Search

Procedural Content Generation for video games (PCG) is widely used by today's video game industry to create huge open worlds or enhance replayability. However, there is little scientific evidence that these systems produce high-quality content. In this document, we evaluate three open-source automated level generators for Super Mario Bros in addition to the original levels used for training. These are based on Genetic Algorithms, Generative Adversarial Networks, and Markov Chains. The evaluation was performed through an Expressive Range Analysis (ERA) on 200 levels with nine metrics. The results show how analyzing the algorithms' expressive range can help us evaluate the generators as a preliminary measure to study whether they respond to users' needs. This method allows us to recognize potential problems early in the content generation process, in addition to taking action to guarantee quality content when a generator is used. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The video game industry is expanding rapidly and has great room to grow. There are several steps involved in the creation of a game. The focus of this paper is on various approaches, techniques, and strategies that can be applied at various game development stages. This will result in the rapid, low-risk development of high-quality, personalized products. This strategy will boost player satisfaction in addition to increasing the number of video gamers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseño y Comunicación is the property of Cuadernos del Centro de Estudios de Diseno y Comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

As video game production is becoming increasingly data-driven, player surveillance shapes the everyday realities of users and developers. Remote online tracking and the resulting optimization and governance of in-game activity subscribe to the Big Data methodology as a way of accounting for entire player populations. By design, player surveillance serves the interests of developers and publishers, who have exclusive access to this proprietary data. Yet, discursively, these parties attempt to present surveillance as a mutually beneficial endeavor aimed at improving video games. A part of this strategy is the video game industry's selective information disclosure, which I explore empirically on the example of telemetry infographics. Based on a thematic analysis of 200 infographics from 127 games, I show how publicly disseminated infographics contribute to the normalization of player surveillance by presenting it as a source of harmless trivia to be collected and shared by fans and the specialized press. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper aims to explore the negative impacts of social relationships (SR) on business activity. As a research context, the video game industry (VGI) and the video game developers' (VGDs) relationships are analyzed. 17 semistructured in-depth interviews and 1 focus group interview with Polish VGDs were conducted. (1) support for five negatives of SR previously discussed in the literature (2) recognition of the four original negatives (i.e., employee turnover, buying up employees, inefficiency/termination of interorganizational cooperation, and confidential information leakage); and (3) recognition of the harmful results of SR as an industry-dependent issue. (1) Analyzing the negative consequences of SR for business, which is less frequently considered compared to the positive consequences of these relationships for business; (2) identifying dark sides previously unidentified in the literature; and (3) using the VGI as the research context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Considering customers' preferences for low‐carbon products, the paper delves into the short‐run and long‐run repetitive game involving three oligopolistic manufacturers engaged in the production of new energy vehicles (hybrid electric vehicles [HEV] and battery electric vehicles [BEV]) and conventional fuel vehicles (FV) within the framework of a carbon cap‐and‐trade policy (CaT). In the short‐run game model, this study explores the optimal decision of oligarchic manufacturers and analyzes the efficiency of the supply chain in the context of cooperation and non‐cooperation. In the long‐run repetitive scenario, the article examines the optimal decision of the manufacturer, assuming rational economic behavior aimed at maximizing individual profits within a non‐cooperation game strategy. Finally, the paper investigates the elements that influence the efficiency of the supply chain. The results reveal that (1) fuel vehicles possess greater flexibility in adjusting parameters compared to the other vehicle types; a judicious increase in manufacturers' price adjustment parameters in the stability domain is beneficial to their respective profits and enhances the overall supply chain profitability. (2) Maintaining customers' preference for low‐carbon products within a reasonable range is crucial for the mutual benefit of all manufacturers. (3) The government needs to allocate more carbon emission limits to fuel vehicle manufacturers in order to improve supply chain efficiency. