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In this interview, Professor Per Backlund shares his experience working for more than 20 years as a researcher and teacher in videogames. He outlines his initial interest in games, in the early 2000s, while completing a Ph.D. at Stockholm University and teaching part-time at the University of Skövde in Sweden. He shares how he moved from more general research in computer science and IT to a more specific focus on games, particularly on serious games and game-based learning issues. He also discusses his role as a teacher and Program Director in the very large games education (600+ students) at the University of Skövde, sharing the challenges of supporting interdisciplinary research. As founder and chair of the new Council for Swedish Games Researchers, he also describes the aims of the organization: to bring greater understanding to the specific needs of creating a sustainable Swedish ecosystem for game development. He explains the primary objectives of the Sweden Game Arena consortium, meant to promote Swedish game development in Skövde and beyond, and its newest initiative, via the recently-funded Level Up Swedish Game Industry (or Level Up) project, where he serves as university coordinator in the project management team. Finally, he speculates about the future needs for games and game research in rapidly developing and shifting technological and socio-cultural contexts for game-making and game research., gamevironments, No. 18 (2023)

Developments in the field of technology, especially education, are very influential in life. Educators as one of the main factors in supporting the quality of education must be able to utilize the types of media in an effort to carry out learning innovation strategies. The type of media that can support learning activities is the androidbased quiz game media using quizizz. This quiz game research is a development research. The android-based quiz game using quizziz has the purpose of knowing the design of android-based quiz game development using quizizz, the application of android-based quiz game products using quizizz, and the effectiveness of androidbased quiz games using thematic subjects. This research procedure uses a 4D model, namely define, design, development, and dissemination. SDN Catakgayam 1 Mojowarno was the location chosen to carry out research on a large scale, with 15 students enrolled in the 2020/2021 academic year. The techniques used in this study include media expert validation, material expert validation, RPP expert validation, student response expert validation, and documentation. Analysis of the data used is descriptive analysis. The results of the research on the application of quiz games obtained a total score of 87% which was validated by media experts, material experts and RPP experts. The validation contains media expert validation with a value of 92% which is very good, material expert validation 84% which is very good, RPP expert validation gets a score of 86% which is very good. Meanwhile, the effectiveness of the android-based quiz game obtained a total score of 82% which included student understanding with a value of 81.6% which was very good and student interest obtained a score of 82.5% which was very good. So it can be concluded, that an android-based quiz game using quizizz is stated to be very effective in supporting the learning activities of fourth grade students at SDN Catakgayam 1 Mojowarno.

In its long history, chess has seen various changes. The most recent change being the digitisation of chess, which has transformed the beloved tabletop game to a digital one. Today, chess is played by millions and most commonly it is played over the board or digitally. Despite this, whether the player experience of digital chess differs from the one in over the board chess has not been studied. Thus, the objective of this thesis is to determine whether the player experience of over the board chess is different from that of digital chess and if so, what are the differences in the player experience. An online survey was conducted to collect data, and the data was in turn analysed with the method of thematic analysis. The findings show that most chess players think the player experience of the two chesses is different. A small section of the respondents feel that the experience is identical. Furthermore, those who find a difference report a variety of differences which can be categorised into five themes. In general, the respondents prefer the experience of over the board chess more than the digital version as they see it more social and competitive. Digital chess, for most, is lacking in the social aspects and has thus the worse experience. However, digital chess is often seen as the optimal version for faster games of chess.

