Os videogames são hoje uma das formas de entretenimento mais populares em todo o mundo. Muito desse sucesso só foi possível graças à tradução, a qual, por meio de versões localizadas para os mais diversos idiomas, contribuiu decisivamente para que os videogames alcançassem um número cada vez maior de mercados e chegassem a milhões de lares ao redor do planeta. Esta dissertação, de caráter eminentemente historiográfico, tem por objetivo examinar a relação entre a tradução/localização e os videogames desde seu início até os dias de hoje. Além disso, pretende também, por meio da análise de alguns jogos, traçar um panorama acerca de como se dá esta relação sob o contexto brasileiro, abordando as características e especificidades que a localização de games tem apresentado no Brasil ao longo do tempo. A análise desses jogos está fundamentada sob duas perspectivas: a) uma perspectiva histórica, em que se buscará situar as épocas em que foram lançados às etapas de evolução dos videogames e sua relação com a tradução/localização em cada momento; e b) uma perspectiva descritiva, em que se realizará uma análise dos aspectos acerca da tradução/localização observados nesses jogos, fundamentada sob as bases teóricas utilizadas nesta dissertação: o conceito de domesticação/estrangeirização (Venuti, 1995), a teoria funcionalista do Skopos (Vermeer, 1986) e o conceito de Gameplay Experience (Souza, R.V.F., 2014). / Video games are today one of the most important forms of entertainment worldwide. Much of this success was only made possible due to translation, which, through localized versions into various languages, contributed decisively for video games to achieve a growing number of markets and reach millions of homes across the globe. This dissertation, of an eminently historiographical nature, aims to examine the relation between translation/localization and video games from their beginning until the present day. Furthermore, it also intends, through the analyses of a number of games, to provide an overview on how this relation works under the Brazilian context, addressing the characteristics and specificities that video game localization has been showing over time. The analysis of such games is founded upon two perspectives:a) a historical perspective, which will seek to situate the times when they were released to the stages of evolution of video games and their relation with translation/localization in each moment; and b) a descriptive perspective, which will undertake an analysis of translation/localization aspects observed in such games, founded upon the theorical basis utilized in this dissertation: the concept of domestication/foreignization (Venuti, 1995), the functionalist Skopos theory (Vermeer, 1986) and the concept of Gameplay Experience (Souza, R. V. F., 2014).

Os videogames são hoje uma das formas de entretenimento mais populares em todo o mundo. Muito desse sucesso só foi possível graças à tradução, a qual, por meio de versões localizadas para os mais diversos idiomas, contribuiu decisivamente para que os videogames alcançassem um número cada vez maior de mercados e chegassem a milhões de lares ao redor do planeta. Esta dissertação, de caráter eminentemente historiográfico, tem por objetivo examinar a relação entre a tradução/localização e os videogames desde seu início até os dias de hoje. Além disso, pretende também, por meio da análise de alguns jogos, traçar um panorama acerca de como se dá esta relação sob o contexto brasileiro, abordando as características e especificidades que a localização de games tem apresentado no Brasil ao longo do tempo. A análise desses jogos está fundamentada sob duas perspectivas: a) uma perspectiva histórica, em que se buscará situar as épocas em que foram lançados às etapas de evolução dos videogames e sua relação com a tradução/localização em cada momento; e b) uma perspectiva descritiva, em que se realizará uma análise dos aspectos acerca da tradução/localização observados nesses jogos, fundamentada sob as bases teóricas utilizadas nesta dissertação: o conceito de domesticação/estrangeirização (Venuti, 1995), a teoria funcionalista do Skopos (Vermeer, 1986) e o conceito de Gameplay Experience (Souza, R.V.F., 2014). / Video games are today one of the most important forms of entertainment worldwide. Much of this success was only made possible due to translation, which, through localized versions into various languages, contributed decisively for video games to achieve a growing number of markets and reach millions of homes across the globe. This dissertation, of an eminently historiographical nature, aims to examine the relation between translation/localization and video games from their beginning until the present day. Furthermore, it also intends, through the analyses of a number of games, to provide an overview on how this relation works under the Brazilian context, addressing the characteristics and specificities that video game localization has been showing over time. The analysis of such games is founded upon two perspectives:a) a historical perspective, which will seek to situate the times when they were released to the stages of evolution of video games and their relation with translation/localization in each moment; and b) a descriptive perspective, which will undertake an analysis of translation/localization aspects observed in such games, founded upon the theorical basis utilized in this dissertation: the concept of domestication/foreignization (Venuti, 1995), the functionalist Skopos theory (Vermeer, 1986) and the concept of Gameplay Experience (Souza, R. V. F., 2014).

