The author of this hugely informative study explores the question of what happens when players practise and negotiate computer code, various ideologies, and the game itself by modding (modifying a ...game) in the context of The Sims, the bestselling computer game of all time.
Sihvonen examines the technical and material specificities of The Sims mods, as well as their cultural context. Viewed as a manifestation of participatory culture, modding makes PC games ultimately malleable: players reconfigure the game by creating new content, altering the code and changing the behaviours of the game engine. Using a semiotic framework, Sihvonen suggests a signification process that includes representation, interpretation, investigation and experimentation with the game system and rules.
From its historical roots in the shoot’em up games, the author bares the fascinating evolution and dynamics of modding, where gender stereotypes, the thrills of hacking and living the Sims’ American Dream intersect with the aesthetic and operational dimensions of modding.
Music in video games is often a sophisticated, complex composition that serves to engage the player, set the pace of play, and aid interactivity. Composers of video game music must master an array of ...specialized skills not taught in the conservatory, including the creation of linear loops, music chunks for horizontal resequencing, and compositional fragments for use within a generative framework. InA Composer's Guide to Game Music, Winifred Phillips -- herself an award-winning composer of video game music -- provides a comprehensive, practical guide that leads an aspiring video game composer from acquiring the necessary creative skills to understanding the function of music in games to finding work in the field. Musicians and composers may be drawn to game music composition because the game industry is a multibillion-dollar, employment-generating economic powerhouse, but, Phillips writes, the most important qualification for a musician who wants to become a game music composer is a love of video games. Phillips offers detailed coverage of essential topics, including musicianship and composition experience; immersion; musical themes; music and game genres; workflow; working with a development team; linear music; interactive music, both rendered and generative; audio technology, from mixers and preamps to software; and running a business.A Composer's Guide to Game Musicoffers indispensable guidance for musicians and composers who want to deploy their creativity in a dynamic and growing industry, protect their musical identities while working in a highly technical field, and create great music within the constraints of a new medium.
Educational games have been increasingly used to improve students’ computational thinking. However, most existing games have focused on the theoretical knowledge of computational thinking, ignoring ...the development of computational thinking skills. Moreover, there is a lack of integration of adaptivity into educational computer games for computational thinking, which is crucial to addressing individual needs in developing computational thinking skills. In this study, we present an adaptive educational computer game, called AutoThinking, for developing students’ computational thinking skills in addition to their conceptual knowledge. To evaluate the effects of the game, we conducted an experimental study with 79 elementary school students in Estonia, where the experimental group learned with AutoThinking, while the control group used a traditional technology-enhanced learning approach. Our findings show that learning with the adaptive educational computer game significantly improved students’ computational thinking related to both conceptual knowledge and skills. Moreover, students using the adaptive educational computer game showed a significantly higher level of interest, satisfaction, flow state, and technology acceptance in learning computational thinking. Implications of the findings are also discussed.
Scholars, critics, and creators describe certain videogames as being “poetic,” yet what that means or why it matters is rarely discussed. In Game Poems: Videogame Design as Lyric Practice, ...independent game designer Jordan Magnuson explores the convergences between game making and lyric poetry and makes the surprising proposition that videogames can operate as a kind of poetry apart from any reliance on linguistic signs or symbols. This rigorous and accessible short book first examines characteristics of lyric poetry and explores how certain videogames can be appreciated more fully when read in light of the lyric tradition—that is, when read as “game poems.” Magnuson then lays groundwork for those wishing to make game poems in practice, providing practical tips and pointers along with tools and resources. Rather than propose a monolithic framework or draw a sharp line between videogame poems and poets and their nonpoetic counterparts, Game Poems brings to light new insights for videogames and for poetry by promoting creative dialogue between disparate fields. The result is a lively account of poetic game-making praxis. “Everyone who loves the true power of games will benefit from the treasure trove of insights in Game Poems.” — Jesse Schell, author of The Art of Game Design “Magnuson shines a sensitive and incisive light on small, often moving, videogames.” — D. Fox Harrell, Ph.D., Professor of Digital Media, Computing, and Artificial Intelligence, MIT “Game Poems tells a new story about games— that games can be lyrical, beautiful, emotionally challenging—to inspire creators and critics alike.” —Noah Wardrip-Fruin, author of How Pac-Man Eats “Even as the news swells with impending doom for creativity, writing, and text itself, this literate and crafty book pursues poetry not through implacable algorithms but in concrete and personal play. It should be an indispensable guide for anyone who aims to maintain the true, human promise of technical poetics.”