Libraries and Video Games

2015 ◽  
pp. 176-192
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Primary Concern ◽  
Collection Development ◽  
The Many

Being able to integrate video games into a library is more easily said than done. There are many different ways to do it and many different behind-the-scenes activities that need to be thought of before embarking on a video game project. Collection development is of primary concern before any programs can be thought of because without a collection related to video games (or the games themselves) there can be no programs. There must also be good planning for how the video games are used because of the many varieties of games as well as the different ways in which they can be used and the different environments they can be used in. Plan well so that the video games can effectively help the library and audience that needs them. This chapter further explores libraries and video games.

scholarly journals How Color Properties Can Be Used to Elicit Emotions in Video Games

2016 ◽  
Vol 2016 ◽  
pp. 1-9 ◽  
Author(s):  
Erik Geslin ◽  
Laurent Jégou ◽  
Danny Beaudoin
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Film Industry ◽  
Circumplex Model ◽  
Strong Correlations ◽  
Color Spaces ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
Game Environment ◽  
The Many ◽  
Development Methods

Classifying the many types of video games is difficult, as their genres and supports are different, but they all have in common that they seek the commitment of the player through exciting emotions and challenges. Since the income of the video game industry exceeds that of the film industry, the field of inducting emotions through video games and virtual environments is attracting more attention. Our theory, widely supported by substantial literature, is that the chromatic stimuli intensity, brightness, and saturation of a video game environment produce an emotional effect on players. We have observed a correlation between the RGB additives color spaces, HSV, HSL, and HSI components of video game images, presented ton=85participants, and the emotional statements expressed in terms of arousal and valence, recovered in a subjective semantic questionnaire. Our results show a significant correlation between luminance, saturation, lightness, and the emotions of joy, sadness, fear, and serenity experienced by participants viewing 24 video game images. We also show strong correlations between the colorimetric diversity, saliency volume, and stimuli conspicuity and the emotions expressed by the players. These results allow us to propose video game environment development methods in the form of a circumplex model. It is aimed at game designers for developing emotional color scripting.

Feeling through the World

Media in Mind ◽  
2019 ◽  
pp. 49-70
Author(s):  
Daniel Reynolds
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Media Use ◽  
Game Play ◽  
Video Game Play ◽  
Changing Environments ◽  
Ecological Theories ◽  
The World ◽  
Theories Of Mind ◽  
The Many

This chapter shows how perception of media exemplifies perception in general. It argues that perception of media and art is not an exception to how perception works outside of media use. It discusses the idea that perception is a form of bodily work, and not an automatic or passive phenomenon. This position is opposed to the many theories of mind and theories of media that treat perception as something that just happens automatically. It argues that video games exemplify this active perceptual relationship. The chapter discusses films and video games that pose perceptual and enactive challenges for their users. It shows how ecological theories of perception are appropriate for understanding video game play and understanding media use in general. It illustrates how changing environments and changing technological contexts lead to changes in perception.

scholarly journals Analyzing Modular Smoothness in Video Game Music

2019 ◽  
Vol 25 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth Medina-Gray
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Music Perception ◽  
Probabilistic Approach ◽  
Modular System ◽  
Video Game Music ◽  
Detailed Method ◽  
Comprehensive Examination ◽  
The Many ◽  
Treat All

This article provides a detailed method for analyzing smoothness in the seams between musical modules in video games. Video game music is comprised of distinct modules that are triggered during gameplay to yield the real-time soundtracks that accompany players’ diverse experiences with a given game. Smoothness—a quality in which two convergent musical modules fit well together—as well as the opposite quality, disjunction, are integral products of modularity, and each quality can significantly contribute to a game. This article first highlights some modular music structures that are common in video games, and outlines the importance of smoothness and disjunction in video game music. Drawing from sources in the music theory, music perception, and video game music literature (including both scholarship and practical composition guides), this article then introduces a method for analyzing smoothness at modular seams through a particular focus on the musical aspects of meter, timbre, pitch, volume, and abruptness. The method allows for a comprehensive examination of smoothness in both sequential and simultaneous situations, and it includes a probabilistic approach so that an analyst can treat all of the many possible seams that might arise from a single modular system. Select analytical examples from The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker and Portal 2 provide a sampling of the various interpretive gains available through this method.

scholarly journals Apontamentos sobre a narratividade e a aspectualização do ato de jogar no jogo Super Mario World

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
pp. 85-111
Author(s):  
Mário Sérgio Teodoro da Silva Junior
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Game Player ◽  
Narrative Patterns ◽  
Video Game Player ◽  
The Many

