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Jane McGonigal

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A REAL LITTLE GAME: THE PINOCCHIO EFFECT IN PERVASIVE PLAY

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McGonigal Jane
Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
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Mobile digital technologies and networks have fueled a recent proliferation of opportunities for pervasive play in everyday spaces. In this paper, I examine how players negotiate the boundary between these pervasive games and real life. I trace the emergence of what I call “the Pinocchio effect” – the desire for a game to be transformed into real life, or conversely, for everyday life to be transformed into a “real little game.” Focusing on two examples of pervasive play – the 2001 immersive game known as the Beast, and the Go Game, an ongoing urban superhero game — I argue that gamers maximize their play experience by performing belief, rather than actually believing, in the permeability of the game-reality boundary.

 

Mateas Michael

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EXPRESSIVE AI: GAMES AND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

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Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
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In recent years, as dramatic increases in graphic sophistication began yielding diminishing returns, the technical focus in game design has been turning towards Artificial Intelligence (AI). While game AI might be considered a “purely technical” phenomenon not of interest to game designers and theorists, this paper argues that AI-based art and entertainment constitutes a new interdisciplinary agenda linking games studies, design practice, and technical research. I call this new interdisciplinary agenda expressive AI.

 

Jeffrey E. Brand, Scott Knight, Jakub Majewski

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The Diverse Worlds of Computer Games: A Content Analysis of Spaces, Populations, Styles and Narratives

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Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
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The Diverse Worlds Project analysed 130 computer and video games (CVGs) to understand their textual landscape. Titles were sampled from the five gaming platforms dominant in 2002. Blending the quantitative content analytic tradition and the Bordwellian approach to formal film analysis, characters, settings, narrative and stylistic factors were studied in four units of analysis including box, handbook, opening cinematic sequences, and game-play. “Diverse Worlds” contradicts the popular stereotypes about CVGs presenting exaggerated, violent characters in simplistic, formulaic, worlds lacking in aesthetic nuance and texture. Games are painted using a vast array of visible features and locations. Narrative structure and progression varies depending on genre and goes beyond “shoot the bad guy.” Graphic stylisation tends toward a mid-point between animation and photo-realism with the latter more often used for rendering environments and the former for characters. Limitations of character representation include the use of stereotypes found in traditional mainstream media. An earlier version of this work was presented at the International Ratings Conference in Sydney, Australia, September 2003.

 

Rikke Magnussen, Morten Misfeldt, Tasha Buch

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Participatory design and opposing interests in development of educational computer games

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Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
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In this study we have followed a participatory design process in a class of children aged 11 and 12. The development team, a group of Danish schoolteachers, invited the children to participate in the design of a computer game for mathematics education. The objective of the participatory design process was to have the children create a game close to their own interests, experiences and fantasies, hereby insuring that they would find the game interesting enough to play it in their spare time away from school. Prior to the design workshops, the development team had a discussion with one of their classes, and decided on a game of exploration where the player travels through time and space, and the purpose of the design process described in this paper was to develop this idea further. During this process it became clear that the teachers’ ideas in some sense differed from the children’s. In the teachers’ original concept, the landscape would represent the history of mathematics (e.g. ancient Egypt, Greece, China), whereas the children’s ideas, diverse though they were, evolved around a fantasy setting and tourist experiences. In this project there arose a conflict between a pedagogical goal and an attempt to understand the end-users world through research.

 

Ralph Noble, Kathleen Ruiz, Marc Destefano, Jonathan Mintz

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CONDITIONS OF ENGAGEMENT IN GAME SIMULATION: CONTEXTS OF GENDER, CULTURE AND AGE

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Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666
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We advocate a research approach to determining the conditions of engagement in game simulation that is a multi-disciplinary cultural and scientific inquiry at the juncture of psychological, artistic, and programming perspectives. What are the factors that cause some people to become enthralled with detail-oriented simulation game-play, while others are captivated by more abstracted, symbolic styles of play? How are the conditions of engagement influenced by gender, culture, and age?