—Stuart Moulthrop, coauthor of Twining: Critical and Creative Approaches to Hypertext Narratives “For far too long videogames have flourished – and commanded both capital and attention – in a kind of counterculture that they seem to have created as if ex nihilo for themselves and their players. But we are these players, and their culture has always been integrated with all of our own. In this evenhanded artist-scholar’s ars poetica Jordan Magnuson respects the material cultural specificity of videogames while regarding them through the ‘lens of poetry’ in order to discover – and help create – a practice and an art of Game Poems within the wider field. Magnuson formally, int(erv)entionally embraces this art as lyrically poetic.”—John Cayley, Brown University “In Game Poems, Magnuson listens carefully to videogames, and hears them speak to questions of art, language, and meaning that connect our written past to our software future. Read this book and you will hear it too.”—Frank Lantz, Director, NYU Game Center “Jordan Magnuson has created a work that ties together the worlds of poetry and videogames in a deep and enlightening way. For those of us who care about the potential of poetic games, Jordan greatly improves the language of how we talk about them and expands our ability to see what this unique form can become. This is one of my favorite books on game design and I apologize in advance to those whom I will end up cornering and not being able to stop talking to about it.”—Benjamin Ellinger, Game Design Program Director, DigiPen Institute of Technology “A groundbreaking and accessible book that helps us think about games as poems. With patient tenacity, Magnuson teases out what he felt for years as he engaged in his own practice of making videogames. His mission to help us apply a ‘lyric reading’ to games so that our engagement with, and appreciation of, games can be enhanced feels deeply personal. Drawing from a wide range of games and computational media scholars, poetry scholars, game creators, and poets, Magnuson provides a rigorous, balanced, and unique interdisciplinary contribution. A must-read for videogame scholars, practicing game makers, and anyone interested in the potential of ‘game poems.’”—Susana Ruiz, University of California, Santa Cruz “This book tenaciously wrenches videogame hermeneutics from the insatiable maws of rhetoric and narratology—to the cheers of poets everywhere. In elucidating the lyric characteristics of the ""game poem,"" Magnuson demonstrates not just that poetry is a useful lens for understanding videogames, but also that videogames can be a useful lens for understanding poetry. A rewarding text for scholars, game designers, poets, and anyone in between.”—Allison Parrish, Interactive Telecommunications Program and Interactive Media Arts, NYU “A concise, passionate articulation - and defense! - of an artistic space between poems and videogames. If game scholars wish to prove that they are not engaged merely in an apologetics for violent pornography, they need only to teach this book.”—Chris Bateman, author of Imaginary Games and 21st Century Game Design “I feel I've found a kindred spirit in Jordan Magnuson and his practical recommendations for creating distilled, compelling, personal videogames – throw out the conventions of game design one at a time? Yes, please! The revelation for me in this book, however, is the heat and power of the language of poets and poetry brought close to videogame design. There's much in here worth pursuing to kindle the fires of new and exciting videogame poems, and Jordan is a capable and delightfully humble guide.”—Pippin Barr, author of How to Play a Video Game and The Stuff Games Are Made Of “With Game Poems, Jordan Magnuson lays to rest any last vestige of the notion that the implicit limits of games are as ‘entertainment products’. By taking games seriously as successors of the lyric poetry tradition, he opens up new avenues for how game designers can think about what they do, how critical game theorists can approach their many-faceted object of study, and how players can more fully engage with videogames.”—Soraya Murray, author of On Video Games “Game Poems shines an important light on a neglected area of videogame theory and provides unique guidance for those interested in exploring the poetic potential of videogames.”