<p>Sweden. 1980. The term ‘video violence’ becomes public through the debates show <em>Studio S</em>. The show urges and obligates politicians to stop, regulate and ban video films with violent content from the market. 29 years later, the debates show <em>Debatt </em>raises concerns regarding a similar topic, ‘video game violence’. Both shows were produced and aired by the Public Service channels of Sveriges Television in Sweden.</p><p>The purpose of this thesis was to study and examine if the media encourages and nourishes moral panics to the general public through debates shows. How does the host/journalist interact to steer the debate to the media agenda and how has the power structure changed in the debate genre over the years? Do the media nurture the root of moral panics?</p><p>We based the study on a qualitative content analysis. We analyzed one episode from each of the two debate shows <em>Studio S</em> and <em>Debatt</em>. The method of analysis we used was discourse analysis with emphasis on relations and power structures. We also analyzed the episodes by using Goode and Ben-Yehudas five criteria’s for creating moral panic.</p><p>The study shows that both debates shows fail to mention the problem in a larger societal context. They tend to only portray a scapegoat. Furthermore, they often show one-sided and violent sequences from the cultural phenomena. They use discourses to maintain the firm power in the debates to fulfill their pre-constructed bias agenda. We’ve also observed that it has become much more difficult for a moral panic to gain momentum compared with 1980, because of the medias decentralization.</p>

L’objectif de cette thèse est la recherche de nouvelles techniques de génération de contenu numérique pour des applications de jeu vidéo. Le manque de variété de terrains, d’objets et de détails affecte fortement le réalisme des paysages de synthèse.Dans ce contexte, un des principaux goulots d’étranglements est la modélisation des ressources graphiques permettant de créer les scènes. Afin de simplifier et d’accélérer cette tâche, nous présentons des méthodes permettant de générer automatiquement du contenu graphique pour créer de grands paysages à la fois complexes et originaux.Notre première approche permet de créer et d’éditer rapidement des variétés d’objets à partir d’un modèle initial fourni par un graphiste, sous la contrainte d’une représentation avec très peu de triangles. Nous présentons également une méthode de génération procédurale des variétés d’objets. Ensemble, ces méthodes permettent de créer aussi bien des variétés de formes naturelles que des ouvrages d’arts tels que des routes, des ponts et des tunnels capables de s’adapter automatiquement au relief d’un paysage.Nous proposons une autre méthode, s’appuyant sur une simulation physique et thermique, pour créer des paysages hivernaux évoluant au cours du temps en fonction des conditions climatiques. Cette approche permet de suivre l’évolution du manteau neigeux ainsi que l’épaisseur de la glace qui se forme en surface d’un lac. / The goal of this thesis is the search for new techniques for generating digital content for video game applications. The lack of variety of objects and details strongly affects the realism of synthetic landscapes. In this context, a major bottleneck is the creation of graphical assets to create the scenes. To simplify and accelerate this task, we present methods to automatically generate graphical content with a view to creating large, convincing and realistic landscapes.We present a first category of method to create and edit quickly a vast variety of objects from an initial model provided by a graphic designer, under the constraint of low polygonal modeling. We also present a procedural method for generating of varieties of objects. Together, these methods can create many varieties of natural forms as well as roads, bridges and tunnels that can automatically adapt to the landform features of an input terrain.We propose another method, based on a physical simulation and heat transfer simulation to create winter landscapes that evolve over time depending on the weather conditions. This approach allows us to follow the evolution of the snowpack and the thickness of the ice that forms on the surface of a lake.

