Analysis of Bullet Chats in User-Generated Content Advertisement on Bilibili Website: The Success of Madoka Magica’s Mobile Game Promotion

This article explores the reasons behind the success of user-generated content (UGC) advertisements on Bilibili, which is one of China’s most significant video-sharing social media sites, with a core focus on East Asian pop culture. Additionally, Madoka Magica is a well-known Japanese animation about magical girls. There are two derivative games based on it. By using diffusion of innovation theory and content analysis method, this article takes UGC advertisements of Madoka Magica’s mobile games as windows to investigate how early adopters (influencers) motivate early majority adopters (their followers) to play the game. Moreover, this paper also addresses three types of bullet chats in this kind of video to further explore followers’ interaction with the influencers and reasons for the success of its marketing method. Bullet chats are a unique way to observe target consumers’ reaction to the advertisements. The author found that word-of-mouth marketing, the right audience and influential people are important factors for the success of UGC advertising. Besides, this marketing strategy is not limited to the marketing of mobile game advertisements, but can also be used for the marketing of other products. However, the prerequisite for this marketing method to be effective is that the advertised product or service has good quality

MeetDurian: Can Location-Based Games be Used to Improve COVID-19 Hygiene Habits?

The COVID-19 problem has not gone away with the passing of the seasons. Although most countries have achieved remarkable results in fighting against epidemic diseases and controlling viruses, the general public is still far from understanding the new crown virus and lack imagination on its transmission law. Location-based games (LBGs) have been challenged during the on-going pandemic. No research has shown that LBGs can be used to help prevent COVID-19 infection. Therefore, we designed the game MeetDurian, which integrates entertainment, sports, and education. For investigating factors influencing intention to play the MeetDurian, we proposed some comparative evaluation. Data were gathered from participants who participated in capturing virtual durians and completed questionnaires about immersion into the game, workload assessment, user’s emotions, learning outcomes, and personal hygiene. These results proved the acceptability and usability of the mobile game-based MeetDurian for preventing the infection and severity of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Participatory Design and Process Testing to Optimize Utility, Usability, and Acceptability of a Mobile Game for Promoting Evidence-Driven Public Health Decision-Making in Resource-Constrained Settings

Innovative game-based training methods that leverage the ubiquity of cellphones and familiarity with phone-based interfaces have the potential to transform the training of public health practitioners in low-income countries such as Liberia. This article describes the design, development, and testing of a prototype of the Figure It Out mobile game. The prototype game uses a disease outbreak scenario to promote evidence-based decision-making in determining the causative agent and prescribing intervention measures to minimize epidemiological and logistical burdens in resource-limited settings. An initial prototype of the game developed by the US team was playtested and evaluated by focus groups with 20 University of Liberia Masters of Public Health (UL MPH) students. Results demonstrate that the learning objectives—improving search skills for identifying scientific evidence and considering evidence before decision-making during a public health emergency—were considered relevant and important in a setting that has repeatedly and recently experienced severe threats to public health. However, some of the game mechanics that were thought to enhance engagement such as trial-and-error and choose-your-own-path gameplay, were perceived by the target audience as distracting or too time-consuming, particularly in the context of a realistic emergency scenario. Gameplay metrics that mimicked real-world situations around lives lost, money spent, and time constraints during public health outbreaks were identified as relatable and necessary considerations. Our findings reflect cultural differences between the game development team and end users that have emphasized the need for end users to have an integral part of the design team; this formative evaluation has critically informed next steps in the iterative development process. Our multidisciplinary, cross-cultural and cross-national design team will be guided by Liberia-based public health students and faculty, as well as community members who represent our end user population in terms of experience and needs. These stakeholders will make key decisions regarding game objectives and mechanics, to be vetted and implemented by game design experts, epidemiologists, and software developers.

A Game-Based Content and Language-Integrated Learning Practice for Environmental Awareness (ENVglish)

Increasing human activities in the environment have created severe effects; therefore, handling such effects by raising environmental awareness through several ways has become significant to sustain the environment, which can enhance 21st century skills including critical thinking and information literacy. Digital games can be used for this because they create an environment for learning with higher engagement, motivation, and excitement besides fostering cognitive attainment and retention. Accordingly, a mobile game-based content and language-integrated learning practice (an educational digital game called ENVglish) was developed to raise EFL students' environmental awareness in this qualitative study. During the design and development phases of the game, students' and teachers' perceptions regarding it were collected with semi-structured interviews. The data were content analyzed. The findings indicated that both students and teachers had positive perceptions about the game and that students could improve their English and have environmental awareness with the game.

Pembangunan Permainan Mudah Alih Matematik 'Sifir Run' untuk Pembelajaran Topik Darab bagi Murid Sekolah Rendah

Bidang permainan mudah alih pada era ini telah melonjakkan evolusi pendidikan dan juga membangunkan kemahiran kognitif, spatial dan kemahiran motor (skill) serta meningkatkan kemahiran ICT. Pembangunan ICT dan teknologi telah memberi banyak peluang dan ruang untuk diterokai dalam bidang permainan mudah alih. Sifir Run merupakan sebuah aplikasi permainan mudah alih yang bertemakan pembelajaran sifir. Pembangunan aplikasi ini bertujuan untuk meningkatkan kemahiran menghafal sifir dalam kalangan murid sekolah rendah. Objektif projek ini adalah untuk mengenalpasti permasalahan murid dalam operasi darab, mereka bentuk dan membangunkan permainan mudah alih yang bertemakan sifir dan mengkaji kebolehgunaan aplikasi permainan mudah alih tersebut. Pembangunan aplikasi ini dijalankan dengan menggunakan model ADDIE. Terdapat seramai 20 orang responden dipilih oleh pengkaji bagI menjalani fasa penilaian untuk menguji kebolehgunaan aplikasi permainan mudah alih Sifir Run. Development of 'Sifir Run' Mathematical Mobile Game for Learning Multiplication Topics in Primary School Students Abstract: The field of mobile games in this era has accelerated the evolution of education and also developed cognitive, spatial and motor skills (skills) as well as improve ICT skills. The development of ICT and technology has provided many opportunities and spaces to be explored in the field of mobile gaming. Sifir Run is a mobile game application themed on learning ciphers. The development of this application aims to improve the skills of memorizing ciphers among primary school students. The objective of this project is to identify students' problems in multiplication operations, design and develop cipher -themed mobile games and study the usability of such mobile game applications. The development of this application was carried out using the ADDIE model. A total of 20 respondents were selected by the researcher to undergo the evaluation phase to test the usability of the Sifir Run mobile game application. Keywords: Educational Games, Mobile Computer Games, Multiplication.

Data-driven method for mobile game publishing revenue forecast

Games as a service is similar to software as a service, which provides players with game content on a continuous monetization model. Game revenue forecast is vital to game developers to make the right business decisions, such as determining the marketing budget, controlling the development cost, and setting up benchmarks for evaluating game publishing performance. How to make the revenue forecast and integrate it with the game publishing process is hard for small and medium-sized independent (indie) game developers. This includes all steps of the process, from forecasting to decision-making based on the results. This paper provides a data-driven method that uses the mobile game revenue forecast based on different time-series prediction models to drive the game publishing. We demonstrate how to use the data-driven method to guide an indie game studio to forecast revenue and then set the revenue forecast as the internal benchmark to drive game publishing. In practice, we involve a real game project from an indie game studio and provide guidance for one of their casual game projects. Then, based on the revenue forecast, we discuss how to set the revenue forecast as an internal benchmark and drive the actions for mobile game publishing. Finally, we make a conclusion on how our data-driven method can be used to drive mobile game publishing and also discuss future research work.