scholarly journals Copyright and Paratext in Computer Gaming

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Burk
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Physical World ◽  
Computer Gaming ◽  
Transmission Of Knowledge ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
On Line ◽  
Game Developers ◽  
Population Counts

Adoption of information technologies is dependent upon the availability of information to be channeled via such technologies. On-line multiplayer role-playing games have become an important social and business feature of the Internet. The virtual worlds that game players inhabit now encompass population counts and economic activity greater than that of many nations in the physical world. The activity of players participating in an on-line game community is closely tied to paratexts that may include magazines, websites, and even devices that lie outside the formal boundaries of the game, but which are intimately bound up in the transmission of knowledge and culture surrounding the game. In this paper, I examine the legal structures that foster or inhibit particular gaming paratexts. Such laws are in some senses extrinsic to the "magic circle" of the game, but these external rules are deployed as constraints to enforce the internal logic of the game. Typically this occurs in cases where violation of the game's internal parameters would affect the owner's external marketing or business control. Commercial game developers may use copyright and related anti-circumvention laws to enforce preferred readings of the game, largely by dominating the paratexts associated with their product. Examining the control of paratexts yields important insights into the logic of legal rubrics governing on-line gaming.

scholarly journals Game Balance: Designed structure and consumer agency in an online game

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Elizabeth Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Physical World ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Consumer Identity ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
The North ◽  
Game World ◽  
Consumer Movements

<p>Massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) attract millions of people every year and are now a major industry. Using the internet, these games connect players and give them goals to pursue within virtual worlds. This thesis examines the early life of one such game, the North American version of TERA, based on participant observation on a player vs. player server. TERA’s players met and interacted within a virtual game world controlled by the company which developed the game, and although players constructed their own social groups and factions within this world they were constrained by software that they could not change. Everything from the combat rules to the physics of the environment was designed, and players could only take actions that were accounted for and allowed by that design.  However, TERA launched as one of many available MMORPGs which were competing for the attention of the same audience. Its players tended to be experienced and well-informed about the genre, and used their knowledge to evaluate and critique TERA both privately and in public forums. Aware that game companies’ chief concern was for profit, players exercised agency by embracing a consumer identity and pressuring developers in their own commercial terms. To retain players’ loyalty and continue receiving their fees, companies were obliged to appease their customers. This allowed players to see the game world develop and change in accordance with their desires despite the fact that they lacked the access or the expertise to change it themselves. I link this approach to agency to the rise of consumer movements in capitalist societies, and show how the virtual world of TERA can serve as an example for other situations in the physical world where contemporary technologies are used to both enable and constrain agency.</p>

scholarly journals Electronic Gaming and the Ethics of Information Ownership

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dan Burk
Keyword(s):  
Role Playing ◽  
Computer Gaming ◽  
Legal Principles ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Personal Investment ◽  
On Line ◽  
Game Sequence ◽  
Electronic Games ◽  
Game Elements ◽  
Substantial Degree

Players of electronic games, particularly on-line role-playing games, may invest a substantial degree of time, effort, and personal identity into the game scenarios they generate. Yet, where the wishes of players diverge from those of game publishers, the legal and ethical interests of players remain unclear. The most applicable set of legal principles are those of copyright law, which is often grounded in utilitarian justifications, but which may also be justified on deontological grounds. Past copyright cases involving video arcade and personal computer gaming suggest that the gaming scenaria generated by players may constitute original selection and arrangement of the game elements, thus qualifying such gaming sequences for copyright protection as either derivative works or works of joint authorship. But this result may be difficult to justify on utilitarian theories. Rather, the personal investment of game players suggests a deontological basis for claims of game sequence ownership.

