With the ever-evolving landscape of education, integration of mobile games into classroom instruction has been remarkable. However, with the advancement of technology, newly developed mobile apps are ...needed to be evaluated before they can be fully utilized in the teaching-learning process. This study delved into the integration of Sim City, a simulation game focused on constructing cities, into Urban Geography classes with primary focus on evaluating the mobile app’s appropriateness, efficiency, and relevance, as well as its perceived impacts on motivation and metacognition of the users. The research involved the utilization of mixed-method approach using the explanatory sequential design where the survey method was utilized to determine the evaluation of the respondents on the given criteria and the interview to identify the difficulties and challenges encountered by the users which are the second-year BSE-Social Studies students. The quantitative data were analyzed using the mean by employing the Likert Scale and appropriate adjectival interpretations where it was revealed that the mobile app’s integration was highly favored. The visual clarity and compatibility of Sim City with the course content had a good impact on its appropriateness. The efficiency results emphasized the game's capacity to improve understanding through a structured learning process and challenging tasks. The relevance was confirmed, particularly in advancing the ideas about smart cities. Furthermore, participants exhibited enhanced motivation and improved metacognitive abilities. Moreover, the qualitative data were coded and analyzed by employing the content-thematic analysis. It was found that challenges encountered by the respondents included game complexity, financial aspects and resource management, and technical issues.
Emerging literature has begun to investigate the role of technology in public health. Yet, a minimal amount is understood about whether, how, and why digital games, notably mobile games, might affect ...mental health, particularly depression. In this work, we examine the effect of location-based mobile gaming on local depression trends. We measure population-level depression using a well-established mechanism from the medical and public health literature, internet search of depression-related terms. We argue that the introduction of Pokémon Go, a mobile game that encourages outdoor physical activity, face-to-face socialization, and exposure to nature, may alleviate non-clinical forms of mild depression for users playing the game. To identify the effect, we employ a difference-in-differences approach to exploit the staggered release of Pokémon Go into 166 regions in 12 English-speaking countries. We empirically document a disproportionate decrease in depression-related search in those regions where users are able to play Pokémon Go. This finding lends credence to anecdotal claims that location-based mobile games may alleviate symptoms of depression of their users, underscoring the mental health opportunities of location-based mobile gaming and creating new opportunities for information systems research.
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Pokémon GO brought the location-based augmented reality games into the mainstream. To understand why people play these games, we created an online survey (n = 2612) with open questions about the ...reasons to start, continue, and quit playing Pokémon GO, and composed categories of the answers through a thematic analysis. Earlier experiences especially with the same franchise, social influence, and popularity were the most common reasons to adopt the game, while progressing in the game was the most frequently reported reason to continue playing. The player's personal situation outside the game and playability problems were the most significant reasons to quit the game. In addition to shedding more light on the Pokémon GO phenomenon, the findings are useful for both further studying and designing location-based augmented reality game experiences.
•The Pokémon franchise and fandom were the most common reasons to adopt Pokémon GO.•Progressing in the game was the most frequent reason to continue playing.•Progressing in the game had the strongest correlation to playing frequency.•The player's personal situation was the most significant reason to quit the game.•Playability problems as a whole were another major reason to quit the game.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
As well as popularising location-based games, Pokémon GO helped connect location-based play with augmented reality (AR), bringing this still-nascent technology into the mainstream. Despite growing ...use of AR, its long-promised revolutionary potential remains stifled by limited innovation, technical barriers and lack of uptake by users. To explore how AR figures into location-based games, we analysed 11 location-based games with AR features. We identify four overarching ways these games incorporate the physical environment into gameplay: through superimposition, blending, immersivity and materiality. Our findings show that AR is most commonly a gimmick rather than a central element of the game experience and remains substantially hindered by technical glitches and limitations. While more advanced and deeply integrated AR mechanics are emerging, its use in location-based games remain far from the ‘technological imaginaries’ that have accompanied its development as AR continually oscillates between its status as a ‘mundane’ and ‘always-imminent’ technology.