—Jenova Chen, designer of Flow, Flower, Journey, and Sky: Children of the Light “Popular frameworks for video game scholarship consistently fail to account for the most avant-garde and affective works of interactive art. With Game Poems, Jordan Magnuson provides not only a lens to understand these diverse and important titles but also a guide to constructing the next generation of personal and incisive games. With numerous examples from decades of experimental games, including Magnuson's own minimalist and insightful work, this book is an excellent introduction to the form for neophytes as well as finally providing words to describe a movement that many experienced game poets previously understood only intuitively.”—Gregory Avery-Weir, creator of The Majesty of Colors and Looming “Jordan Magnuson is one of a surprisingly small group of artists who see in the technology of videogames a versatile medium capable of expressing much more than conventional games.”—Michaël Samyn, co-founder, Tale of Tales; co-creator of Sunset, The Graveyard, and The Path “So much has been written about what games are, and yet there’s always a new way of thinking about them. In Jordan Magnuson’s Game Poems we discover that games are also a lyrical form of art; that games can be understood as poetry, and that the making games as poetry creates new modes of artistic expression. Jordan Magnuson’s book is a fascinating exploration of games as poetry, and the poetry of play.”—Miguel Sicart, author of Play Matters, Beyond Choices: The Design of Ethical Gameplay, and Playing Software “In Game Poems, I found a new perspective on the kind of videogames that are dearest to me: short, personal, poetic games. By looking at games through the lens of lyric poetry, Jordan Magnuson puts into focus the workings of that mysterious hodgepodge of audio, visuals, and interactivity: the language of videogames. Both experienced and novice game makers will find approachable, practical advice on the craft of videogames. And anyone who plays short games will find new ways of appreciating and talking about them. I know I will be returning to it for inspiration when making my own small games!”—Adam Le Doux, creator of Bitsy “As a creator and researcher, Jordan Magnuson has been able to demonstrate through the utmost visual simplicity, by enhancing basic geometric forms, the empathetic capacity of the videogame medium. Game Poems explores this idea and the reconfiguration of the videogame beyond its ludic component, highlighting the artistic and poetic potential of games.”—Antonio César Moreno Cantano, University Complutense of Madrid “Poems ask us to slow down, pay attention, and take the time to appreciate our experiences. Emerging from Magnuson's need to find ways to talk about his own creative practice, this book is all about discovering ways to do this with videogames. Magnuson explores what it means to view videogames as poetry, and provides insight, as a practitioner, on how to make game poems that enable and encourage this type of reflection. Drawing on a wide range of sources, from literature and philosophy to game studies and game design, this book covers a lot of material, but always remains grounded in concrete examples and solid theory. The book ends with a call to “go make some game poems!” After reading the book, I was keen to do exactly that. I urge you to do the same!”—Alex Mitchell, National University of Singapore “To many, poetry is a dying – or dead – art form. Few people sit down at night to open their favorite poet’s chapbook with the latest streaming service at hand or their favorite videogame console s
Decades of research on the effects of media violence have examined associations between viewing aggressive material in the media and aggression and prosocial behavior. However, the existing ...longitudinal studies have tended to exclusively examine aggression and prosocial behavior as outcomes, with a limited range of potential mediators. The current study examines associations between playing violent video games and externalizing and prosocial behavior over a 5-year period across adolescence. Additionally, the study examines potential mediators of these associations, including empathic concern, benevolence, and self-regulation. Participants included 488 adolescents (Mage of child at Wave 1 = 13.83, SD = 0.98) and their parents, who completed self- and parental measures at three different time points, each 2 years apart. Results revealed that early exposure to video game violence was indirectly associated with lower levels of prosocial behavior as mediated by lower levels of benevolence. Additionally, early video game violence play was associated with higher levels of externalizing behavior at the cross-sectional level, but not 5 years later. Implications of results for adolescents and parents are discussed.
Abstract
Background
Active computer gaming (ACG) is a method of facilitating physical activity in older people to improve health outcomes.
Purpose
The purpose of this study was to update and extend a ...systematic review of the evidence for ACG to determine its effects on physical and cognitive health in older adults.
Data Sources
MEDLINE, EMBASE, CENTRAL in the Cochrane Library, and PsycINFO databases were searched from the date of the previous review (2011) to May 2016.
Study Selection
Eligible articles were randomized controlled trials (RCTs) investigating the effect of ACG in adults aged 65 and older.
