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

Game Appropriation: Where does the gamer fit?

The socio-technological transformation of digital games means that they are no longer single-player, co-located game experiences but instead are multiplayer socially-oriented ones (e.g. World of Warcraft). This change underpins the central concern of this thesis, to understand game appropriation and the intrinsically motivating nature of gaming. Game appropriation is defined as the broad incorporation of Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) into gamers’ daily practices, including the nature of their gameplay. Gaming is not viewed as a set of defined moments of participation but as a dynamic activity, directly interrelated with a gamers’ everyday life. Therefore, a broad perspective on motivation and gaming is adopted, incorporating not only reinforcing aspects of game design but also acknowledging the role of the social context and the gamer as an individual during gameplay. The findings of three studies showed that game design, social interaction and gamers’ psychological characteristics uniquely interplay to support game appropriation. The key findings are: (i) Flexible game design is a prerequisite for game appropriation; multiple game structures enable the creation of collaborative and competitive relationships and contribute to innovative forms of play; (ii) Diverse forms of social interaction, within and around gameplay, define the nature of game appropriation; (iii) The role of the gamer in game appropriation is critical. The gamer as an individual is the agent defining the distinct social forms of play when shaping the game experience, underpinned by certain psychological characteristics. While gamers with higher trait emotional intelligence (trait EI) play for social interaction per se, those with lower trait EI make purposive use of sociality in order to progress and succeed in the game. Similarly, on a needs scale (Basic Psychological Needs Scale) lower scorers on autonomy are more prone to competitive and instrumental social gaming practices; (iv) The process of game appropriation is progressively developed, influenced by the type of in-game activities and novel game features, trait EI scores and the presence of other gamers in the game. In summary, game appropriation, being game-specific, begins with the interaction between the gamer and a flexible game design and becomes socially negotiated within a community of gamers. The final social configuration -instrumental or social per se- is influenced by certain psychological characteristics of gamers as individuals

AI in Learning: Designing the Future

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is predicted to radically change teaching and learning in both schools and industry causing radical disruption of work. AI can support well-being initiatives and lifelong learning but educational institutions and companies need to take the changing technology into account. Moving towards AI supported by digital tools requires a dramatic shift in the concept of learning, expertise and the businesses built off of it. Based on the latest research on AI and how it is changing learning and education, this book will focus on the enormous opportunities to expand educational settings with AI for learning in and beyond the traditional classroom. This open access book also introduces ethical challenges related to learning and education, while connecting human learning and machine learning. This book will be of use to a variety of readers, including researchers, AI users, companies and policy makers

Dynamic Personalization of Gameful Interactive Systems

Gameful design, the process of creating a system with affordances for gameful experiences, can be used to increase user engagement and enjoyment of digital interactive systems. It can also be used to create applications for behaviour change in areas such as health, wellness, education, customer loyalty, and employee management. However, existing research suggests that the qualities of users, such as their personality traits, preferences, or identification with a task, can influence gamification outcomes. It is important to understand how to personalize gameful systems, given how user qualities shape the gameful experience. Current evidence suggests that personalized gameful systems can lead to increased user engagement and be more effective in helping users achieve their goals than generic ones. However, to create these kinds of systems, designers need a specific method to guide them in personalizing the gameful experience to their target audience. To address this need, this thesis proposes a novel method for personalized gameful design divided into three steps: (1) classification of user preferences, (2) classification and selection of gameful design elements, and (3) heuristic evaluation of the design. Regarding the classification of user preferences, this thesis evaluates and validates the Hexad Gamification User Types Scale, which scores a person in six user types: philanthropist, socialiser, free spirit, achiever, player, and disruptor. Results show that the scale’s structural validity is acceptable for gamification studies through reliability analysis and factor analysis. For classification and selection of gameful design elements, this thesis presents a conceptual framework based on participants’ self-reported preferences, which classifies elements in eight groups organized into three categories: individual motivations (immersion and progression), external motivations (risk/reward, customization, and incentives), and social motivations (socialization, altruism, and assistance). And to evaluate the design of gameful applications, this thesis introduces a set of 28 gameful design heuristics, which are based on motivational theories and gameful design methods and enable user experience professionals to conduct a heuristic evaluation of a gameful application. Furthermore, this thesis describes the design, implementation, and pilot evaluation of a software platform for the study of personalized gameful design. It integrates nine gameful design elements built around a main instrumental task, enabling researchers to observe and study the gameful experience of participants. The platform is flexible so the instrumental task can be changed, game elements can be added or removed, and the level and type of personalization or customization can be controlled. This allows researchers to generate different experimental conditions to study a broad range of research questions. Our personalized gameful design method provides practical tools and clear guidelines to help designers effectively build personalized gameful systems

