With the growth of esports in recent years, it has become important to study different aspects of thedigital footprints that come with it. Esport is a form of sport competition using video games whereplayers or teams compete against each other using certain games in a competitive environment,governed by rules and regulations. Teams competing in esports work in a similar way as othersports teams. They try to win competitions and build their own fan base. Some fans want tocome closer to the team and other individuals supporting that specific team. Teams create serverson Discord that allows their fan base to interact with each other in a more regulated community.The servers mainly promote the team itself, but they also offer fans opportunities for exclusivecontent and discussions away from public social media channels. Gaming has however been provento offer a toxic environment, specifically against gender minorities. This article investigates howdifferent genders experience toxicity in the more regulated online gaming communities comparedto previously researched areas - multiplayer games, and public social forums.

Over the last few decades, the popularity of video games has skyrocketed thanks in part to their unique ability to engage their audience and to create empathy. Among them, serious games have an additional purpose beyond entertainment; to teach and help people. Serious games have been successfully applied in a variety of different fields, such as: education, health, tourism and also in bringing knowledge about cultural heritage. In this context, this thesis describes a serious game designed to promote Brazilian cultural heritage and  increase interest in tourism. The objective of this serious game was to involve the player in an interactive virtual exploration of Brazil, in order to teach more about its rich cultures and history. Our results show that the  majority of people learned something new about Brazil and became interested in traveling to Brazil, even  people familiar with Brazil.

Background. As video games increase in popularity and more people look to them as their primary source of entertainment, discussions around how they can affect players’ engagement become more important. One such discussion is around player agency, a player’s sense of control over the games that they play. Within this discussion, a new type of thinking regarding player agency has started emerging, where it gets divided into the amount of control a player experiences and the amount of control that they actually have. One way to see the difference between the two types of player agency is to look at linear and branching narratives. In a branching narrative, the player’s choices dictate the flow of the story, while in a linear narrative, the player chooses how to react, but the story itself is unaffected. Objectives. Our objective with this study was to explore how player engagement differs between a linear narrative and a branching narrative, and if there is a difference when going from one to the other. Methods. This was done by creating a game demo that contains both a linear narrative, as well as a branching narrative and conducting a user study where participants played the game and answered a questionnaire on their experience. Results. In our findings, no significant difference in engagement was observed through Pearson’s chi-square tests between the different narratives. However, there was a significant difference based on what order the narratives were presented. Participants that played the linear narrative first had significantly higher engagement levels than the participants that played the branching narrative first. Conclusions. We conclude that more research should be made, but we find there is a positive effect on engagement when both a linear and branching narrative presented in the same experience, and the linear narrative is presented first.

Through a series of in-depth qualitative interviews and a discourse analysis of academic publications this study explores the definition of indie video games, relationships between queer players and indie video games that they play, and ways in which queer players relate to games in general. The comparison of definitions between academic publications and player interviews shows that “indie” is a vague term that is too broad to define, either relying upon modes of production or becoming impossibly narrow in attempts to describe indie game trends. Instead, a more productive point of discussion seems to be located around affect typical for genres and categories of games, with modes of production being an important but not defining part of the conversation. / Media Studies & Production

The goal of this thesis is to find out how non-playable characters (NPC) in their own peripheral way, contribute to the narrative and worldbuilding of a video game. A prototype of a role-playing video game (RPG) was created for this particular study, in order to investigate and measure the effect of NPCs on worldbuilding and narrative in video games. Participants were recruited for the testing of the prototype followed by semi-structured interviews. The interviews were then analyzed and a conclusion on how NPCs affect the narrative and worldbuilding was reached, that being through multiple fronts such as foreshadowing future events and giving the world life with culture, and personal identities. / Målet med denna studie är att ta reda på hur icke-spelbara karaktärer (NPC) på sitt eget underordnade, sätt bidrar till narrativet och världsbyggandet av ett videospel. En prototyp av ett digitalt rollspel (RPG) skapades för just denna studie, för att undersöka och mäta effekten som NPCer kan ha på världsbyggnaden och narrativet i ett videospel.   Deltagare rekryterades för testning av prototypen följt av semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna analyserades sedan och en slutsats om hur NPCer påverkar narrativ och världsbyggnad nåddes, att det påverkas inom områden liksom att förebåda framtida händelser och tillföra liv i världen med kultur och personliga identiteter.

This project investigates how to design an architecture in a context of virtual space, and how to utilise the exclusive possibilities of the virtual context.  The main case study about the virtual space and impossible space is based on video games. After analysing the mechanism of building such 'impossible spaces' in various video games, this project conducted an experiment on designing several virtual spaces in the game engine, Unreal Engine 4, to investigate the differences between architecture in the real space and in the virtual space. In addition, another architecture experiment was conducted in an impossible space: a space where gravity is modified to be vertical to the surface of a triangle swept Mobius Strip. Walking in such a space offers an exclusive 'impossible' experience. Such an experience is possible to be presented by the manifestation of Unreal Engine 4.