Data Extraction
Thirty-five studies were eligible for inclusion. Two review authors independently conducted data extraction, risk-of-bias assessment, and coding of behavior change techniques. Outcomes of interest were analyzed as continuous data and pooled as standardized mean differences (SMD) and 95% confidence intervals (CI). The Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development, and Evaluation (GRADE) approach was used to determine the quality of the evidence.
Data Synthesis
Behavior change techniques (N = 106) were coded in the included studies (mean = 3.02). Data were pooled for 5 main outcomes of interest. Significant moderate effects in favor of ACG were observed for balance (SMD = 0.52, 95% CI = 0.24 to 0.79; 17 studies; 743 participants), for functional exercise capacity when intervention delivery was >120 minutes per week (SMD = 0.53, 95% CI = 0.15 to 0.90; 5 studies; 116 participants), and for cognitive function (SMD = –0.48, 95% CI = –0.80 to 0.17; 8 studies; 459 participants). There was no significant effect observed for functional mobility or fear of falling.
Limitations
The quality of the evidence for all comparisons was graded low or very low.
Conclusions
At present there is very little confidence that ACG improves physical and cognitive outcomes in older adults.
Self-play reinforcement learning, where agents learn by playing with themselves, has been successfully applied in many game scenarios. However, the training procedure for self-play reinforcement ...learning is unstable and more sample-inefficient than (general) reinforcement learning, especially in imperfect information games. To improve the self-play training process, we incorporate a comprehensive critic into the policy gradient method to form a self-play actor-critic (SPAC) method for training agents to play computer games. We evaluate our method in four different environments in both competitive and cooperative tasks. The results show that the agent trained with our SPAC method outperforms those trained with deep deterministic policy gradient (DDPG) and proximal policy optimization (PPO) algorithms in many different evaluation approaches, which vindicate the effect of our comprehensive critic in the self-play training procedure.
Gamification is the use of game design elements and game mechanics in non-game contexts. This idea has been used successfully in many web based businesses to increase user engagement. Some ...researchers suggest that it could also be used in web based education as a tool to increase student motivation and engagement. In an attempt to verify those theories, we have designed and built a gamification plugin for a well-known e-learning platform. We have made an experiment using this plugin in a university course, collecting quantitative and qualitative data in the process. Our findings suggest that some common beliefs about the benefits obtained when using games in education can be challenged. Students who completed the gamified experience got better scores in practical assignments and in overall score, but our findings also suggest that these students performed poorly on written assignments and participated less on class activities, although their initial motivation was higher.
► The dynamics of games can be incorporated into learning actions. ► We present the design and evaluation of a gamified learning experience. ► Students following the gamified version get better scores on practical assignments. ► They also participate less and perform poorly on written examinations. ► Gamification seems to have potential to increase student motivation.
Executive function is the set of cognitive skills needed for goal directed behavior and is a strong predictor of academic success (Best, 2014). The present study examines the effectiveness of a ...custom video game designed to train the executive function skill of shifting-being able to efficiently shift attention from 1 task to another. In Experiment 1, students who played Alien Game for 4 hr, mostly at home, improved shifting skill more than those who played a word-search control game (d = .40). In Experiment 2, students who played All You Can ET (an updated version of Alien Game) for 2 hr improved shifting skill more than those who played a word-search control game (d = .36), regardless of whether the aliens were designed to portray hot or cool emotions. In addition, playing All You Can ET, which targets shifting skill, did not cause an improvement on inhibition skill, which represents a different kind of executive function. These results extend previous findings (Parong et al., 2017), and highlight a somewhat rare case in which playing a focused computer game for a short duration causes improvements in a targeted executive function skill. Overall, the results support the theory of specific transfer of general skills, which suggests that game-based training of cognitive skills should focus on concentrated practice on a target skill to train the target skill rather than divided practice across multiple different skills in an attempt to improve the mind in general.
Educational Impact and Implications Statement
Can playing a video game improve your executive function skills-that is, skills for controlling your cognitive processing? To address this question, we designed a game (All You Can ET) based on cognitive principles of skill learning that targeted a specific cognitive skill-the ability to shift from one task to another (that can be called shifting). In 2 experiments, students who played the game for 4 hr (Experiment 1) or 2 hr (Experiment 2) showed greater gains on cognitive tests of shifting than students who played a control game. This is 1 of a few studies to show replicated evidence for positive consequences of playing video games.
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