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The topic of this thesis is “Gender Differences in Computer games/ Video games Industry”. Due to rapid development in technology and popularization of computers all around the world, computer games have already become a kind of common entertainment. Because computer games were designed especially for boys at the very beginning, there are still some remaining barriers when training female game designers and expanding game markets among female players.This thesis is mainly based on two studies which have enormous contributions to gender issue in computer games area. A simple model is established by summarizing factors mentioned and discussed in those two books. The main purpose consists of two comparisons under Gender Differences: one comparison is between the current data with the previous one, in order to check whether there are any changes during the past 10 years. The other one compares the young people in two regions, Sweden and China, in computer games perspective.Model designing, test, questionnaire and interview methods are used in this paper aiming to collect and categorize the data, which facilitates to analyze the results of the comparisons. The results reflect that although computer becomes a familiar “friend” in modern daily life, there are not obvious changes of girls‟ perspectives in computer game industry. Certainly, there are some differences between the young people coming from two regions which will be expounded in the thesis.

Because games set in persistent virtual game worlds (VGWs) have massive numbers of players, these games need methods of characterisation for playable characters (PCs) that differ from the methods used in traditional narrative media. VGWs have a number of particularly interesting qualities. Firstly, VGWs are places where players interact with and create elements carrying narrative potential. Secondly, players add goals, motives and driving forces to the narrative potential of a VGW, which sometimes originates from the ordinary world. Thirdly, the protagonists of the world are real people, and when acting in the world their characterisation is not carried out by an author, but expressed by players characterising their PCs. How they can express themselves in ways that characterise them depend on what they can do, and how they can do it, and this characterising action potential (CAP) is defined by the game design of particular VGWs. In this thesis, two main questions are explored. Firstly, how can CAP be designed to support players in expressing consistent characters in VGWs? Secondly, how can VGWs support role-play in their rule-systems? By using iterative design, I explore the design space of CAP by building a semiautonomous agent structure, the Mind Module (MM) and apply it in five experimental prototypes where the design of CAP and other game features is derived from the MM. The term semiautonomy is used because the agent structure is designed to be used by a PC, and is thus partly controlled by the system and partly by the player. The MM models a PC's personality as a collection of traits, maintains dynamic emotional state as a function of interactions with objects in the environment, and summarises a PC's current emotional state in terms of 'mood'. The MM consists of a spreading-activation network of affect nodes that are interconnected by weighted relationships. There are four types of affect node: personality trait nodes, emotion nodes, mood nodes, and sentiment nodes. The values of the nodes defining the personality traits of characters govern an individual PC's state of mind through these weighted relationships, resulting in values characterising for a PC's personality. The sentiment nodes constitute emotionally valenced connections between entities. For example, a PC can 'feel' anger toward another PC. This thesis also describes a guided paper-prototype play-test of the VGW prototype World of Minds, in which the game mechanics build upon the MM's model of personality and emotion. In a case study of AI-based game design, lessons learned from the test are presented. The participants in the test were able to form and communicate mental models of the MM and game mechanics, validating the design and giving valuable feedback for further development. Despite the constrained scenarios presented to test players, they discovered interesting, alternative strategies, indicating that for game design the 'mental physics' of the MM may open up new possibilities.The results of the play-test influenced the further development of the MM as it was used in the digital VGW prototype the Pataphysic Institute. In the Pataphysic Institute the CAP of PCs is largely governed by their mood. Depending on which mood PCs are in they can cast different 'spells', which affect values such as mental energy, resistance and emotion in their targets. The mood also governs which 'affective actions' they can perform toward other PCs and what affective actions they are receptive to. By performing affective actions on each other PCs can affect each others' emotions, which - if they are strong - may result in sentiments toward each other. PCs' personalities govern the individual fluctuations of mood and emotions, and define which types of spell PCs can cast. Formalised social relationships such as friendships affect CAP, giving players more energy, resistance, and other benefits. PCs' states of mind are reflected in the VGW in the form of physical manifestations that emerge if an emotion is very strong. These manifestations are entities which cast different spells on PCs in close proximity, depending on the emotions that the manifestations represent. PCs can also partake in authoring manifestations that become part of the world and the game-play in it. In the Pataphysic Institute potential story structures are governed by the relations the sentiment nodes constitute between entities.Because games set in persistent virtual game worlds (VGWs) have massive numbers of players, these games need methods of characterisation for playable characters (PCs) that differ from the methods used in traditional narrative media. VGWs have a number of particularly interesting qualities. Firstly, VGWs are places where players interact with and create elements carrying narrative potential. Secondly, players add goals, motives and driving forces to the narrative potential of a VGW, which sometimes originates from the ordinary world. Thirdly, the protagonists of the world are real people, and when acting in the world their characterisation is not carried out by an author, but expressed by players characterising their PCs. How they can express themselves in ways that characterise them depend on what they can do, and how they can do it, and this characterising action potential (CAP) is defined by the game design of particular VGWs. In this thesis, two main questions are explored. Firstly, how can CAP be designed to support players in expressing consistent characters in VGWs? Secondly, how can VGWs support role-play in their rule-systems? By using iterative design, I explore the design space of CAP by building a semiautonomous agent structure, the Mind Module (MM) and apply it in five experimental prototypes where the design of CAP and other game features is derived from the MM. The term \textit{semiautonomy} is used because the agent structure is designed to be used by a PC, and is thus partly controlled by the system and partly by the player. The MM models a PC's personality as a collection of traits, maintains dynamic emotional state as a function of interactions with objects in the environment, and summarises a PC's current emotional state in terms of 'mood'. The MM consists of a spreading-activation network of affect nodes that are interconnected by weighted relationships. There are four types of affect node: personality trait nodes, emotion nodes, mood nodes, and sentiment nodes. The values of the nodes defining the personality traits of characters govern an individual PC's state of mind through these weighted relationships, resulting in values characterising for a PC's personality. The sentiment nodes constitute emotionally valenced connections between entities. For example, a PC can 'feel' anger toward another PC. This thesis also describes a guided paper-prototype play-test of the VGW prototype World of Minds, in which the game mechanics build upon the MM's model of personality and emotion. In a case study of AI-based game design, lessons learned from the test are presented. The participants in the test were able to form and communicate mental models of the MM and game mechanics, validating the design and giving valuable feedback for further development. Despite the constrained scenarios presented to test players, they discovered interesting, alternative strategies, indicating that for game design the 'mental physics' of the MM may open up new possibilities.The results of the play-test influenced the further development of the MM as it was used in the digital VGW prototype the Pataphysic Institute. In the Pataphysic Institute the CAP of PCs is largely governed by their mood. Depending on which mood PCs are in they can cast different 'spells', which affect values such as mental energy, resistance and emotion in their targets. The mood also governs which 'affective actions' they can perform toward other PCs and what affective actions they are receptive to. By performing affective actions on each other PCs can affect each others' emotions, which - if they are strong - may result in sentiments toward each other. PCs' personalities govern the individual fluctuations of mood and emotions, and define which types of spell PCs can cast. Formalised social relationships such as friendships affect CAP, giving players more energy, resistance, and other benefits. PCs' states of mind are reflected in the VGW in the form of physical manifestations that emerge if an emotion is very strong. These manifestations are entities which cast different spells on PCs in close proximity, depending on the emotions that the manifestations represent. PCs can also partake in authoring manifestations that become part of the world and the game-play in it. In the Pataphysic Institute potential story structures are governed by the relations the sentiment nodes constitute between entities. / A thesis submitted in 2009 in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the University ofTeesside for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. The research programme was carriedout at and with the support of Gotland University.

