Fictional Game Elements: Critical Perspectives on Gamification Design

Gamification has been widely accepted in the HCI community in the last few years. However, the current debate is focused on its short-term consequences, such as effectiveness and usefulness, while its side-effects, long-term criticalities and systemic impacts are rarely raised. This workshop will explore the gamification design space from a critical perspective, by using design fictions to help researchers reflect on the long-term consequences of their designs

Serious Games Are Not Serious Enough for Myoelectric Prosthetics

Serious games show a lot of potential for use in movement rehabilitation (eg, after a stroke, injury to the spinal cord, or limb loss). However, the nature of this research leads to diversity both in the background of the researchers and in the approaches of their investigation. Our close examination and categorization of virtual training software for upper limb prosthetic rehabilitation found that researchers typically followed one of two broad approaches: (1) focusing on the game design aspects to increase engagement and muscle training and (2) concentrating on an accurate representation of prosthetic training tasks, to induce task-specific skill transfer. Previous studies indicate muscle training alone does not lead to improved prosthetic control without a transfer-enabling task structure. However, the literature shows a recent surge in the number of game-based prosthetic training tools, which focus on engagement without heeding the importance of skill transfer. This influx appears to have been strongly influenced by the availability of both software and hardware, specifically the launch of a commercially available acquisition device and freely available high-profile game development engines. In this Viewpoint, we share our perspective on the current trends and progress of serious games for prosthetic training

gEYEded: Subtle and Challenging Gaze-Based Player Guidance in Exploration Games

This paper investigates the effects of gaze-based player guidance on the perceived game experience, performance, and challenge in a first-person exploration game. In contrast to existing research, the proposed approach takes the game context into account by providing players not only with guidance but also granting them an engaging game experience with a focus on exploration. This is achieved by incorporating gaze-sensitive areas that indicate the location of relevant game objects. A comparative study was carried out to validate our concept and to examine if a game supported with a gaze guidance feature triggers a more immersive game experience in comparison to a crosshair guidance version and a solution without any guidance support. In general, our study findings reveal a more positive impact of the gaze-based guidance approach on the experience and performance in comparison to the other two conditions. However, subjects had a similar impression concerning the game challenge in all conditions

Augmented and virtual reality evolution and future tendency

Augmented reality and virtual reality technologies are increasing in popularity. Augmented reality has thrived to date mainly on mobile applications, with games like Pokémon Go or the new Google Maps utility as some of its ambassadors. On the other hand, virtual reality has been popularized mainly thanks to the videogame industry and cheaper devices. However, what was initially a failure in the industrial field is resurfacing in recent years thanks to the technological improvements in devices and processing hardware. In this work, an in-depth study of the different fields in which augmented and virtual reality have been used has been carried out. This study focuses on conducting a thorough scoping review focused on these new technologies, where the evolution of each of them during the last years in the most important categories and in the countries most involved in these technologies will be analyzed. Finally, we will analyze the future trend of these technologies and the areas in which it is necessary to investigate to further integrate these technologies into society.Universidad de Sevilla, Spain Telefonica Chair “Intelligence in Networks

Design and Preliminary Validation of The Player Experience Inventory

© Lennart Nacke, 2016. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CHI PLAY Companion '16 Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts, https://doi.org/10.1145/2968120.2971805We present the design and preliminary results of the validation of the Player Experience Inventory (PXI). Based on the input of 64 experts in the field of player-computer interaction, we designed and refined this new scale. Our scale is based on the MDA framework (and on Means-End theory, underlying MDA). The PXI incorporates two subscales, one with dimensions at the functional level (i.e., dynamics) and one at the psycho-social level (i.e., aesthetics). The initial results, via principal factor analysis, suggest the scale can be used accurately to evaluate player experience. This work is our first step towards presenting a new, validated survey instrument for player experience evaluation.SIGCHI ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human InteractionPeer-reviewe

CLEVER: Gamification and Enterprise Knowledge Learning

© Lennart Nacke, 2016. This is the author’s version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CHI PLAY Companion '16 Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts, https://doi.org/10.1145/2968120.2987745This paper describes the design and a preliminary implementation study of a gamified knowledge management system (KMS) that supports the learning component within knowledge management (KM). KM includes acquiring social capital through the process of acquisition, sharing, and dissemination of knowledge within a company. Employees often lack the motivation to share their implicit knowledge with one another and are reluctant to engage in a collaborative forum for such knowledge exchange. We developed a gamified learning component of an enterprise KMS to help foster this process of collaborative and participatory learning. More importantly, this game combines trivia and strategy elements as game elements to motivate the players for knowledge exchange. We report preliminary results from an exploratory study with nine participants which indicates that the above combination of game elements does contribute to participatory knowledge learning within an enterprise KMS.NSERC SSHRCPeer-reviewe

Balance ninja: towards the design of digital vertigo games via galvanic vestibular stimulation

Vertigo – the momentary disruption of the stability of perception – is an intriguing game element that underlies many unique play experiences, such as spinning in circles as children to rock climbing as adults, yet vertigo is relatively unexplored when it comes to digital play. In this paper we explore the potential of Galvanic Vestibular Stimulation (GVS) as a game design tool for digital vertigo games. We detail the design and evaluation of a novel two player GVS game, Balance Ninja. From study observations and analysis of Balance Ninja (N=20), we present three design themes and six design strategies that can be used to aid game designers of future digital vertigo games. With this work we aim to highlight that vertigo can be a valuable digital game element that helps to expand the range of games we play

A Closer Look into Recent Video-based Learning Research: A Comprehensive Review of Video Characteristics, Tools, Technologies, and Learning Effectiveness

People increasingly use videos on the Web as a source for learning. To support this way of learning, researchers and developers are continuously developing tools, proposing guidelines, analyzing data, and conducting experiments. However, it is still not clear what characteristics a video should have to be an effective learning medium. In this paper, we present a comprehensive review of 257 articles on video-based learning for the period from 2016 to 2021. One of the aims of the review is to identify the video characteristics that have been explored by previous work. Based on our analysis, we suggest a taxonomy which organizes the video characteristics and contextual aspects into eight categories: (1) audio features, (2) visual features, (3) textual features, (4) instructor behavior, (5) learners activities, (6) interactive features (quizzes, etc.), (7) production style, and (8) instructional design. Also, we identify four representative research directions: (1) proposals of tools to support video-based learning, (2) studies with controlled experiments, (3) data analysis studies, and (4) proposals of design guidelines for learning videos. We find that the most explored characteristics are textual features followed by visual features, learner activities, and interactive features. Text of transcripts, video frames, and images (figures and illustrations) are most frequently used by tools that support learning through videos. The learner activity is heavily explored through log files in data analysis studies, and interactive features have been frequently scrutinized in controlled experiments. We complement our review by contrasting research findings that investigate the impact of video characteristics on the learning effectiveness, report on tasks and technologies used to develop tools that support learning, and summarize trends of design guidelines to produce learning video