Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior / The target of this research is to help the thinking about contemporary art through a new approach from the Idea of play to gaming. We try to comprehend the overthrow and entertainment concepts in the games developed and in the art and gaming field. This observation doesn‟t lay down just on the games created in this research, but also include a few aspects of art and technology in contemporary art. Between practice and theory the methodology was built, and together they tangled the proposed thought. To elucidade the thought tha we came with in this study we start with the approach of the play concept, that raises on philosophy and is adopted by the visual arts. From philosophycal play to eletronic game, and when it is found on a artistic context, it can be called as art and gamimg. In trying to understand and define what exactly art and gaming are about I show my own artistic games. This master thesis ends with a view of the contemporary art scenery and how the overthrow and entertainment concepts can integrate the contemporary art today. / O objetivo desta pesquisa, em poéticas visuais, é de contribuir para pensar a arte contemporânea atual através de uma nova abordagem que parte da ideia de jogo na arte para chegar ao game. Verificam-se os conceitos de subversão e diversão na minha produção pessoal na área da gamearte. Esta reflexão não se restringe somente sobre minha produção, mas também abrange alguns aspectos da arte e tecnologia na arte contemporânea. A metodologia utilizada na pesquisa desenvolve-se no ir e vir entre a prática artística e a teoria que, unidas, tecem o pensamento proposto. Para elucidar a proposição apresentada neste estudo, inicia-se com a abordagem do conceito de jogo, que se origina na filosofia e é adotado pela arte. Do jogo filosófico segue-se para o jogo eletrônico, chamado de game, e quando inserido em um contexto artístico assume-se como gamearte. Ao tentar compreender e delimitar, quando possível, o que seria esta produção em gamearte, exponho a minha experiência pessoal na produção de jogos artísticos. Para fechar esta dissertação apresentam-se outras produções contemporâneas em gamearte, a fim de evidenciar como a diversão e o entretenimento podem integrar a arte contemporânea recente.

This thesis is concerned with the fact that people routinely appropriate interactivetechnology. Much of the work in this project was conducted at The Public, aninteractive art gallery in West Bromwich. Examples of appropriation that arepresented range from interactive art, the game Minecraft™, to mundane objectsencountered in daily life. Research Questions posed in this study are: • What are the dynamics of appropriation? • What is the relationship of appropriation to affordance? • How do individuals experience appropriation? Appropriation is the mechanism by which we make objects in the world relevant and personal. This PhD has revealed three dimensions of appropriation namely: • Control: both in terms of ownership and virtuosity. • Ensoulment: the mechanism through which we ascribe personal significance to artefacts. • Affordance: the experiential relationship to artefacts concerned with action on and with them. Appropriation is revealed as a mechanism through which people understand potential action with technology. A traditional view is that people learn how to use a system and once its canonical use is established new uses or appropriations are discovered. What is revealed in this study is that appropriation is bound to our perception of action with technology, commonly explained through the concept of affordance. Appropriation is revealed as the initial act in human encounters with technology.