Building upon an existing theory, the New Theory about Leadership in MMORPGs (Prax, 2008), this study underlines the most common roles of leadership in raiding guilds in World of Warcraft (WoW). The results help to give an overall idea of what roles a leader within the popular MMORPG is expected to fulfil, directly or indirectly. The results help blur the line between game and real-life leadership by showing that they can be easily applied to corporate or business leaders as well, giving the opportunity for further research into how MMORPG leadership skills can be implemented in the real world and how these games can serve as training grounds for future leaders. The main assumption of this study was that there would be additional leadership roles that could be added to the theory based on previous research and over 10 years of development within the game. For this purpose, eight long form interviews with guild leaders were interpreted using thematic analysis and used to update the existing theory and formulate the results. The pool consisted of both professional and casual guilds and thus provided an overall view of the situation. The results revealed additional information related to how leaders approach leading their guild and how much importance they place on trust. Results point to trust being a big part of decisionmaking for guild leaders, as well as forming both in-game and real-life relationships with the members they lead. Moreover, a profile of the successful WoW leader was formed, using previous research and my own findings, all pointing to WoW being a useful tool in teaching and testing leadership skills.

Games are ubiquitously blended into various aspects in society applied them as tools beyond leisure time, such as education with game-based learning, employee training with gamified learning, and strategic marketing with gamification. As games can be perceived as media to convey messages from designers (senders) to players (receivers) through gameplay, this thesis aims to examine messages that could be conveyed by the game, specifically in the rule book of board games where players must read to understand how the game is played. Due to the potential in conveying messages through games for purposes, this thesis focuses on neoliberalism in The Game of Life board game rule book versions 1999 and 2021, aiming to locate neoliberal characteristics and its ideologies. This thesis also aims to locate the differences in characteristics and ideologies between the two rule books to examine how neoliberalism has changed in 22 years. The Game of Life rule books are the selected data to examine since the game potentially contains neoliberal ideas of American lives in contemporary society. The game presents a life path as game mechanics in which players play from being students towards retirement, passing through many life aspects - career, family, and financial matters. The research is conducted by two methods: deductive thematic analysis and discourse analysis. The deductive thematic analysis is the approach to locate neoliberal characteristics in both rule books with respect to definitions of neoliberalism. Themes are pre-created to analyze written texts in rule books with the results of 30 and 34 passages (chunks of sentences) in versions 1999 and 2021, respectively. Discourse analysis, additionally, is applied to passages to locate neoliberal ideologies. Four main activities - education, family, retirement, and financial matters - are selected to locate ideologies in rule books. The results reveal five neoliberal characteristics and two neoliberal ideologies located in The Game of Life rule books. The rule book version 1999 contains four different characteristics: Humans as economic beings, Money-related, A decrease in public expenditure and an increase in privatization, and Inequality in society, whereas the rule book version 2021 consists of five different characteristics - four themes with the same as version 1999 and Individual freedom. Due to neoliberal ideologies, two ideologies are found for both versions: The freedom to choose and Meritocracy. The primary key between both rule books that make neoliberalism differently located is player’s freedom. Players are compellingly forced to follow the instructed pathway of life regardless of wealth in version 1999. As a result, individual freedom - a neoliberal characteristic - is not located in the game leading to an increase in a number of passages containing characteristics of Money, Privatization, and Inequality. Furthermore, two neoliberal ideologies are not found during the gameplay but in the final state, where players can decide whether to live in the city or the countryside with individual merits from their assets. In contrast, players independently decide gameplay pathway in which restrictions and compulsion are dramatically reduced from the game mechanics in version 2021. Therefore, a new characteristic - Individual freedom - is embedded in the rule book with the reduction number of passages containing characteristics of Privatization and Inequality. Additionally, The freedom to choose and Meritocracy are located during the whole game in which players can independently decide paths and earn rewards that are worth their efforts.

This paper analyses the concept of So-Bad-It’s-Good, the phenomenon of enjoying works precisely because they do not fit into our normative standards of good art, usually for the purposes of being laughed at. Drawing on work from film studies, we outline a cohesive definition of this phenomenon that can be applied across mediums, as well as categorise the most common ways in which it is communicated throughout the texts, highlighting the relationship between the forms and the cultural horizons of the reader. In particular, this thesis applies this definition to digital games, a medium currently lacking in research on this topic. To do so, we have conducted a close-reading of the game Deadly Premonition, a much-noted representative of this concept, attempting to isolate how So-Bad-It’s-Good is expressed through play, rather than through narrative or visuals, and document how the player responds to the text. In doing this, we discovered insight into the differences between digital games and other mediums: the long run time requiring pacing and varied levels of quality to be pleasurable, and the interactive nature necessitating more focus on this badness being benign. Along with this, the ways in which the forms specific to play can be enjoyed for being bad. So-Bad-It’s-Good highlights the importance of how the cultural horizons and expectations we have when entering into a work affect our reception of transgressive qualities, and this paper represents the first step towards exploring that through play.

