Gaming

As video games become more popular the extent to which they can and should be considered addictive has become controversial. I adapt the classic Becker-Murphy model of rational addiction for video games and apply it to a micro-data panel collected from the online video game Team Fortress 2. I find evidence of significant rational addiction; past and future consumption are important in determining the amount an individual plays today. These data also allow for the identification of individual potential addicts in a way consistent with the rational addiction model. Finally, including learning-by-doing provides evidence of a feedback loop: playing improves the skill of an individual which reinforces his decision to play in the future.

This chapter examines the fandom of Nintendo Switch’s Pokémon video game and its association with religion and identity-building. By means of semiotic analysis of the game’s content and in-depth inter-views with Hong Kong fans, the study examines the game’s narrative and its role in the construction of players’ social and religious identities. Using the functional framework of religion, it explores three major elements of the story: myth, ritual, and community. These three elements strengthen players’ investment with the game by projecting the animistic attachment towards Pokémon characters and imbuing them with a sense of spirit or anima. The chapter argues that the game’s animism is rooted in commodity-consumerism which uses emotive ties between people and things to encourage capitalist drives and encourage the sale of products. At the same time, by allowing its fans to create meaning and build a sense of connection with imaginary beings and likeminded fans, the game grants an escape from Hong Kong’s urban alienation and approaches a functional view of religion.

Cerebral palsy (CP) is the most common cause of physical disability in childhood, with the condition affecting both motor and sensory function. Most children with CP favour their dominant upper limb during activities of daily living, resulting in a learned non-use phenomenon for their non-dominant (ND) limb, and consequently, decreased afferent inputs. The aim of this research was to design, develop, test and trial a custom serious gaming intervention to improve upper limb function, addressing both motor and sensory aspects of the limb, which was novel and had not been attempted before. The hypothesis was that sensory function could be significantly improved through regular use of a home-based haptic gaming system that required coupled bimanual integrated hand use to successfully play the games.

Video games are more than just entertainment. In fact, video games like Minecraft develop “Four Cs” skills in young gamers. These 21st century skills include critical thinking, creativity, communication, and collaboration (National Education Association, 2010) and are considered essential skills for future employment by workforce executives (Sardone & Delvin-Scherer, 2010). This study explores predictors of academic success and the 21st century skills gamers are learning through video game experiences. This sequential mixed model study analyzed descriptive data to explore the video game experiences of 3D Modeling and Animation students enrolled at a South Texas area high school. The study analyzed data collected from 66 quantitative subjects and 4 qualitative participants. Three classes engaged in four weeks of gameplay to complete a modeling project in Minecraft. Data was collected during both phases of the project study through survey and case study methods. The findings revealed that the Group Project Grades were heavily skewed indicating a significance that prior gaming experience affected the students’ academic performance. The significance was supported by the unexpected high frequency of perfect scores (65%) and the high concentration of experienced gamers. Over half (54%) reported to have played video games for over 10 years. It was also noted that gender was statistically significant with Class Rank. Females had higher class ranks overall then the males. The qualitative data analysis led to the development of five major findings: 1.) The Strategist: Accomplishing the Mission, 2.) The Creator: The Art of Gameplay, 3.) The Communicator: Building Relationships and Communities, 4.) The Hero: To Be the Hero of a Great Adventure, and 5.) I am an “Elite”: A Digital Native. These major findings represent trends of the gaming phenomenon, gamer traits, and 21st century skills learned through playing video games. The findings for this study have implications on teachers’ perspectives and attitudes toward video game integration. Recommendations for future research include a longitudinal study with the four participants to provide a better understanding of applied 21st century skills over time, a content analysis of various video games, and a mixed model study exploring the reading habits, literacy skills, and genre interests of gamers.

Taking advantage of augmented reality technologies this paper proposes a solution to enhance human-machine interaction with museums. People are rarely able to manipulate objects in classical object-oriented exhibitions or when it is possible, they do it with constraints. Museums can use augmented reality technologies more often in a playful way to enhance interaction and deliver new content among their public. This project was created for Faraday's Museum (FM) at Instituto Superior Técnico in Lisbon. In order to increase the amount of interaction inside and outside Faraday´s Museum exhibitions, we created and developed a gaming application that uses augmented reality technologies named Extended Play at FM. Using this application, the user/player can learn content about real objects allowing her/him to interact with digital replicas of the original pieces. Our goal is to provide interactive experiences in Museums questioning the relationship between users/players and objects to understand if people connect more deeply with the available content and learn through the process of interacting with digital augmented content.

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The small country of South Korea is a media and technology giant. Korean films have received accolades at prestigious international film festivals, Korean pop music (K-pop) groups have sold out concerts abroad, and Korean consumer goods are at the forefront of technological innovation. The emergence of Korean soft power is remarkable since, as Dal Yong Jin and Nojin Kwak point out in the introduction to their enterprising edited volume, Communication, Digital Media, and Popular Culture in Korea, the country was late to the media and technology game when compared to other developing nations in the mid-twentieth century. English-language Korean communication, media, and culture scholarship has advanced in tandem, and so to commemorate the 40th Anniversary of the Korean American Communication Association (KACA) in 2018, Jin and Kwak introduce this guide with the goal of fostering a historically based understanding of the contemporary changes in the Korean communication industries in relation to the global cultural markets.

