The study examines the relationship between professional players and their motivations in profession gaming. With the theoretical framework of Bartle's Quotient and the ERG theory, the study indicates and clarifies the motivations of professional gamers through Delphi Process. Tournament prizes, money, approval by others, competition, sense of accomplishments, and self-actualization are the critical motivations that grant these professionals the encouragement to excel. Such essential information could be very useful for game developers to create a competitive game with a friendly environment for professional gamers.

Inledning: Fotboll är en lagsport som innehåller fysiska -och tekniska krav. Till författarnas kännedom finns det begränsat med vetenskaplig forskning om kvinnliga fotbollsspelare, dess belastning och sambandet till skador under träning och match. Syfte: Syftet med denna studie var att mäta den fysiska belastningen och skador under en fyra veckors träning -och matchperiod hos kvinnliga fotbollsspelare i ålder 18–22 år. Metod: Datainsamlingen genomfördes med 10 hertz Global Positioning System (GPS)- enheter på sex kvinnliga fotbollsspelare från mellersta Sverige under säsong 2018. Variablerna som mättes var distans i meter, player load, meter i olika hastigheter, en egenskattad belastning för styrketräningspass och egenskattad veckobelastning. Fotbollsspelarna studerades under 17 träningstillfällen och tre matcher. Data analyserades deskriptivt för att se som det fanns samband mellan player load och egenskattad belastning. Ett t-test användes för att se om det fanns några skillnader i lagets planerade belastning och den uppmätta belastningen. Vidare analyserades även om det fanns ett samband mellan de skador som uppstod och den fysiska belastningen. Resultat: Mätningarna visar att de kvinnliga fotbollsspelarnas planerade belastning stämmer relativt bra med den uppmätta belastningen för distans (m) och player load, dock inte hastighetszonerna. Vid ett högre player load värde skattar sig fotbollsspelarna som en mer ansträngd belastning och muskeltrötthet. Under denna studie uppstår fyra skador hos de deltagande. Slutsats: Resultatet tyder på att hög fysisk belastning kan ha ett samband med skador hos kvinnliga fotbollsspelare.

Value co-creation is a popular marketing research topic in recent years, and there were already some studies regarding raising consumers’ involvement in co-creation. However, virtual communities such as online games have seldom been addressed in this topic. This thesis aimed to shed light on mobile gamers’ co-creation from the perspective of the characteristics of the virtual community. Hence, this study applied the theory of value co-creation and the characteristics of virtual communities to propose a research model. After analyzing 167 valid online questionnaire respondents from game players, the results indicated that Incentive Mechanism, Members’ Communication, Norm of Reciprocity had significantly positive effects on players’ involvement in co-creation. In addition, the finding’s practical implication suggested that the game companies need to provide unique services so that consumers could voluntarily and actively participate in value co-creation activities.

165f. / Submitted by Oliveira Santos Dilzaná (dilznana@yahoo.com.br) on 2013-09-06T16:07:27Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Priscilla_Andreata_Rosa_de_Sousa.pdf: 999855 bytes, checksum: fa84a16ca309542785401f9cc2b61d68 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Ana Portela(anapoli@ufba.br) on 2013-09-06T17:27:54Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Priscilla_Andreata_Rosa_de_Sousa.pdf: 999855 bytes, checksum: fa84a16ca309542785401f9cc2b61d68 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2013-09-06T17:27:54Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Dissertação_Priscilla_Andreata_Rosa_de_Sousa.pdf: 999855 bytes, checksum: fa84a16ca309542785401f9cc2b61d68 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2008 / CAPES / Este trabalho tem como objetivo investigar e analisar a constituição da força de trabalho específica que vem a ser o jogador de futebol e as relações de trabalho e jurídicas a ele associadas, sob o contexto das mudanças ocorridas a partir do advento do regime de acumulação flexível, da flexibilização e precarização do trabalho em geral, e das propostas de modernização do futebol. Recupera-se o contexto dos anos 90 no Brasil, notadamente a Lei Pelé e as novas determinações legais para o esporte brasileiro em geral, com o intuito de dar conta da singularidade do processo de modernização do futebol no Brasil bem como das especificidades da formação e circulação da mercadoria força de trabalho jogador de futebol, além de algumas similitudes com outras atividades, seja sob o prisma da formação, da remuneração, da relação com o empregador, da legislação ou do trabalho produtor de valor. This study has as its goal to investigate and analyze the constitution of the specific working labor which is the soccer player and working / juridical relationships associated to him. All this takes place in a context of changing occurred within the advent of system of flexible accumulation, flexibleness and precarization of work in general, and of soccer modernization proposals. The dissertation retrieves the 90‟s context in Brazil, specially the Pelé Law and the new legal determinations for Brazilian sport in general with the purpose of cover the singularity of Brazilian soccer modernization process, as well as the specifics of construction and circulation of the working labor soccer player product. This study intends also to analyze some similarities with other activities, being under the prism of training, relationship with the employer, legislation or working producing value. / Salvador