The background of this research is the importance of forming good character in early childhood with the stimulation given to traditional mushroom play activities. The method used in this study is a qualitative research method. The purpose of this study is to describe how the traditional game of mold can shape the character of early childhood. Based on the results of traditional game research, molds can form characters in early childhood, including honest characters formed by the habit of children not lying when guessed by their friends, disciplined characters are formed by habituating children to follow the rules in the game, respecting friends formed by habituating children do not choose -choose friends to be there next to him and listen to the instructions of friends in front, a confident character is formed by habituation of children giving instructions in the middle of their own, creatively formed by habituation of children mentioning names of objects or animals to imitate other friends, self-confidence and brave characters formed by habituation children advance in front of the crowd alone.

This paper examines the prominence of East and Southeast Asia as a focus of communications and game studies. The idea of going regional when researching video games comes from the fact that each locale has its trait to construct its gaming industry and gaming environment from which the gaming experience is also reflected differently. The reasons provided, ranging from the regional market's dynamic nature to the attention that the governing states have paid to the gaming industry, help place Asia–Pacific in general and East and Southeast Asia particularly in the global gaming juxtaposition where the other part is usually the Western countries. Examples that help highlight the rising prominence of the regions as the most potential areas are also considered. This review's findings indicate that East and Southeast Asia have gradually built up their reputation by actively joining the designing, processing, and distributing digital products system. Thus, the focus of future research on the regions should be more concerned with video gaming.

Sammendrag I denne artikkelen analyserer og diskuterer jeg skeiv representasjon i dataspill ved å undersøke tre områder: spillforskning, spillindustri og spillinnhold. Artikkelen gir et historisk perspektiv på viktige utviklinger på områder hvor skeivhet ikke har vært et spesielt viktig tema før siste tiår. Artikkelen drøfter hva som kjennetegner skeiv representasjon i eldre og nyere spill og dataspills mediespesifikke muligheter og utfordringer. I eldre spill problematiserer jeg «nøytrale» og vage framstillinger, med fokus på hvordan skeivhet framstilles som avvikende. I nyere spill identifiserer jeg fire representasjonsstrategier, valgfritt innhold, romanser, begrepsløs skeivhet og skeive spillfortellinger, viser hvordan spill kan ha radikalt skeivt potensial og argumenterer for at et problematisk hensyn til et streit publikum kan styre og undergrave mye skeiv spillrepresentasjon. Artikkelen bidrar med et samlet blikk på viktige utviklinger og problemstillinger i spillforskning, spillindustri og spillinnhold og belyser nåværende problemer og kunnskapshull.

Game studies refers to a multidisciplinary field of scholarly studies of games and play which is establishing as an independent academic discipline in Finland. Helsinki Game Research Collective (HeGRiC) is an emerging network for game studies, based at the University of Helsinki. Its purpose is to increase the visibility of game studies and to facilitate collaboration and expertise accumulation within the University. This essay discusses the origin and goals of HeGRiC as a network to support game studies, discusses the development of game research at the University of Helsinki, and finally, outlines the network’s declarations of intent.

