Counter-Strike: Global Offensive stands as one, if not the most popular competitive video game of all time. In fact, tens of millions are awarded at Esports tournaments – a testament to the game’s popularity. As such, game designers should seek to understand exactly why the Counter-Strike series is so popular. One critical element to any game like Counter-Strike is the level design. This study attempts to provide an analysis of competitive level design by looking at the differences between a highly popular Counter-Strike level, Dust2, and one that is considerably less popular, Cobblestone.  Level design has already been scrutinized heavily by game designers throughout the years, and this also applies to Counter-Strike. The trend has mainly been to analyze levels from a high-level perspective, however. We hope that our study will contribute to the existing knowledge from an exceedingly low-level perspective. The study relies on data acquired from the massive Counter-Strike statistics database HLTV.org which primarily consist of 2 heat-maps that display hotspots for “killer locations” on the levels’ Bombsites. These heat-maps have since been subjected to two formal analyses and a subsequent comparative analysis. The study found that the occurrence of several indicators of flawed level design are present in Cobblestone. These flaws contrast with the level design principles and guidelines laid out by experienced designers. As such, the study concludes that these flaws are the primary contributing factors to the drop in popularity for Cobblestone. However, the study also acknowledges the need for an expanded study comprising the entire levels and involving other types of data

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I denna studie har effekterna av en dynamisk leveldesign undersökts som baserat sig på konceptet Multiplayer Difficulty Adjustment. Konceptet baseras på flera olika källor men handlar igrunden om att behålla spelare i Flow.Baldwin (2014)gjorde en undersökning där effekterna av en ändring till HP för den förlorande spelaren utvärderades. Till skillnad har denna studie ändrat på nivåns design för att undersöka dess effekter och eventuella likheter till Baldwin. Det gjordes med spelet CS: GO (2013) där en egengjord nivå skapades medett system som simulerade en dynamisk förändring i nivån.Med denna nivå utfördes studien med 24 deltagare där matchstatistik, kvantitativadata och kvalitativa intervjuer samlades in. Även om deltagarantalet var lågt, så kan man se tydliga indikationer på att systemet balanserar ut spelet för deltagarna. Man kan även dra slutsatsen från intervjuerna att deltagarna föredrarsystemet men att det enbart får inkluderas i ”casual” spellägen.

Competitive gaming, commonly known as E-sports, have become widely popular the past few years. Simultaneously the interest to watch these players compete has become apparent, not least through the viewing of the events that draw the attention of millions of people. However what is still often overlooked is the environmental impact which these events contribute to. Within the field of environmental research, E-sports is a frugally studied domain. This study therefore aims to create a foundation for calculating the environmental and climate impact from an E-sports event, specifically in regard to CS:GO. The guidelines for this calculation are based on the LCA methodology. The main question for this paper therefore reads: How can 1) system function, 2) functional unit and 3) system boundaries be chosen in order to calculate the environmental and climate impact from PGL Major Stockholm 2021? In order to find out how to answer this question, two people with expertise within the field were interviewed. The analysis of the results from the interviews showed that exposure was the primary function of several different scenarios of the system. For that reason the system function was decided as audience capacity. The functional unit was defined as Holding one 13-day event in CS:GO. The majority of what occurs within the arena was included in the system boundaries along with flights, electricity consumption and water consumption from the hotels. To facilitate further calculations of the categories included in the system boundaries we also presented estimations of environmental and climate impact. These were on flights, transportation to and from the event, and gaming computers.Through the interviews we gained great insight regarding the organizing of smaller events, specifically Svenska Elitserien CS:GO. This insight could help close the existing knowledge gap surrounding the environmental impact of E-sports as it creates a stepping stone for future research. / Tävlande i datorspel, även kallat E-sport, har under de senaste åren vuxit i popularitet med stormsteg. Intresset att titta på dessa tävlingar har visat sig starkt, inte minst genom de event som drar uppmärksamheten från miljontals människor. Vad som ännu ofta glöms bort är dock den miljöpåverkan ett sådant event orsakar. Inom hållbarhetsforskning är E-sport ett sparsamt studerat område. Denna studie riktar sig därför till att lägga grunden för en beräkning av miljö- och klimatpåverkan från ett E-sportevent, specifikt inom CS:GO. Riktlinjerna för denna beräkning har baseras på metodiken för LCA. Problemformuleringen för denna studie blev således: Hur kan 1) systemfunktion, 2) funktionell enhet och 3) systemgränser väljas som underlag för att beräkna miljö- och klimatpåverkan av PGL Major Stockholm 2021? För att ta reda på hur denna fråga ska besvaras har två intervjuer utförts med personer som har expertis inom området. Analysen av resultatet från intervjuerna visade att exponering var den primära funktionen för många olika scenarion inom systemet. Av den anledningen valdes systemfunktion till publikkapacitet. Funktionell enhet definierades till Arrangering av ett 13-dagars event i CS:GO. Majoriteten av vad som sker i arenan inkluderades i systemgränserna, flygresor och el- och vattenförbrukning från hotell likaså. För att underlätta vidare beräkningar av det som inkluderades i systemgränserna presenterade vi även estimeringar av värden på miljö-och klimatpåverkan från flygresor, transport till och från arenan samt speldatorer. Från intervjuerna fick vi stor insikt kring anordning av mindre event, specifikt Svenska Elitserien CS:GO. Denna inblick kan bidra till att minska det kunskapsglapp som finns gällande E-sportens miljöpåverkan då det möjliggör en grund för vidare forskning.

