This dissertation is a study of social interaction in virtual worlds and virtual world design. A virtual world is a synchronous, multi-user system that offers a persistent spatial environment for iconically represented participants. Together, these form an example of social interaction design. I have applied an arena perspective on my object of study, meaning that I focus on these socio-technical systems as places. I have investigated the persistent qualities of social interaction in virtual worlds. What I have found is that virtual worlds are as real as the physical world. They are filled with real people interacting with each other evoking real emotions and leading to real consequences. There are no fixed boundaries between the virtual and physical arenas that make up a participant’s lifeworld. I have found that participants in virtual worlds are not anonymous and bodiless actors on a level playing field. Participants construct everything needed to create social structures such as identities and status symbols. The qualities of social interaction in virtual worlds cannot be measured against physical interaction. Doing so conceals the qualities of virtual interaction. Through the concepts of levity and proximity, I offer an alternative measure that better captures the unique properties of the medium. Levity is related to the use of avatars and the displacement into a virtual context and manifests itself as a kind of lightness in the way participants approach the interaction. Proximity is my term for the transformation of social distances that takes place in virtual worlds. While participants perceive that they are in the same place despite being physically separated, the technology can also create barriers separating participants from their physical surroundings. The gap between the participant and her avatar is also of social significance. As a theoretical foundation for design, I have used Michael Heim’s writings and practices as a base for a phenomenologically grounded approach, which provides an alternative to the dominating perspectives of architecture and engineering. Based on an explorative design project and the earlier mentioned findings regarding social interaction, I have formulated a model for virtual world design called interacture. This model takes the interaction between participants as the fundamental building material and the starting point of the design process. From there, layers of function and structure are added, all the time balancing the design between fantasy and realism. I have explored the possibilities of using ethnographic studies as the foundation for a participant centered design approach. I have aimed for an inside view of my object of study both as an ethnographer and as a designer. One outcome of this approach is that I have come to understand virtual worlds not just as places but also as processes where the experience of participating can change drastically over time as the participant reaches new stages in the process. In conclusion, the method of integrating ethnography with design and the understanding of social interaction as the fundamental building material is woven into a general approach to the study and design of socio-technical systems called social interaction design.

Purpose/Aim: The aim of this paper is to study how guild leaders in World of Warcraft (WOW) and leaders of real life organizations compare in terms of tasks, every-day experiences, environment, responsibilities and motivation. This comparison is used to build a new theory describing leadership in Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs). Material/Method: The paper uses the grounded theory approach to build a new theory. 12 interviews were conducted, six with WOW guild leaders and six with leaders of real life organizations. The Four Capacities Framework and the Leadership Grid were used to analyze and compare the results of the interviews. Main results: Leadership in MMORPGs is as complex and challenging as real life leadership with the difference that it stresses the internal relationships of the organization very much while neglecting outside relations to a big extend. Guild leadership is in many ways similar to real life leadership as both require long term political decisions, policy setting and good work in the field of human resources. However, it stresses the ability to build working social relationships and to motivate using only digital communication. Some aspects of real life leadership like customer orientation and an organizational instance over the leader like an owner or share holders that the leader is responsible to are not existent.

