Undercurrents – A Computer-Based Gameplay Tool to Support Tabletop Roleplaying

This paper introduces Undercurrents, a computer-based gameplay tool for providing additional communication and media streams during tabletop roleplaying sessions. Based upon a client-server architecture, the system is intended to unobtrusively support secret communication, timing of audio and visual presentations to game events, and real-time documentation of the game session. Potential end users have been involved in the development and the paper provides details on the full design process

E Is for Everyone: The Case for Inclusive Game Design

Part of the Volume on the Ecology of Games: Connecting Youth, Games, and Learning In this chapter I examine the accessibility of today's games, or rather the lack of. Even common medical conditions such as arthritis, repetitive stress injuries, and diminished vision may prevent individuals from playing today's top software titles, not to speak of the barriers that these titles pose to the blind, deaf, and immobile. The clearest and most disheartening manifestation can be found when examining the special-needs sector. There we find children who cannot partake in their most coveted play activities, due to inconsiderate (and therefore inflexible) game design. I chose this sector to both define the problem and explore its solutions. Written from the perspective of a designer, the chapter first describes the lack-of-play and its residual impact as perceived in a school that caters to over 200 children with special needs. In an attempt to create the "ultimate-accessible" game, I demonstrate how games can be designed to be intrinsically accessible while retaining their original playability. Lastly, I show how normalization-of-play may improve upon the social, educational, and therapeutic aspects of the children's daily lives. Tying this fringe-case with the grander ecology of games, I discusses how better accessibility may encourage more people to enjoy games -- be they gamers, students, or patients

Sport as real life

A new chapter that examines the relationship between sport and European society. It argues that the discourses of modernisation surrounding the sports industry echo broader political and economic discourses that dominate European thinking on the relationship between sports and industry

“You Must Construct Additional Pylons”: Building a Better Framework for Esports Governance

The popularity of “esports,” also known as “electronic sports” or competitive video gaming, has exploded in recent years and captured the attention of cord-cutting millennials—often to the detriment of sports such as basketball, football, baseball, and hockey. In the United States, the commercial dominance of such traditional sports stems from decades of regulatory support. Consequently, while esports regulation is likely to emulate many aspects of traditional sports governance, the esports industry is fraught with challenges that inhibit sophisticated ownership and capital investment. Domestic regulation is complicated by underlying intellectual property ownership and ancillary considerations such as fluctuations in a video game’s popularity. Since analogous reform is nigh impossible, nascent governance organizations have been created to support the professionalization of esports as a new entertainment form. As esports consumption continues to grow, enterprising stakeholders are presented with the unique opportunity to create regulatory bodies that will shape the esports industry. This Note analyzes how the professional sports industry and foreign esports markets have addressed governance challenges that arise from differences between traditional sports and competitive video gaming. It concludes by exploring two potential pathways for domestic esports governance. View PD

The Nintendo Wii, virtualisation and gestural analogics

This paper examines the Nintendo Wii from a perspective informed by Martin Heidegger’s existential analysis of equipmental being in order to make some claims about thesignficance of the Wii’s innovative interface. The Wii enhanced the analogical, gestural component of user input in home game consoles which are (or were) based more firmly in digital, finger-based input. The Wii’s redefinition of interactive media engagement heralds a wider transition to a more embodied media technicity ofvirtual experience. I will advance some propositions about how to understand the Wii’s popularity, its place in advancing a mainstream program of the application of VR technics, and its potential to open up other programmings of ‘spatio-physicality.

The cybersport nexus

Exercise machines increasingly incorporate computer-controlled motion and force feedback and will eventually become reactive robotic sports partners.…Today’s rudimentary, narrowband video games will evolve into physically engaging telesports

Desperately Trying to Mediate Immediacy

Evermore aspects of contemporary cultures, societies and human life appear to be changed through processes of digitization and mediatization. A great body of work is touching on these processes of change. However, not many discuss aspects of leisure and aesthetics. And if they do so, seldom regarding bodily and worldly aspects. This paper thus seeks to discuss such changes alongside the phenomenon of esports. More precisely, the paper situates the aesthetic dimension and practices of watching and doing esports in contemporary cultures and societies, focusing on lived experiences (ästhetisches Erleben) in digital and mediated contexts. The failing attempt to understand, the attempt to re-present and Gelassenheit (composure or serenity) are introduced as modes of coping with immediate aesthetic experiences. Here, especially the constitutive transition from a physical to a meta-physical dimension of reality will be grasped on. By that, ongoing philosophical debates about the constitution of reality and being can be supported in their progress

Designing brutal multiplayer video games

Non-digital forms of play that allow players to direct brute force directly upon each other, such as martial arts, boxing and full contact team sports,are very popular. However, inter-player brutality has largely been unexplored as a feature of digital gaming. In this paper, we describe the design and study of 2 multi-player games that encourage players to use brute force directly against other players. Balance of Poweris a tug-of-war style game implemented with Xbox Kinect, while Bundleis a playground-inspired chasing game implemented with smartphones. Two groups of five participants(n=10) played both games while being filmed, and were subsequently interviewed. A thematic analysis identified five keycomponents ofthe brutalmultiplayer video gameexperience, which informsa set of sevendesign considerations.This work aims to inspire the design of engaging game experiences based on awareness and enjoyment of our own and others’ physicality