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Those designing realistic, human-like, virtual characters for video games are seeking to suspend disbelief for the viewer by creating characters that are believably human. However, despite increasing sophistication in performance capture animation techniques and 3D modelling software, viewers are still aware of disparities between a character's realistic, human-like appearance and their behavioural fidelity. Those characters that differ from the human norm in their appearance and. behaviour risk falling into the 'Uncanny Valley' (Mori, 1970), a hypothetical place where objects regarded as frightening or repulsive are placed. Through a series of empirical studies, I have contributed to filling an evident gap in the literature on how the uncanny may be controlled by manipulating aspects of facial expression and speech in character design. The results from my initial empirical investigation lead to a new standpoint as to possible psychological factors that contribute to the cause of the Uncanny Valley based on the idea that aberrant facial expression in a character may lead to a perception of a lack of empathy in that character. The findings are not only applicable to characters featured in video games, but also those featured in animation and in virtual simulations beyond the domain of entertainment, such as healthcare and education. v

This thesis contributes to contemporary sociological debates about video games and video gaming by building upon the works of game theorists such as Eskelinen and Tronstad (2003), Juul (2001), Taylor (2006) and Thornham (2011) that explore the interactive and participatory nature of the pursuit. The data within, derived from an empirical study involving focus groups, interviews, observation and analyses of games and gaming practices and participant observation amongst communities of video gamers is analysed using theories and theoretical frameworks from film and audience studies, classical sociology (in particular Durkheim) and the sociology of sport. Emanating from the data video gaming is revealed to be an ‘organised sport played in a domestic environment’ in terms of embodied practice, conduct and sentiment. The prioritising of agency over structure in data analysis reveals multiple multisensory social practices that encourage engagement with the medium and create, maintain and develop a vibrant and constantly evolving video game lifeworld. Using the ‘career’ of the video gamer, as a conceptual framework, this thesis brings to the fore the masculinity and masculine social practices central to the video gaming lifeworld, and the multisensory social practices through which heterogeneous video gamers (from occasional lone gamers to fully immersed MMORPG enthusiasts) actively immerse themselves into, build, maintain and develop the video game lifeworld. A lifeworld wherein gamers develop their motivations to play and keep playing video games consequent to rewarding performances and interactions with other participants.

Videogames have emerged as arguably the most prominent form of entertainment in recent years. Their versatility has made them key contributory factors in social, literary, cultural and philosophical discourse; however, critics also tend to see videogames as posing a threat to established cultural parameters. This thesis argues that videogames are firmly grounded in older media and they are important for the development of the notions of textuality, technicity and identity that literary and cultural theories have been debating in recent years. As its point of departure, the thesis takes the contested role of videogames as storytelling media. Challenging the opposition between games and narratives that is posited in earlier research, the framework of the Derridean concept of supplementarity has been adopted to illustrate how the ludic and the narrative inform each other's core, and yet retain their media-specific identities. It is also vital to consider how the technicity and narrative of games inform their perception as texts. Videogames provide a direct illustration of this but they develop on similar principles in earlier media instead of doing something entirely 'new'. The multitelic structure of videogames tends to be looked upon as symptomatic of novelty; in reality, however, they illustrate more clearly the inherent nature of telos in all narrative media. Videogames point out how narrative endings exist as the actualisation of possible events and identities. These events exist in a zone of potentialities. Between the perception of an occurrence in the game and the player's response to it, there exists an 'affective' interval, where a number of potential events coexist: from among these, one event is actualised. The player's identity, both in-game and in interaction with the game, also evolves accordingly. Seen as an ongoing process, this corresponds well to the Deleuzoguattarian idea of 'becoming'. The space of possibility in which game instances exist is, therefore, a 'zone of becoming'. The intense involvement that players experience is seen as resulting from the continual shifting of identities arising out of the actualisation of possible events. This engagement is not a fixed relationship between the player and the game: instead, it is a 'becoming'. The framework of 'becoming' is vital to the understanding of videogames as narrative media. 'Becoming', however, has already been applied by Deleuze and Guattari to characterise older narrative media such as novels and cinema. Videogames, therefore, not only show that games can be read and books played, but more importantly they also highlight the fact that this has always been the case.

With the intention to study the role of new interfaces in multi-user applications, multi-touch tabletops are investigated to examine if they effectively aid their users in working together synchronously. Multi-player games are selected as a case of collaborative work. Early studies of distributed multi-touch tabletops did not cover the HCI related aspects associated with multi-player games, especially in distributed configuration. The performance, collaboration, and usability aspects of HCI are studied in this research. A simple multi-player maze game has been designed and implemented over two connected and physically separated multi-touch tabletops. The aim of this work is to investigate the effects of distribution on players performance, collaboration, and usability of multi-player games over multi-touch tabletops, compared to playing in a co-located condition. Groups of participants have been randomly selected and assigned to play the game in pairs under two conditions: co-located where two players are playing the game on the same table, and distributed where they are playing the game but on separate tables. The collected data is statistically analysed to test for differences between the two conditions, as well as the differences of the strength of the correlation between the underlying factors. The results indicate that, in general, the differences are not significant for such type of applications if a simple and efficient communication mechanism is provided for the players in the distributed condition. Players expressed almost the same level of usability engagement and enjoyment for the two conditions. This may have a strong impact on the HCI aspects when designing such type of applications on the future.

