Dynamics of Social Play

Digital games have become a social medium. Players are often socially motivated to play games and actively seek out games that offer social interactions. Early studies on games such as World of Warcraft demonstrate that players can form meaningful bonds within the game. Catering to this trend, most game titles now include multiplayer experiences in their gameplay. Despite the growing popularity of social elements within play, we still have little empirically-founded guidance on how to effectively design for social experiences. If we want to design for social play, we have to understand what makes games social. What are the properties of play that are responsible for facilitating social ties between players? We address this question by synthesizing the exiting literature on design recommendations for social play into identify overarching properties of play that we think are the most prolific in literature: cooperation and interdependence. We perform two experimental studies demonstrating how games facilitate trust between players and how cooperation and interdependence are crucial properties of social play. Furthermore, we validate our framework in a field study, investigating the experiences within games that predict in-game social capital. We demonstrate that interdependence and toxicity are strongly linked to the social capital our participants experience in their gaming communities. We also illustrate how in-game social capital is negatively associated with feelings of loneliness and positively associated with need satisfaction of relatedness outside of the context of play. Overall, our findings emphasize how strongly the experiences within the game affect the social ties that emerge from play, suggesting that informed design choices are crucial for the success of social games. This dissertation also contributes to the ongoing debate about the effects that in-game relationships have on the player’s mental health—we show a strong positive link between in-game social capital and markers for psychological well-being. It is easy to disregard in-game relationships, as they are fundamentally distinct from the in-person ones we think of as natural. Yet we cannot ignore the emergence of digital games as a social medium. The more we understand the underlying elements of social play, the better we can design games that bring people closer together

Game design in an Internet of Things

Whilst no consensus yet exists on how the Internet of Things will be realised, a global infrastructure of networked physical objects that are readable, recognizable, locatable, addressable and controllable is undoubtedly a compelling vision. Although many implementations of the Internet of Things have presented these objects in a largely ambient sensing role, or providing some form of remote access/control, in this paper we consider the emerging convergence between games and the Internet of Things. This can be seen in a growing number of games that use objects as physical game pieces to enhance the players’ interaction with virtual games. These hybrid physical/digital objects present game designers with number of interesting challenges as they i) blur the boundaries between toys and games; ii) provide opportunities for freeform physical play outside the virtual game; and iii) create new requirements for interaction design, in that they utilise design techniques from both product design and computer interface design. Whilst in the past the manufacturing costs of such game objects would preclude their use within games from small independent games developers, the advent of low cost 3D printing and open software and hardware platforms, which are the enablers of the Internet of Things, means this is no longer the case. However, in order to maximise this opportunity game designers will need to develop new approaches to the design of their games and in this paper we highlight the design sensibilities required if they are to combine the digital and physical affordances within the design of such objects to produce good player experiences

Development and empirical testing of a game engagement scale : case r/Stopgaming

The thesis conceptualises gaming from leisurely and labour-like starting points and both measures and develops this perspective by pioneering a concept of game engagement. Putting forth this perspective is grounded by appeals to burnout in and out of professional contexts in the videogame industry, ludology and research on player experiences. These views coming together prompted a need to verify whether games are to be normatively held as engaging in only popular belief, or verifiably so in actuality. In so doing, both methodological and theoretical insight is provided. The engagement construct was adapted from the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale -9 (short form) and a survey study was conducted. Data was analysed using ordinal logistic regression and exploratory factor analysis. Results showed those not holding games dear to them may require substantial investment increases to reap adequate increases in engagement, if playtime is low, while a committed orientation towards gaming (in terms of subjective gamerhood and hours played) showed marked differences in engagement per incremental increase in playtime. These results are considered descriptive, rather than predictive. Future directions for game studies are suggested to uncover how players become disengaged and how rationalisation affects the gaming experience