This thesis explores how massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), as an exemplary new media form, disrupt practices associated with more conventional media. These intensely social games exploit the interactivity and networks afforded by new media technologies in ways that generate new challenges for the organisation, control and regulation of media. The involvement of players in constituting these games - through their production of game-play, derivative works and strong social networks that drive the profitability of the games - disrupts some of the key foundations that underlie other publication media. MMOGs represent a new and hybrid form of media - part publication and part service. As such they sit within a number of sometimes contradictory organising and regulatory regimes. This thesis examines the negotiations and struggles for control between players, developers and publishers as issues of ownership, governance and access arise out of the new configurations. Using an ethnographic approach to gather information and insights into the practices of players, developers and publishers, this project identifies the characteristics of the distributed production network in this experiential medium. It explores structural components of successful interactive applications and analyses how the advent of player agency and the shift in authorship has meant a shift in control of the text and the relations that surround it. The integration of social networks into the textual environment, and into the business model of the media publishers has meant commerce has become entwined with affect in a new way in this medium. Publishers have moved into the role of both property managers, of the intellectual property associated with the game content, and community managers. Intellectual property management is usually associated with the reproduction and distribution of finished media products, and this sits uneasily with the performative and mutable form of this medium. Service provision consists of maintaining the game world environment, community management, providing access for players to other players and to the content generated both by the developers and the other players. Content in an MMOG is identified in this project as both the 'tangible' assets of code and artwork, rules and text, and the 'intangible' or immaterial assets of affective networks. Players are no longer just consumers of media, or even just active interpreters of media. They are co-producing the media as it is developed. This thesis frames that productiveness as unpaid labour, in an attempt to denaturalise the dominant discourse which casts players as consumers. The regulation of this medium is contentious. Conventional forms of media regulation - such as copyright, or content regulation regimes are inadequate for regulating the hybrid service/publication medium. This thesis explores how the use of contracts as the mechanism which constitutes the formal relations between players, publishers and developers creates challenges to some of the regimes of juridical and political rights held by citizens more generally. This thesis examines the productive practices of players and how the discourses of intellectual property and the discourses of the consumer are mobilised to erase the significance of those productive contributions. It also shows, using a Foucauldian analysis of the power negotiations, that players employ many counter-strategies to circumvent the more formal legal structures of the publishers. The dialogic relationship between players, developers and publishers is shown to mobilise various discursive constructions of the role of each. The outcome of these ongoing negotiations may well shape future interactive applications and the extent to which their innovative capacities will be available for all stakeholders to develop.

Η παρούσα έρευνα εντάσσεται στο πεδίο της διερεύνησης των περιβαλλόντων Διαδικτυακών Παιχνιδιών Μεγάλου Πλήθους Παικτών (ΔΠΜΠΠ) σε σχέση με το μαθησιακό δυναμικό τους. Προτείνεται ένα πλαίσιο διερεύνησης της μάθησης σε ΔΠΜΠΠ, στο οποίο συνδυάζεται η γνωστική, η συναισθηματική και η κοινωνική διάσταση της μάθησης και ένα εννοιολογικό μοντέλο που συμπεριλαμβάνει χαρακτηριστικά του παίκτη, της ομάδας, της δραστηριότητας, του σχεδιασμένου και του κοινωνικού περιβάλλοντος, και των αλληλεπιδράσεων μεταξύ των παικτών. Επιπλέον, χαρτογραφείται βάσει αυτού του πλαισίου, η περιοχή των ΔΠΜΠΠ σε σχέση με παράγοντες που αφορούν άμεσα ή έμμεσα την ανάπτυξη διαδικασιών μάθησης. Ακολουθήθηκε Μικτή Μεθοδολογία Έρευνας, με το συνδυασμό ποιοτικών και ποσοτικών δεδομένων, έτσι ώστε να επιτευχθεί η σφαιρικότερη κατανόηση των φαινομένων που αναδύονται. Τα δεδομένα συγκεντρώθηκαν μέσω συμμετοχικής παρατήρησης σε περιβάλλοντα ΔΠΜΠΠ (σημειώσεις πεδίου, βίντεο, εικόνες), μέσω παρατήρησης σε σχετικούς διαδικτυακούς τόπους και fora (συζητήσεις παικτών, οδηγούς παιχνιδιού), από βίντεο καταγραφής παιχνιδιού