This study is about how a person who is used to play games experiences playing a game with their eyes as input. The participants played a 3D game where the player had to collect coins by moving a ball over them. The participants first tried the game with keyboard as input and then right after only interacting by gazing via screen. The achieved score was recorded both for input from keyboard and input from eye. After the game session the participants were asked to answer two questionnaires that contained questions about their background and questions referring to the game they just played. The experiment was performed in a lab with a TobiiT60 eye tracker. All participants got lower score when they used eye tracking as input but most of the participants found it to be more fun. We reached the conclusion that, with the game used in our experiment, the participants felt that gaining a high score was not the most important. Instead they ranked having fun as a more important factor. Our experiment has shown that using an eye tracker can make a casual game more fun.

In game based learning, motivating the players to learn by providing them a desirable gameplay experience is extremely important. However, it's not an easy task considering the quality of today's commercial non-educational games. Throughout the gameplay, the player should neither get overwhelmed nor under-challenged. The best way to do so is to monitor the player's actions in the game because these actions can tell the reason behind the player's performance. They can also tell about the player's lacking competencies or knowledge. Based on this information, in-game educational interventions in the form of hints can be provided to the player. The success of such games depends on their interactivity, motivational outlook and thus player retention. UNTANGLED is an online mapping game based on crowd-sourcing, developed by Reconfigurable Computing Lab, UNT for the mapping problem of CGRAs. It is also an educational game for teaching the concepts of reconfigurable computing. This thesis performs qualitative comparative analysis on gameplays of low performing players of UNTANGLED. And the implications of this analysis are used to provide recommendations for improving the gameplay experience for these players by guiding them. The recommendations include strategies to reach a high score and a compact solution, hints in the form of preset patterns and a clustering based approach.

This thesis explores how manipulation of the fourth wall can affect players’ Gameplay Experience in digital games, due to the lack of any significant research regarding the matter. In preparation of the study, multiple commercially released digital games with instances of fourth wall manipulation were analysed. This led to the creation of four distinct game design patterns. These patterns were implemented into a game artefact specifically created for the study, which was played by eight participants. After playing, the participants were interviewed about how they experienced the game artefact. The results show that the majority of the patterns had a positive effect on both the participants’ immersion and engagement, which both form part of the Gameplay Experience model. / Denna uppsats undersöker hur manipulering av den fjärde väggen kan påverka spelupplevelsen i digitala spel, då det saknas allmän betydelsefull forskning gällande ämnet. Under förstadiet av denna studie analyserades flertalet kommersiellt lanserade digitala spel som innehöll instanser av fjärde väggen manipuleringar. Detta ledde till skapandet av fyra olika designmönster. Dessa mönster implementerades i en spelartefakt specifikt skapad för studien, vilken spelades av åtta deltagare. Efter att ha spelat blev deltagarna intervjuade om hur de upplevde spelet. Resultaten påvisar att majoriteten av designmönstren hade en positiv inverkan både på deltagarnas immersion och engagemang, vilka båda formar delar av spelupplevelsemodellen.

