Using a quantitative survey distributed to regular players of MMORPGs (Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games) (N = 777), the current study employed a correlation matrix and a parallel mediation model to assess the relationship between play frequency, motivating factors, and video game addiction. The results demonstrated that each of these elements were related to one another to varying degrees (p < .001). The motivating factors identified by Yee (2006) included achievement, immersion, and social interaction, which were tested as mediators and indicated that achievement (a1 = 0.2817, p < 0.001; b1 = 0.4073, p < 0.001) and immersion (a2 = 0.3217, p < 0.001; b2 = 0.2574, p < 0.001) are mediators in the relationship of play frequency and addiction. Social interaction was not significant as a mediator (a3 = 0.3217, p < 0.001; b3 = -0.0235, p = 0.6753). Higher levels of addiction were present for those who were motivated by achievement (rewards) and immersion (storyline/diversion) to play more frequently per week. However, those who were motivated by social interaction to play frequently did not demonstrate a statistically significant relationship with higher levels of addiction. Findings suggest that motivating factors of gameplay may have a mediating effect on the relationship between play frequency and addiction.

Current communication and network systems are not built for delay-sensitive applications. The most obvious fact is that the communication capacity is only achievable in theory with infinitely long codes, which means infinitely long delays. One remedy for this is to use shorter codes. Conceptually, there is a deeper reason for the difficulties in such solutions: in Shannon's original 1948 paper, he started out by stating that the "semantic aspects" of information is "irrelevant" to communications. Hence, in Shannon's communication system, as well as every network built after him, we put all information into a uniform bit-stream, regardless what meanings they carry, and we transmit these bits over the network as a single type of commodity. Consequently, the network system can only provide a uniform level of error protection and latency control to all these bits. We argue that such a single measure of latency, or Age of Information (AoI), is insufficient for military Internet of Things (IoT) applications that inherently connect the communication network with a cyber-physical system. For example, a self-driving military vehicle might send to the controller a front-view image. Clearly, not everything in the image is equally important for the purpose of steering the vehicle: an approaching vehicle is a much more urgent piece of information than a tree in the background. Similar examples can be seen for other military IoT devices, such as drones and sensors. In this work, we present a new approach that inherently extracts the most critical information in a Military Battlefield IoT scenario by using a metric - called H-Score. This ensures the neural network to only concentrate on the most important information and ignore all background information. We then carry out extensive evaluation of this a by testing it against various inputs, ranging from a vector of numbers to a 1000x1000 pixel image. Next, we introduce the concept of Manual Marginalization, which helps us to make independent decisions for each object in the image. We also develop a video game that captures the essence of a military battlefield scenario and test our developed algorithm here. Finally, we apply our approach on a simple Atari Space Invaders video game to shoot down enemies before they fire at us. / Master of Science / The IoT is transforming military and civilian environments into truly integrated cyberphysical systems (CPS), in which the dynamic physical world is tightly embedded with communication capabilities. This CPS nature of the military IoT will enable it to integrate a plethora of devices, ranging from small sensors to autonomous aerial, ground, and naval vehicles. This results in huge amount of information being transferred between the devices. However, not all the information is equally important. Broadly we can categorize information into two types: Critical and Non-Critical. For example in a military battlefield, the information about enemies is critical and information abouut the background trees is not so important. Therefore, it is essential to isolate the critical information from non-critical informaiton. This is the focus of our work. We use neural networks and some domain knowledge about the enemies to extract the critical information and use the extracted information to take control decisions. We then evalue the performance of this approach by testing it against various kinds of synthetic data sets. Finally we use an Atari Space Invaders video game to demonstrate how the extracted information can be used to make crucial decisions about enemies.

Creativity can be a useful skill in today's classrooms and workplaces. When individuals talk about creativity, it's unclear what the controlling variables are when we tact behavior as "creative." Research in understanding the processes behind behaviors that are considered "creative" would assist in identifying functional relations and provide insight on how to teach creativity. Since creativity is often described as doing something different from the norm, behavioral variability may be a potential aspect of creativity. This study aimed to replicate previous findings by investigating the effects of discrimination training in a multiple schedule of varied and repetitive responding in the context of a video game. Participants played through a 2D online video game made in Bloxels. Different alternating-colored platforms served as the discriminative stimuli for the vary and repeat components. Three parameters of variability were measured (e.g., left jumps, right jumps, and double jumps). The results of the study indicate that participants were able to learn the discrimination of when to repeat and vary their responses depending on which colored platform they encountered.

Echo is a 3D animated short film rendered within Unreal Engine from Epic Games. The story is centered around a small child named Echo who has moved to Earth with her mom. The story follows her adventures through her first days at school and what can happen when a parent suddenly disappears from a child's life against their will. Many of the story beats take direct inspiration from personal experiences of either myself, my family members, or stories of immigrant children who come to the United States (US) with their parents in search of a better future. There has been a lot of discussion about the immigration system in the United States in recent years, but not enough discussion on the experiences immigrant children have when going through the system and its issues, therefore this film aims to help shed a light on how just a small act of kindness can help build a new world for those that find themselves lost. The main character and the film are titled Echo because it is an "echo" of the past. Be it past experiences, stories, or events.

This study investigates how visual cues can enhance player navigation in Metroidvania-style level design. This research aims to address the critical need for effective visual cues in improving player navigation within non-linear Metroidvania game levels. By delving into this aspect, we seek to not only enrich the gaming experience for players but also contribute valuable insights to game developers and researchers interested in improving their level design. Using a between-subjects design, we created a non-linear game prototype in Unity, representing the Metroidvania genre, along with three variants incorporating different levels of visual cue markedness, resulting in four versions in total. Data was collected through think-aloud protocols, observations, surveys, cued recall debriefs, and semi-structured interviews to assess participants' responses to the visual cues and their navigation strategies. The results indicate that integrated cues provided the clearest guidance, allowing players to quickly understand their objectives and navigate effectively. Subtle cues preserved the sense of discovery, while emphasized cues effectively highlighted specific items or secrets.

