Playing Games with Quantum Mechanics

We present a perspective on quantum games that focuses on the physical aspects of the quantities that are used to implement a game. If a game is to be played, it has to be played with objects and actions that have some physical existence. We call such games playable. By focusing on the notion of playability for games we can more clearly see the distinction between classical and quantum games and tackle the thorny issue of what it means to quantize a game. The approach we take can more properly be thought of as gaming the quantum rather than quantizing a game and we find that in this perspective we can think of a complete quantum game, for a given set of preferences, as representing a single family of quantum games with many different playable versions. The versions of Quantum Prisoners Dilemma presented in the literature can therefore be thought of specific instances of the single family of Quantum Prisoner's Dilemma with respect to a particular measurement. The conditions for equilibrium are given for playable quantum games both in terms of expected outcomes and a geometric approach. We discuss how any quantum game can be simulated with a classical game played with classical coins as far as the strategy selections and expected outcomes are concerned.Comment: 3 Figure

Multigame Effect in Finite Populations Induces Strategy Linkage Between Two Games

Evolutionary game dynamics with two 2-strategy games in a finite population has been investigated in this study. Traditionally, frequency-dependent evolutionary dynamics are modeled by deterministic replicator dynamics under the assumption that the population size is infinite. However, in reality, population sizes are finite. Recently, stochastic processes in finite populations have been introduced into evolutionary games in order to study finite size effects in evolutionary game dynamics. However, most of these studies focus on populations playing only single games. In this study, we investigate a finite population with two games and show that a finite population playing two games tends to evolve toward a specific direction to form particular linkages between the strategies of the two games

What Predicts Social Casino Game Playing? Interrelations of Social Casino Gaming, Gambling, and Demographic Factors

Social casino games (SCG), for example those played on Facebook and on mobile devices, are one of the most profitable genres of free-to-play games. They are also an example of a convergence trend, where the line between gambling and digital gaming is blurring. Digital games integrate gambling elements, such as loot boxes, while new forms of digital, online and hybrid gambling games use similar immersive elements as those which are employed in video games. The Finnish Player Barometer 2018, a nationally representative dataset (n = 946), included questions about digital gaming, gambling and SCG. It reveals that 5.9% of Finns play SCG at least occasionally and 2% of Finns play them at least once of month. But how is SCG playing connected with offline and online gambling and with digital game playing? Ridge regression analysis was employed to investigate the predictive power of a range of variables regarding the frequency of SCG play. Results show that a higher frequency of SCG play is associated with higher frequency of digital game playing, but with lower frequency of both online and offline gambling. Furthermore, a higher frequency of playing skill based (digital) gambling games is the strongest predictor of SCG playing. Implications: Our analysis contribute to understanding better who SCG players, online and offline gamblers and digital game players are and how playing new forms of gaming and gambling are interrelated

Understanding the effects of violent video games on violent crime

Psychological studies invariably find a positive relationship between violent video game play and aggression. However, these studies cannot account for either aggressive effects of alternative activities video game playing substitutes for or the possible selection of relatively violent people into playing violent video games. That is, they lack external validity. We investigate the relationship between the prevalence of violent video games and violent crimes. Our results are consistent with two opposing effects. First, they support the behavioral effects as in the psychological studies. Second, they suggest a larger voluntary incapacitation effect in which playing either violent or non-violent games decrease crimes. Overall, violent video games lead to decreases in violent crime. --Video Games,Violence,Crime

Playing games with EPR-type experiments

An approach towards quantum games is proposed that uses the unusual probabilities involved in EPR-type experiments directly in two-player games.Comment: Submitted to the J. Phys. A: Maths & Gen., revised in the light of referees' comments, 14 pages, no figur

The Effects of Video Games on Human Intelligence

With the help of rapidly growing electronics industry offering more affordable electronic gaming devices, an increasing number of people have stepped into the realm of video games and as a result, playing video games has become part of life for many to some extent. While the majority of people are embracing the fun and the thrill that video games have brought about, a handful of people are still holding relatively negative opinions on video games, thinking that playing video game is just a waste of time and money. In fact, the truth is quite the opposite. It has proved that video game is actually playing a multifaceted positive role in improving people’s intelligence, or making people smarter on the physiological aspect, the psychological aspect as well as the sociological aspect

Measuring physical inactivity:do current measures provide an accurate view of "sedentary" video game time?

BACKGROUND: Measures of screen time are often used to assess sedentary behaviour. Participation in activity-based video games (exergames) can contribute to estimates of screen time, as current practices of measuring it do not consider the growing evidence that playing exergames can provide light to moderate levels of physical activity. This study aimed to determine what proportion of time spent playing video games was actually spent playing exergames. METHODS: Data were collected via a cross-sectional telephone survey in South Australia. Participants aged 18 years and above (n = 2026) were asked about their video game habits, as well as demographic and socioeconomic factors. In cases where children were in the household, the video game habits of a randomly selected child were also questioned. RESULTS: Overall, 31.3% of adults and 79.9% of children spend at least some time playing video games. Of these, 24.1% of adults and 42.1% of children play exergames, with these types of games accounting for a third of all time that adults spend playing video games and nearly 20% of children's video game time. CONCLUSIONS: A substantial proportion of time that would usually be classified as "sedentary" may actually be spent participating in light to moderate physical activity