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Digital game technologies, that is, games and emerging game-based applications, are pervasively spread in society as a means of entertainment, education and exercise, amongst other uses. With this ...popularity, attention has been directed towards the accessibility of these technologies to people with disabilities to ensure equity, equal access to opportunities and realize earnings from a significant customer group. This study investigates: How is the attention of academic game accessibility research divided across game technologies, disability categories and use domains? And where is attention needed? To answer these questions, I conducted a review of research (162 manuscripts) on game technologies’ accessibility published between 2016 and 2020, inclusive. The reviewed literature appears to have a utility focus (e.g. on education and health management) that relatively de-emphasizes the importance of game accessibility for entertainment or fun purposes. Auditory, motor and mobility disabilities, and emerging gamification, exergames, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are especially under researched in the academic domain.
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Japan has recently seen an upsurge in idol ikusei (nurturing) games: networked mobile games where one nurtures and produces an idol pop group. These games are a significant part of Japan’s ...contemporary ‘media mix’, influenced both by virtual pet games and by discourses of nurturing surrounding the production of ‘real’ girl idol groups by male producer-auteur figures. Previous analyses have considered affection for simulated or virtual girl idol figures as a detached longing for stylised characteristics (moe). This article uses a case study of a mobile game at the centre of the Love Live! girl idol-nurturing simulation franchise to suggest that we cannot only speak of players’ affection for nurturing games’ characters in terms of postmodern disembodiment; we must also consider how in playing idol-nurturing games, players take the place of real male producer-auteur figures in Japanese popular music production, where discourses of gendered nurturing abound.
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•Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects 750,000 American Children under the age of 10.•Emotion classifiers integrated into mobile solutions can be used for screening and therapy.•Emotion classifiers ...do not generalize well to children due to a lack of labeled training data.•We propose a method of aggregating emotive video through a mobile game.•We demonstrate that several algorithms can automatically label frames from video derived from the game.
Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder characterized by repetitive behaviors, narrow interests, and deficits in social interaction and communication ability. An increasing emphasis is being placed on the development of innovative digital and mobile systems for their potential in therapeutic applications outside of clinical environments. Due to recent advances in the field of computer vision, various emotion classifiers have been developed, which have potential to play a significant role in mobile screening and therapy for developmental delays that impair emotion recognition and expression. However, these classifiers are trained on datasets of predominantly neurotypical adults and can sometimes fail to generalize to children with autism. The need to improve existing classifiers and develop new systems that overcome these limitations necessitates novel methods to crowdsource labeled emotion data from children. In this paper, we present a mobile charades-style game, Guess What?, from which we derive egocentric video with a high density of varied emotion from a 90-second game session. We then present a framework for semi-automatic labeled frame extraction from these videos using meta information from the game session coupled with classification confidence scores. Results show that 94%, 81%, 92%, and 56% of frames were automatically labeled correctly for categories disgust, neutral, surprise, and scared respectively, though performance for angry and happy did not improve significantly from the baseline.
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GEOZS, IJS, IMTLJ, KILJ, KISLJ, NLZOH, NUK, OILJ, PNG, SAZU, SBCE, SBJE, UILJ, UL, UM, UPCLJ, UPUK, ZAGLJ, ZRSKP
Transformation of knowledge can be obtained anytime anywhere but where and how you learn make all the difference. The increased number of different online games attract young people that can turn to ...addiction or cause dropout or sometimes makes them inspired. On the other hand, computational thinking skills are vital skills for the students in order to reduce the skills gap between education and the workplace. Computational thinking skills shall help the students become problem solver and innovator, when students have the capacity to determine what to extract from a system or problem in order to create a solution they are forced to think differently about the most important elements of what they are working with and remove irrelevant factors. The main purpose of this study is to assess the computational thinking among students on the mobile games utilization. The researcher employed quantitative data analysis and documentary analysis was used to measure the effect of mobile games utilization using Scholastic Abilities Test for Adults(SATA).The result of the study have average effect to enhance computational thinking. It also reveals that mobile games utilization such as collaboration actions provide incentives to engage with learning.
Gaming as a cutting-edge concept has recently been used by some innovative tourism sectors as a marketing tool and as a method of deeper engagement with visitors. This research aims to explore the ...gamification trend and its potential for experience development and tourism marketing. Using a focus group, this paper discusses gaming and tourism, and explores what drives tourists to play games. The results suggest tourists' game playing motivation is multidimensional. Players tend to start with purposive information seeking, then move on to an intrinsic stimulation. Socialization is also an important dimension. The research demonstrates several implications for tourism marketing.
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