Free-to-play match-3 mobile games have become increasingly popular among mobile game players across the world. Popular games such as Candy Crush Saga and Gardenscapes have millions of users worldwide spending their time and money on these games. However, why do players like these games so much? It appears that research regarding match-3 games is quite scarce. While there are studies that have investigated which elements make games in general successful, there appears to be no research that investigates which elements make free-to-play match-3 mobile games likable. Therefore, this thesis attempts to fill that gap in research and investigates which elements players like and dislike in free-to-play match-3 mobile games by analyzing publicly available game reviews of six different match-3 games in Google Play. The game reviews are analyzed by utilizing the method of thematic analysis. The conceptual framework of this thesis builds on the concepts of game design, games-as-a-service, casual games, and player experience. The analysis is further supported by a literature review regarding match-3 games. The analysis reveals that there are seven major themes that contain elements players like and dislike: game design, monetization, community management, technical functionality, enjoyment and frustration, aesthetics and storytelling, and social elements. The results reveal that the five elements that players like are: good design features, the opportunities of free-to-play, enjoyment, social elements, and pleasant aesthetics and storytelling. On the other hand, players appear to dislike the following six elements: bad design elements, tight monetization, poor community management, technical issues, frustration, and poorly executed aesthetics and storytelling. The discussion elaborates on the possible practical implications of the results.

The requirements for diverse media projects increase every day, following technological progress. One of the main points is the adaptation of video games for various target cultures. A video game is a highly constructed cultural artefact containing audiovisual components, specific mechanics, narrative elements, and several other important features. Correspondingly, these projects are exposed to adaptation for further distribution and use in the target market. Consequently, exploring such a multi-faceted operation as localisation has a significant impact on general comprehen sion of its structure and applicability. Moreover, the investigation emphasises the value of the proper transfer of diverse forms of culture-related realities. This thesis investigates a video game as a product of adaptation, therefore diving into the technological procedure of localisation. In order to discover and unfold the stages and peculiari ties of applying localisation, this study provides different assumptions, ideas and templates on how people can understand the process of localisation and what phases it can imply. Moreover, it is essential to perform the complexity and contestability of changing the game elements. Metro Exodus was examined with a qualitative investigation, which was utilised from the perspective of formal analysis. The analysis reveals the superiority of textual alterations compared to other types of modifica tions. Consequently, the main difficulties associated with the transfer of cultural-specific aspects from the original (Russian) to target (English) version of the game were identified as well as suit able approaches to their solution based on the derived cases, which illustrated both interesting and debatable translation solutions. The selected game is significant for this study because it possesses a simultaneous process of development and adaptation procedures. In addition, the absence of a distinct localisation unit, which commonly aims at adapting a project according to the requirements of a particular target market was identified as a critical and unique feature of Metro Exodus. The investigation of such localisation alternative caused enhanced attention to wards characters’ cues and other game-related texts.

Wargames are games that present conflicts, usually historical and military, using game tokens that represent specific participants in the conflict, interacting on a map or other representation of the conflict in ways described by a set of rules that provides deterministic or randomized outcomes for each interaction. They have been important for military strategy since the nineteenth century, and the study of wargames has focused on their military applications. The civilian hobby version of wargaming that developed in America in the 1950s has received less attention. My literature review showed that little is known about the relationships of wargame players and how they network with each other. I also found that studies of player networks in online multiplayer games have applications for understanding user behaviors and how players value and curate their relationships. Applying a similar approach to player networks in analog games offers the chance to gain new insights from a very different set of relationships. I decided to interview individuals who participated in the wargaming hobby between the mid-1950s and the late 1970s. My aim was to document their experiences and their interactions with other wargamers to understand how they established, maintained, and valued relationships with other players. I conducted 18 semi-structured interviews during 2020, then applied thematic analysis to find common elements in their play histories and relationships. The research showed that the informants’ experiences fell into two different groups that reflected cultural changes in America from the 1950s to the 1970s. The informants’ stable player networks were small collections of relationships that the informants valued heterogeneously, and their closest relationships extended beyond gameplay to involve emotional compatibility as much or more as utilitarian benefits. The results suggest that the intimate nature of face-to-face board game play may have an impact on how wargamers manage their relationships, and that design decisions like the number of players supported may greatly affect the game’s player networks and thus its commercial prospects.

