This thesis aims to find out the relationship, if any, between playing multi-player online games and developing teamwork qualities. Online multi-player games involve thousands of players who play in teams (or solo, as the preference may be) in sophisticated gaming environments. As gamers team together to complete missions within the game, teamwork concepts such as communication skills, leadership, coordination, negotiation and other similar qualities come to the fore. The research component of this thesis consists of a survey where respondents answered questions about their online gaming behavior. They also answered questions about their experience working in teams in the offline environment. A total of 202 responses were collected and analyzed. There was a significant negative association found between autocratic leadership ability and hours spent per week playing online games in teams/groups. Team communication skills and leadership communication skills were significantly related to the degree of involvement in the gaming community, but only for individuals with low leadership-work experience. A significant relationship was also seen between democratic leadership skills and the degree of involvement in the gaming community. In addition, a significant negative relationship was found between autocratic leadership ability and degree of involvement in the gaming community.

In this paper, I survey past and present tools available to text adventure game authors, and then describe a new product: the Text Adventure Design Assistant (TA DA!), a visual programming system for creating text adventure games. My system consists of two parts: an abstract framework which defines an archetypical game, and a user interface which allows for the construction of games in a visual manner by manipulating the elements of the abstract game to produce a concrete design. The two most popular contemporary programming languages for creating text adventure games, TADS and Inform, are compared and contrasted, and my abstract framework is adapted to both of these languages. The traditional pencil-and-paper design process used by adventure game authors is studied and its application to the development of TA DA! is described. Finally, the implications of TA DA! and similar advances in visual programming are discussed and I predict future trends in the design of both adventure games and other application domains based on this work.

The purpose of this bachelor’s thesis is to examine video games, gamers and gaming from an information science perspective. The purpose of the study is partly to study video games as a type of information system and partly to study gamers information use, information seeking and also the experience of gaming. A selection of five games have been analysed using a topology for video game analysis created by Espen Aarseth. A quantitative investigation has also been made, in the form of a web survey distributed through four Swedish online forums, the result of which was analysed using Carol Collier Kuhlthaus model of the information seeking process. The study showed that video games can partly be understood as information systems with built in obstacles, uncertainty and supportive structures. It also showed that gamers are largely independent in their game related information seeking and information use, but that they are also accustomed to turning to informal mediatiors for help. Lastly, the study showed that some similarities can be found in the cogntive and affective experiences of the information seeking process and the gaming experience respectively. These findings may serve as a starting point for further research of how gaming may support the individual's information seeking process, as well as their understanding of the process and the stages involved.

AbstraktInledning Det råder en omfattande hälsoproblematik idag och fysisk inaktivitet är en bidragande orsak. Stillasittandet har ökat i västvärlden och för att fånga även dessa individer erbjuder Tv-spelsmarknaden fysiskt aktiva spel. Handkontroll och stillasittande byts ut mot individens kroppsrörelser. Det finns till och med spel som räknar individens kaloriförbrukning under spelets gång.Syfte Syftet med studien är att se om det råder en signifikant skillnad gällande kaloriförbrukning mellan Your shape och indirekt kalorimetri samt hur Your shape förhåller sig mot Nintendo Wii boxing utifrån de fysiologiska variabler hjärtfrekvens och kaloriförbrukning.Metod En experimentell studiedesign genomfördes på 12 deltagare (7 kvinnor och 5 fem män med en medelvärdeskaraktärisering på 22.2 år, 67,9 kg, 171,3 cm och 23,0 BMI) med hjälp av indirekt kalorimetri i form av en portabel Oxycon Mobile Pro. VO2 och HF uppmättes under testet för att därefter räkna ut testpersonernas kaloriförbrukning. Spelkonsolen bestod av Microsoft xbox 360 med tillhörande kinect samt AVG-spelet Your shape. Av de fyra träningspassen som Your shape erbjuder valdes konditionsboxning ut till denna studie. Den statistiska beräkningen sattes till P = 0.05 och ett parat T-test genomfördes i SPSS.Resultat En signifikant skillnad existerade (P = 0.03) gällande kaloriförbrukning mellan Your shape och Oxycon Mobile Pro. Medelvärdet för testet gällande tid var 32 min och Your shape resulterade i ett medelvärdet på 139.7 kcal och Oxycon Mobile Pro 157.8. En skillnad på 12 %. Your shape underestimerar kaloriförbrukningen jämfört mot Oxycon Mobile Pro.Your shape redovisade högre resultat för både kcal/min och HF jämfört mot Nintendo Wii boxing.Slutsats Det finns en signifikant skillnad mellan Your shape och Oxycon Mobile Pro, nämligen en underskattning från Your shape med 12 %. Vilket ger en god uppskattning av kalorimätaren. Your shape är ett modernare AVG-spel jämfört mot Wii boxing men kräver liknande fysisk påfrestning.

Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) are a popular type of online video game. While these games and their players have been studied previously, there is gap in the literature that examines the relationship between one’s motivation to play MMOGs and loneliness, depression, and problematic use. For this study, 440 players of World of Warcraft (WoW), a popular MMOG, completed a demographics questionnaire and four measures, including Williams, Yee, & Caplan’s (2008) motivation measure, Peter’s & Malesky’s (2008) World of Warcraft-specific Problematic Usage-Engagement Questionnaire, UCLA’s Loneliness scale, and The Depression Anxiety Stress Scales. Results from quantitative analyses suggest that MMO players who are motivated to play for reasons of achievement and immersion are more likely to experience problematic use than those persons who play for social motivations. Loneliness and depression were only positively related with immersion motivated players, and there exists a significant negative relationship between social motivation and depression. These results suggest that gamers who play WoW for immersive reasons are the most at-risk in comparison to their peers. Implications for counseling, limitations, and directions for future research are discussed.

This thesis identifies and analyzes successful movement strategies for the completion of a complex dynamic task. In the past it has been shown that movement strategies correlate well to performance for simple tasks. Therefore, in this thesis I was motivated to find out if motion based metrics correlated well to performance for more complicated motor tasks. First, the Nintendo Wiimote was verified as a suitable gaming interface enabling gross human motion capture through experimental comparisons with other gaming interfaces and precision sensors. Then, a complex motor task was rendered in an open-source gaming environment. This environment enabled the design of a rhythmic task that could be controlled with the Wiimote while data were simultaneously recorded for later analysis. For the task, success and failure could be explained by high correlation between two motion based performance metrics, mean absolute jerk (MAJ) and average frequency (AVF) per trial. A logistic regression analysis revealed that each subject had a range of MAJ and AVF values for being successful, outside of which they were unsuccessful. Therefore, this thesis identifies motion based performance metrics for a novel motor control task that is significantly difficult to master and the techniques used to identify successful movement strategies can be used for predicting success for other such complex dynamic tasks.

On multiline slot machine games, small “wins” often amount to less than the spin wager, resulting in a monetary loss to the gambler. Nevertheless, these monetary losses are still accompanied by “winning” (and potentially reinforcing) audio-visual feedback. Dixon, Harrigan, Sandhu, Collins, and Fugelsang (2010) termed these potentially reinforcing losses as losses disguised as wins, or LDWs. Dixon et al. previously showed that novice gamblers appear to somatically miscategorize LDWs as wins rather than correctly categorizing these outcomes as losses. Two studies are presented which investigated whether novice gamblers would psychologically miscategorize LDWs as wins as well. In both studies, we investigated participants’ categorizations of LDWs using two measures. First, we asked participants to recall how many times they had won during a playing session and predicted that if participants miscategorize LDWs as wins, then they should conflate LDWs and wins in memory. In Study 1, participants played 200 spins on a real slot machine game with either relatively fewer or relatively many expected LDWs. We found that participants who experienced more LDWs during the playing session recalled winning significantly more often than participants who experienced fewer LDWs, despite how many actual wins the participant experienced, or how much they won or lost overall. In Study 2, we found that participants recalled winning significantly more often in simulator games with more rather than fewer LDWs, despite identical numbers of real wins and identical payback percentages in both games. We referred to this type of memory error as the LDW overestimation effect. The second measure we used to investigate participants’ categorizations of LDWs was more immediate and direct. We evaluated whether participants would miscategorize LDWs as wins or correctly categorize these outcomes as losses by simply asking them to verbally label slot machine spin outcomes. In both studies, we found that the majority of participants miscategorized LDWs as wins rather than correctly categorizing the outcomes as losses. Implications for problem gambling are discussed.

Previous research has shown both positive and negative effects of gaming on academic and cognitive performance. The purpose of this study was to assess the effect of gaming on development of working memory (WM), inattention, reading and math ability using a longitudinal design. A randomly chosen sample of 335 (168 girls) 6–25 year olds performed tests of visuo-spatial and verbal WM, reading and math ability twice, with a two year interval. Gaming and inattention were assed with questionnaires. Time spent gaming did not affect development of any of the variables. However, game category did correlate with development of visuo-spatial WM, with action-gamers having a more favourable development. There was, however, no positive interaction with more time spent gaming for action-gamers. These results suggest that gaming should not be regarded as a damaging leisure activity. There could instead be some positive effects of gaming, but future research should try to identify the aspects of gaming contributing to this effect.

