scholarly journals Streaming ambivalence: Livestreaming and indie game development

Author(s):  
Felan Parker ◽  
Matthew E Perks

Commercial game makers at all scales of production have increasingly come to incorporate livestreaming into every stage of the game development cycle. Mainstream hits like Fortnite and League of Legends owe their ongoing success in no small part to their massive uptake by streamers, and triple-A releases from major publishers can reliably expect significant attention on streaming platforms. But what about smaller, lower budget games? For independent game developers, the costs and benefits of streaming are less clear. Based on interviews with small commercial indie developers in Toronto and Montréal, this article critically examines different discourses around streaming and commercial indie games, focusing on developer perceptions of the benefits and risks of streaming and its impacts on indie game-making practices, including production, promotion, and community-building. Contrary to persistent popular myths about streaming as the key to ‘discoverability’, commercial indie game development remains a precarious form of cultural work, and indie games collectively attract only a tiny fraction of the overall audience on streaming platforms. There is a high level of uncertainty about the factors that led to a given game’s success, leaving many indie developers ambivalent about leveraging influencer attention and even as they commit significant time and energy trying to doing so.

Author(s):  
Barbara Chamberlin ◽  
Jesús Trespalacios ◽  
Rachel Gallagher

Over the past 20 years, instructional designers in the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University have developed a design model for game development that brings researchers, educators, and game developers together throughout the design process. Using this approach, game developers and content experts (a) work collaboratively to ensure educational goals and outcomes are appropriate for the learner and the learning environment, (b) immerse themselves in both content and game design, and (c) test extensively throughout development with members of the target audience. In this chapter, the authors describe the model as it was used in development of several math games during a four-year development cycle for the Math Snacks project. They discuss the implications of this approach for the creation of other educational games or suites of games and share recommendations for expansion of the model to other developers.


2018 ◽  
pp. 66-88 ◽  
Author(s):  
Barbara Chamberlin ◽  
Jesús Trespalacios ◽  
Rachel Gallagher

Over the past 20 years, instructional designers in the Learning Games Lab at New Mexico State University have developed a design model for game development that brings researchers, educators, and game developers together throughout the design process. Using this approach, game developers and content experts (a) work collaboratively to ensure educational goals and outcomes are appropriate for the learner and the learning environment, (b) immerse themselves in both content and game design, and (c) test extensively throughout development with members of the target audience. In this chapter, the authors describe the model as it was used in development of several math games during a four-year development cycle for the Math Snacks project. They discuss the implications of this approach for the creation of other educational games or suites of games and share recommendations for expansion of the model to other developers.


Repositor ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 2 (7) ◽  
pp. 965
Author(s):  
Naufal Azzmi ◽  
Lailatul Husniah ◽  
Ali Sofyan Kholimi

AbstrakPerkembangan game pada saat ini berkembang dengan sangat cepat, dalam perkermbangan game topik AI adalah topik yang paling banyak diteliti oleh beberapa peneliti khususnya pada pembuatan suatu konten game menggunakan metode PCG (procedural content generation). Pada pembuatan sebuah game world menggunakan metode PCG sudah banyak developer game yang sukses dengan mengimplementasikan metode ini, metode ini banyak digunkan pada geme dengan genre RPG, Rouglikes, Platformer, SandBox, Simulation dan lain sebagainya, Pada penelitian ini berfokus pada pengembangan sebuah game world generator untuk game berjenis open world yang berupa sebuah kepulauan dengan metode PCG dengan menggunakan algoritma perlin noise sebagai algoritma pembentuk textur utama pulau yang dimana pada penelitian ini memanfaatkan beberapa variable noise seperti octave, presistance dan lacunarity guna untuk menambah kontrol dari hasil textur yang dihasilkan serta algoritma penempatan pulau untuk membuat sebuah game world yang menyerupai sebuah kepulauan. Dari hasil uji generator terkait degan pengujian playability dan performa dapat disimpulkan bahwa generator yang dikembangkan playable serta performa yang dianaliasa menggunakan notasi Big O menunjukkan  (linear). Abstract Game development is currently growing very fast, game development AI is the most discussed topic by most researchers especially in the developing of game content using the PCG (procedural content generation) method. In making a game world using the PCG method, many game developers have succeeded by implementing this method, this method is widely used on RPGs, Rouglikes, Platformers, SandBox, Simulations and ect,. This study focuses on developing a game world generator game for open world type games in the form of an archipelago using the PCG method using the noise perlin algorithm as the island's main texturizing algorithm which in this study utilizes several noise variables such as octave, presistance and use for add control of the texture results as well as the island placement algorithm’s to create a game world that resembles an archipelago form. From the generator test results related to the playability and performance testing, it shows that map are being generated by the generators are playable and performance that are analyzed using Big O notation show O (n) (linear).


Author(s):  
Zewen Xu ◽  
Zheng Rong ◽  
Yihong Wu

AbstractIn recent years, simultaneous localization and mapping in dynamic environments (dynamic SLAM) has attracted significant attention from both academia and industry. Some pioneering work on this technique has expanded the potential of robotic applications. Compared to standard SLAM under the static world assumption, dynamic SLAM divides features into static and dynamic categories and leverages each type of feature properly. Therefore, dynamic SLAM can provide more robust localization for intelligent robots that operate in complex dynamic environments. Additionally, to meet the demands of some high-level tasks, dynamic SLAM can be integrated with multiple object tracking. This article presents a survey on dynamic SLAM from the perspective of feature choices. A discussion of the advantages and disadvantages of different visual features is provided in this article.


