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The pleasures of computer gaming: essays on …, 2008

7 Wargaming and Computer Games: Fun with the Future Patrick Crogan This chapter will consider the history of wargaming in light of a broad audiovisual cultural trajectory that computer games evince and advance today. This trajectory is that of the inscription of cultural themes, ...

Games and Culture, 2017

Military shooters have explored both historical and modern settings and remain one of the most popular game genres. While the violence of these games has been explored in multiple studies, the study of how war and the rules of war are represented is underexplored. The Red Cross has argued that as virtual war games are becoming closer to reality, the rules of war should be included. This article explores the argument put forward by the Red Cross and its reception by games media organizations, in order to consider how the concept of “just war” is represented within games. This article will focus on concerns over games adherence to the criteria of jus in bello (the right conduct in war) and will also consider the challenges that developers face in the creation of entertainment products in the face of publisher and press concerns.

War videogames raise a lot of controversy in the educational field and are by far the most played videogames worldwide. This study explores the factors that encouraged gamers to choose war videogames with a sample of 387 Call of Duty players. The motivational factors were pinpointed using a non-experimental descriptive exploratory study through an online Likert-type survey that was valid and reliable (Cronbach’s α = 0.897, Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin coefficient, KMO: 0.903). A factor analysis with varimax rotation was applied, which yielded 7 dimensions: graphics/playability; social interaction; learning; challenge/overcoming; fantasy; fun; and competition. Considering the score obtained for each dimension, it can be concluded that the most influential motivational factors were game graphics/playability game and the social interaction allowed by its multiplayer online status, both of them being factors determined by game design elements. These aspects should be considered in the design of educational activities so as to make them impactful and motivational.

Educational Technology Research and Development, 2005

This article describes the Quest Atlantis (QA) project, a learning and teaching project that employs a multiuser, virtual environment to immerse children, ages 9-12, in educational tasks. QA combines strategies used in commercial gaming environments with lessons from educational research on learning and motivation. It allows users at participating elementary schools and after-school centers to travel through virtual spaces to perform educational activities, talk with other users and mentors, and build virtual personae. Our work has involved an agenda and process that may be called socially-responsive design, which involves building sociotechnical structures that engage with and potentially transform individuals and their contexts of participation. This work sits at the intersection of education, entertainment, and social commitment and suggests an expansive focus for instructional designers. The focus is on engaging classroom culture and relevant aspects of student life to inspire participation consistent with social commitments and educational goals interpreted locally.

2019

This article argues that—due to their lack of conformity to key characteristics of dominant videogame paradigms, particularly the violent competitiveness of “agonistic” play—the walking simulator is at the heart of a struggle over changing definitions and material realities of videogame consumption and production, linked to the emergence of disruptive female and queer player and creator identities (Anthropy, 2012; Chess, 2017; Juul, 2012; Shaw, 2015). The genre thus provides a valuable alternative space within what has been referred to as the “hegemonic” limits of the game industry, which privileges—through various historically embedded mechanisms—a white, male, cis-gendered, and heteronormative audience (Fron,Fullerton, Morie, & Pearce, 2007). Such progressive gains have been hotly contested by so-called hardcore gamers (Dymek, 2012; Gursoy, 2013; Kagen, 2017), who view them as a threat to the prevailing orthodoxy of game production that has historically served their interests. Fur...

Handbook of Research on Serious Games as Educational, Business and Research Tools, 2010

INTRODUCTION TO SERIOUS GAMES Serious games combine entertainment and the duty to inform players and educate through the game itself. This kind of games goes beyond the main idea of entertainment, and tries to input a need or a social message. Serious game have been growing and developing by the need to create interactive and attractive scenarios, with low cost, using technologies from the entertainment industry. In this industry it is possible to find virtual reality being applied to serious games and creating new layers of learning. This association brings a huge potential to students, expanding their imagination and gather

This paper outlines the relationship between Military themed or oriented video and computer games and the process of militarisation. A theoretical and analytical framework which draws on elements of sociology, cultural studies and media analysis is required to help to understand the complex interplay between entertainment in the form of playable media, the military and the maintenance of Empire. At one level games can be described as simple forms of entertainment designed to engage players in a pleasurable fun activity. However, any form of media whether playable or not, contains within it a set of ideological and political structures, meanings and ways of depicting the world. For the purpose of this paper playable media with a military theme or orientation will be described as political tools helping to shape the mental framework of players through the extension of a form of "military habitus". Playable media with a military theme or orientation such as the Call of Duty series promote and facilitate the extension of the process of militarisation and impact on how players view the world. This worldview can have consequences for national security in promoting pro-war sentiments.