For years Penghu has been actively developing its tourism gaming (gambling) industry since its location, climate, and soil quality have hindered the development of its agriculture, fishery, and local industries and resulted in slow economy and reduced population. Its tourism industry had not developed well despite the unique natural sceneries and local history; therefore, the local government placed hope on the gambling industry in the wish of attracting foreign investors. For the past two decades, the local effort of legalizing off-shore gambling -- the only and the most important force behind this policy, has never ceased. The scenario adopted in this study is that the draft of the "Offshore Islands Development Act" that serves as the legal basis of Penghu's development of the gambling industry has been approved by the Legislative Yuan and is supported by the majority in a public vote. Being the only area where legalized gambling is allowed, the local government of Penghu and the central government immediately start to work on the applicable legal basis and regulations. Born and raised in Penghu, the researcher of this study also cares very much about this topic and thus wishes to come up with the recommendations for optimal local development. In this study the "Nominal Group Technique" (NGT) of "Interactive Management" (IM) was utilized for the purpose of getting everyone's opinions across in a democratic manner and reducing egocentric and arbitrary perspectives. Through NGT, an interactive seminar is held where "feasible and specific recommendations for the influences of Penghu's gambling industry on its economy and society" are provided. The 2-stage Seminar is held based on the unique procedures of NGT: Identify problems, clarify problems, vote and select problems, and come up with 12 specific strategies: 1. Invest a certain portion of the gambling revenue in the local environment in order to maintain the local landscapes and culture. 2. Establish a Penghu Gambling Committee or a dedicated authority that carries out its duties objectively and wins public trust and support. 3. Give a certain portion of the jobs in the gambling industry to the local residents whose households have been registered in Penghu for at least 5 years. 4. Make timely plans that are dedicated to Penghu's environment and surrounding. Gambling authorities should hold studies on the size of the gambling market. 5. Establish a security system between a service provider and a security authority and invest more in software/hardware for crime prevention. 6. Reinforce personnel training and industrial-academic collaborations in order to provide more jobs. 7. Establish a Supervisory Committee that is in charge of analyzing/evaluating relevant policies and formulating tasks. 8. Formulate strategies that protect the development of local industries and create a win-win situation for them and foreign inventors. 9. Penghu County Government should formulate a public-supervision system for the gambling industry in order to prevent corruptions and political manipulation. 10. Complete the infrastructure and public transportation as quickly as possible. 11. Actively help Penghu's traditional industries and develop tourism with the gambling industry and create a win-win situation. 12. Evaluate the influences of the population-carrying capacity on infrastructure and ecosystems and determine the responses. After comparing all the strategies, the inter-strategic relationships are reinforced using "Interpretive Structural Modeling" (ISM), and the ISM software was used to draw the diagram of the structural enhancement. After the second-stage discussions and revisions, the final, revised Diagram of Enhanced Structure was completed that clearly shows the causal relationships between each strategy and how they are ordered and ranked. The main contribution of this study is the information found provides the government with a clear, prioritized set of instructions that help the authority understand how the 12 strategies work and what they actually achieve. Through the 2-stage interactive seminar, questionnaire surveys were conducted twice on the participants in order for us to understand their expectations for the actual procedures, participation, understanding, and interactions in the seminar, and such information helps us understand how satisfied they are towards the interactive learning and whether they have actually achieved the expected results through independent thinking, diverse perspectives, debates, listening, group discussions, brain storming, and communication. In other words, we wish to find out how effective participation, problem-defining and clarifications, and consensus-reaching benefit the entire effort.

As the United States shifted toward a service-based economy and an increasingly digital media environment, American youth -- particularly young men and boys -- found an opportunity to play with these values in the then-novel video game arcade. The video game industry first came of age between the successful commercialization of Pong in 1972 and the U.S. gaming industry crash of 1983. In the interim, economic and play practices in the arcade itself and media representations of the arcade and its habitués shaped and responded to the economic and cultural upheavals of the period. Arcade machines were the first computers many Americans confronted. Through public discourse about gaming and gamers, Americans engaged in a critical debate about computerization, the move to digital media culture, the restructuring of the U.S. labor economy, and the competitiveness of American youth -- particularly boys -- in a Cold War culture conceived as both hostile and technologically oriented. This study demonstrates that video gaming was an arena in which Americans grappled with larger tensions about masculinity, globalization, labor, and digitalization. By analyzing gaming as a practice of everyday life, this work not only offers a cultural history of this period of gaming, but critical insights into the crystallization of masculine identity in a postindustrial, postmodern economy. / text