Emerging Paradigms in Legal Education

2011 ◽  
pp. 1019-1035
Author(s):  
Nicola Lettieri ◽  
Ernesto Fabiani ◽  
Antonella Tartaglia Polcini ◽  
Rosario De Chiara ◽  
Vittorio Scarano
Keyword(s):  
Undergraduate Students ◽  
Legal Education ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Point Of View ◽  
Game Based Learning ◽  
Computer Gaming ◽  
Theoretical Concepts ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Traditional Lectures ◽  
On Line

Over the last years, despite few exceptions, legal education has dropped behind in the use of digital game-based learning methods. Law schools essentially still resort to traditional lectures even though there are evidences that computer gaming simulations can represent an effective practice for both teaching theoretical concepts of law and for training students in acquiring legal skills. This chapter presents a research that is aimed at developing/trying out a new method for legal education based on the use of SGs. Simulex, a learning environment for the creation of on line role playing games simulating trials, will be presented. The main focus of the chapter will be on the analysis of the specific needs of legal education and on describing how these needs have been matched by the development of the project, from the design to the testing phase. Some user testing has been carried out in the specific case of an experimental class of civil procedure law, for undergraduate students. The second part of the work will describe the results of the testing from a didactical, methodological, and technical point of view, also sketching future developments of the experimentation.

scholarly journals Game Balance: Designed structure and consumer agency in an online game

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Elizabeth Haynes
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Participant Observation ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Physical World ◽  
For Profit ◽  
Consumer Identity ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
The North ◽  
Game World ◽  
Consumer Movements

<p>Massively multi-player online role-playing games (MMORPGs) attract millions of people every year and are now a major industry. Using the internet, these games connect players and give them goals to pursue within virtual worlds. This thesis examines the early life of one such game, the North American version of TERA, based on participant observation on a player vs. player server. TERA’s players met and interacted within a virtual game world controlled by the company which developed the game, and although players constructed their own social groups and factions within this world they were constrained by software that they could not change. Everything from the combat rules to the physics of the environment was designed, and players could only take actions that were accounted for and allowed by that design.  However, TERA launched as one of many available MMORPGs which were competing for the attention of the same audience. Its players tended to be experienced and well-informed about the genre, and used their knowledge to evaluate and critique TERA both privately and in public forums. Aware that game companies’ chief concern was for profit, players exercised agency by embracing a consumer identity and pressuring developers in their own commercial terms. To retain players’ loyalty and continue receiving their fees, companies were obliged to appease their customers. This allowed players to see the game world develop and change in accordance with their desires despite the fact that they lacked the access or the expertise to change it themselves. I link this approach to agency to the rise of consumer movements in capitalist societies, and show how the virtual world of TERA can serve as an example for other situations in the physical world where contemporary technologies are used to both enable and constrain agency.</p>

Prospects for the use of modern technologies to increase student involvement

2020 ◽  
Vol 1 (1) ◽  
pp. 28-33
Author(s):  
Iu. V. Amelina ◽  
R. V. Amelin
Keyword(s):  
Social Networks ◽  
Information Technologies ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Educational Process ◽  
State University ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
It Education ◽  
Interaction Plot ◽  
Role Playing Game ◽  
Live Action

The article discusses the prospects of role-playing games in the educational process to increase students’ motivation and involvement, as well as the possibility of modern information technologies (primarily social networks) for constructing innovative forms of such games. The author’s format of the live-action role-playing game is presented. It was developed and tested at the Saratov State University. It involves the integration of numerous educational tasks into a single plot, within which each participant plays a role and communicates with other participants to complete tasks. The main interaction, plot development and group activities occur in dialogs, conversations and groups of social networks. This approach has shown its viability in teaching legal disciplines, and also has prospects for use in IT education.