Les jeux vidéo occupent une place importante dans notre société. Cependant, leur conception ne prend aujourd'hui que peu en compte les spécificités de l'interaction joueur-jeu vidéo, qui sont déterminantes pour une expérience de jeu optimale. L'objectif de cette thèse était de comprendre l'influence de différents choix de conception des interfaces visuelles des jeux vidéo sur la performance et le comportement du regard des joueurs. Ces interfaces, généralement dynamiques et complexes, sont composées de trois sources d'information : les objets avec lesquels le joueur interagit et l'arrière-plan, qui composent la scène d'action principale, ainsi que les informations contextuelles superposées à la scène principale. Sept expériences ont été réalisées pour comprendre le partage attentionnel entre ces sources dans le cadre d'une activité de jeu vidéo. Les caractéristiques de l'arrière-plan, des informations contextuelles et de la tâche ont été manipulées. La performance et les mouvements du regard des joueurs ont été enregistrés. Les résultats ont montré que le partage attentionnel entre deux sources d'information (e.g., scène d'action et informations contextuelles) est facilité lorsqu'elles ne se chevauchent pas. Lorsque qu'elles se chevauchent nécessairement (e.g., objets et arrière-plan), les caractéristiques de mouvement et de complexité de l'arrière-plan et la difficulté de la tâche modulent très largement la dégradation de la performance. Un modèle théorique de partage attentionnel entre deux sources visuelles d'information superposées est proposé. Des recommandations sont établies pour la conception des jeux vidéo, mais aussi des environnements virtuels en général. / Video games take an increasingly important place in our society. Nowadays, however, their design doesn't take enough into account the specificity of player-game interaction, which is essential for an optimal play experience. The thesis' goal was to understand the impact of different design choices for video games visual interfaces on players' performance and gaze behavior. These dynamic and complex interfaces include three information sources: the objects that the player interacts with and the background, which make up together the main action scene, and the contextual information superimposed on the main scene. Seven experiments were made to understand how attention is shared between these sources during video game activity. The characteristics of the background, of the contextual information and of the game task were manipulated. The performance was measured while participants' eye movements were recorded. The results showed that attention sharing between two sources (e.g., the action scene and contextual information) is optimal when the two sources do not overlap at all. When they necessarily overlap (e.g., objects superimposed on a background), the nature of background movement, the background visual complexity and the difficulty of the task can strongly modulate the performance decrease. A theoretical model of attention sharing between two superimposed sources of visual information is proposed. Practical recommendations are drawn up for video game design, but also for virtual environments design.

Submitted by Priscilla Araujo (priscilla@ibict.br) on 2018-08-08T19:07:34Z No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) DIEGO_Dissertação_ Mestrado 2018.pdf: 2576827 bytes, checksum: 6382e4dc6a579725ef8e5982d44926f9 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-08T19:07:34Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 license_rdf: 0 bytes, checksum: d41d8cd98f00b204e9800998ecf8427e (MD5) DIEGO_Dissertação_ Mestrado 2018.pdf: 2576827 bytes, checksum: 6382e4dc6a579725ef8e5982d44926f9 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-05-22 / Jogos digitais, no século XXI, alcançam outro patamar de interação e imersão. Diferentemente dos primeiros anos desta atividade lúdica, para jogar é exigido do usuário muito mais do que os estímulos intuitivos para vencer ou terminá-los na contemporaneidade. Contextualizados e imersos nos fluxos informacionais, para além do ato lúdico - e impactado pelo desenvolvimento massivo em ciência e tecnologia - parece que o jogo digital também está impregnado pela dinâmica da sociedade da informação. Nesse sentido, a pesquisa aqui apresentada tem por objetivo analisar a atividade de jogar video game, tendo pelo jogo digital um mediador infocomunicacional e cultural, bem como uma tecnologia da informação e comunicação (TIC), vetor não só de insumo informacional como, também, de conhecimento. Para isso, aproveita-se dos conceitos de simulacros e simulações do filósofo francês Jean Baudrillard para propor o jogo como manifestações da realidade hiper-reais. Enquadra este suporte midiático dentro do paradigma social de Rafael Capurro como maneira de estudá-lo na Ciência da Informação, e revisita os estudos sobre a competência em informação como prérequisito essencial frente às relações entre usuários e os jogos digitais. Por fim, apresenta quatro estudos de casos para evidenciar a suas capacidades infocomunicacionais e realiza uma síntese sobre que maneira eles podem se apresentar tais quais mediadores capazes de promover acesso à informação e ao conhecimento. / In 21st century, digital games reached a whole new level of interaction and immersion. Unlike the early years of this ludic activity, playing requires much more than the intuitive stimuli to beat or finish it in contemporary society. Contextualized and immersed in information flow, it seems to be that digital games are also impregnated y the dynamics of information society. In this sense, the main objective of this research is to analyze digital games as a cultural and socioinformational mediator as well as an information and communication technology and medium not only of informational input but also knowledge. In order to manage this, it is found here some appointments related to the french philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s concepts Simulation and Simulacra to propose digital games as hyper-real manifestations of reality. Also we frame games into the Social Paradigm proposed by Rafael Capurro as a way to study them in Information Science. It reviews information literacy studies to declare it as an essential pre-requisite between users and digital games dynamics. Finally, we present four case studies as evidences of digital games infocommunicational capacities and a synthesis as how users can found in them as mediators for information and knowledge access.