Despite the complexity of the video game, interest is growing by leaps and bounds due to its increasing relevance in entertainment history, but understanding of the medium is still up in the air. The aim of this study is therefore to investigate the knowledge and skill acquisition of people with little or no gaming experience (non-gamers) about the digital 3D puzzle game Portal within the framework of the Hermeneutic Spiral. Using qualitative interviews, supported by gameplay recordings and think-aloud protocols, eight non-gamers aged 21-69 reveal seven categories that determine the complexity of video game understanding and skill acquisition. Results show that skill acquisition is highly individual and depends on previous gaming experiences in terms of game literacy, the language understanding of games. As they form the basis, general expectations determine the next gaming experience which adds to the catalogue of video game understanding and influence the process of skill acquisition. / Trotz der Komplexität des Videospiels wächst das Interesse aufgrund seiner zunehmenden Relevanz in der Unterhaltungsgeschichte sprunghaft an, das Verständnis für das Medium ist jedoch noch nicht gefestigt. Ziel dieser Studie ist es daher, im Rahmen der Hermeneutischen Spirale das Wissen und den Kompetenzerwerb von Menschen mit wenig oder keiner Spielerfahrung (Nicht-Spieler) über das digitale 3D-Puzzlespiel Portal zu untersuchen. Mittels qualitativer Interviews, unterstützt durch Gameplay-Aufnahmen und Think-Aloud-Protokolle, decken acht Nicht-Spieler im Alter von 21-69 Jahren sieben Kategorien auf, die die Komplexität des Videospielverständnisses und des Kompetenzerwerbs bestimmen. Die Ergebnisse zeigen, dass der Kompetenzerwerb sehr individuell ist und von früheren Spielerfahrungen im Sinne von Game Literacy, dem Sprachverständnis von Spielen, abhängt. Die allgemeine Erwartungshaltung bildet die Grundlage für das nächste Spielerlebnis, das den Katalog des Videospielverständnisses ergänzt und den Prozess des Kompetenzerwerbs beeinflusst.

This paper features a study about cooperation and how it can be encouraged via level layout.The research team developed a game with a research intent focused on cooperation driven bythe question: How can player cooperation be encouraged through the placement of incentivesand challenges in the level layout of a local cooperative game? To be able to answer thequestion, the research team looked into papers about cooperation, level design, nudge theory,Cooperative Performance Metrics, and design patterns. The research was conducted by usingiterative design, where three iterations were tested with two groups of four players and thedesign was iterated upon after each test. After all playtests were conducted and all data hadbeen analyzed, evidence was found that the placement of the challenges and incentives in alevel can have an effect on cooperation. This paper makes a contribution to the subject of thecorrelation between cooperation and level design.

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This is an exploratory research study aimed toward steadying attendance across a semester of higher education video game development labs with attention to cooperation as a co-factor. Following the observation of unusually strong attendance in a highly cooperative game development lab class which aligns with these theories, this paper seeks to explore whether subfactors of positive social interdependence are co-factors with lab attendance. Sparked by previous case data, this exploratory study examines data from the Fall 2019 iteration of the introductory video game development course, defining and measuring potential co-factor variables during an individual-focused half of the course supplemented with group activity, and a fully group-focused half of the semester, with future interest in investigating a correlation between attendance and positive interdependence. Empirical studies of both the performance impact of attendance, and the financial reliance of residential higher education institutions on student attendance and retention suggest that understanding how to operationalize students’ motivation to attend class is epistemically and fiscally valuable. Studies of positive interdependence raise interest as a co-factor contextually through high commitment, joint efficacy, and mutual benefit, strongly overlapping with empirical antecedents of higher education retention and seminal social psychological frameworks. Therefore, the author began an intended extensive analysis of consecutive semesters. All students enrolled in the Fall 2019 introductory game development course (n=56 for students with matched data sets, 59 retained participant students total) were engaged in cooperatively-designed lectures and lab activities, with the first half of the semester’s lighter collaborative activity and independent assigned work to be compared to the second half’s full-time group project work. Between these designed halves, two null hypotheses were assessed: 1) lab attendance in the first half of the semester is equivalent to the second half, and 2) subfactors of positive interdependence in the first half of the semester are equivalent to the second half. Attendance proportions and surveyed positive interdependence measures for the Fall 2019 semester were analyzed using paired sample t-tests. Attendance, and a majority of positive interdependence subfactors were not significantly different across halves of the semester, suggesting that collaboration had evened results across the whole, but not all effects reached their target results. The Classroom Life Instrument was used to formally measure the presence of a positive interdependent context before and after group project work.

This study focused on the behaviours of adult video game players in the context of positive and negative effects of video games, to accurately differentiate video game addicts from highly engaged and non-addicted players. To accomplish this, we adopted the Problematic Video Game Playing Test (PVGT) to measure the components of addiction and Flow Short Scale (FSS) to measure high-level engagement. This is a concept which has been lost in the previous studies, setting the current study apart from other studies which were primarily concerned with investigating the negative impact of video games on its players. To get the data needed for this study, we conducted an online survey with a 40-item questionnaire which included demographic information of the respondents, gaming experience and behavioural components of flow and addiction. We were able to attract 80 adult video game players to participate in the study. Our findings showed that 60% of these 80 adult video game players were not addicted, 34% were highly engaged while 6% of the players were addicted. These findings helped us to infer that not all highly engaged video game players are addicted. Furthermore, most of the addicted players were players who have been playing video games for a long time.