De nos jours, la notion d’immersion est largement utilisée, voire galvaudée, par l’industrie du jeu vidéo pour décrire les nouvelles expériences de jeu vécues par les joueurs, notamment lorsqu’ils utilisent des contrôleurs de mouvement. Il est donc intéressant de comprendre comment cette notion s’insère dans le processus de conception des jeux vidéo et comment les concepteurs de jeux vidéo mobilisent cette notion. Pour essayer de comprendre comment les concepteurs de jeux vidéo conçoivent leurs expériences de jeu dans ce contexte, nous avons réalisé une série de cinq entrevues avec des concepteurs de la région montréalaise. Nous avons porté une attention particulière à recueillir le discours de concepteurs indépendants et de concepteurs œuvrant dans de grands studios afin d’obtenir une diversité dans le type d’approches. Nous avons relevé que les concepteurs de jeux vidéo sont loin de partager la même définition de la notion d’immersion. Qui plus est, cette notion n’est souvent pas directement mobilisée par les concepteurs. En effet, les résultats de notre recherche ont démontré que les concepteurs recherchent plutôt à intéresser les joueurs par des stratégies d’engagements plutôt que de les « immerger ». Selon nos concepteurs, un joueur engagé signifie qu’il éprouve un plaisir sincère dans l’acte même de jouer. / Nowadays, the concept of immersion is widely used or overused by the video game industry to describe new gaming experiences for players, especially when using motion controllers. It is therefore interesting to understand how this concept fits into the process of designing video games and how game developers mobilize this notion. To try to understand how video game designers design their gameplay experiences in this context, we conducted a series of five interviews with designers in the Montreal area. We paid particular attention to interview independent developers and designers working in major studios to obtain a diversity of approaches. We found that game developers are far from sharing the same definition of immersion. Furthermore, this notion is often not directly mobilized by the designers themselves. Indeed, the results of our research have shown that designers use strategies of engagement rather than "immersion". According to our designers, an engaged player means he feels a sincere pleasure in the act in itself of playing.

De nos jours, la notion d’immersion est largement utilisée, voire galvaudée, par l’industrie du jeu vidéo pour décrire les nouvelles expériences de jeu vécues par les joueurs, notamment lorsqu’ils utilisent des contrôleurs de mouvement. Il est donc intéressant de comprendre comment cette notion s’insère dans le processus de conception des jeux vidéo et comment les concepteurs de jeux vidéo mobilisent cette notion. Pour essayer de comprendre comment les concepteurs de jeux vidéo conçoivent leurs expériences de jeu dans ce contexte, nous avons réalisé une série de cinq entrevues avec des concepteurs de la région montréalaise. Nous avons porté une attention particulière à recueillir le discours de concepteurs indépendants et de concepteurs œuvrant dans de grands studios afin d’obtenir une diversité dans le type d’approches. Nous avons relevé que les concepteurs de jeux vidéo sont loin de partager la même définition de la notion d’immersion. Qui plus est, cette notion n’est souvent pas directement mobilisée par les concepteurs. En effet, les résultats de notre recherche ont démontré que les concepteurs recherchent plutôt à intéresser les joueurs par des stratégies d’engagements plutôt que de les « immerger ». Selon nos concepteurs, un joueur engagé signifie qu’il éprouve un plaisir sincère dans l’acte même de jouer. / Nowadays, the concept of immersion is widely used or overused by the video game industry to describe new gaming experiences for players, especially when using motion controllers. It is therefore interesting to understand how this concept fits into the process of designing video games and how game developers mobilize this notion. To try to understand how video game designers design their gameplay experiences in this context, we conducted a series of five interviews with designers in the Montreal area. We paid particular attention to interview independent developers and designers working in major studios to obtain a diversity of approaches. We found that game developers are far from sharing the same definition of immersion. Furthermore, this notion is often not directly mobilized by the designers themselves. Indeed, the results of our research have shown that designers use strategies of engagement rather than "immersion". According to our designers, an engaged player means he feels a sincere pleasure in the act in itself of playing.