The non-lethal simulated training of lethal reality, whether it be single combat or war, was historically a question of life and death. We provide an analytical framework for evaluating historical precedents in fight simulations by focussing on two key questions: What was the philosophy guiding the conception of reality-in particular, did historical practitioners see reality as deterministic, and if not, how did they see it? And how did the simulations deal with the elements of quantity, quality, timing, and information? The analysis shows that our ancestors' perception of the reality of fighting changed over time, as their interpretations of reality for the world at large changed. Considerable intellectual effort and ingenuity were invested into attempts to understand reality and formulate corresponding realistic simulations, making these ludic artefacts reflective, sometimes iconic for, and occasionally ahead of their historical-cultural context. Seemingly irrational phenomena, such as the persistence of lethal duelling, had perfectly pragmatic elements.

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The Game of the Goose is one of the oldest printed board games, dating back 400 years. It has spawned thousands of derivatives: simple race games, played with dice, on themes that mirror much of human activity. Its legacy can be traced in games of education, advertising and polemic, as well as in those of amusement and gambling ‒ and games on new themes are still being developed. This book is devoted to showing why the Game of the Goose is special and why it can lay claim to being the most influential of any printed game in the cultural history of Europe. Detailed study of the games reveals their historical provenance and ‒ reversing the process ‒ gives unusual insights into the cultures which produced them. They therefore provide rich sources for the cultural historian.

Wat leren jongeren van het spelen van games (informele educatie) en hoe kunnen games voor de formele educatie (scholen) van waarde zijn voor openbare bibliotheken? Scholen, ondersteund door bibliotheken, moeten games op waarde schatten en voor informele en formele educatie hier hun slag mee slaan. Games zijn informeeleducatief door de goede  hersenprocessen die het stimuleert, zoals de informatieverwerking via meerdere kanalen. Content moet worden aangepast wil het ook formeeleducatief zijn. Er zijn uitzonderingen waar entertainmentgames al formeeleducatieve elementen bevatten. Formeeleducatieve games moeten echter meer van entertainmentgames overnemen om effectief te zijn: fun factor helpt bij leren, goede games zijn 'hard fun', bieden motivatie voor moeizaam plezier, uitdagingen.

El medio audiovisual y su constante evolución estética y narrativa presentan desafíos nuevos para su análisis discursivo-semántico; al ser un medio complejo que combina el texto, imagen, texto hablado y sonido, es necesario plantear nuevas posibilidades dentro de las figuras retoricas establecidas adaptándolas a las necesidades del investigador y realizador audiovisual.
“Lo tecnológico tiende a atravesar todo en nuestras sociedades contemporáneas y pareciera convertirse en el lenguaje conceptual, sensorial y mental a través del cual miramos la realidad, porque las tecnologías de la información y la comunicación invaden con su racionalidad todos nuestros espacios, de modo que se convierten en el marco interpretativo de esta época.” (PINEDA, 2010, p.111)
Aun así, lo que implica un análisis semiótico no depende del componente tecnológico sino del contenido y fondo estructurado de la pieza, ya sea de naturaleza  puramente artística y libre o discursivamente intencionada, persuasiva y con varias capas de diferentes mensajes que conlleven a una misma resolución.

Following the Great Exhibition at the Crystal Palace in 1851, the V&A created a space for applied arts centered on industry and design, a space that serves as a conscious foil to traditional fine arts museums. Curators Marie Foulston and Kristian Volsing carried the spirit of this mission forward into the twenty-first century with their exhibition Videogames: Design/Play/Disrupt. The show revealed the innovative practices video game designers have developed over the past fifteen years, while simultaneously asserting the radical potential of the medium by focusing on politically motivated activist games. In addition to examining the sociopolitical impact of a pastime that diverts nearly a quarter of the world's population, the curators devoted specific attention to issues of design and craft. The exhibition was divided into four sections: New Designers, Disruptors, Players_Online, and Players_Offline. With its dim lighting, dark gray walls and permeable mesh dividers, fluorescent text, and video projections on LCD screens, the show's inventive design immersed viewers and guided them through a space that felt like a virtual world.

Virtual environments are becoming ubiquitous, designed to do work in the material world. They are used within urban design, medicine, the military, entertainment and a wide range of other sectors, having increasing significance within our everyday lives. Virtual landscapes are brought into being through the interaction of users and these virtual environments. In this paper, we propose the use of postmemory as a framework for analysing virtual landscapes. Postmemories, formed of second-hand accounts combined with the imagination of individuals, can shape our responses to the world around us, having similar affective force to memories of situations directly witnessed. Twentyfive participants were asked to undertake an exploration exercise within a virtual recreation of 19th century London and subsequently interviewed about their landscape experiences. Individual position and imagination had a significant effect on participants’ understanding of those landscapes, creating postmemories of the material environment being represented, going beyond the intent of the designers. Given the forceful affective qualities of postmemory, however, the balance of power between designer intent and user imagination is demonstrated to be problematic, as individuals are manipulated through their exposure to, and co-creation of, these virtual landscapes.