xvi, 207 p. A print copy of this thesis is available through the UO Libraries. Search the library catalog for the location and call number. / This research develops Broom, Casey and Ritchey's (1997) concept of relationship antecedents, suggesting moral obligation as a non-consequential relationship antecedent. By using Bivins's (2009) classification of moral and functional obligations, this research suggests that nonprofit managers perceive a moral obligation on the part of gaming corporations to establish relationships that can benefit the local community. Where a functional obligation would affect the corporation's ability to do business, the moral obligation is non-consequential and falls outside the parameters of the six consequential relationship antecedents identified by Grunig and Huang (2000). Business ethicists have long debated the need for corporate social responsibility, broadly defined as the idea that a corporation has a responsibility to society separate from its profit-making obligation to stockholders. This research looks at corporate social responsibility in the gaming industry in Las Vegas, examining nonprofit managers' expectations for these corporations to contribute to the local community. This study examines through qualitative interviews these managers' perceptions about the responsibility of gaming corporations to participate in and give back to the local community. This research also sheds light on Las Vegas, NV, recognized more often for its architecture and cultural zeitgeist than for the contours of its community. A background section on Las Vegas history and its development as a tourist destination provides context for an examination of the ways Las Vegas's nonprofit organizations interact with the city's dominant industry. Nonprofit managers perceive gaming corporations as under- involved in the local community; in addition, they believe the community is under- informed about these efforts, potentially leading to a low level of civic engagement. This research also examines corporate social responsibility in the context of the economic downturn that began September 2008. Because Las Vegas's economy is so heavily dependent on the gaming and tourism industries, the city provides an excellent location in which to examine how economic forces affect corporate social responsibility efforts. The significant decline in CSR from the gaming corporations, as reported by nonprofit managers. suggests an orientation to CSR that is more functional than moral. / Committee in charge: Patricia Curtin, Chairperson, Journalism and Communication; Tiffany Gallicano, Member, Journalism and Communication; Thomas Bivins, Member, Journalism and Communication; Renee Irvin, Outside Member, Planning Public Policy & Mgmt

abstract: The goal of this research was to understand the different kinds of learning that take place in Mod The Sims (MTS), an online Sims gaming community. The study aimed to explore users' experiences and to understand learning practices that are not commonly observed in formal educational settings. To achieve this goal, the researcher conducted a four-year virtual ethnographic study that followed guidelines set forth in Hine (2000). After Hine, the study focused on understanding the complexity of the relationships between technology and social interactions among people, with a particular emphasis on investigating how participants shaped both the culture and structure of the affinity space. The format for the dissertation consists of an introduction, three core chapters that present different sets of findings, and a concluding chapter. Each of the core chapters, which can stand alone as separate studies, applies different theoretical lenses and analytic methods and uses a separate data set. The data corpus includes hundreds of thread posts, member profiles, online interview data obtained through email and personal messaging (PM), numerous screenshots, field notes, and additional artifacts, such as college coursework shared by a participant. Chapter 2 examines thread posts to understand the social support system in MTS and the language learning practices of one member who was a non-English speaker. Chapter 3 analyzes thread posts from administrative staff and users in MTS to identify patterns of interactions, with the goal of ascertaining how users contribute to the ongoing design and redesign of the site. Chapter 4 investigates user-generated tutorials to understand the nature of these instructional texts and how they are adapted to an online context. The final chapter (Chapter 5) presents conclusions about how the analyses overall represent examples of participatory learning practices that expand our understanding of 21st century learning. Finally, the chapter offers theoretical and practical implications, reflections on lessons learned, and suggestions for future research. / Dissertation/Thesis / Ph.D. Curriculum and Instruction 2012

