The right way to play a game

Is there a right or wrong way to play a game? Many think not. Some have argued that, when we insist that players obey the rules of a game, we give too much weight to the author’s intent. Others have argued that such obedience to the rules violates the true purpose of games, which is fostering free and creative play. Both of these responses, I argue, misunderstand the nature of games and their rules. The rules do not tell us how to interpret a game; they merely tell us what the game is. And the point of the rules is not always to foster free and creative play. The point can be, instead, to communicate a sculpted form of activity. And in games, as with any form of communication, we need some shared norms to ground communicative stability. Games have what has been called a “prescriptive ontology.” A game is something more than simply a piece of material. It is some material as approached in a certain specified way. These prescriptions help to fix a common object of attention. Games share this prescriptive ontology with more traditional kinds of works. Novels are more than just a set of words on a page; they are those words read in a certain order. Games are more than just some software or cardboard bits; they are those bits interacted with according to certain rules. Part of a game’s essential nature is the prescriptions for how we are to play it. What’s more, we investigate the prescriptive ontology of games, we will uncover at least distinct prescriptive categories of games. Party games prescribe that we encounter the game once; heavy strategy games prescribe we encounter the game many times; and community evolution games prescribe that we encounter the game while embedded in an ongoing community of play

Adopting Accessibility Guidelines for Videogames to Collectible Card Games

The development of accessible video games has been discussed through multiple publications in the 21st century; however, little to no attention has been given to non-electronic gaming. Like video games, Collectible Card Games (CCG) have also gained massive popularity, but no accessible guidelines have been created to help the disabled better play them. The need for inclusion in gaming is critical because it can act as a medium for social interaction and a learning tool for teaching. Today offers numerous technologies that can help those with disabilities, such as microcomputers, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Optical Character Recognition (OCR), and Text to Speech, can all be used to help those with disabilities. In this thesis, we create a proof of concept Accessible Technology to help those with low vision play CGG and show that guidelines that worked for video games can be brought over to help with CCG. We use a Raspberry Pi 4B and the Raspberry Pi HQ camera module, Scene Text Detection, OCR, and Text to Speech to read the cards of a CCG. This AT acts similar to a microscope where it captures the image of a card, finds the card’s name, feeds it to a database query, and reads the record from the database to the player. We performed several evaluations where the participant played a game of Yugioh, followed by answering a questionnaire. We found in these evaluations that the AT was primarily successful, and the user problems come from poor text to speech and participants having a hard time remembering or comprehending card information

How motivations for esports consumption influence the esports sponsorship response: the favourability, brand awareness and purchase intention effects

Esports is an emerging sport that is growing exponentially in popularity in the past years. The fact that it is played online, mainly transmitted through web streaming and its inherent international nature, being for the big tournaments which involve teams of every continent, or the players that compose those teams which are from many different countries, creates a new path to be explored for many brands that want to engage in the sponsorship deals. It also creates a new landscape of study for which are the motivations for people to spectate this sport taking into account the differences from the traditional ones. Thus, this dissertation gives an overall analysis of what are esports and its stakeholders and the sponsorship traits especially on the sports environment. In order to create a new framework, the basis of the study was on the motivations for watching traditional sports which are Vicarious Achievement, Acquiring Knowledge, Aesthetics, Drama, Escapism, Physical Attractiveness, Physical Skills of the Athletes, Social Interaction, Novelty and Enjoyment of Aggression and the sponsorship response traits such as favorability, awareness and purchase intention. The data collection was done by means of a quantitative analysis through a questionnaire based on the Motivation Scale for Sports Consumption and the Determinants of Sports Sponsorship Response. The results allow us to assess which are the motivations that were positively influencing the consumption and mainly to conclude that some of the reasons for watching esports influence the response to sponsorship.Os esports são um desporto emergente que tem vindo a crescer em popularidade de forma exponencial nos últimos anos. O facto de ser jogado online, transmitido principalmente através de transmissão na internet e a sua natureza internacional, tanto em grandes torneios que envolvem equipas de todos os continentes, como os próprios jogadores que compõe as equipas serem de vários países, cria uma nova oportunidade para ser explorada por variadas marcas que queiram entrar neste mercado através de patrocínios. Portanto, esta dissertação permite uma análise geral do que são os esports e os seus stakeholders, e as especificidades dos patrocínios, especialmente relacionados com desporto. Com intuito de criar um novo método, a base do estudo foi em volta das motivações para ver desporto tradicionais. Essas são, Realização Pessoal, Aquisição de Conhecimento, Estética, Drama, Escapismo, Atração Física, Qualidades dos Atletas, Interacção Social, Novidade e Gosto pela Agressividade. Relativamente aos patrocínios foram analisadas a Favorabilidade, Reconhecimento e Intenção de Compra. Os dados foram analisados de forma quantitativa e recolhidos através de um questionário baseado na Escala de Motivações para Consumo de Desportos e nos Determinantes de Resposta a Patrocínios Desportivos. Os dados recolhidos permitiram avaliar quais os motivos que influenciam positivamente o consumo e principalmente concluir quais as razões para ver esports que influenciam as reações aos patrocínios