Digital games are part of the creative industries, which is based on value creation through ideas and creativity. This market has gained relevance due to technology development that attracted both new firms and users. The present dissertation aims to explore three themes: (1) video game market as a two-sided market; (2) the effects of characteristics and behavior of game titles on consoles sales; and (3) project management to develop digital games. Those themes were explored through three articles: the first is a literature review and a bibliometric study of the economic concepts on two-sided market, which focused at identifying main topics, research trends and avenues for futures research. The second text is an analysis on the simultaneous influence of games\' quality and exclusivity on console sales. The last one is a qualitative, multiple-case study to understand, explore and suggest improvements to game project management in the Brazilian market. Findings include: (1) the main authors and topics, trends and developments, from and avenues for future research; (2) combinations of quality and exclusivity can affect console sales either positively or negatively, (3) quality has a predominant effect on sales over games non-exclusivity; and (4) the use of agile methodologies and Design Thinking are diffused among game developers. / Sem resumo.

The purpose of this thesis was to contribute to our knowledge of what haptics can bring to the table as a human-computer interface rendering technique, which other rendering techniques cannot. An experiment was set up in which a multi-interfaced game was used to convey an information structure to interface users. Each of the game’s three user interfaces utilized one of three different rendering techniques: haptic rendering, graphic rendering, and graphic-haptic rendering. The capacity of each rendering technique to represent the information structure was assessed in terms of the effect of the corresponding interface on three aspects of the user interaction: user performance, user satisfaction and system usability. The result indicated that user performance benefitted from a graphic or graphic-haptic rendering over a haptic rendering. There were no differences between the rendering techniques with regards to the overall user satisfaction. However, there were notable differences on the user satisfaction metric subscale level. The haptic rendering required higher attentive effort than other renderings. Also, the graphic rendering better facilitated the perception of having clear goals and feedback. The results also suggested that the overall system usability benefitted from a graphic or graphic-haptic rendering over a haptic rendering.

Video games are very popular among children in the Western world. This study was done in order to investigate if video games had an effect on 49 Swedish students‟ comprehension of English words (grades 7-8). The investigation was based on questionnaire and word test data. The questionnaire aimed to measure with which frequency students were playing video games, and the word test aimed to measure their word comprehension in general. In addition, data from the word test were used to investigate how students explained the words. Depending on their explanations, students were categorized as either using a “video game approach” or a “dictionary approach” in their explanations. The results showed a gender difference, both with regard to the frequency of playing and what types of games that were played. Playing video games seemed to increase the students‟ comprehension of English words, though there was no clear connection between the frequency with which students were playing video games and the choice of a dictionary or video game approach as an explanation.

Digitalization has given rise to new opportunities for small and medium-sized video game development studios. No longer bound by physical products and creative restrains, the de-veloper has been empowered with independency. This qualitative study is aimed to under-stand how a development studio develops their business model and how underlying strate-gy is formulated. Additionally we evaluate the degree of innovativeness of the business model in terms of radical and incremental innovation according to Damanpour (1991). To achieve this we present a comprehensive literature review as to gain a more theoretical un-derstanding of industry mechanics and to be able to comprehend reasoning behind existing business models. We structure the dynamics of the business model by analyzing nine busi-ness model aspects as suggested by Osterwalder, Pigneur and Clark (2010). Following our theoretical framework we gain practical input from four separate case studies. An interpret-ative research method is used to gain better understanding of reasoning and choices made. We interpret our findings following a narrative approach which shows that the digitaliza-tion has preluded a paradigm shift in the sense that development studios have started to adopt activities otherwise performed by key partners. As barriers dissipate small and me-dium-sized development studios try to make sense of the current industry, but struggle in doing so. Having to reinvent themselves we conclude that a focus towards creating thicker customer relationships is considered and the idea of seeing games as a service is acknowl-edged to depict the future of the industry. The conclusions of this study contribute to both academic science and industry practice.