How do we know what we know? How do we react to what we know of what has happened to us? How do we choose to decide to act based on those reactions? Where would we end up after all that process? Many studies have been conducted on the subject of human behavior and as we have seen, it is a multidimensional concept. Every decision we make has deeper roots and causes than meets the eye. When those causes are proven, they are considered to be understood and justified. However, those remaining to be proven are still feared or considered to be random. We also know that analyzing and considering the reasons and root causes behind our actions could improve our personal lives as well as our lives in society. Boundaries, rules and policy makings would all improve as the knowledge and understanding grow. This thesis analyzes some of the elements influencing voluntary contribution and punishment using laboratory experiment sessions, a questionnaire and data from real life board gaming sessions. The results show that the participants make decisions based on various reasons that were caused by their past experiences in the games, their current situation and the future goals and ideals they have. Whether in a person's own decision making process or judgments over actions taken by others, contribution was mostly considered as good. It was rewarded and low contribution was punished. Punishments were mostly considered as good when they were justified in a participant’s mind as serving justice and were considered as cruel when they were not considered fair. Many elements in the experiments’ and causal board gaming sessions caused emotional reactions that resulted in various decisions being made. Generally, knowledge and experience in the situations a person ended up in helped them navigate through emotions and make more satisfying decisions.

Mobile and video games are offered increasingly often as a free-to-play or freemium service. A gacha game is a Japanese term used for a subset of such games that implement a variety of random draw mechanics. These include a wide variety of random draw systems embedded into the gameplay. Most of them require or allow the spending of a real-world currency along with virtual in-game currencies accumulated via actual gameplay. This study looks at some of the mechanisms and features present in these systems by examining several popular or noteworthy gacha games and related literature. Specific attention is given to the implementation of random draw. Gacha systems are usually found in games made in Japan and the rest of Asia but similar systems from elsewhere in the world are also looked at briefly. This study also aims to create a customizable simulator that simulates the random draws of a gacha reward system and outputs data about the process. A number of presets are included to simulate some existing gacha systems as accurately as possible while customization options allow for fine-tuning and experimentation. The customizable simulator expands on the idea of popular community-made summon simulators by providing more insight into the inner workings of gacha and loot box mechanics. The customizable simulator can be used by players to help plan their purchases and by developers to plan, create or evaluate their own monetization systems. It can also be used for research by anyone interested in random draw monetization systems or random draw in general.

The present report summarizes a study of the biology and management of the greater prairie chicken in Illinois, a study begun in 1935 by members of the Section of Game Research and Management of the Illinois Natural History Survey. The summers of 1935 and 1936 were spent in full-time field work in southeastern Illinois. Since that time, supplemental studies of prairie chicken habits, requirements and distribution have been continued in various parts of the state. Annuallysince 1935, spring and fall censuses have been made on 4 square miles of prairie chicken range in Jasper County used as a study area. The present report includes data on earlv distribution, present range, life history, populations, mortality causes, food habits and management of the prairie chicken in Illinois.

Politicians, interest groups, and scholars often mention violent video games as a possible cause of societal violence. Press releases have the possibility to inform the public about how aggression ...

Video gaming is now available as a fully immersive experience that creates responsive inputs and outputs concerning the user, and some experimental developers have integrated the use of the voice, brain, or muscles as input controls. The use of physiological signal equipment can provide valuable information regarding the emotion of a player or patient during gameplay. In this article, we discuss five of the most common biosignals that are used in gaming research, and their function and devices that may be used for measurement. We break down those individual signals and present examples of research studies that implement them. We also discuss the usage of biological signals within commercial gaming and conclude with some possible future directions for the use of biological signals in gaming and game research. This research has been partially supported by the project Musical AI - PID2019-111403GB-I00/AEI/10.13039/501100011033 funded by the Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovación y Universidades (MCIU) and the Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI).