 

David Myers

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THE ATTACK OF THE BACKSTORIES (AND WHY THEY WON’T WIN)

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Myers David

Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666

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This essay adopts a formal model of play as semiosis [18] to explore the often dysfunctional role of backstories within computer game design and play. Within this model, backstories indicate an extended play of contextualization. This definition raises questions concerning the appropriateness of backstories as currently implemented within many computer game designs. For instance, backstories are clearly not critical to all computer game play. And, even when limiting analysis solely to role-playing games, the use of backstories as design tools (as opposed to marketing devices or play supplements) remains problematic. Conclusions concern “pre-narrative” aspects of play–particularly when narrative is defined (e. g., within narrative psychology) as a folk theory of causes.

 

Mike Molesworth

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ENCOUNTERS WITH CONSUMPTION DURING COMPUTER-MEDIATED PLAY: THE DEVELOPMENT OF DIGITAL GAMES AS MARKETING COMMUNICATION MEDIA

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Molesworth Mike

Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666

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This paper explores the use of digital games for marketing communications using two theoretical perspectives. Firstly, the external contexts in which video game play takes place and secondly, internal game processes that are likely to be of interest to marketers and game developers. Findings from exploratory focus groups support the use of brand placement in games. Players feel that it can increase realism and help support the costs of game development. However the repetitive nature of games may cause rapid message wear-out and players’ frustrations with aspects of play may lead to negative evaluations of brands. Individuals may also use video games to explore the meaning and benefits of consumption and this raises the question of the degree to which game content supports or opposes existing consumer cultures. An agenda for further research is presented.

 

Sue Morris

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WADS, BOTS AND MODS: MULTIPLAYER FPS GAMES AS CO-CREATIVE MEDIA

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Morris Sue

Volume: 2ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666

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This paper will focus on the inter-relationships between media, technology and culture as demonstrated by the online multiplayer FPS scene, and will make explicit the degree to which game texts and associated technology facilitate culture and the formation of community, and how in turn such social structures inflect and determine the development of computer games, related Internet technologies and subsequent models for software development and distribution. Beyond the idea of “participatory media”, I argue that multiplayer FPS games have become “co-creative media”; neither developers nor players can be solely responsible for production of the final assemblage regarded as “the game”, it requires the input of both.

 

John Kirriemuir, Angela McFarlane

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USE OF COMPUTER AND VIDEO GAMES IN THE CLASSROOM

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Volume: 2 ISBN / ISNN: ISSN 2342-9666

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This paper examines the use of “pure” computer and video games in classrooms. It reports the findings of an ongoing informal survey of how and why such games are used as an integrated part of formal classroom learning. The paper presents a number of examples of the use of such games, and tries to determine likely trends in their use in such an environment. Of significance is an examination of the obstacles that teaching staff encounter in attempting to use such software during lesson times, and how some staff have overcome these obstacles.

 

Tomi Kujanpää & Tony Manninen

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SUPPORTING VISUAL ELEMENTS OF NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION IN COMPUTER GAME AVATARS
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Communication between players in networked computer games is often inadequately implemented. The games do not exploit the full potential of using different forms of communication possibilities between players, and therefore result in problems in sending and receiving messages. This paper introduces a model that describes how visual aspects of non-verbal communication (NVC) in avatars could be systematically designed. The model can be used as a guideline in the design process of more communicative avatars. The study was conducted using a variety of research methods. The topic has been approached from both the constructive and theoretic-conceptual viewpoints. Nonverbal communication theories have been used as the framework to construct avatars for game environments and to form a model that supports the design of NVC elements into avatars. The primary result of the work is a model that describes how to design more communicative avatars. The model introduces the aspects required when considering the designing of the visual elements of NVC. As an empirical result, the avatars based on the model determine how different elements of NVC work, and how NVC could be used in the avatar context. The results can be applied for design and construction purposes, as well as for further research into the diverse areas of avatar design. The model describes three layers that can be used to guide the work of avatar designers and creators in supporting the visual elements of communication in computer game avatars. The model shows that designers and creators should search for the required elements of the NVC, vary these elements to form a rich set of ways to use them, and finally, personalise the avatars by selecting varied elements for separate avatars to support natural communication.
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