εθελοντών παικτών, ατομικές και ομαδικές συνεντεύξεις με παίκτες ΔΠΜΠΠ και ερωτηματολόγια. Από την ανάλυση των δεδομένων (ποιοτική, στατιστική) αναδύθηκε ένα σύνολο φαινομένων και παραγόντων που αφορούν δημογραφικά στοιχεία των παικτών, τα κίνητρα παιχνιδιού, τον προσδιορισμό και την ανάδειξη της εμπειρίας, τις δεξιότητες που ασκούνται, τις διαδικασίες και πηγές μάθησης, τις αλληλεπιδράσεις των παικτών, πρακτικές και διαδικασίες που αναπτύσσονται στις ομάδες των παικτών και γενικότερα στην κοινότητα των παικτών, και χαρακτηριστικά σχεδιασμού όπως ο εικονικός χαρακτήρας, οι λειτουργίες υποστήριξης αλληλεπιδράσεων και επικοινωνίας, οι οργανωμένες δραστηριότητες και οι λειτουργίες υποστήριξης της μάθησης. Η επιβεβαιωτική ανάλυση με χρήση μοντέλων δομικών εξισώσεων (structural equation modeling) που πραγματοποιήθηκε στα ποσοτικά δεδομένα της έρευνας επιβεβαίωσε άμεσες και έμμεσες σχέσεις παραγόντων όπως οι κοινωνικές πρακτικές μάθησης, η κοινωνική διάσταση και το μέγεθος της ομάδας, τα εργαλεία υποστήριξης της επικοινωνίας, και η ηλικία και οι προτιμήσεις των παικτών, με την αντίληψη ανάπτυξης δεξιοτήτων μέσω του παιχνιδιού. Η μάθηση φαίνεται να αποτελεί αποτέλεσμα τόσο των σχεδιαστικών επιλογών όσο και των πρακτικών των παικτών που παρατηρούνται σε αυτά. Κίνητρα που σχετίζονται τόσο με το σχεδιασμό του περιβάλλοντος όσο και με τις αλληλεπιδράσεις και σχέσεις μεταξύ των παικτών ενισχύουν τη συμμετοχή, την εμπλοκή και την εκμάθηση γνώσεων και δεξιοτήτων που αφορούν την εξέλιξη στο περιβάλλον. Παράλληλα οι παίκτες δημιουργούν αυθόρμητα ομάδες και κοινότητες μάθησης του παιχνιδιού και συνεργατικής επίτευξης των δραστηριοτήτων. Η κατανόηση των πρακτικών και των διαδικασιών που αναπτύσσονται στο πλαίσιο του παιχνιδιού και η σχέση τους με τις σχεδιαστικές επιλογές του περιβάλλοντος μπορούν να παράσχουν πολύτιμα στοιχεία τόσο για τη συνεργασία των ατόμων σε κατανεμημένες ομάδες μέσω διαδικτυακών εικονικών περιβαλλόντων, όσο και για την ανάπτυξη αποτελεσματικών συνεργατικών μαθησιακών περιβαλλόντων με ή χωρίς την υποστήριξη υπολογιστή. / This study is situated within the research field of learning in Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) and aims at mapping the field. Through this study, a research framework for the study of learning in MMOGs is proposed. The framework combines the cognitive, the emotional, and the social aspects of learning, and also a conceptual model including features of the players, the groups, the tasks, the designed and the social environment, and the interactions among the players. Furthermore, phenomena and factors directly or indirectly relevant to the support of learning in MMOGs are mapped, based on this framework. A mixed method research approach was employed. The main research methodologies and tools employed were virtual ethnography and questionnaires, for the qualitative and the quantitative approaches respectively. Data were collected through participant observation in different MMOGs, observation in relevant websites and fora, videos of volunteers expert players, individual and group interviews with MMOG players, and questionnaires. Through the combination of qualitative and quantitative data it was possible to investigate and understand the different perspectives of the phenomena emerging. Through the data analysis, a complex set of phenomena and factors emerged, relevant to demographic data of the players, motivations for play, the definition and the emergence of expertise, the skills employed, the learning practices, the interactions of the players, the practices and process in the groups and the community of players, and features of the environment design such as the virtual characters, tools for the support of interactions and communication, the tasks and quests, and functionalities for the support of learning. Confirmatory analysis of the quantitative data through structural equation modeling confirmed the direct and indirect relations of factors such as the social practices for learning, the social aspect and the size of the group, the tools for communication support, and the age and preferences of the players, with the perceptions of skill development through the game. Learning in MMOGs seems to emerge from the combination of both design decisions as well as the practices of the players. Motives relevant to the design of the environment and the interactions among the players engage the players in the acquisition of game-related skills and progress in the environment. Players spontaneously develop groups and communities for learning the environment and collaboratively accomplishing tasks. Understanding of the practices and processes emerging within the framework of the game, and their relations to the design of the environment can provide valuable insights of the way people interact and collaborate in distributed online teams, and also for the development of effective collaborative learning environments with or without the support of computers.

Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-07T19:36:32Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 marcelo_vasconcellos_icict_dout.pdf.txt: 1748 bytes, checksum: 8a4605be74aa9ea9d79846c1fba20a33 (MD5) marcelo_vasconcellos_icict_dout.pdf: 6325684 bytes, checksum: 4dca6e719c38b0a215b4ef5a8a7ae44c (MD5) Previous issue date: 2014-09-05 / Fundação Oswaldo Cruz. Instituto de Comunicação e Informação Científica e Tecnológica em Saúde. Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brasil / As estratégias públicas de Comunicação e Saúde no Brasil fazem uso de variadas mídias, desde as tradicionais (impressos, rádio, televisão) até as novas mídias, como sites, blogs e redes sociais. Estas iniciativas apresentam limitações advindas de sua matriz comunicacional, que produz uma prática caracterizada por um enfoque normativo e prescritivo e pela centralização da produção, com a decorrência de não atender a diversidade e as especificidades dos múltiplos contextos culturais e sanitários de um país como o Brasil, além de estabelecer um padrão comunicativo unidirecional, sem espaço para interlocução com os cidadãos. Estas características limitam muito os resultados das políticas de Comunicação e Saúde, que não se alinham com o protagonismo inerente aos princípios do SUS, particularmente ao princípio da participação social Esta tese investigou o potencial de Massively Multiplayer On-line Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs) para a Comunicação e Saúde sob o enfoque da promoção da saúde e teve como premissa que MMORPGs podem superar estes problemas apontados, representando uma estratégia relevante para a Comunicação e Saúde no sentido do aprimoramento da Promoção da Saúde, como espaço de desenvolvimento de uma cultura participatória na relação entre o Estado e a população, portanto como elemento de transformação da sociedade. Foram utilizados conceitos e teorias dos campos da Comunicação e Saúde e dos Game Studies para caracterizar video games como cultura participatória. Jogadores de um MMORPG (World of Warcraft) foram entrevistados como forma de refinamento da elaboração de categorias analíticas que formaram uma estrutura para análise de MMORPGs, o modelo de \201CAnálise Relacional de MMORPGs: Contextos e Dispositivo\201D (ARM). O modelo foi baseado em dois outros modelos: um do campo da comunicação, Modelo do Mercado Simbólico e um do campo dos Games Studies, o Gaming Dispositif. Concluiu-se com a confirmação do potencial dos MMORPGs para a promoção da saúde e aplicabilidade do modelo para se avaliar e orientar a produção e a análise de MMORPGs para a promoção da saúde / The public Health Communication strategies in Brazil use various media, from the traditional ones (print, radio, television) to the new media such as websites, blogs and social networks. These initiatives have limitations arising from its communication mat rix , which produces a practice characterized by a normative and prescriptive approach and the centralization of production, with the result of disregarding the diversity and specificity of the multiple cultural and health contexts of a country like Brazil as well as establishing a standard unidirectional communication, with no room for dialogue with citizens. These features greatly limit the results of the policies of Health Communication, which do not align with the inherent protagonism of the SUS ́s princi ples, particularly the principle of social participation This thesis investigated the potential of Massively Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games (MMORPGs) for Health Communication with a focus on health promotion and its premise was that MMORPGs can overc ome the identified problems , being a relevant strategy for Health Communication in the sense improvement of health promotion, as a space for the development of a participatory culture in the relation between the state and the population, hence as element of social transformation. T heories from the fields of Health Communication and Game Studies were used to characterize video games as participatory culture. Players of a MMORPG (World of Warcraft) were interviewed as a way of refining the developmen t of analytical framework for MMORPGs, the model for “ Relational Analysis of MMORPGs: Contexts and Apparatus ” ( R AM). The model was based on two other models: one from communication field, Symbolic Model Market , and another from the f ield of Game Studies, t he Gaming Dispositif. The conclusion supports the potential of MMORPGs for health promotion and the applicability of the model to evaluate and guide the production and analysis of MMORPGs for health promotion.