This chapter explains the process of collecting data for an ethnographic case study in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Game (MMOG) called Stronghold Kingdoms, describing the methodological aspects of the study such as the research site, participants, data collection sources, and analysis. Further, the chapter explains the challenges encountered while conducting the study, including entering and becoming a member of the game community, data collection and analysis in an ever-changing world, being a participant-observer and the risk of going native, and participant attrition. Finally, the chapter provides some solutions and recommendations for researchers interested in conducting studies in MMOG settings.

Location-based games have become mainstream and have been increasingly emphasized in the academic community. However, so far, to our knowledge, no bibliometric analysis of location-based games research literature has been undertaken. We carry out an analysis of 606 publications using bibliometric analysis and text mining. The results reveal prominent researchers, institutions, and countries, as well as the most common research topics and their prevalence over time. The results are useful both to understand the current state of location-based research and for designing future research. acceptedVersion

The main objective of this study was to explore how one can create an emotional VR game narrative. This was done by creating a VR game prototype that aims to evoke the emotional experiences of loneliness and social exclusion. The game Prototype was designed iteratively according to the Play Centric Design Process described by Tracy Fullerton (2014). The chosen research method for this study was the Experimental Game Design research. This method was chosen because it suited the iterative and experimental nature of the research. During the research, the VR Game Design Process was carefully documented in research diary and the game prototype was iteratively created and playtested during six iteration cycles and final four playtests. The first version of the game narrative was designed based on four theoretical categories. It was assumed that emotional game narrative is evoked by certain narrative elements, experience of presence and empathetic relationship with the game character. The first version of the game narrative was also based on authentic experiences that inspired the story of the game. The first game narrative was playtested and iterated with the help of Experience Prototyping method. Four different experience prototyping sessions were held. Based on these playtests, the game narrative was iterated and improved. After the Experience prototyping sessions, the actual VR prototype was made. The VR prototype was first playtested by three participants and improved after each playtest. Finally, the prototype was playtested by four final participants. After the final four playtests it was evaluated if the final prototype was successful in evoking emotional experiences. Based on the observations, think aloud protocol, research diary and interviews, the game design process and final playtests were analysed and reported. The results of this research suggest that the game design process was successful in producing a VR game porotype that evoked emotions. The final VR game prototype was able to evoke emotional empathy in three of the final four participants and cognitive empathy in one of them. The results suggest that the game prototype was able to evoke emotions because it was able to evoke empathy towards the player character. Empathetic emotions were evoked by narrative elements such as environmental storytelling, immersive experience of presence and because the game narrative had felt authentic to the players.

In the present research, based on the game research paradigm, the research tools are the dictator game and the trust game, and the research objects are Chinese university students. We adopt 2(self-social class: high, low) × 2(target social class: high, low) between-subjects design experiment to investigate the influence of social class on university students’ prosocial behavior. Across the experimental study, we find that (1) in the two situations of dictator game and trust game, self-social class has no significant influence on university students’ prosocial behavior; (2) in the situation of dictator game, target social class has a significant influence on university students’ prosocial behavior, and it is regulated by self-social class. Under the condition of low self-social class, the higher the target social class, the more prosocial behavior of university students, which confirms the perspective of status and negates “if you are poor, you will be good for yourself.” Under the condition of high self-social class, the lower the target social class, the more prosocial the behavior of university students, which confirms the perspective of fairness and echoes “if you are good, you will be good at the world”; (3) in the context of the trust game, target social class has a significant influence on university students’ prosocial behavior, and there is no interaction effect with self-social class.

With the improvement of the perfect information game research, people gradually turn their research focus to the study of imperfect information game. Mahjong AI is a relatively complex typical representative of imperfect information game, whether from the average size of information set or the number of information sets. Therefore, with mahjong as the starting point, we can better study the game of imperfect information in complex situations. Under this background, this paper first introduces the rules of Mahjong, next analyzes the challenges faced by Mahjong AI due to its complex game rules, then summarizes the current research status of Mahjong AI from the perspective of the opponent and its own, and analyzes the advantages and disadvantages of each method. Finally, the future development direction of Mahjong AI is proposed.