This thesis examines single-player video gaming. It is an analysis of video game play: what it is, how it functions, and what it means. It is an account of how players learn to play. This is done through a set of close readings of significant video games and key academic texts. My focus is on the mechanisms and forces that shape gameplay practices. Building on the existing fields of ludology and media-studies video-game analysis, I outline a model of video game play as a cultural construction which builds upon the player's existing knowledge of real world and fictional objects, scenarios and conventions. I argue that the relationship between the video game player and the software is best understood as embodying a precise configuration of power. I demonstrate that the single-player video game is in fact what Michel Foucault terms a 'disciplinary apparatus'. It functions to shape players' subjectivities in order to have them behave in easily predicted and managed ways. To do this, video games reuse and repurpose conventions from existing media forms and everyday practices. By this mobilisation of familiar elements, which already have established practices of use, and by a careful process of surveillance, examination and the correction of play practices, video games encourage players to take on and perform the logics of the game system. This relationship between organic player and technological game, I suggest, is best understood through the theoretical figure of the 'Cyborg'. It is a point of intersection between human and computer logics. Far from the ludological assumption that play and culture are separate and that play is shaped entirely by rules, I show video game play to be produced by an array of complex cultural and technological forces that act upon the player. My model of video game play differs from others currently in circulation in that it foregrounds the role of culture in play, while not denying the technological specificity of the video gaming apparatus. My central focus on power and the construction of player subjectivities offers a way to move beyond the simplistic reliance on the notion that rules are the primary shaping mechanism of play that has, to date, dominated much of video game studies.

Thesis (M.Sc.)(Computer Science)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Includes summary. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 151-152). Available on the Internet via the World Wide Web.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Written for the School of Computer Science. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2007/08/30). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/01/30). Written for the School of Computer Science. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Sc.). / Written for the School of Computer Science. Title from title page of PDF (viewed 2008/12/05). Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--Rochester Institute of Technology, 1990. / Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--West Virginia University, 2008. / Title from document title page. Document formatted into pages; contains viii, 141 p. : ill. (some col.). Includes abstract. Includes bibliographical references (p. 116-123).