Submitted by Rosa Assis (rosa_assis@yahoo.com.br) on 2017-11-14T18:05:03Z No. of bitstreams: 2 VICTOR PERAZZOLO BARROS.pdf: 24134660 bytes, checksum: 8761000aa9ba093f81a14b3c2368f2b7 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Paola Damato (repositorio@mackenzie.br) on 2017-11-27T12:14:38Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 VICTOR PERAZZOLO BARROS.pdf: 24134660 bytes, checksum: 8761000aa9ba093f81a14b3c2368f2b7 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-11-27T12:14:38Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 VICTOR PERAZZOLO BARROS.pdf: 24134660 bytes, checksum: 8761000aa9ba093f81a14b3c2368f2b7 (MD5) license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-02-06 / The advances in Cloud Computing and communication technologies enabled the concept of Cloud Gaming to become a reality. Through PCs, consoles, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs and other devices, people can access and use games via data streaming, regardless the computing power of these devices. The Internet is the fundamental way of communication between the device and the game, which is hosted and processed on an environment known as Cloud. In the Cloud Gaming model, the games are available on demand and offered in large scale to the users. The players' actions and commands are sent to servers that process the information and send the result (reaction) back to the players. The volume of data processed and stored in these Cloud environments exceeds the limits of analysis and manipulation of conventional tools, but these data contains information about the players' profile, its singularities, actions, behavior and patterns that can be valuable when analyzed. For a proper comprehension and understanding of this raw data and to make it interpretable, it is necessary to use appropriate techniques and platforms to manipulate this amount of data. These platforms belong to an ecosystem that involves the concepts of Big Data. The model known as Big Data Analytics is an effective and capable way to, not only work with these data, but understand its meaning, providing inputs for assertive analysis and predictive actions. This study searches to understand how these technologies works and propose a method capable to analyze and identify patterns in players' behavior and characteristics on a virtual environment. By knowing the patterns of different players, it is possible to group and compare information, in order to optimize the user experience, revenue for developers and raise the level of control over the environment in a way that players' actions can be predicted. The results presented are based on different analysis modeling using the Hadoop technology combined with data visualization tools and information from open data sources in a dataset of the World of Warcraft game. Fraud detection, users' game patterns, churn prevention inputs and relations with game attractiveness elements are examples of modeling used. In this research, it was possible to map and identify the players' behavior patterns and create a prediction of its frequency and tendency to evade or stay in the game. / Os avanços das tecnologias de Computacão em Nuvem (Cloud Computing) e comunicações possibilitaram o conceito de Jogos em Nuvem (Cloud Gaming) se tornar uma realidade. Por meio de computadores, consoles, smartphones, tablets, smart TVs e outros equipamentos é possível acessar via streaming e utilizar jogos independentemente da capacidade computacional destes dispositivos. Os jogos são hospedados e executados em um ambiente computacional conhecido como Nuvem, a Internet é o meio de comunicação entre estes dispositivos e o jogo. No modelo conhecido como Cloud Gaming, compreendesse que os jogos são disponibilizados sob demanda para os usuários e podem ser oferecidos em larga escala. Os comandos e ações dos jogadores são enviados para servidores que processam a informação e enviam o resultado (reação) para o jogador. A quantidade de dados que são processados e armazenados nestes ambientes em Nuvem superam os limites de análise e manipulação de plataformas convencionais, porém tais dados contém informacões sobre o perfil dos jogadores, suas particularidades, ações, comportamentos e padrões que podem ser importantes quando analisados. Para uma devida compreensão e lapidação destes dados brutos, a fim de torná-los interpretáveis, se faz necessário o uso de técnicas e plataformas apropriadas para manipulação desta quantidade de dados. Estas plataformas fazem parte de um ecossistema que envolvem os conceitos de Big Data. Arquiteturas e ferramentas de Big Data, mais especificamente, o modelo denominado Big Data Analytics, são instrumentos eficazes e capazes de não somente trabalhar com estes dados, mas entender seu significado, fornecendo insumos para análise assertiva e predição de acões. O presente estudo busca compreender o funcionamento destas tecnologias e fornecer um método capaz de identificar padrões nos comportamentos e características dos jogadores em ambiente virtual. Conhecendo os padrões de diferentes usuários é possível agrupar e comparar as informações, a fim de otimizar a experiência destes usuários no jogo, aumentar a receita para os desenvolvedores e elevar o nível de controle sobre o ambiente ao ponto que seja possível de prever ações futuras dos jogadores. Os resultados obtidos são derivados de diferentes modelagens de análise utilizando a tecnologia Hadoop combinada com ferramentas de visualização de dados e informações de fontes de dados abertas, em um dataset do jogo World of Warcraft. Detecção de fraude, padrões de jogo dos usuários, insumos para prevencão de churn e relações com elementos de atratividade no jogo, são exemplos de modelagens abordadas. Nesta pesquisa foi possível mapear e identificar os padrões de comportamento dos jogadores e criar uma previsão e tendência de assiduidade sobre evasão ou permanencia de usuários no jogo.