Distributed virtual environments (DVEs) have been an active area of research and engineering for more than 20 years. The most widely deployed DVEs are network games such as Quake, Halo, and World of Warcraft (WoW), with millions of users and billions of dollars in annual revenue. Deployed DVEs remain expensive centralized implementations despite significant research outlining ways to distribute DVE workloads. This dissertation shows previous DVE research evaluations are inconsistent with deployed DVE needs. Assumptions about avatar movement and proximity - fundamental scale factors - do not match WoW's workload, and likely the workload of other deployed DVEs. Alternate workload models are explored and preliminary conclusions presented. Using realistic workloads it is shown that a fully decentralized DVE cannot be deployed to today's consumers, regardless of its overhead. Residential broadband speeds are improving, and this limitation will eventually disappear. When it does, appropriate security mechanisms will be a fundamental requirement for technology adoption. A trusted auditing system ('Carbon') is presented which has good security, scalability, and resource characteristics for decentralized DVEs. When performing exhaustive auditing, Carbon adds 27% network overhead to a decentralized DVE with a WoW-like workload. This resource consumption can be reduced significantly, depending upon the DVE's risk tolerance. Finally, the Pairwise Random Protocol (PRP) is described. PRP enables adversaries to fairly resolve probabilistic activities, an ability missing from most decentralized DVE security proposals. Thus, this dissertations contribution is to address two of the obstacles for deploying research on decentralized DVE architectures. First, lack of evidence that research results apply to existing DVEs. Second, the lack of security systems combining appropriate security guarantees with acceptable overhead.

Background: Due to technological outbreak Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) has become very popular leisure time occupation for people of various age ranging from not only children to also mid-age gamers. Although computer gaming is not officially classified as a disorder within ICD-10, it shows obvious signs of behavioral disorder. Despite there is a great number of research within this area, there is still lack of unified definition and classification. In addition to numerous publications in this field, there is still a space for additional research. One of those areas to explore is an impact on partner life and relationship. Aims: The main objective of the thesis is to describe the impact of Massively Multiplayer Online gaming on partner relationship. Furthermore, the work will partially focus on the role of playing MMO games in a partnership and what the impact of playing Massively Multiplayer Online games are in the common social life of partners. Methods and sample size: Qualitative research, where data has been collected from semi-structured interview, has been chosen. Subsequently the data has been extrapolated by method of Grounded Theory. Sample size was chosen based on online questionnaire with 733 participants out of those there were 5 male gamers and 4 female partners. Results: The...

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Der vorliegende Beitrag setzt sich mit den Möglichkeiten problemorientierten Lernens in kollaborativen virtuellen Umgebungen am Beispiel eines Mock-Trial-Trainings in der OpenSim-basierten Virtual Learning World auseinander. Ausgangspunkt der Auseinandersetzung stellen die Motivation des Einsatzes virtueller Trainings und grundsätzliche Handlungsangebote kollaborativer virtueller Umgebungen einschließlich ihrer Potentiale aus bildungstheoretischer Perspektive dar. Bestehende Mehrwerte und Herausforderungen beim Einsatz virtueller Trainingsumgebungen werden anschließend anhand einer empirischen Untersuchung, die im Rahmen der Entwicklung eines Mock-Trial-Trainings durchgeführt wurde, aufgezeigt und diskutiert.

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the gaming behaviors of married individuals and couples who play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game(s) (MMORPGs) including gaming addiction, time spent gaming, satisfaction in gaming participation, gaming interaction (between joint gaming spouses), and socio-demographic variables and the subsequent marital satisfaction levels of both individuals in the couple. Hypotheses were generally supported, excluding the hours spent gaming. 685 couples were separated and analyzed according to whether both individuals in the marriage gamed or just one individual gamed (couple-gaming type). Couples in which only one individual gamed (individual-gamer couples) had significantly lower marital satisfaction than all other groups and couples in which both gamed about the same amount of time (equal-gamers) held the highest marital satisfaction of the groups. Prediction models of marital satisfaction were determined for each couple-gaming type. The strongest predictions present in most of the models for marital satisfaction were the frequency that the couple retired to bed at the same time and the frequency that the couple quarreled specifically about gaming. Much MMORPG research has been presented on youth and adults, however to date there is no research on married gamers. Recent research on the video game habits of emerging adults called for further in depth investigation of the implications of video game use in the family formation stage of life.