5,418 research outputs found
Papers, Please and the systemic approach to engaging ethical expertise in videogames
Papers, Please, by Lucas Pope (2013), explores the story of a customs inspector in the fictional political regime of Arstotzka. In this paper we explore the stories, systems and moral themes of Papers, Please in order to illustrate the systemic approach to designing videogames for moral engagement. Next, drawing on the Four Component model of ethical expertise from moral psychology, we contrast this systemic approach with the more common scripted approach. We conclude by demonstrating the different strengths and weaknesses that these two approaches have when it comes to designing videogames that engage the different aspects of a playerâs moral expertise
Evaluation of cervical posture improvement of children with cerebral palsy after physical therapy based on head movements and serious games
Background: This paper presents the preliminary results of a novel rehabilitation therapy for cervical and trunk control of children with cerebral palsy (CP) based on serious videogames and physical exercise. Materials: The therapy is based on the use of the ENLAZA Interface, a head mouse based on inertial technology that will be used to control a set of serious videogames with movements of the head. Methods: Ten users with CP participated in the study. Whereas the control group (n=5) followed traditional therapies, the experimental group (n=5) complemented these therapies with a series of ten sessions of gaming with ENLAZA to exercise cervical flexion-extensions, rotations and inclinations in a controlled, engaging environment. Results: The ten work sessions yielded improvements in head and trunk control that were higher in the experimental group for Visual Analogue Scale, Goal Attainment Scaling and Trunk Control Measurement Scale (TCMS). Significant differences (27% vs. 2% of percentage improvement) were found between the experimental and control groups for TCMS (p<0.05). The kinematic assessment shows that there were some improvements in the active and the passive range of motion. However, no significant differences were found pre- and post-intervention. Conclusions:Physical therapy that combines serious games with traditional rehabilitation could allow children with CP to achieve larger function improvements in the trunk and cervical regions. However, given the limited scope of this trial (n=10) additional studies are needed to corroborate this hypothesis
Automatic mental processes, automatic actions and behaviours in game transfer phenomena: an empirical self-report study using online forum data
Previous studies have demonstrated that the playing of videogames can have both intended and unintended effects. The purpose of this study was to investigate the influence of videogames on playersâ mental processes and behaviours in day-to-day settings. A total of 1,023 self-reports from 762 gamers collected from online videogame forums were classified, quantified, described and explained. The data include automatic thoughts, sensations and impulses, automatic mental replays of the game in real life, and voluntary/involuntary behaviours with videogame content. Many gamers reported that they had responded â at least sometimes â to real life stimuli as if they were still playing videogames. This included overreactions, avoidances, and involuntary movements of limbs. These experiences lasted relatively short periods of time but in a minority of players were recurrent. The gamers' experiences appeared to be enhanced by virtual embodiment, repetitive manipulation of game controls, and their gaming habits. However, similar phenomena may also occur when doing other non-gaming activities. The implications of these game transfer experiences are discussed
The birth of roboethics
The importance, and urgency, of a Roboethics lay in the lesson of our recent history. Two of the front rank fields of science and technology, Nuclear Physics and Genetic Engineering, have already been forced to face the ethical consequences of their researchâs applications under the pressure of dramatic and troubling events. In many countries, public opinion, shocked by some of these effects, urged to either halt the whole applications, or to seriously control them.