The Impact Of Platform On Global Video Game Sales

This paper examines video game sales by platform in the global market from a period spanning 2006 through 2011.  As the home video game industry has rapidly matured and become established as a forefront facet of interactive entertainment in the home, we seek to determine what aspects of the video game market have the greatest impact on sales.  This question is particularly poignant, as the maturation of the video game industry has witnessed efforts at both vertical integration and horizontal expansion on the part of the top game publishers and developers in hopes of solidly grounding the industry.  This study employs a Kruskal-Wallis test to compare eight different gaming platforms.  The results indicate Nintendo’s Wii was the top selling global platform; Nintendo DS was the second tier; Xbox 360, Sony PlayStation 3, and the personal computer (PC) are in the third tier; the fourth tier consists of Sony PlayStation 2 and Sony PSP; and the retired sixth generation Nintendo GameCube is the lowest sales tier

Peli Alkaa : fantasia-aiheinen pakohuonepeli oppimisympäristönä Englanti vieraana kielenä opetuksessa

My thesis discusses the use of a fantasy-themed escape room as a learning environment for English as a foreign language classroom. Games, especially roleplaying games, have been the target of many studies and they have been shown to increase motivation, create new language scenarios and contexts as well as promote interaction between students and the gaming environment. However, the digital educational gaming industry in Finland is in its infancy. My study centers around piloting a digital fantasy-themed escape room called “The Mage’s Hut”, and this material package functions as the revision material for the course. I set to answer four research questions. The main goal is to find out how well a fantasy themed escape room functions as a learning environment. Secondly, I examine the attitudes of students and the teacher towards the game. Lastly, the fourth research question intends to answer how students’ previous gaming habits affect the gaming experience. I use relevant contemporary literature to examine gaming trends among Finnish upper secondary school students as well as delve deeper into the benefits of gamification used in formal contexts. This includes literature on roleplaying games as well as escape rooms and their utilization in formal educational contexts. The research design includes a digital fantasy-themed escape room that I have created based on the course material provided by Insights 5 -book by Otava for ENA5 course. The participants of the study included 26 Finnish upper secondary schoolers and their teacher. To gather the data, two questionnaires were constructed – one for students and one for the teacher. Twenty of the students responded to the questionnaire. The method for the study includes both qualitative and quantitative aspects. The questionnaires were analyzed by close-reading and were transformed into numerical values providing an easy way to compare results with each other. The results indicate that the attitudes of the students as well as the teacher towards the game are positive. The teacher and most of the students enjoyed playing the game and would like to see more similar games utilized in education. The game was deemed to be quite challenging, but it did not seem to negatively affect the game’s enjoyability or reported development of skills. These skills included vocabulary, grammar, reading comprehension, teamwork, information retrieval, logical and critical thinking. On the contrary, the students who deemed the game to be quite challenging reported more skills developed overall. The gaming habits of the students influenced the results partly. The students were categorized to non-gamers, casual gamers, active gamers, and hardcore gamers. Casual gamers, those with one to five hours of game time per week, reported developing the most skills out of all other groups. On the other hand, casual gamers reported the game as quite challenging the most. Therefore, it is not certain whether it is the difficulty or the game time that facilitates the development of the skills. Even though the majority of all groups reported enjoying the game, casual gamers reported the highest enjoyment rate. What we can gather from this study is that digital fantasy-themed escape rooms function well as a learning environment. The game corresponds to the learning objectives set by the Finnish curriculum and the teacher. Furthermore, the students felt that learning took place while playing the game. Both aspects of the game, the fantasy theme and the mechanics of an escape room were enjoyed, further reinforcing the previous knowledge on the functionality of roleplaying games in formal educational contexts

Re-shaped by mobile technologies' disruption: the videogame industry in Turkey

In this study, we investigate the business disruption effects of mobile technologies for the videogame industry in Turkey. Previous research shows that before mobile gaming became prevalent globally, the Turkish videogame industry was extremely small and lacked any success stories for either console or PC platforms. The rise in mobile and the so-called “casual” gaming gave the local industry a competitive advantage on a global scale. To capture the nuances of this disruptive transition, we performed structured interviews with gaming industry experts and analyzed prominent discussion forums for primary and secondary data collections, respectively. We especially focused on answering the following questions: (1) how prepared were Turkish videogame development companies in handling the mobile disruptive change; (2) what kind of transformations they experienced in their business plans and practices as a result; (3) how the disruption affected the way they viewed their customer base; and finally (4) what future disruptions they expect in their industry