If videogames are carriers of ideological frameworks which work in favour of certain groups in society, how are such meanings divulged? Despite the achievement of important landmarks the academic field of game studies is still rife with gaps which need to be addressed. Hence, this study aims to provide for this general lack of tools by offering for scrutiny the means to carry out a systematic and analytical narrative analysis of games. What is proposed here is a comprehensive set of theoretical as well as methodological tools to deal more effectively and empirically with the kind of narratives emerging in games. In order to identify and study these narratives, two tools have been selected, each one to be used for a specific objective. The tools in question are narrative and content analysis. Whilst the former is used to address the narrative dimension of the games in question, the latter is used to identify and define their ideological nuances. In this thesis it will be argued that this content is mostly dispersed through narrative. Though it has been argued many times that videogame narratives are infantile and poor reflections of film and novel forms of storytelling, they nonetheless contain within them the same capacity of the older forms to dispense or insinuate ideological content. As such videogames are both influenced by ideological principles as well as cultural distributors of the latter. By being recruited by the forces of ‘good’ to defeat the forces of ‘evil’, the player is given an important role to play in an ideologically saturated fantasy. Nonetheless the nature of heroism present in these games is not of the conventional kind but has Nietzschian characteristics to it, in that it is bound to the idea of empowerment. The player is invited to partake in a fantasy where everything is possible and there are no barriers which cannot be overcome. The action component, or rather the acts of shooting and killing, so commonly associated with the action genre, become the primary source through which a sense of empowerment is channelled. At their core, action games are primarily about the illusion of control over the self, non- Western countries, cultures, ideologies, women etc. As a consequence of this, these games have become an important colonizing tool, which consolidates the hegemony of Western white men. This is also particularly evident in the way female characters are 2 represented. While male figures are portrayed as heroic, virile and empowered, female characters are objectified, sexualized and deemed of secondary importance. By exploring the ideological nature of action games, this project seeks to reaffirm the importance of studying popular culture artefacts, not solely in terms of their constituting elements but also in the wider context of their origin and point of consumption.

Aesthetic distance is determined by the frame of reference created by the use of technical devices around an artwork, to differentiate it psychologically from reality, so it may be critically observed. Traditionally a term concerning literature, theatre, and visual art, it is proposed that aesthetic distance should also apply to videogames. A player’s sense of aesthetic distance is an emergent phenomenon, arising from both the stylistic qualities of the game itself, and the attitudes of the player. Due to improvements in sensor technology, mimetic interfaces of all types, from gestural controls such as Xbox Kinect to head-mounted displays such as the Oculus Rift, are becoming more commercially prevalent; these have also been the subject of scrutiny for ‘moral’ issues they may raise for narrowing the distance between the player and the game. This is particularly important with regard to “morally significant” videogames, featuring a narrative concerning emotional or dramatic consequences for human characters. Two between-subjects studies altering interface mimesis examined whether this affected a player’s sense of aesthetic distance from morally significant games. Firstly, a popular commercially available videogame was used, featuring unjustified violence. Through a factor analysis of participants’ varying experiences of aesthetic distance, 10 factors were identified, including an attitude of “it’s just a game”. Following this, a second study was performed, for which a 3D first-person game was developed. This simulated rock climbing with a non-player-character climbing partner; this forced a situation in which the player had to take a ‘morally significant’ action, determining whether their partner’s life should be sacrificed, or whether ‘they’ (the player’s character) should also die. Aesthetic distance was empirically found to be mediated by interface mimesis, when supported by physical embodiment. The time taken for players to make their decision was also increased as interface mimesis was enhanced, and they reported altered feelings of aesthetic measures, such as how engaged vs. detached they felt, how far they identified with their player character, feelings of plausibility, and feelings of tension. They also reported differences in whether they focused on feelings rather than thoughts, and whether knowing that the game is fiction made a difference to their feelings. Trait empathy contributed to how guilty players felt as their embodiment increased. Thus, aesthetic distance in games is not a straightforward picture: qualitative data found that players experienced feelings of double awareness, this attitude of “it’s just a game”, even as their sense of embodiment in the game decreased their aesthetic distance. Thus, it is proposed that, any heightened involvement through enhancing interface mimesis still occurs within the nuanced context of Walton’s theory of “mimesis as make-believe” in representational art. This is consistent with, and extends, the theory that videogames happen within a ‘magic circle’ of play. Thus, it is suggested that a player’s sense of double awareness, together with their heightened emotional involvement, may allow for a physically embodied paradigm of procedural rhetoric, particularly when tackling themes that are morally significant, or socio-political. This is termed embodied critical play.