Interoperability, Learning Designs and Virtual Worlds

2010 ◽  
pp. 193-206
Author(s):  
Helen Farley
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Collaborative Activities

Given the relatively high costs associated with designing and implementing learning designs in virtual worlds, a strategy for the re-use of designs becomes imperative. IMS LD has emerged as the standard for the description and expression of learning designs. This chapter explores some of the issues associated with using the IMS LD specification for learning designs in virtual worlds such as Second Life and multi-player online role playing games such as World of Warcraft. The main issues relate to the inadequate description of collaborative activities and the inability to alter the design ‘on-the-fly’ in response to learner inputs. Some possible solutions to these problems are considered.

scholarly journals An Exploration of Entrepreneurship in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games: Second Life and Entropia Universe

2010 ◽  
Vol 2 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stéphane Kieger
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Second Life ◽  
Necessary Conditions ◽  
New Technology ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Current Paper ◽  
Venture Creation ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
The Future ◽  
Massively Multiplayer

Virtual worlds represent a new market with a distinct economy andmany individuals are trying to exploit this very new technology in thesearch of profitable opportunities. The current paper proposes to studyentrepreneurship in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-PlayingGames (MMORPG) Second Life® and Entropia Universe® in whichmonetary trades are possible. A survey was proposed to the community of players of both games, and from a sample of 244 players, nineteenentrepreneurs were contacted for a second survey. The traits of theentrepreneurs were compared to those of the players andentrepreneurship was observed in Second Life® and Entropia Universe®.  In fact, all the necessary conditions are present for entrepreneurship: a new technology giving new sources of revenues, an entrepreneur willing to invest money in order to increase his wealth, and a market with an economy well understood. The different entrepreneurs have developed successful ventures in several markets, and they had well defined the strategy they wanted to adopt. They have examined the different markets in which they have entered although they did not use all the tools known in the marketing fields. Further, some steps in the process of creation of the venture may not be important and some may be done relatively swiftly, thus the venture creation in MMORPG may be relatively easy. In conclusion, the venture creation may be relatively undemanding in virtual worlds, and this opens new possibilities for the future.

Personality Impressions of World of Warcraft Players Based on Their Avatars and Usernames

2015 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 58-73 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gabriella M. Harari ◽  
Lindsay T. Graham ◽  
Samuel D. Gosling
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Worlds ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Model Analysis ◽  
World Of Warcraft ◽  
Accurate Information ◽  
Lens Model ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
The World ◽  
Massively Multiplayer

Every week an estimated 20 million people collectively spend hundreds of millions of hours playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). Here the authors investigate whether avatars in one such game, the World of Warcraft (WoW), convey accurate information about their players' personalities. They assessed consensus and accuracy of avatar-based impressions for 299 WoW players. The authors examined impressions based on avatars alone, and images of avatars presented along with usernames. The personality impressions yielded moderate consensus (avatar-only mean ICC = .32; avatar plus username mean ICC = .66), but no accuracy (avatar only mean r = .03; avatar plus username mean r = .01). A lens-model analysis suggests that observers made use of avatar features when forming impressions, but the features had little validity. Discussion focuses on what factors might explain the pattern of consensus but no accuracy, and on why the results might differ from those based on other virtual domains and virtual worlds.

scholarly journals A Muslim Reflection on Dangerous Games

2016 ◽  
Vol 33 (3) ◽  
pp. 138-149
Author(s):  
Amina Inloes
Keyword(s):  
Science Fiction ◽  
Violent Crime ◽  
Moral Panic ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Role Playing Games ◽  
Game Developers

For over two decades, a moral panic over fantasy role-playinggames has swept America, fuelled by a minority of fundamentalistChristians who have campaigned against games such as Dungeons& Dragons on the grounds that they led youth to Satanism, suicide,and violent crime. In his 2015 book, Dangerous Games: What theMoral Panic over Role-Playing Games says about Play, Religion,and Imagined Worlds, David Laycock explores why fantasy roleplayinggames seem similar enough to religion to provoke fear,as well as the dynamics of this moral panic. While he, apparently,did not set out to write a book about Islam, his insights about religion,fantasy, and narrative opened my eyes to the dynamics oftwentieth-century Islam. Additionally, as a Muslim reader livingduring a “moral panic” over Islam, Laycock’s analysis helped meunderstand that today’s Islamophobia in America has little to dowith Islam. Lastly, although Muslim gamers, fantasy/sciencefictionauthors, and game developers are usually underacknowledged,there is increasing interest in Muslims and fantasy/science-fiction. I hope to call attention to this invisible cohort. 

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