The field of virtual reality (VR) is getting increasing attention from the scientific community and it is being portrayed by advertisements as the user interface (UI) of the future. This is a fair statement since the prior uses of VR that used to exist only in fiction movies and books are now widely available in many forms and settings to the public. One of the most interesting outcomes from this technological evolution is that now VR can be experienced through the use of a mobile phone and the addition of some inexpensive means typically in a form of a headset. The combination of the phone’s screen as attached to the headset creates a form of Head Mounted Display (HMD) which can be utilized in order for the user to be immersed within a virtual environment (VE). The argument here is that even if the means to get access to VR are cheap, this should not be the case with the experience as well. On the contrary, the low entry requirements in combination with a high quality experience are the basis for the medium's success and further adoption by the users. More specifically, the capability of utilizing a three dimensional space (3D) should not limit the medium’s use on just that but instead, this space should be used in order to offer immersive environments which make the user feel as if he is there.    There are many factors that contribute to that result and significant progress has been made to some such as the quality of screen or other hardware parts that allow the user get immersed into the virtual scenery, however, little progress has been made towards the conceptual means that allow the user of better experiencing this VE. Most of the VR applications so far are specifically designed for a single user session. This creates an isolation of the user from any other type of communities which further increases the stigma of VR being a solitary experience. Another issue is the interaction method that is available to users in order to interact with the VE. The use of buttons in most of the available headsets is a counter intuitive method for a person to interact with an environment that wants to be called real. The technological advancements in the field of image processing have resulted in many new methods of interaction and multimodal manipulation within VE and it would be worthy of exploring their effects on the user experience (UX) when used as an interaction method.    For these reasons, this thesis used the case of VR games as a setting to study how UX can be enhanced from its current state by introducing a bare hand gesture interaction method and expanding the VR setting in order to host two users in shared VE. Two individual studies were conducted where user feedback was collected in order to describe the effects of this approach in both a qualitative and quantitative manner. As results indicate, by utilizing gesture analysis on a headset equipped with a smartphone, it is possible to offer a natural and engaging solution for VR interaction capable of rich UXs while maintaining a low entry level for the end users. Finally, the addition of another player significantly affected the experience by influencing the emotional state of the participants in the game and further enforcing their feeling of presence within the VE.

One of the biggest industries today is the gaming industry. A multitude of games are sold each year, competing for the players’ attention and wallets. One of the common important techniques used today to produce game content is procedural content generation, where the computer generates small or larger parts of a game which often affects the gameplay experience. The purpose of this study is to design and implement a framework which can be used to evaluate and improve the procedural content generation in games, so that the gameplay experience for players in procedurally generated games can be increased. The research method used was design science, and the theories upon which the framework is built with are flow, procedural content generation and the genetic algorithm. The framework first was designed, and then implemented as an artifact in the form of a roguelike game, so that the framework’s functionality could be evaluated and validated. The game was then set up on a webpage so that anyone could contribute to the research by playing by giving feedback of how well the procedural content generation was performing in the form of a questionnaire within the