming in terms of network load and traffic characteristics. Moreover, the traces have revealed similarities between the two platforms regarding the packet size distribution, and differences concerning the packet inter-arrival times. However, each platform shows a similar traffic pattern for most of the games it serves. Nonetheless, the racing and shooter games considered in this work demand more bandwidth than other game-genres.This work is partly supported by the projects TRION (TEC 2009-10724), FIERRO (TEC 2010- 12250-E) and Medianet (S-2009/TIC-1468); and by the Generalitat de Catalunya through the research support program project SGR-1202 and AGAUR FI-DGR 2012 grant.Publicad

The Industry and Policy Context for Digital Games for Empowerment and Inclusion:Market Analysis, Future Prospects and Key Challenges in Videogames, Serious Games and Gamification

The effective use of digital games for empowerment and social inclusion (DGEI) of people and communities at risk of exclusion will be shaped by, and may influence the development of a range of sectors that supply products, services, technology and research. The principal industries that would appear to be implicated are the 'videogames' industry, and an emerging 'serious games' industry. The videogames industry is an ecosystem of developers, publishers and other service providers drawn from the interactive media, software and broader ICT industry that services the mainstream leisure market in games, The 'serious games' industry is a rather fragmented and growing network of firms, users, research and policy makers from a variety of sectors. This emerging industry is are trying to develop knowledge, products, services and a market for the use of digital games, and products inspired by digital games, for a range of non-leisure applications. This report provides a summary of the state of play of these industries, their trajectories and the challenges they face. It also analyses the contribution they could make to exploiting digital games for empowerment and social inclusion. Finally, it explores existing policy towards activities in these industries and markets, and draws conclusions as to the future policy relevance of engaging with them to support innovation and uptake of effective digital game-based approaches to empowerment and social inclusion.JRC.J.3-Information Societ

Pricing strategies in software platforms : video consoles vs. operating systems

We study software platforms for which the total amount that users spend depends on the twosided pricing strategy of the platform firm, and on the pricing strategy of application developers. When setting prices, developers may be constrained by one of two margins: the demand margin and the competition margin. By analyzing how these margins affect pricing strategies we find some conditions which explain features of the market of operating systems and its differences with the one corresponding to the video consoles. The problem that arises when the platform does not set prices (as an open platform) is considered. We show that policy makers should promote open source in operating systems platforms but not necessarily in video consoles. We also analyze the incentives for a platform to integrate with applications as a function of the extent of substitutability among them and provide a possible explanation for the observed fact of vertical disintegration in these industries

Vertical Integration, Exclusivity and Game Sales Performance in the U.S. Video Game Industry

This paper empirically investigates the relation between vertical integration and video game performance in the U.S. video game industry. For this purpose, we use a widely used data set from NPD on video game montly sales from October 2000 to October 2007. We complement these data with handly collected information on video game developers for all games in the sample and the timing of all mergers and acquisitions during that period. By doing this, we are able to separate vertically integrated games from those that are just exclusive to a platform First, we show that vertically integrated games produce higher revenues, sell more units and sell at higher prices than independent games. Second, we explore the causal effect of vertical integration and find that, for the average integrated game, most of the difference in performance comes from better release period and marketing strategies that soften competition. By default, vertical integration does not seem to have an effect on the quality of video game production. We also find that exclusivity is associated with lower demand.No; keywords

Generation M2: Media in the Lives of 8- to 18-Year-Olds

Examines trends in which media youth use, for how much time, how new media platforms have affected media consumption, what role mobile and online media play, what media environment youth live in, and how patterns vary by gender, age, and race/ethnicity

Market leadership through technology – Backward compatibility in the U.S. Handheld Video Game Industry

The introduction of a new product generation forces incumbents in network industries to rebuild their installed base to maintain an advantage over potential entrants. We study if backward compatibility moderates this process of rebuilding an installed base. Using a structural model of the U.S. market for handheld game consoles, we show that backward compatibility lets incumbents transfer network effects from the old generation to the new to some extent but that it also reduces supply of new software. We examine the tradeoff between technological progress and backward compatibility and find that backward compatibility matters less if there is a large technological leap between two generations. We subsequently use our results to assess the role of backward compatibility as a strategy to sustain market leadership

Uber Effort: The Production of Worker Consent in Online Ride Sharing Platforms

The rise of the online gig economy alters ways of working. Mediated by algorithmically programmed mobile apps, platforms such as Uber and Lyft allow workers to work by driving and completing rides at any time or in any place that the drivers choose. This hybrid form of labor in an online gig economy which combines independent contract work with computer-mediated work differs from traditional manufacturing jobs in both its production activity and production relations. Through nine interviews with Lyft/Uber drivers, I found that workers’ consent, which was first articulated by Michael Burawoy in the context of the manufacturing economy, is still present in the work of the online gig economy in post-industrial capitalism. Workers willingly engage in the on-demand work not only to earn money but also to play a learning game motivated by the ambiguity of the management system, in which process they earn a sense of self-satisfaction and an illusion of autonomous control. This research points to the important role of technology in shaping contemporary labor process and suggests the potential mechanism which produces workers’ consent in technology-driven workplaces