RESUMO: Este artigo destina-se a identificar as marcações no enunciado do jogo de videogame Super Mario World, de 1990, que permitam enxergar o fluxo da ação de controle operada pelo jogador visado pela enunciação. Para tanto, deve-se estabelecer a distinção entre a instância enunciada do enunciatário, o narratário, a quem o narrador instrui e comanda, e a instância do enunciado enunciado, em que se localiza o herói Mario, aquele comandado pelo narratário. As categorias narrativas e discursivas ora são comuns, ora diversas para esses sujeitos, estruturando graus de sincretismo de suas identidades e de seus percursos. É no percurso do narratário em que são encontradas as dinâmicas sensíveis que demarcam o ritmo do processo de jogo, o tempo necessário para se tornar hábil e vencer. PALAVRAS-CHAVE: semiótica; videogames; narratividade.   ABSTRACT: In this article, our goal is to identify the syntax of control which a video game player plays, in the game Super Mario World, from Nintendo (1990), basing our notes on the many marks left in the audiovisual text, in the form of figures and narrative programs. Therefore, two levels must be distinguished: one concerning the player, referred in the text as a naratee, and another concerning the enounced hero, Mario. The discursive categories and narrative patterns are sometimes the same and sometimes different for each actor, proposing syncretism degrees for their identities and their syntaxes. It is in the course of the naratee that the sensitive dynamics that mark the rhythm of the game process are found, besides the time needed to become skilled and to win. KEYWORDS: semiotics; video games; narrativity.

scholarly journals Artificial Intelligence in Video Games: Towards a Unified Framework

2015 ◽  
Vol 2015 ◽  
pp. 1-30 ◽  
Author(s):  
Firas Safadi ◽  
Raphael Fonteneau ◽  
Damien Ernst
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Conceptual Level ◽  
Complex Environments ◽  
Complex Environment ◽  
Unified Framework ◽  
Game Ai ◽  
Human Ability ◽  
The Many ◽  
Game Developers

With modern video games frequently featuring sophisticated and realistic environments, the need for smart and comprehensive agents that understand the various aspects of complex environments is pressing. Since video game AI is often specifically designed for each game, video game AI tools currently focus on allowing video game developers to quickly and efficiently create specific AI. One issue with this approach is that it does not efficiently exploit the numerous similarities that exist between video games not only of the same genre, but of different genres too, resulting in a difficulty to handle the many aspects of a complex environment independently for each video game. Inspired by the human ability to detect analogies between games and apply similar behavior on a conceptual level, this paper suggests an approach based on the use of a unified conceptual framework to enable the development of conceptual AI which relies on conceptual views and actions to define basic yet reasonable and robust behavior. The approach is illustrated using two video games,RavenandStarCraft: Brood War.

Aren't we all exhausted already? EU copyright exhaustion and video game resales in the Games-as-a-Service era

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 77-93
Author(s):  
Alina Trapova ◽  
Emanuele Fava
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Case Law ◽  
Legal Framework ◽  
Distribution Models ◽  
Consumer Law ◽  
National Courts ◽  
Game Industry ◽  
The Many ◽  
The Eu

This article examines the issue of copyright exhaustion for digitally distributed video games in the EU. In light of the case law of the CJEU and national courts, it applies to video games two relevant dichotomies – sale/licence and goods/services. Diving into the modern Games-as-a-Service (GaaS) trend, it argues that treating all transactions as sales and all games as goods poorly reflects the complexity of today's video game industry. The many uncertainties of the current legal framework and the impractical consequences of digital exhaustion could force the industry to change its distribution models in ways not necessarily beneficial to consumers. Thus, the applicability of exhaustion to digitally distributed games should be ruled out once and for all. Nonetheless, where copyright is unable to offer satisfactory solutions, consumer law may protect players vis-à-vis digital distribution platforms, while at the same time providing legal certainty to the industry.

Frustration and Violence in Mobile Video Games

2020 ◽  
Vol 79 (2) ◽  
pp. 63-70
Author(s):  
Petr Květon ◽  
Martin Jelínek
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Implicit Association Test ◽  
Self Determination Theory ◽  
Psychological Needs ◽  
Basic Psychological Needs ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Mobile Video ◽  
Violent Content ◽  
Before And After

Abstract. This study tests two competing hypotheses, one based on the general aggression model (GAM), the other on the self-determination theory (SDT). GAM suggests that the crucial factor in video games leading to increased aggressiveness is their violent content; SDT contends that gaming is associated with aggression because of the frustration of basic psychological needs. We used a 2×2 between-subject experimental design with a sample of 128 undergraduates. We assigned each participant randomly to one experimental condition defined by a particular video game, using four mobile video games differing in the degree of violence and in the level of their frustration-invoking gameplay. Aggressiveness was measured using the implicit association test (IAT), administered before and after the playing of a video game. We found no evidence of an association between implicit aggressiveness and violent content or frustrating gameplay.