Sensors ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 21 (11) ◽  
pp. 3850
Author(s):  
Bastien Vincke ◽  
Sergio Rodriguez Rodriguez Florez ◽  
Pascal Aubert

Emerging technologies in the context of Autonomous Vehicles (AV) have drastically evolved the industry’s qualification requirements. AVs incorporate complex perception and control systems. Teaching the associated skills that are necessary for the analysis of such systems becomes a very difficult process and existing solutions do not facilitate learning. In this study, our efforts are devoted to proposingan open-source scale model vehicle platform that is designed for teaching the fundamental concepts of autonomous vehicles technologies that are adapted to undergraduate and technical students. The proposed platform is as realistic as possible in order to present and address all of the fundamental concepts that are associated with AV. It includes all on-board components of a stand-alone system, including low and high level functions. Such functionalities are detailed and a proof of concept prototype is presented. A set of experiments is carried out, and the results obtained using this prototype validate the usability of the model for the analysis of time- and energy-constrained systems, as well as distributed embedded perception systems.


Organization ◽  
2015 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 570-587 ◽  
Author(s):  
Amanda Peticca-Harris ◽  
Johanna Weststar ◽  
Steve McKenna

This article examines two blogs written by the spouses of game developers about extreme and exploitative working conditions in the video game industry and the associated reader comments. The wives of these video game developers and members of the game community decry these working conditions and challenge dominant ideologies about making games. This article contributes to the work intensification literature by challenging the belief that long hours are necessary and inevitable to make successful games, discussing the negative toll of extreme work on workers and their families, and by highlighting that the project-based structure of game development both creates extreme work conditions and inhibits resistance. It considers how extreme work practices are legitimized through neo-normative control mechanisms made possible through project-based work structures and the perceived imperative of a race or ‘crunch’ to meet project deadlines. The findings show that neo-normative control mechanisms create an insularity within project teams and can make it difficult for workers to resist their own extreme working conditions, and at times to even understand them as extreme.


2016 ◽  
Vol 18 (5) ◽  
pp. 441-458 ◽  
Author(s):  
Cory Barker

Launched in 2013, Amazon Studios’s Pilot Season reportedly offers an alternative to the conventional Hollywood development cycle by soliciting viewer feedback through short surveys and star reviews to determine which projects are developed into original series. However, while Amazon Studios publicly assures us that viewers “Call the Shots,” the company has swiftly navigated away from such participatory discourse. Through a discursive analysis of promotional materials, executive and talent interviews, and responses from trade presses and critics, this article unpacks how Amazon Studios diminished the import of viewer feedback at the first sign of significant attention from the critical community and subsequently shifted to promotional discourses centered on markers of “Quality TV.” This case ultimately demonstrates that, as discursive strategies, participatory culture and Quality TV serve distinctive functions for the industry, with the former often relegated to attention-seeking gimmick and the latter functioning as a powerful tool of legitimation.


Author(s):  
Elena Bertozzi ◽  
Leonard R. Krilov ◽  
Dilys Walker

This paper discusses the creation of two serious games developed by the Engender Games Group with the intention of meeting specific outcomes in the healthcare field. The processes and pitfalls of developing games of this kind are outlined with the intention of demonstrating how game developers and health care professionals can collaborate to produce compelling, fun games that meet specific goals. The Atendiendo el Parto en Casa (Home Birth), game is a collaboration with Drs. Dilys Walker and Carrie Rouse at the University of Washington Medical School to educate traditional midwives working in rural Mexico. The Flu Busters! game is a collaboration with a group of pediatric specialists at Winthrop-University Hospital on Long Island led by Dr. Leonard Krilov which explains how the flu vaccine works and encourages children to get vaccinated.


2017 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Krassen Stefanov ◽  
Atanas Georgiev ◽  
Alexander Grigorov ◽  
Boyan Bontchev ◽  
Pavel Boytchev ◽  
...  

This paper presents the architecture of the RAGE repository, which is a unique and dedicated infrastructure that provides access to a wide variety of advanced technology components for applied game development. The RAGE project, which is the principal Horizon2020 research and innovation project on applied gaming, develops up to three dozens of software components (RAGE software assets) that are reusable across a wide diversity of game engines, game platforms and programming languages. The RAGE repository provides storage space for assets and their artefacts and is designed as an asset life-cycle management system for defining, publishing, updating, searching and packaging for distribution of these assets. It will be embedded in a social platform for asset developers and other users. A dedicated Asset Repository Manager provides the main functionality of the repository and its integration with other systems. Tools supporting the Asset Manager are presented and discussed. When the RAGE repository is in full operation, applied game developers will be able to easily enhance the quality of their games by including selected advanced game software assets. Making available the RAGE repository system and its variety of software assets aims to enhance the coherence and decisiveness of the applied game industry.


Author(s):  
Daniel Himmelstein ◽  
Yitong Liu ◽  
Jamie L. Shapiro

ESports, also known as competitive video gaming, has seen tremendous growth over the past few years. Several studies have been conducted that examined the potential cognitive benefits of playing video games, but few have examined the psychosocial factors needed to perform at the highest level of competitive video gaming. In this study, the researchers aimed to identify specific mental obstacles players face and any mental techniques gamers already utilize by conducting a qualitative content analysis. Interviews with five high-level competitive League of Legend players were conducted to shed light on their experiences. The interviews resulted in two high order themes. Those high order themes were the following: techniques used to achieve optimal performance and obstacles encountered by competitive gamers. The data collected can be used by a wide population in both the performance psychology field and the eSports realm, more specifically, future mental skills consultants working with League of Legends players, gamers themselves, and academics who wish to serve, improve, or study those involved in an emerging performance domain.


Sign in / Sign up

Export Citation Format

Share Document