Games: Agency as Art

Games occupy a unique and valuable place in our lives. Game designers do not simply create worlds; they design temporary selves. Game designers set what our motivations are in the game and what our abilities will be. Thus: games are the art form of agency. By working in the artistic medium of agency, games can offer a distinctive aesthetic value. They support aesthetic experiences of deciding and doing. And the fact that we play games shows something remarkable about us. Our agency is more fluid than we might have thought. In playing a game, we take on temporary ends; we submerge ourselves temporarily in an alternate agency. Games turn out to be a vessel for communicating different modes of agency, for writing them down and storing them. Games create an archive of agencies. And playing games is how we familiarize ourselves with different modes of agency, which helps us develop our capacity to fluidly change our own style of agency

Why girls play digital games: an empirical study into the relations between gender, motivations and genre

In recent years, several studies have explored the motivations for playing different game genres such as MMO (Yee, 2006a, 2006b) and FPS (Jansz & Tanis, 2007). Others have taken steps towards creating an integrated framework for use across genres (Sherry, Lucas, Greenberg, & Lachlan, 2006). Despite the strong gender bias of the game industry, however, none of these studies have tackled the issue of gender differences in motivations. This paper aims to fill this gap by exploring the relation between genres and gamer motivations. For this we draw upon a sample of 983 gamers recruited on online forums to fill out an online survey. On average, the respondents were 23.94 years old (SD = 6.43) and 37% were female. By means of a principal component analysis (PCA) on 23 Likert items, we distinguish between five motivation components: immersion, social contact, challenge, competition and control. Analysis reveals that women have consistently lower motivation scores than men, with a Cohen's d ranging from -.40 for competition to -.99 for social contact. This indicates that women are generally less strongly motivated to play digital games. The picture becomes more complex, however, when we look at playing frequency and differences between game genres. Again using linear PCA, frequency measures of playing 22 different game genres are reduced to five general components: casual games (e.g. puzzle games, board games), heavy action games (e.g. shooters, role-playing games), light action games (e.g. platform games, party games), management games (e.g. strategy games, simulation games) and sports games (e.g. football and racing games). Except for light action, gender effects are found for all game genre components. This shows that female gamers play casual games more often (d = .66), while male gamers spend more time on heavy action, sports and management games (d ranging from -.42 to -1.18). Next, gaming frequency components are regressed on gender, age, gender*age, game motivation and game motivation*gender. Casual gaming is explained by gender (positive effect), challenge and immersion with immersion being a stronger predictor for females. For heavy action gaming: gender (positive effect for males), challenge, social contact and immersion are positive predictors. Again, interaction effects are found as women share stronger effects for these motivations. Concerning light action gaming, a positive prediction is found for females, social contact, and immersion. Once more, immersion yields a stronger effect for females. Management games' frequency is, apart from gender (positive effect for males), positively predicted by social contact and competition. Furthermore, challenge and immersion interact with gender, marking a strong effect of these motivations for females. Finally, no effect of gender is found on the frequency of playing sports games whereas all five motivations yield significant predictions. Except for competition, these predictions are all positive. Again, an interaction of gender with immersion is found, indicating a stronger effect for females. These results indicate that gender as well as motivations can be used to predict genre preferences. Remarkable, however, is that the interactions between gender and motivations consistently show stronger effects for females. This indicates that women who game more frequently are, in comparison, more strongly motivated than their male counterparts. A possible explanation for this phenomenon can be found in the existing stereotype that digital games are ‘boys’ toys’. Consequently, we hypothesize that females are confronted with a higher threshold to engage in video gaming. In other words, their motivation for playing digital games needs to be stronger than their belief that gaming is for men, hence the relatively higher motivational scores for high-frequency female gamers. Next, we look into inter- and intra-gender differences in attitudes towards gaming which confirm this. There are consistent differences between low-frequency gamers, who game less than once a week, and high-frequency gamers, who game at least once a week. Low-frequency gamers generally have a more negative attitude towards gaming than high-frequency gamers. When including gender, however, we notice that these differences are consistently larger for women than for men. This suggests that low-frequency female gamers tend to support the current stereotype of gaming being for males whereas high-frequency female gamers resist this belief strongly. Thus high-frequency female gamers have a relatively more outspoken positive attitude towards gaming than males which corroborates our hypothesis that female gamers face a higher threshold to becoming a gamer than men which in turn explains the stronger interaction effect of gender on the motivational dimensions. References Jansz, J., & Tanis, M. (2007). Appeal of playing online first person shooter games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 10(1), 133-136. Sherry, J., Lucas, K., Greenberg, B., & Lachlan, K. (2006). Video game uses and gratifications as predictors of use and game preference. Playing video games. Motives, responses, and consequences, 213-224. Yee, N. (2006a). Motivations for play in online games. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 9(6), 772-775. Yee, N. (2006b). The psychology of massively multi-user online role-playing games: Motivations, emotional investment, relationships and problematic usage. In R. Schroeder & A. Axelsson (Eds.), Avatars at work and play: Collaboration and interaction in shared virtual environments (pp. 187–208)