Natural User Interfaces for Meditative Health Games

The psychological health outcomes of video games are drawing increasing interest around the world. There is growing interest in video games as an accessible health intervention for depression and anxiety, both of which are rising health concerns globally. New interaction techniques for video games are becoming increasingly popular, with natural user interfaces (NUIs) becoming more commonplace in game systems. This chapter explores the design of a meditative game, a subgenre of casual games that intends for players to become calm and relaxed, and the evaluation of the NUIs for the game. The purpose of the chapter is to ascertain which NUI is most suitable for meditative games. A meditative fishpond game was designed that accepts two NUIs: touch and eye-tracking. The game was evaluated using a Positive and Negative Affect Schedule. The study found the eye-tracking interface reported a higher positive affect score from users and is therefore most suitable for meditative games.

Dive Deeper

Validation of serious games tends to focus on evaluating their design as a whole. While this helps to assess whether a particular combination of game mechanics is successful, it provides little insight into how individual mechanics contribute or detract from a serious game's purpose or a player's game experience. This study analyses the effect of game mechanics commonly used in casual games for engagement, measured as a combination of player behaviour and reported game experience. Secondly, it examines the role of a serious game's purpose on those same measures. An experimental study was conducted with 204 participants playing several versions of a serious game to explore these points. The results show that adding additional game mechanics to a core gameplay loop did not lead to participants playing more or longer, nor did it improve their game experience. Players who were aware of the game's purpose, however, perceived the game as more beneficial, scored their game experience higher, and progressed further. The results show that game mechanics on their own do not necessarily improve engagement, while the effect of perceived value deserves further study.

PLEASURE+GENDER+PLAY

From the start, play and game studies scholars have investigated the experiences of women and girls who play games online, as well as gendered assumptions around digital as well as non-digital play (Brunner et al., 2000; Bryce & Rutter, 2002; Delamere & Shaw, 2008; Fron et al., 2007a, 2007b; Pearce, 2009). Scholars have challenged ideas such as that girls and women have weaker gameplay skills than boys and men (Jenson & De Castell, 2008), that women are not interested in competitive play (Taylor, 2006), that girls and women are different in their play experiences and interests (Royse et al., 2007) and that women are not frequent or loyal players (Consalvo & Begy, 2015; Williams et al., 2009). However, there is still more to learn about how women, girls, boys, men, nonbinary and other individuals play, as well as how gender can play an important role beyond as an identity marker in playful expressions as well as normative expectations for play. This panel offers new ways of examining how gender, games, and other forms of online play, can be analyzed and understood. These four papers argue for a more nuanced understanding of gender and play, further challenging gaming culture’s preoccupation that certain games and certain styles of play are more “valid” than others (Consalvo & Paul, 2019). To do that, we offer fresh analytical tools, different theoretical lenses and underexplored sites for study. $2 “No Need For Speed” makes a unique contribution to gaming and play literature, offering a new articulation of the temporal experiences within and external to game play - especially in COVID/pandemic times. In particular, the authors argue that the concept of “slow gaming,” might offer new possibilities for both our experiences of play and the way that time within the games industry itself is being reconceptualized. The authors offer three different games as examples of how “slow gaming” challenges our relationship to play, domesticity, notions of gender, and labor practices within the gaming industry more broadly. This paper argues that playing slow games, or playing games slowly, might provide a unique political rejoinder to contemporary life under late capitalism. $2 Two papers in this panel bring underutilized theoretical frameworks to the study of gender and games: examining how socioeconomic class and boundary keeping intersect with gender and gameplay in important ways. The presentation “Working for hearts: Social class and time management games” reads popular casual games such as Sally’s Spa through an intersectional critique. Adding to gendered examinations of casual games (Chess, 2012, 2017), this paper brings in a critique of social class. It does so through exploring the classed positions of jobs in these games, as well as how the player’s agency is limited both through classed expectations of certain occupations as well as further undermined by particular design decisions and gameplay mechanics as well as game narratives. It demonstrates how class is an important aspect of identity that can help us better understand gaming representations. The second paper to bring in underutilized theory is “Gendered expectations of playing nice, boundary keeping and problematic/toxic behaviors in casual video game communities.” This paper offers a different way of understanding the role of toxic behavior and players in game communities: through the sociological lens of boundary keeping. While not dismissing the real effects of harassment, it explores how activities such as trolling and other problematic gameplay is defined differently within different player groups, how it can strengthen some in-game communities or spur the creation of groups dedicated to combating such problems, and in the process helping to further enrich and make more inclusive gaming culture. $2 “Girls, Platforms, and Play” examines an offline form of gendered play and competition – pre-teen and teen girls riding hobbyhorses – and how the activity has been differently contested and/or constructed on two platforms: YouTube and Instagram. Legacy media video content of hobbyhorse competitions uploaded to YouTube inevitably have led – given YouTube’s largely antisocial comment culture (Burgess & Green, 2018) – to hobbyhorsers’ activities to be delegitimized for a number of reasons by commenters: mainly, because it’s just girls playing with toys, not participating in a sport; or because it is an athletic endeavor, but its participants should compete in a “real” sport, like track and field; or because it’s not real equestrianism. Instagram's affordances, which help encourage connections among subculture participants and the creation of communities (Leaver, Highfield, & Abidin, 2020), have allowed hobbyhorse enthusiasts to create a space of their own online.