Visual cues are a technique used for the purposes of guiding a viewer towards points of interest. Most commonly this is done with the use of color and contrast to make objects stick out more from its environment. Within the context of video games, visual cues are implemented to guide player actions in otherwise complex scenarios. Due to the steady increase of high-fidelity graphics in video games, visual cues are becoming more important for players so that visual clarity can still be maintained. In the video games analyzed in this thesis this is primarily done by adding a glowing outline (highlight) around the object or entity that the game designers want the player to interact with. Thus, this thesis attempts to explore two different qualities of visual cues: color and glow intensity, to see their effects on player performance and experience. To do this, an experiment was conducted in a scaled-down version of an FPS game with the purpose of testing these different qualities in four different scenarios and how they may influence both reaction time and player satisfaction. The results from this study indicate that neither of the tested qualities had any significant impact on a participant’s ability to complete their task. On the other hand: color had a big effect on player experience where one color, purple, was deemed irritating by most participants. Finally, the differences in glow intensity went unnoticed in most of the tested scenarios which points towards color being the more important quality of the ones tested in this study.

Distressingly, at the end of the 2008-2009 school year, 53% of fifth-grade students scored the equivalence of a D or lower on Florida's standardized science assessment (NCLB School District and State Public Accountability Report, 2009). One possible way to adapt methods of science education that is becoming more popular is through the use of computer games, as numerous studies have shown positive correlations between the use of computer games and increased learning gains in science. This thesis not only discusses previous researc concerning computer games as tools for science education but it also provides a description and the results of an original study. The purpose of the study found within this thesis was to examine how effectively 40 fourth-grade students could acquire knowledge from a text-free, physics-inspired computer game and then subsequently transfer any acquired knowledge to a text-containing, paper-and-pencil assessment without any scaffolding. Through the analysis of both qualitative and quantitative research data, this study revealed that students' assessment scores increased from pretest to posttest by an average of 12% for all students and by an average of 22.43% for the students who scored in the lowest one-third. Concerning only the assessment questions that were completely text-based, students' scores increased by an average of 14.6% for all students and by an average of 32.73% for the students who scored in the lowest one-third. Thus, in the researcher's opinion, there was enough transference to justify the use of the wordless, physics-based computer game as an effective and engaging educational tool among the 40 fourth-grade students who participated in this study: especially among those students who struggled with science.

The psychological inquiry into the effects of videogames and the internet on behavior is still a relatively new field. The question of whether playing violent videogames directly contribute to violent behavior, particularly in reference to its influence in mass shootings, is an important one that needs answers. A plethora of research purportedly shows the negative effects of (violent) videogames, but research showing positive effects, particularly on prosocial behaviors within the virtual world and reality, are less common. If specific videogame preferences are associated with altruistic behaviors, such a finding could elucidate how videogames might contribute to prosocial behavior. In this study, I examined if variables related to playing videogames are associated with altruism. Specifically, study variables were: (1) type of videogame played by participants (violent vs. non-violent); (2) the role players assume when playing (hero vs. villain); and (3) typical playing status (in teams vs. alone). Undergraduate students (n = 173; 120 females, 49 males, 4 “other”) completed a set of questionnaires assessing the following: their videogaming preferences and behaviors, altruism, pleasure at viewing violent media, antisocial behaviors, and aggressiveness. I had hypothesized that game players preferring to play violent games, on average, would obtain lower scores on altruism than players preferring to play non-violent games. The data did not support that hypothesis. I also hypothesized that game players who preferred playing heroes in games (instead of villains) and who preferred playing in teams (instead of playing alone) would obtain higher scores in altruism. Contrary to predictions, the data did not support those hypotheses. I also conducted exploratory analyses to determine if gaming preferences (e.g., violent or non-violent games, playing the role of heroes or villains, and playing in teams or alone) would be associated with extra-study variables (pleasure at viewing violent media, antisocial behaviors, and aggressiveness). None of the gaming preferences were associated significantly with any of the extra-study variables. All considered, these findings suggest that there is no disconcerting behavioral profile of video-gamers who enjoy playing violent video games, assuming any specific type of role, or playing in teams or alone. Additional implications of these findings are discussed.

Research on the effects of color associations in gambling situations has especially come to the forefront in recent times with the rise of casinos and other sales techniques in which consumers do not know the outcome of their purchases. Loot boxes are a unique form of micro-transactions in video games where players are uncertain about the objects they will receive with their monetary purchase. The aim of this study is to explore the effects of color and color placement in ads on loot box purchase intent. It will contribute to research about color perception in marketing and will, more specifically, establish a link between color associations in Call-to-Action (CTA) buttons and online video game environments in which gambling takes place. This research sets out to demonstrate that the color red, when placed in a foreground CTA button will achieve the highest purchase intent for a theoretical loot box in an online video game scenario. The study tests the placement of the color (foreground and background) and the color itself (red, blue, and gray).