5. Game Developers Playing Games : Instrumental Play, Game Talk, and Preserving the Joy of Play

2021 ◽  
pp. 103-122
Author(s):  
Olli Sotamaa
Keyword(s):  
Author(s):  
Olli Sotamaa

Critical studies of the global game industry have shown how employment in game companies is often advertised as a chance to get paid for playing games. The same love of games that often brings people to the game industry also places them at a disadvantage when negotiating the terms and conditions of work. Drawing from fourteen in-depth interviews conducted with game industry representatives, the chapter traces the different roles and functions playing games has for game developers and how working in a game studio changes their playing habits over time. Developers appear aware of the trade-offs associated with playing games as part of their work and apply various strategies to preserve the joy and relevance of play.


2016 ◽  
Vol 2 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Reale

This two-video series explores how the scoring to the video game Portal 2, published by Valve Corporation, not only helps tell the game’s story, but also comments on the game developers’ philosophy of puzzle design. The first video explores how the game’s title theme 9999999, including its texture, voice leadings, and chord qualities, musically enacts dual aspects of the character of the game’s central antagonist GlaDOS: once human, her personality was uploaded into a computer mainframe where she has become a sociopathic, homicidal artificial intelligence who takes delight in subjecting humans to hazardous scientific experimentation. The second video demonstrates that 9999999 serves as the theme for a set of double variations in the game’s middle act. Since Valve’s philosophy of player training centers on iterative puzzle-design that systematically increase in complexity, and the musical accompaniments for these puzzles feature coordinated developments in musical complexity, the scoring here lets us parse the puzzle design into a kind of set of gameplay theme-and-variations.


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).


2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 559-559
Author(s):  
Sara Freed ◽  
Briana Sprague ◽  
Lesley Ross

Abstract Interventions using exercise video games, or exergames, have shown short-term cognitive and physical benefits to older adults, though long-term effects are less promising. Enjoyment of exergames may promote exergame use after the intervention period, though little work has examined older adults’ views of exergames before and after gameplay experience. We invited 20 older adults between 65 and 84 years of age (M=73.30, SD=5.95) to play two Xbox Kinect games, Just Dance and Kinect Sports Rivals, for twenty minutes. In our presentation, we will present qualitative and quantitative findings of this pilot study, including findings that older adults reported that they were not likely to play similar exergames in the future and that they did not find the exergames to be more fun compared to other ways of exercising. We will discuss implications for game design and research relevant to game developers, manufacturers, and researchers. Part of a symposium sponsored by Technology and Aging Interest Group.


2012 ◽  
Vol 2012 ◽  
pp. 1-13 ◽  
Author(s):  
George Adam ◽  
Christos Bouras ◽  
Vaggelis Kapoulas ◽  
Andreas Papazois

Supporting collaborative activities among the online players are one of the major challenges in the area of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG), since they increase the richness of gaming experience and create more engaged communities. To this direction, our study has focused on the provision of services supporting and enhancing the players' in-game community and collaboration activities. We have designed and implemented innovative tools exploiting a game adaptation technology, namely, the In-game Graphical Insertion Technology (IGIT), which permits the addition of web-based applications without any need from the game developers to modify the game at all, nor from the game players to change their game installation. The developed tools follow a design adapted to the MMOG players' needs and are based on the latest advances on Web 2.0 technology. Their provision is performed through the core element of our system, which is the so-called Community Network Game (CNG) Server. One of the important features provided by the implemented system's underlying framework is the utilization of enhanced Peer-to-Peer (P2P) technology for the distribution of user-generated live video streams. In this paper, we focus on the architecture of the CNG Server as well as on the design and implementation of the online community and collaboration tools.


Heart Rhythm ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (8) ◽  
pp. S449
Author(s):  
Kathryn E. Tobert ◽  
Johan Martijn Bos ◽  
Ramin Garmany ◽  
Michael John Ackerman

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.


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