AI in Learning: Designing the Future

AI (Artificial Intelligence) is predicted to radically change teaching and learning in both schools and industry causing radical disruption of work. AI can support well-being initiatives and lifelong learning but educational institutions and companies need to take the changing technology into account. Moving towards AI supported by digital tools requires a dramatic shift in the concept of learning, expertise and the businesses built off of it. Based on the latest research on AI and how it is changing learning and education, this book will focus on the enormous opportunities to expand educational settings with AI for learning in and beyond the traditional classroom. This open access book also introduces ethical challenges related to learning and education, while connecting human learning and machine learning. This book will be of use to a variety of readers, including researchers, AI users, companies and policy makers

Internet and Smartphone Use-Related Addiction Health Problems: Treatment, Education and Research

This Special Issue presents some of the main emerging research on technological topics of health and education approaches to Internet use-related problems, before and during the beginning of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The objective is to provide an overview to facilitate a comprehensive and practical approach to these new trends to promote research, interventions, education, and prevention. It contains 40 papers, four reviews and thirty-five empirical papers and an editorial introducing everything in a rapid review format. Overall, the empirical ones are of a relational type, associating specific behavioral addictive problems with individual factors, and a few with contextual factors, generally in adult populations. Many have adapted scales to measure these problems, and a few cover experiments and mixed methods studies. The reviews tend to be about the concepts and measures of these problems, intervention options, and prevention. In summary, it seems that these are a global culture trend impacting health and educational domains. Internet use-related addiction problems have emerged in almost all societies, and strategies to cope with them are under development to offer solutions to these contemporary challenges, especially during the pandemic situation that has highlighted the global health problems that we have, and how to holistically tackle them

Semantic discovery and reuse of business process patterns

Patterns currently play an important role in modern information systems (IS) development and their use has mainly been restricted to the design and implementation phases of the development lifecycle. Given the increasing significance of business modelling in IS development, patterns have the potential of providing a viable solution for promoting reusability of recurrent generalized models in the very early stages of development. As a statement of research-in-progress this paper focuses on business process patterns and proposes an initial methodological framework for the discovery and reuse of business process patterns within the IS development lifecycle. The framework borrows ideas from the domain engineering literature and proposes the use of semantics to drive both the discovery of patterns as well as their reuse

Le rapport à l'avatar, une expérience de consommation dans les univers virtuels : cas de Second Life

Les univers virtuels connaissent un essor important. L'engouement pour ces univers s'explique par l'originalité de l'expérience que les résidents y vivent et à laquelle ils participent. La présente recherche vise la compréhension de ce phénomène en le positionnant comme une expérience de consommation ludique durant laquelle les consommateurs découvrent des aspects de leur soi en interagissant avec les autres usagers. Dans de tels univers, le consommateur se choisit un personnage (un avatar) lui servant d'identité virtuelle. Les travaux en la matière considèrent que l'anonymat et la liberté de choix de cette identité virtuelle constituent des aspects très motivants pour les résidents. S'insérant dans le cadre d'une démarche exploratoire, l'objectif premier de cette recherche est l'étude des principaux facteurs qui influencent le rapport à l'avatar dans l'expérience de consommation des univers virtuels. En choisissant comme terrain le monde virtuel Second Life, une recherche qualitative a été menée ainsi qu'une analyse de contenu de données provenant de sources variées (individuelles et collectives, dans et en dehors de Second Life) à savoir quatre-vingts entrevues individuelles, trois entrevues de groupe ainsi qu'une observation non participante d'un blogue et de quatorze forums de discussion portant sur Second Life. L'analyse et l'interprétation du sens que donnent les sujets aux aspects d'eux-mêmes qu'ils décident de mettre ou ne pas mettre dans leurs avatars a permis deux contributions originales dans le domaine particulier de la consommation dans les univers virtuels. L'ébauche d'un modèle conceptuel regroupant les différentes composantes du rapport à l'avatar, les facteurs ayant une influence sur ces composantes et, enfin, leurs implications en termes de consommation. Par ailleurs, l'analyse de la distance consommateur/avatar a également conduit à la genèse d'une typologie identifiant trois profils de consommateurs (confusion, flottement et rupture) sur base du choix de l'avatar, des facteurs influençant ce choix et des implications en termes de consommation