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The video game industry has emerged as one of the most profitable and rapidly expanding segments of the entertainment industry. Gamers interact with the virtual game world via an avatar, which offers an exceptional opportunity for players to express themselves in terms of sexual orientation and gender identity (or SOGI) through avatar customization. The main goal of this study was to investigate the relationship between gamers' SOGI-related motivation and their customization of avatar elements. An online survey was distributed to collect data from Thai social gaming communities, specifically those who play "Grand Theft Auto V," "Black Desert Online," and "The SIMS4." The sample consisted of 420 anonymous volunteer participants. Our chi-square analysis confirmed that gamers had SOGI-related motivations and demonstrated their desires via avatar customization. The findings also revealed that video gamers tend to customize their avatars to express their sexual orientation rather than their gender identity, particularly by reflecting the person for whom they have sexual desire. We specifically recommend that tertiary components of avatar appearance be prioritized in developing the customized options of video games to support the expression of SOGI-related motivation in virtual worlds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper analyses the digitalisation of the global value chain (GVC) in the apparel and video game industries and its effects on firm behaviour and performance. It elaborates on several modes of digitalisation, namely, thin digitalisation, platform digitalisation and full-range digitalisation. Digitalisation contributes to the expansion of the volume of sales and profits while reducing labour costs. However, its impacts on profitability remain uncertain, with the benefits and costs offsetting each other. GVC digitalisation benefits startups by lowering entry costs and facilitating upgrading, whereas it may be detrimental to incumbent companies since it can enable platform providers to transform into competitors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Precarious careers in the games industry have long relied on the unpaid and largely feminized support of spouses and family members. This paper addresses the role of spouses and other domestic cohabitants in the production of live game broadcasts on Twitch, Amazon's world-leading platform in live video entertainment. I introduce the heuristic of the 'Twitch Spouse' to underscore the crucial role that domestic partners have played as invisible workers in the wider games industry, whose precarious conditions have been extended by the rise of at-home livestreaming. Drawing from 'playful' interviews and ethnographic observation with 12 Twitch creators located across the United States and Canada, I delineate three themes by which the partners of Twitch streamers vitally contribute to livestreaming: collaborative space production, the management of intimacy, and timekeeping. Herein, I show how a theorization of the 'Twitch Spouse' will build future pathways for recognizing the intertwined struggles of domestic and digital work within the precarious horizons of the game industry. This paper argues that Twitch streamers' conceptualizations of intimate partners' supportive labour reinforce domesticity and visibility as co-extended forces in the evolving relevance of digital labour to contemporary capitalism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Adab Al-Kufa is the property of Republic of Iraq Ministry of Higher Education & Scientific Research (MOHESR) and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Continuous changes in today's market have exposed supply chain (SC) management to severe challenges. Such changes in the market are divided into two general categories: (1) Time-dependent changes such as political, economic, and cultural changes occurring over time and require decision-makers to consider the dynamics of decisions; and (2) Sudden changes and events such as diseases and natural disasters disrupting SCs. This paper investigates the impact of both changes on the decisions of a green supply chain. Moreover, these challenges may affect the organizations' activities in the market and arouse a conflict in the members' goals, leading to competition among members. This paper studies a game model for a dynamic–stochastic supply channel SC with one manufacturer and one retailer, where two types of products (green and non-green) are sold. In this study, two models are dynamically considered: The first model without demand disruptions and the second model with demand disruptions. Finally, the results are compared. On the other hand, due to environmental goals and to survive manufacturers under disruption, the government supports manufacturers in producing green products. Implementing this cooperation, the manufacturer also invests more in improving the greening level of green products, thereby enhancing its demand. Regarding numerous disruptions common in the automotive industry, this case study is conducted on the automotive supply chain to evaluate the models, and the results are presented in the form of numerical examples. Finally, to extract managerial insights, sensitivity analysis is performed on the main parameters of the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We consider an energy system with n consumers who are linked by a Demand Side Management (DSM) contract, i.e. they agreed to diminish, at random times, their aggregated power consumption by a predefined volume during a predefined duration. Their failure to deliver the service is penalised via the difference between the sum of the n power consumptions and the contracted target. We are led to analyse a non-zero sum stochastic game with n players, where the interaction takes place through a cost which involves a delay induced by the duration included in the DSM contract. When n → ∞ , we obtain a Mean-Field Game (MFG) with random jump time penalty and interaction on the control. We prove a stochastic maximum principle in this context, which allows to compare the MFG solution to the optimal strategy of a central planner. In a linear quadratic setting we obtain a semi-explicit solution through a system of