Robotics is rapidly becoming one of the leading field of science and technology, so that we can forecast that in the XXI century humanity will coexist with the first alien intelligence we have ever come in contact with - robots. It will be an event rich in ethical, social and economic problems. Public opinion is already asking questions such as: âCould a robot do "good" and "evilâ? âCould robots be dangerous for humankind?â
Using gaming paratexts in the literacy classroom
This paper illustrates how digital game paratexts may effectively be used in the high school English to meet a variety of traditional and multimodal literacy outcomes. Paratexts are texts that refer to digital gaming and game cultures, and using them in the classroom enables practitioners to focus on and valorise the considerable literacies and skills that young people develop and deploy in their engagement with digital gaming and game cultures. The effectiveness of valorizing paratexts in this manner is demonstrated through two examples of assessment by students in classes where teachers had designed curriculum and assessment activities using paratexts
Can We Programme Utopia? The Influence of the Digital Neoliberal Discourse on Utopian Videogames
This article has a dual purpose. The first is to establish the relationship between
videogames and utopia in the neoliberal era and clarify the origins of this compromise in the
theoretical dimension of game studies. The second is to examine the ways in which there
has been an application of the utopian genre throughout videogame history (the style of procedural rhetoric and the subgenre of walking simulator) and the way in which the material
dimension of the medium ideologically updates the classical forms of that genre, be it
through activation or deactivation. The article concludes with an evaluation of the degree in
which the neoliberal discourse interferes with the understanding of utopia on behalf of the
medium and with its imaginary capabilities to allow for an effective change in social reality
Life Is Strange and ââGames Are Madeââ: A Philosophical Interpretation of a Multiple-Choice Existential Simulator With Copilot Sartre
The multiple-choice video game Life is Strange was described by its French developers
as a metaphor for the inner conflicts experienced by a teenager in trying to become an
adult. In psychological work with adolescents, there is a stark similarity between what
they experience and some concepts of existentialist philosophy. Sartreâs script for the
movie Les Jeux Sont Faits (literally ââgames are madeââ) uses the same narrative strategy
as Life is Strangeâthe capacity for the main characters to travel back in time to change
their own existenceâin order to stimulate philosophical, ethical, and political thinking
and also to effectively simulate existential ââlimit situations.ââ This article is a dialogue
between Sartreâs views and Life is Strange in order to examine to what extent questions
such as what is freedom? what is choice? what is autonomy and responsibility?
can be interpreted anew in hybrid digitalâhumanâââanthroboticâââenvironments
Focus, Sensitivity, Judgement, Action: Four Lenses for Designing Morally Engaging Games
Historically the focus of moral decision-making in games has been narrow, mostly confined to challenges of moral judgement (deciding right and wrong). In this paper, we look to moral psychology to get a broader view of the skills involved in ethical behaviour and how these skills can be employed in games. Following the Four Component Model of Rest and colleagues, we identify four âlensesâ â perspectives for
considering moral gameplay in terms of focus, sensitivity, judgement and action â and describe the design problems raised by each. To conclude, we analyse two recent games, The Walking Dead and Papers, Please, and show how the lenses give us insight into important design differences between these games
Stealth and a Transnational Politics of Location in Videogames
This article addresses Inderpal Grewal and Caren Kaplanâs call for transnational feminist research that makes visible âthe material conditions that structure womenâs lives in diverse locationsâ (17). The author argues that videogames can contribute to feminist scholarship by creating virtual spaces that simulate how a transnational politics of location plays out on womenâs bodies. This article provides a spatial analysis of three videogames, RĂ©publique, Horizon: Zero Dawn, and Alien: Isolation, to show how the gamesâ procedures can persuade audiences to empathize with the surveillance and precarity of womenâs bodies in real-life transnational experiences. While the games focus on âstealth,â the limitations provided by the gameplay simulate the different ways in which womenâs bodies must âsneakâ around national identities and rules, thus showing the ways in which a transnational politics of location creates âcontradictory positions. . . [for women who] inhibit unitary identitiesâ (Grewal and Kaplan 7)
Games and the art of agency
Games may seem like a waste of time, where we struggle under artificial rules for arbitrary goals. The author suggests that the rules and goals of games are not arbitrary at all. They are a way of specifying particular modes of agency. This is what make games a distinctive art form. Game designers designate goals and abilities for the player; they shape the agential skeleton which the player will inhabit during the game. Game designers work in the medium of agency. Game-playing, then, illuminates a distinctive human capacity. We can take on ends temporarily for the sake of the experience of pursuing them. Game play shows that our agency is significantly more modular and more fluid than we might have thought. It also demonstrates our capacity to take on an inverted motivational structure. Sometimes we can take on an end for the sake of the activity of pursuing that end
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