Videogames have been theorised as an action-based medium. The original contribution to knowledge this thesis makes is to reconfigure this claim by considering popular multiplayer FPS games as reaction-based – particularly, immune reactions. I take up Roberto Esposito’s claim that the individual in contemporary biopolitics is defined negatively against the other, controlled and ultimately negated via their reactions to power’s capacity to incessantly generate threats. By inciting insecurity and self-protective gestures, FPS games like Activision’s Call of Duty franchise and EA’s Battlefield series vividly dramatise Esposito’s thought, producing an immunitary gaming. Immunitary Gaming locates the FPS within key moments of change as well as evolution in Western image systems including the emergence of linear perspective, cartography and the early years of the cinema. The FPS appropriates these image systems, but also alters their politics. Giorgio Agamben has argued that the apparatuses of late modernity no longer subjectify like their forebears, but desubjectify the individual, producing an impotent neoliberal body politic. I trace a similar development here. My work also seeks to capture the player’s movements via autoethnographic writing that communicates the viscerally and intensity of the experience. The FPS is framed as capable of giving insight into both the present and the future of our technological and political milieu and ‘sensorium,’ in Walter Benjamin’s terms. In its valorisation of the individual and production of insecurity to incite action, this project argues that the FPS is a symbolic form of immunitary neoliberal governmentality.

Internet delay is caused by transmission medium and also by routing and queuing. Although delay is often tolerable in many applications such as file transfer or Web, it does affect performances for delay-sensitive applications such as IP phone and video streaming. For First Person Shooter (FPS) games, where delay is even more important, Internet delay can determine who wins or loses a game. The previous research showed that player at a distance was disadvantaged due to larger delay. Network traffic for such games was analysed using packet size and inter-packet time metrics fitting a statistical model. However, no research explored the relation between "clean" and "interfered" traffic, only Joyce (2000), Bangun (2000), Jehaes (2003) and Carrig (2005) explored the interactions between game and other traffic, and the effect of other traffic on the game server-client delay was overlooked. This dissertation explores the traffic generated by an FPS game, using Quake III as an example, taking into account the effects of network delays. An FPS game was played both in an isolated local network with no other traffic and was repeated across the Internet to explore the difference between "clean" test-bed traffic and realistic Internet "interfered" traffic. The metrics of packet size and interpacket time of empirical traffic were analysed. A simple statistical approach was applied using goodness-of-fit test based on the probability calculation to produce a mathematical model. The results were used to set up a simulator experiment to further explore the behaviour of game traffic under varying degrees and also different types of network traffic. The approximate statistical distributions for "clean" test-bed game traffic were based on packet size and inter-packet time. As to packet-size, server traffic had extreme probability distribution, while client traffic was simply distributed in a short interval. As to inter-packet time, both server and client had deterministic distribution. Interarrival time in "interfered" network was totally different from inter-send time and was network dependent, and this was confirmed in a simulation experiment. The difference with results in previous research was also explained by the simulation results. The game delay was not only affected by volume but also by inter-packet time behaviour of network traffic, because simulation showed that traffic streams with same parameters but different inter-packet time affected game traffic delay differently. The pseudo game traffic generated by analytical distribution can replace the realistic game traffic in simulation experiment.

This thesis investigates the relationships between motivation, engagement and informal learning, with respect to digital games and adult players. Following the reconceptualisation of motivation and engagement (as forms of micro and macro level involvement respectively) three linked studies were conducted. In the first study, 30 players were interviewed via email about their gaming experiences. The resulting set of learning categories and themes drew attention to learning on a game, skill and personal level, which arose from micro-level gameplay and macro-level interaction with wider communities and resources. The second investigation consisted of eight case studies that examined how involvement and learning come together in practice. Participants were observed in the lab during two gameplay sessions and kept gaming diaries over a three week period. A method for categorising game-play breakdowns and breakthroughs (relating to action, understanding and involvement) was developed in order to analyse several hours of gameplay footage. The previous categories and themes were also applied to the data. The findings suggested a relationship between macro-involvement and player identity, which was further investigated by a third survey study (with 232 respondents). The survey helped to establish a link between identity, involvement, and learning; the more strongly someone identifies as a gamer, the more likely they are to learn from their involvement in gaming practice. Four main contributions are presented: (1) an empirical account of how informal learning occurs as a result of micro and macro-involvement within a gaming context, (2) an in-depth understanding of how breakdowns and breakthroughs relate to each other during play, (3) a set of categories that represent the range of learning experienced by players, and (4) a consideration of the role player identity serves with respect to learning and involvement.