Only problem gamblers spend less money when loot boxes are removed from a game: A before and after study of Heroes of the Storm

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zendle
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Real World ◽  
Complex Pattern ◽  
Problem Gamblers ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Gambling Severity ◽  
Reliable Correlation ◽  
Before And After Study

Loot boxes are items in video games that may be paid for with real-world money, but which contain randomised contents. There is a reliable correlation between loot box spending and problem gambling severity: The more money gamers spend on loot boxes, the more severe their problem gambling tends to be. However, it is unclear whether this link represents a case in which loot box spending causes problem gambling; a case in which the gambling-like nature of loot boxes cause problem gamblers to spend more money; or whether it simply represents a case in which there is a general dysregulation in in-game spending amongst problem gamblers, nonspecific to loot boxes.The multiplayer video game Heroes of the Storm recently removed loot boxes. In order to better understand links between loot boxes and problem gambling, we conducted an analysis of players of Heroes of the Storm (n=112) both before and after the removal of loot boxes.There were a complex pattern of results. In general, when loot boxes were removed from Heroes of the Storm, problem gamblers appeared to spend significantly less money in-game in contrast to other groups. These results suggest that the presence of loot boxes in a game may lead to problem gamblers spending more money in-game. It therefore seems possible that links between loot box spending and problem gambling are not due to a general dysregulation in in-game spending amongst problem gamblers, but rather are to do with specific features of loot boxes themselves.

Gambling-like video game practices: A cross-sectional study of links with problem gambling and disordered gaming

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
David Zendle
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Problem Gambling ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Significant Degree ◽  
Cross Sectional Study ◽  
Video Gaming ◽  
Cross Sectional ◽  
Streaming Services ◽  
Clinically Significant

A variety of practices have recently emerged which are related to both video games and gambling. Most prominent of these are loot boxes. However, a broad range of other activities have recently emerged which are also related to both gambling and video games: esports betting, real-money video gaming, token wagering, social casino play, and watching videos of both loot box opening and gambling on game streaming services like Twitch.Whilst a nascent body of research has established the robust existence of a relationship between loot box spending and both problem gambling and disordered gaming, little research exists which examines whether similar links may exist for the diverse practices outlined above. Furthermore, no research has thus far attempted to estimate the prevalence of these activities.A large-scale survey of a representative sample of UK adults (n=1081) was therefore conducted in order to investigate these issues. Engagement in all measured forms of gambling-like video game practices were significantly associated with both problem gambling and disordered gaming. An aggregate measure of engagement was associated with both these outcomes to a clinically significant degree (r=0.23 and r=0.43). Engagement in gambling-like video game practices appeared widespread, with a 95% confidence interval estimating that 16.3% – 20.9% of the population engaged in these activities at least once in the last year. Engagement in these practices was highly inter-correlated: Individuals who engaged in one practice were likely to engage in several more.Overall, these results suggest that the potential effects of the blurring of lines between video games and gambling should not primarily be understood to be due to the presence of loot boxes in video games. They suggest the existence of a convergent ecosystem of gambling-like video game practices, whose causal relationships with problem gambling and disordered gaming are currently unclear but must urgently be investigated.

“If anyone’s going to ruin your night, it should be you”: Responsibility and affective materiality in Undertale and Night in the Woods

2021 ◽  
pp. 135485652110144
Author(s):  
Kevin Veale
Keyword(s):  
Video Games ◽  
Video Game ◽  
Affective Experience ◽  
Modes Of Engagement

Affective materiality is a tool for exploring how engaging with textual structures shapes the affective experience of a story. The experience of video games is distinctive because their modes of engagement can lead to players feeling responsible for the decisions they make within the diegetic space of the game and its contextual storyworld. Night in the Woods and Undertale both use the perception of responsibility found in video game modes of engagement as an active storytelling tool, but apply it in different ways. Despite the differences in their contextual application, both games use affective materiality to encourage players to reflect on the consequences of their decisions in multiple arenas: within the context of the game, their engagement with other games and their engagement with the wider world. In doing so, both games apply storytelling techniques that distinguish playing video games from the experience of other media forms and encourage an empathetic engagement with fictional storyworlds.

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