Edition Medienwissenschaft, 2018

Why do we play games and why do we play them on computers? The contributors of »Games and Rules« take a closer look at the core of each game and the motivational system that is the game mechanics. Games are control circuits that organize the game world with their (joint) players and establish motivations in a dedicated space, a »Magic Circle«, whereas game mechanics are constructs of rules designed for interactions that provide gameplay. Those rules form the base for all the excitement and frustration we experience in games. This anthology contains individual essays by experts and authors with backgrounds in Game Design and Game Studies, who lead the discourse to get to the bottom of game mechanics in video games and the real world - among them Miguel Sicart and Carlo Fabricatore.

Models, Techniques and Frameworks

Routledge eBooks, 2023

2022

This paper presents the current status of a project involving a modification of the user experience of an existing shooting action video game to explore this genre's possibilities as new scenarios for physical activity. A prototype in development serves as a tool by conditioning the functionality of the game controllers to the alternated movement of the legs the player has to perform. Upon reaching a defined speed ("walk"), the device enables the component controlling advance and, upon reaching a defined a higher value, the one controlling the "run" function transforming a shooting game into a shooting themed active game.

2015

Chapter 1-Rules and Narrative Chapter 2-Ludonarrative Dissonance Chapter 3-Agency in video games Chapter 4-Game-mechanics and narrative Chapter 5-Quests and conclusions Red Barrels: Narrative, Rules and Mechanics in Video Games 3 Chapter 1: Rules and Narrative Video games have become one of the most important storytelling mediums in today's culture, in sheer size, surpassing the monetary revenue of Hollywood film production in 2009 2 and producing works that have budgets on par with and even surpassing Hollywood blockbusters. Grand Theft Auto V (Rockstar North, 2014) had a development and promotion budget of over 2 billion NOK ($265 million), which is more than Hollywood blockbusters such as James Cameron's film Avatar's (2009) $237 million budget. Video games have indeed become a force to be reckoned with as a means of both entertainment and as a storytelling device, if only for the sheer scale and reach of the medium; World of Warcraft (Blizzard Entertainment, 2004), a massive multiplayer online roleplaying game (MMORPG), had 10 million subscribers as of 2014 3 , with over 100 million accounts having being created since the game was launched in 2004. Video games have grown to become a vast and diverse medium that is consumed and produced by people from around the world, making use of the opportunities that worldwide communication technologies present. It has given new voices a chance to have their stories and experiences heard, especially with the rising trend of indie developers where major online retail channels, like Steam 4 , have given a platform for easy distribution for them. These voices are opening up for new forms of artistic expression, using the format to present their stories and experiences, in ways that are unlike the simple interactive fun that originated the rise of video games as a medium. Now we have games like Papers, please (Lucas Pope, 2013), which details the troublesome life of a civil servant in a fictional eastern bloc country during the Cold War era, This War of Mine (11 bit studios, 2014) which shows the horrifying experiences of civilians trying to survive while stuck in the middle of the siege of Sarajevo, and Home (Benjamin Rivers, 2012), a Stephen King-esque story about the a man who can't remember the last days and whose wife has gone missing, where nothing is certain and the narrative refuses to give you a direct and final answer. The common element of these games is that they portray very real and serious experiences, experiences that we're familiar with from

Retrieved March, 2008

Roger Smith is the Chief Technology Officer for the U.S. Army Program Executive Office for Simulation, Training, and Instrumentation (PEO-STRI).