Profiling the educational value of computer games

There are currently a number of suggestions for educators to include computer games in formal teaching and learning contexts. Educational value is based on claims that games promote the development of complex learning. Very little research, however, has explored what features should be present in a computer game to make it valuable or conducive to learning. We present a list of required features for an educational game to be of value, informed by two studies, which integrated theories of Learning Environments and Learning Styles. A user survey showed that some requirements were typical of games in a particular genre, while other features were present across all genres. The paper concludes with a proposed framework of games and features within and across genres to assist in the design and selection of games for a given educational scenari

An Analysis of Operant Conditioning and its Relationship with Video Game Addiction

A report published by the Entertainment Software Association revealed that in 2015, 155 million Americans play video games with an average of two gamers in each game-playing household (Entertainment Software Association, “Essential Facts about the Computer and Video Game Industry”). With this massive popularity that has sprung alongside video games, the question must be asked: how are video games affecting today\u27s people? With the current way some video games are structured, the video game rewards players for achieving certain accomplishments. For example, competitive video games reward players who achieve victories by giving them a higher ranking or other games display the player\u27s score so that other players can see their score. With this in mind, some video game players may place more emphasis on their gaming achievements rather than their happiness or success in their own real lives. Once this emphasis has been placed, video game players have a chance to become addicted to their respective game; however, a distinction must be set between video game addiction and operant conditioning. Opereant conditioning is a video game design that many of today\u27s video games utilize. The use of operant conditioning towards a gamer can be one of the factors contributing towards video game addiction; operant conditioning is the strategy while video game addiction can be the byproduct of operant conditioning

A monument to the player: Preserving a landscape of socio-cultural capital in the transitional MMORPG

This is the pre-print version of the Article. The official published version can be accessed from the links below - Copyright @ 2012 Taylor & Francis LtdMassively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) produce dynamic socio-ludic worlds that nurture both culture and gameplay to shape experiences. Despite the persistent nature of these games, however, the virtual spaces that anchor these worlds may not always be able to exist in perpetuity. Encouraging a community to migrate from one space to another is a challenge now facing some game developers. This paper examines the case of Guild Wars® and its “Hall of Monuments”, a feature that bridges the accomplishments of players from the current game to the forthcoming sequel. Two factor analyses describe the perspectives of 105 and 187 self-selected participants. The results reveal four factors affecting attitudes towards the feature, but they do not strongly correlate with existing motivational frameworks, and significant differences were found between different cultures within the game. This informs a discussion about the implications and facilitation of such transitions, investigating themes of capital, value perception and assumptive worlds. It is concluded that the way subcultures produce meaning needs to be considered when attempting to preserve the socio-cultural landscape

Social Psychology And Marketing: The Consumption Game. Understanding Marketing And Consumer Behavior Through Game Theory

Consumer psychology provides enough evidence that consumer behavior is not just one side of our existence, but, as a matter of fact, it is a central dimension of our everyday lives, engaging us into changing and defining our identity, beliefs, attitudes and practices. In relation to this, commodification has reached us on all levels: everything that people created, produced and developed over the years, during the post-industrial era, can be commodified and sold to a specific market. Commodification and increased consumption are crossing the line between values and needs, production and creation, identity and capital accumulation, thus making people constantly expecting a payoff while engaging in social, cultural and economic transactions. In this article we argue that we can use the models of game theory to understand socio-economic phenomena such as consumption, B2C marketing and market dynamics.Game Theory, consumer behaviour, commodification, decision theory, marketing

An analysis of persistent non-player characters in the first-person gaming genre 1998-2007: a case for the fusion of mechanics and diegetics

This paper describes the results of an analysis of persistent non-player characters (PNPCs) in the first-person gaming genre 1998-2007. Assessing the role, function, gameplay significance and representational characteristics of these critical important gameplay objects from over 34 major releases provides an important set of baseline data within which to situate further research. This kind of extensive, genre-wide analysis is under-represented in game studies, yet it represents a hugely important process in forming clear and robust illustrations of the medium to support understanding. Thus, I offer a fragment of this illustration, demonstrating that many of the cultural and diegetic qualities of PNPCs are a product of a self-assembling set of archetypes formed from gameplay requirements

Sustaining Economic Exploitation of Complex Ecosystems in Computational Models of Coupled Human-Natural Networks

Understanding ecological complexity has stymied scientists for decades. Recent elucidation of the famously coined "devious strategies for stability in enduring natural systems" has opened up a new field of computational analyses of complex ecological networks where the nonlinear dynamics of many interacting species can be more realistically mod-eled and understood. Here, we describe the first extension of this field to include coupled human-natural systems. This extension elucidates new strategies for sustaining extraction of biomass (e.g., fish, forests, fiber) from ecosystems that account for ecological complexity and can pursue multiple goals such as maximizing economic profit, employment and carbon sequestration by ecosystems. Our more realistic modeling of ecosystems helps explain why simpler "maxi-mum sustainable yield" bioeconomic models underpinning much natural resource extraction policy leads to less profit, biomass, and biodiversity than predicted by those simple models. Current research directions of this integrated natu-ral and social science include applying artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and multiplayer online games

Combining explicit and implicit measures to study the effects of persuasive games

Understanding how games influence players is an integral part of persuasive game design. However, evaluating player attitudes to determine the success of a persuasive game can be difficult, e.g., if games deal with sensitive topics that invite socially desirable answers to explicit measures such as questionnaires. In this paper, we discuss the application of an implicit measure – the Implicit Association Test – to support explicit data, and to help game designers and games user researchers better understand the effects of persuasive games on player attitudes

Learning by volunteer computing, thinking and gaming: What and how are volunteers learning by participating in Virtual Citizen Science?

Citizen Science (CS) refers to a form of research collaboration that engages volunteers without formal scientific training in contributing to empirical scientific projects. Virtual Citizen Science (VCS) projects engage participants in online tasks. VCS has demonstrated its usefulness for research, however little is known about its learning potential for volunteers. This paper reports on research exploring the learning outcomes and processes in VCS. In order to identify different kinds of learning, 32 exploratory interviews of volunteers were conducted in three different VCS projects. We found six main learning outcomes related to different participants' activities in the project. Volunteers learn on four dimensions that are directly related to the scope of the VCS project: they learn at the task/game level, acquire pattern recognition skills, on-topic content knowledge, and improve their scientific literacy. Thanks to indirect opportunities of VCS projects, volunteers learn on two additional dimensions: off topic knowledge and skills, and personal development. Activities through which volunteers learn can be categorized in two levels: at a micro (task/game) level that is direct participation to the task, and at a macro level, i.e. use of project documentation, personal research on the Internet, and practicing specific roles in project communities. Both types are influenced by interactions with others in chat or forums. Most learning happens to be informal, unstructured and social. Volunteers do not only learn from others by interacting with scientists and their peers, but also by working for others: they gain knowledge, new status and skills by acting as active participants, moderators, editors, translators, community managers, etc. in a project community. This research highlights these informal and social aspects in adult learning and science education and also stresses the importance for learning through the indirect opportunities provided by the project: the main one being the opportunity to participate and progress in a project community, according to one's tastes and skills