Even though artificial intelligence (AI) agents are now able to solve many classical games, in the field of computer strategy games, the AI opponents still leave much to be desired. In this work we tackle a problem of combat in strategy video games by adapting existing search approaches: Portfolio greedy search (PGS) and Monte-Carlo tree search (MCTS). We also introduce an improved version of MCTS called MCTS considering hit points (MCTS_HP). These methods are evaluated in context of a recently released 4X strategy game Children of the Galaxy. We implement a combat simulator for the game and a benchmarking framework where various AI approaches can be compared. We show that for small to medium combat MCTS methods are superior to PGS. In all scenarios MCTS_HP is equal or better than regular MCTS due to its better search guidance. In smaller scenarios MCTS_HP with only 100 millisecond time limit outperforms regular MCTS with 2 second time limit. By combining fast greedy search for large combats and more precise MCTS_HP for smaller scenarios a universal AI player can be created.

One of the most important features of a (computer) game that makes it memorable is an ability to bring a sense of engagement. This can be achieved in numerous ways, but the most major part is a challenge, often provided by in-game enemies and their ability to adapt towards the human player. However, adaptability is not very common in games. Throughout this thesis work, aspects of the game control systems that can be improved in order to be adaptable were studied. Based on the results gained from the study of the literature related to artificial intelligence in games, a classification of games was developed for grouping the games by the complexity of the control systems and their ability to adapt different aspects of enemies behavior including individual and group behavior. It appeared that only 33% of the games can not be considered adaptable. This classification was then used to analyze the popularity of games regarding their challenge complexity. Analysis revealed that simple, familiar behavior is more welcomed by players. However, highly adaptable games have got competitively high scores and excellent reviews from game critics and reviewers, proving that adaptability in games deserves further research.

A large part of any game development process consists of content creation, which costs both time and effort. Procedural generation techniques exist to help narrative generation, but they are scattered and require extensive manual labour to set up. On top of that, Serious Games content created with these techniques tend to be uninteresting and lack variety which can ultimately lead to the Serious Games missing their intended purpose. This paper delivers a prototype for a modular tool that aims to solve these problems by combining existing narrative generation techniques with common sense database knowledge and player adaptivity techniques. The prototype tool implements Ceptre as a core module for the generation of stories and ConceptNet as a commonsense knowledge database. Two studies have been conducted with content created by the tool. One study tested if generation rules created by commonsense can be used to flesh out stories, while the other one evaluated if adapted stories yield better scores. The results of the first test state that adding rules retrieved through common sense knowledge did not improve story quality, but they can however be used to extend stories without compromising story quality. It also shows that ideally, an extensive natural language processing module should be used to present the stories rather than a basic implementation. The statistically insignificant result of the second test was potentially caused by the compromises taken when conducting the test. Reconduction of this test using real game data, rather than data from the compromised personality test, might be preferable.

Thesis (Masters Diploma (Electrical Engineering)--Cape Technikon, Cape Town, 1993 / This thesis describes the development and design of a pianorecorder system. This system makes it possible to record the notes played on a piano onto a computer disk. The records can then be used for the manufacturing of pianola rolls.

Subject of this study was to find out differences in special locomotive abilities of junior female volleyball players (category older primary school). Observed values were compared within tested groups, statistically evaluated and presented in form of tables and graphs. We aimed to compare level locomotive performance between players of second league and best players of first junior volleyball league.Testing samples comprised of players of VSK Slávia PF České Budějovice and the junior league All-star teams. Both teams were tested with use of three special locomotive tests for strength, velocity and maneuverability. I also conducted basic anthropometric measurements of stature and flesh, from which I have computed the Body Mass Index. \\

Berättande för Virtual Reality undersöker hur okonventionellt berättande kan påverka en spelares upplevda förhållande till en non-player character i vad som annars är en minimalistisk Virtual Reality-simulation. Studien innefattar en kvalitativ undersökning som utfördes på åtta testpersoner som alla fick spela igenom tre sociala scenarier i Virtual Reality och sedan intervjuas för att utvinna data till undersökningen. För att stödja undersökningens upplägg baserades arbetet på en bred bakgrund relaterad till bland annat berättartekniker och Virtual Reality-utveckling. Resultaten av undersökningen uppmärksammar potentialen som Virtual Reality har för att stärka den emotionella kopplingen mellan en spelare och en non-player character. Det lägger också en grund för vidare experimentering inom berättande i mediet i framtiden.