THE CASUAL GAMES DISCUSSION: DEFINE, DESIGN, PLAYERS AND BENEFITS

In recent years, the market for casual games has been expanding, and so has the number of players. Many researchers have studied casual games in different aspects. This paper summarizes the articles and studies of scholars, and attempts to discuss the definition of casual games, the design emphasis of casual games, the basic attributes of casual game players, and the physical and psychological benefits of playing casual games.

Towards the aesthetics of cozy video games

While among game journalists and developers the term ‘cozy games’ has recently been gaining popularity, the concept still rarely is discussed in detail in academic circles. While game scholars put more and more focus on the new types of casual games that concentrate mostly on starting discourses on mental health, trauma and the experiences of marginalized people (often referred to as ‘empathy games’), the discussion would benefit from the introduction of the concept of coziness and the use of more precise definitions. The article discusses cozy aesthetics, showing that their popularity correlates with sociopolitical changes especially in Europe and the United States. First, cozy games are defined in the context of feminist and inclusive design. Second, it proposes three types of application of coziness in games depending on their relationship with functionality: coherent, dissonant and situational.

Girly Games and Girl Gamers

Where chapter 2 focused on overt sexism, this chapter explores the subtler, but equally damaging, impacts of inferential sexism, or factors that appear to be nondiscriminatory but rest on limiting assumptions about gender and gender relations. The chapter finds that participants feel misunderstood by the gaming industry, which offers women infantilizing or stereotypical “girly games” rather than crafting interesting games for adult women. It also finds that women often face surprised reactions to their presence in gaming spaces or assumptions that they game to meet men. Like overt harassment, this makes female gamers feel abnormal or out of place and serves to preserve gaming’s existing hegemony, limiting women’s ability to affect game culture. Furthermore, this chapter reveals that the rise of casual games has complicated this situation rather than improved it. In this way, this chapter both addresses new aspects of women’s experiences in masculinized spaces and provides insight into the casualized era’s ongoing trials.

Core and the Video Game Industry

This chapter elaborates on the theoretical framework that serves as a through line for the book in its entirety. Specifically, it draws on discourses about “core” and “casual” games to show how “core” describes a hegemonic set of ideologies that work to frame games in specific, masculinized ways. The chapter also argues, however, that recent industrial changes, from the rise of casual games to the diversification of funding and distribution platforms, serve as counterhegemonic forces, challenging many “core” assumptions about games and audiences. Using a critical analysis of gaming news, the chapter lays out these changes and addresses both their real impact on the games industry and their felt impact on audiences and power structures. Through this, it shows that gaming is in the midst of a crisis of authority, where previously powerful members of the community fear losing control of it. As a result, they are exerting extra force to maintain their privileged position, accounting for the divergent narratives about games that dominate the casualized era.