game. Hence, the results of the study was twofold. The framework itself, and secondly the implementation of the framework in the form of a roguelike game. / En av de största industrierna idag är spelindustrin. En stor mängd av spel säljs varje år, vilka konkurrerar om spelarnas uppmärksamhet och plånböcker. En av de vanligaste teknikerna idag för att skapa innehåll till spel är procedurell generering där datorn genererar små eller stora delar av spelet, vilket ofta har inverkan på spelupplevelsen. Syftet med denna studie är att designa och implementera ett ramverk, vilket kan användas till att evaluera och förbättra den procedurella genereringen av spelinnehållet i spel, så att spelupplevelsen för spelare i procedurellt genererade spel kan förbättras. Forskningsmetoden som användes var design science, och de teorier som ramverket bygger på är flow, procedurell generering och den genetiska algoritmen. Ramverket designades först, och implementerades sedan som en artefakt i formen av ett rouge-likt spel, så att ramverkets funktionalitet kunde evalueras och valideras. Spelet lades upp på en hemsida, så att vem som helst kunde bidra till forskningen genom att spela och ge gensvar på hur väl den procedurellt genererade innehållet presterade. Härav så blev resultaten av studien tvåfaldig, ramverket självt, och implementationen av det i formen av ett rouge-liknande spel

Abstract The aim of the study was to describe and explain the problematic gaming behavior and the relationship between the digital gaming behavior (gaming time, medium, genres and motives), health (psychological, social and physical) and problematic gaming behavior among young people aged from 13 to 24 years. Information received can be used for developing practices to identify individuals with problematic gaming behavior, promote their lifestyle change and subsequently to increase knowledge of the nature of the condition within healthcare education. In this study, digital games means electronic games that can be played through console, computer, network and mobile devices. In the first sub-study, a systematic literature review with synthesis from previous empirical studies (n = 50) about the health outcomes related to problematic gaming behavior was conducted. In the second sub-study, cross-sectional and national survey design with a randomly selected sample (N = 3 000) was used to identify problematic gaming behavior and to examine its associations with the digital gaming behavior (gaming time, genres and motives) and health (psychological, social and physical) among Finnish adolescents and young adults (n = 293). In the third sub-study, a descriptive, regional cross-sectional study was conducted to examine adolescents’ (n = 560) digital gaming behavior and its relationship to problematic gaming behavior symptoms. The data from empirical studies two and three were collected by using an internet-based survey. Statistical methods were used to analyse the data. The findings of the systematic review and empirical study showed that problematic gaming behavior was especially related to adverse psychosocial health outcomes, namely, anxiety, depression and a preference for online social interaction. Problematic gaming behavior was also linked to the use of a cluster of games-characterized features of role playing, action, progression and strategy. Moreover, the gaming motives, such as entertainment achievement, social and escapism, correlated significantly to problematic gaming behavior. Among the sample of adolescents, the blended family structure might predict problematic gaming behavior symptoms. The study significantly added understanding of gaming and health characteristics in the role of problematic gaming behavior among young people. The findings may help to advance in the areas of screening and counselling for PGB. / Tiivistelmä Tutkimuksen tarkoituksena oli kuvata ja selittää 13–24-vuotiaiden nuorten ongelmallisen digipelaamiskäyttäytymisen yhteyksiä psyykkiseen, sosiaaliseen ja fyysiseen terveyteen. Tutkimuksen tavoitteena oli tuottaa uutta tietoa ongelmallisesta digipelaamisesta, helpottaa ilmiön tunnistamista ja edistää terveyskasvatusta. Digipeleillä tarkoitetaan tässä tutkimuksessa tietokone-, konsoli-, verkko- ja mobiililaitteilla pelattavia pelejä. Ensimmäisessä osatutkimuksessa arvioitiin ja tiivistettiin systemaattisen kirjallisuuskatsauksen avulla tämän hetkinen tutkimustieto (n = 50) ongelmallisen digipelaamisen