decoupled forward-backward stochastic differential equations with jumps, involving a Riccati Backward SDE with jumps. We show that it provides an approximate Nash equilibrium for the original n-player game for n large. Finally, we propose a numerical algorithm to compute the MFG equilibrium and present several numerical experiments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Sexism in video games is widespread, but most studies focus on sexism in representation and/or in play. Few studies examine sexism as a practice of production. The 2021 lawsuit by California's Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) against Activision Blizzard for pervasive sexual harassment and abuse highlighted several misogynist practices at one of the largest video game companies in the world. This study uses a directed qualitative analysis of the DFEH lawsuit to understand the practice of misogyny and sexism in the video game industry, using Activision Blizzard as an exemplar. Informed by Pierre Bourdieu's theories about cultural fields of production, it argues that sexism is a core value, a habitus, of the industry, and suggests areas for further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Copyright of Index.Comunicación is the property of Index.comunicacion and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)

Entrepreneurs can benefit from the communities they build. Therefore, many entrepreneurs create online communities that allow self-selected stakeholders, such as customers, crowd investors, or enthusiasts, to interact with the venture and other like-minded individuals. However, research on how entrepreneurs can successfully engage community members and grow such online communities is only slowly emerging. In particular, it is unclear if, how much, and which content entrepreneurs should contribute to foster engagement in different types of communities and which role these community types play in the community's overall growth. Based on a longitudinal case study in the video game industry, we first theorize and show that—depending on the community type—both too much and too little entrepreneur-provided content fails to leverage community engagement potential and that different communities require more or less diverging content. We then theorize and show that community growth is largely driven by engagement in open communities, such as those hosted on social media. We outline the implications this has for entrepreneurs, our understanding of online communities, and entrepreneurial communities more generally. Plain English Summary: How can entrepreneurs engage and grow different types of online communities? Managing online communities is crucial for many entrepreneurs. However, different community types, open and core, play different roles and require different content and growth strategies. Core communities, such as those hosted on online forums, respond well to less but more diverse content, whereas open communities on social media drive overall community growth with more but less diverse content. Entrepreneurs need to find the right balance and pay attention to the tipping point of content provision, as too much content might endanger community member engagement. By understanding the dynamics of online communities, entrepreneurs can effectively nurture engagement and optimize their efforts for long-term success. Investing resources wisely in content production, considering the costs involved, can be beneficial for new ventures seeking sustainable community growth. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As drivers of economic growth, entrepreneurial ecosystems are an important focus of research. We propose a new theoretical perspective, in which the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems can be tied the provision of pre-entry capabilities and complementary assets that are generic to participants within a regional entrepreneurial ecosystem but difficult to access to firms outside it. We apply this framework through a study of the formation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem focused on online games in South Korea. Through comparative research, we show that access to pre-entry capabilities was widely available across the online gaming industry, but that Korea was unique during the late 1990s in creating infrastructure policies to provide widespread access to broadband internet, which became an important complementary asset for Korean firms. A focus on mechanisms by which value drivers become available to entrepreneurs within a region is a promising approach to explain the formation of entrepreneurial ecosystems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The Croatian video game industry demonstrated substantial growth amid the challenges posed by the COVID-19 pandemic. A descriptive statistics approach was utilized, encompassing all enterprises in the Croatian video game industry. Statistical tests for proportions significance were then applied to assess player satisfaction on the Steam platform with video games developed and/or published by the Croatian video game industry. The analysis indicated a concentration of the industry in Zagreb, accounting for 50% of enterprises and 77.4% of employees in 2022. Over the period from 2018 to 2022, total net profit surged from 4.95 million to €12.37 million. However, the average net profit per enterprise experienced a modest increase from €0.12 million to €0.15 million during the same period. Notably, 21% of enterprises maintained the highest AAA rating. County-level comparisons revealed insights into net profit, total revenue, and expenses. On Steam platform, players recommended remarkable 89% of video games developed or published by the Croatian industry.