Context: Games involve people to a large extent where they relate themselves with the game characters; this is commonly known as game immersion. Generally, some players play games for enjoyment, some for stress relaxation and so on.Game immersion is usually used to describe the degree of involvement with a game. When people play games, they don’t necessarily realize that they have been dissociated with the surrounding world. Real world dissociation (RWD) can be defined as the situation where a player is less aware of the surroundings outside the game than about what is happening in the game itself. The RWD factor has been expected to measure the losing track of time, lack of awareness of surroundings and mental transportation. Objectives: In this thesis, we measure and compare the difference in game immersion between experienced and inexperienced players using RWD factor. In addition, the study involves exploring the significance of game immersion and various approaches used to measure it. Methods: In this study literature review has been carried out to explore the meaning of game immersion and further user studies in the form of an experiment has been conducted to measure game immersion between experienced and inexperienced gamers. The game immersion has been measured using the real world dissociation (RWD) factor. After the experiment has been conducted, a statistical technique has been carried out to measure the difference in game immersion among the two groups. Results:The empirical investigation on the measurement of game immersion has been done using RWD factor. The results state that the significance value is less than 0.05 and hence null hypothesis is rejected for both the games. The measurable difference has been calculated by using Cohen’s d effect size between experienced and inexperienced players. The Cohen’s d value between experienced players and inexperienced players for Dota 2 is 0.7423 and CS:GO is 0.8383. Conclusions: After analyzing the data and calculating the effect size, the overall results state that inexperienced group of players are more immersed than the experienced group of players when measured by RWD factor. Hence it can be concluded that irrespective of the game played, inexperienced players are more dissociated from the real world than the experienced players.

I denna uppsatsen undersöks det hur den 26 åriga esports-proffset Epitácio "TACO" de Melo representeras på den egna- samt esportsföretaget Godsents Instagram. Analysen har gjorts utifrån Raewyn Connells maskulinitetsperspektiv och vad det kan tänkas göra för avstamp på följarna. Undersökningen har genomförts via en kvalitativ-observerande textanalys. Från vardera Instagramflöde har jag valt ut nio representerande bilder. Bilderna har analyserat genom en mall som skapades utifrån textanalysens principer. Godsent och de Melo har tillsammans skapat en internetpersona som representerar det maskulina idealet som dominerar esportsvärlden. Detta idealet avtecknar sig ur ett ideal som är aggressivt, våldsamt och dominant. Förvisso är inte detta den enda representationen som är synlig men den som ger starkast intryck. Som micro celebrity kultiverar Taco sina fans genom värderingar och budskap och på så sätt bär ett ansvar, framförallt när publiken i esport är så ung. Denna representationen motverkar möjligheten för andra grupper i samhället att ta del av samfundet. / This thesis investigates how the 26-year-old esports professional Epitácio "TACO" de Melo is represented on his own- and the esports company Godsent's Instagram. The analysis has been made from Raewyn Connells masculinity perspective and the possible impact this can generate on his followers. The survey was conducted via a qualitative-observational text analysis. From each Instagram feed I have selected nine representative images for the analysis. The analysis is through a template that was created based on the principles of text analysis. Godsent and Taco have together created an internet persona that represents the masculine ideal that dominates the esports world. This ideal stands out from an ideal that is aggressive, violent and dominant. Certainly this is not the only representation that is visible but the one that gives the strongest impact. As a micro celebrity, Taco cultivates his fans through values and messages and thus bears a responsibility, especially when the audience in esports is so young. This representation counteracts the opportunity for other groups in society to take part in the esports society.