ja terveyden välisistä yhteyksistä. Toisessa osatutkimuksessa tutkittiin ositettuna satunnaisotantana (N = 3 000) kerätyn aineiston avulla suomalaisten nuorten (n = 293) digipelaamista, ongelmallisen digipelaamisen esiintyvyyttä sekä ongelmallisen digipelaamisen yhteyksiä nuorten pelaamiskäyttäytymiseen ja terveyteen. Kolmannessa osatutkimuksessa kuvattiin alueellisen poikkileikkaustutkimuksen avulla nuorten (n = 560) digipelaamiskäyttäytymistä ja sen yhteyksiä ongelmalliseen digipelaamiseen. Empiiristen osatutkimusten aineisto kerättiin verkkopohjaisen kyselyn avulla, ja saatu aineisto analysoitiin tilastollisilla menetelmillä. Katsauksen ja empiirisen tutkimuksen tulokset osoittivat, että ongelmallinen digipelaaminen oli erityisesti yhteydessä psykologisiin ja sosiaalisiin oireisiin, kuten masennukseen ja ahdistukseen, sekä korostuneeseen mieltymykseen olla vuorovaikutuksessa verkkoympäristön välityksellä. Ongelmallisen digipelaamisen riski-ryhmään kuuluneet henkilöt suosivat digipelityyppejä, jotka sisälsivät rooli-, toiminta- ja strategiapelaamisen ominaisuuksia. Digipelaamisen motiiveista edistymispyrkimys, sosiaalisuus ja todellisuuspako olivat yhteydessä ongelmalliseen digipelaamiseen. Nuorilla uusioperhetilanne saattoi lisätä ongelmallisen pelaa-misen oireita. Tutkimus lisäsi tietoperustaa nuorten ongelmallisesta digipelaamisesta, pelaamiskäyttäytymisestä ja terveysominaisuuksien merkityksestä. Tuloksia voidaan hyödyntää ongelmallisen digipelaamisen seulonnan ja ilmiöön liittyvän ohjauksen kehittämisessä.

English is a part of our lives from an early age, and it is important that pupils engage themselves in learning the language. Today many pupils have access to a computer and can play online games in collaboration with others from around the world. This study aims to examine how online gaming can help pupils develop their second language. By studying prior research and analysing the results, it was found that there are several factors which may have an effect on pupils’ second language development. Through online games, motivation increases. Also, the interaction with both native English speakers as well as other second language learners within the games, form immense language input from authentic communication. These findings show that there are possible benefits in playing online games. However, there is a need for much further research to get a clear overview over the possible affects online games have for pupils second language development. / <p>Engelska</p>

Tillämpningen av information- och kommunikationsteknik i förskoleverksamheten är idag vanligt förekommande, inte minst genom datoranvändning. En del av just datoranvändning på förskolan är barnens bruk av olika slag digitala spel. Av intresse för detta utformades denna kvalitativa fallstudie med avsikt att undersöka vad som framträder i barnens samspel vid den gemensamma förskoledatorn samt vilken betydelse detta kan ha för den pedagogiska verksamheten. Studien genomfördes genom deltagande observationer och interaktionsanalyser av videoinspelningar. Resultatet av denna fallstudie visade att, genom en medvetet konstruerad interaktiv datormiljö för flera användare, underlättas ett socialt samspel mellan barnen när de använder datorn. En aktivt deltagande pedagog med kunskap och kompetens kring IKT kan tillföra nya sätt att arbeta med datorn och digitala spel genom att stötta och uppmuntra barnen till att samarbeta för att lösa problem eller lära varandra spelens funktioner.  Det finns således goda möjligheter att tillföra mening i spelande och datoranvändning på förskolan. Genom att arbeta med datorprogrammen utifrån kamratskapande aktiviteter såsom samarbete, problemlösning, låta barnen lära varandra och knyta digitala spelen till temainriktat arbetssätt utanför datorn kan digitala spel och IKT vävas in i läroplanens mål för verksamheten. Genomförandet av denna fallstudie har gett mig insikt de utmaningar som arbete med IKT i förskolan kan innebära. Det krävs att som pedagog se möjligheter för otaliga hinder som kan dyka upp, inte minst när tekniken strular just innan planerade aktiviteter. Utöver alla dessa nya erfarenheter så har det varit otroligt intressant, givande och framförallt roligt att jobba med barngruppen i denna fallstudie, från början till slut. Jag hoppas att barnen lärde sig lika mycket som jag gjorde under dessa veckor som gav mig många nya insikter för min blivande yrkesroll som förskollärare.