Cette thèse a pour objectif de proposer des solutions aux problématiques de la narration interactive. Nous souhaitons ainsi proposer une méthode de conception pour les auteurs, ainsi qu’une logique d’exécution utilisant ce modèle pour contrôler la construction d’un récit. Nous appliquons nos travaux au contexte des jeux vidéo, mais souhaitons adresser la narration interactive dans une dimension plus large. Nous abordons la narration interactive comme une déstructuration de la narration classique. Le processus de création du récit n’est ainsi plus à la seule charge de l’auteur, mais implique également le public. Au travers d’une revue de la narration classique, nous souhaitons donc, dans un premier temps, formaliser le récit et ses enjeux. Nous utilisons ensuite le concept d’œuvre en mouvement pour identifier les processus et acteurs mis en jeu dans la coproduction d’une œuvre, et ainsi définir les enjeux de nos travaux. Pour adresser ces problématiques, nous proposons un modèle de la narration interactive à base d’automates. Celui-ci permet un contrôle et une vérification des récits possibles, tant lors de la conception, que dynamiquement à l’exécution. Cependant ce formalisme peut être complexe à prendre en main pour des auteurs non-initiés. Ainsi, nous formulons un modèle de haut-niveau, basé sur les concepts de la narratologie, permettant à ces derniers de créer un modèle de narration interactive en manipulant des concepts qu’ils maitrisent. Ce modèle est alors converti vers notre modèle à base d’automates. Ce dernier sert alors de référent pour le contrôle dynamique de la narration interactive par un superviseur multi-agents. Celui-ci, par observation des évènements produits dans le jeu vidéo, est alors en mesure de contrôler le récit en cours de production pour garantir les critères de qualités spécifiés par l’auteur. Nous proposons une implémentation de notre approche sous la forme d’un framework, comprenant notamment des outils auteurs d’édition des modèles que nous définissons, mais également les algorithmes de supervision nécessaires à l’asservissement de l’univers virtuel du jeu vidéo. / This PhD thesis has for objective to propose solutions to interactive storytelling problems. We aim to propose a design method for the authors, as well as a logic of execution using this model to control the narrative unfolding. We apply our works in the video games context, but wish to address interactive storytelling in a wider dimension. We so approach the interactive story as a breakdown of the classic storytelling. Indeed, interactive storytelling creation process is not any more only under the author responsability, but also involves spectators. Through a review of the classic storytelling, we thus wish, at first, to formalize storytelling and its stakes. We use then the concept of ”œuvre en mouvement” to identify processes and actors involved in this creation process of a work, and thus to define the stakes in our research works. We propose an interactive storytelling mode base on automata. This one allows a controland a check on possible narratives, during design as well as dynamically while producing the story. However this formalism is complex to handle by authors. So, we formulate a top-level model, based on storytelling concepts, allowing authors to create an interactive story model using concepts they know. This model is then converted into our automaton based model. The latter serves then as referent for the dynamic control of the interactive storytelling, done by a supervisor multi-agents. This one, by observing produced events in the video game, is then able of controlling and guarantee the quality criteria specified by authors. We propose an implementation of our approach in a framework, including authoring tools to edite our models. We also implements automata check and supervision algorithms necessary to control video game virtual universe.

本文分析近年盛行的電子遊戲實況活動。從分心、不專注於電玩的現象開始，本文以「如何玩」這個提問來引導論證「嬉玩」與「遊戲」這組概念在分析上的效力，藉此，本文論證了電玩實況活動中的心智狀態與活動是游移在電玩活動與嬉鬧互動，在嚴肅遊戲與嬉戲玩耍之間游移，這樣的分神狀態之中也產生了有樂趣、具有實效的遊戲性。 從技術架構的觀點來看，以即時串流的技術為基礎，電玩實況活動結合了即時傳輸與即時互動。使用者所獲致的遊戲聆賞經驗以及互動是即時且與他人同步，便也構成了網路媒介之下的共時經驗，實況中以電玩活動為對象的起鬨也便具共在的實感。本文從聊天室起鬨、技術戲耍挪用等現象中論證了基於遊戲性旨趣的共謀嬉玩。嘲諷、干擾的對抗性是為了製造分神的條件，從中產生張力並獲致遊戲性，而包括實況主在內的所有參與者，皆是在這樣的分神狀態中嬉玩，維繫歡騰的共感情緒。 電子遊戲具有將遊戲性限定在其中的封閉性質，也因此對於電玩的遊戲經驗多有私密、個人的想像，即時串流的電玩實況活動便是打開了這樣的封閉性質。透過網路媒介將人匯聚在遊戲活動周圍，不僅共享了電玩活動本身的樂趣，也在即時串流之下共時的互動跟聆賞經驗中以遊戲為對象群聚嬉戲。這樣的網路活動之所以盛行，顯示了人對遊戲性的需求不僅是來自遊戲中，也來自與他人玩在一起的連結共感，電玩實況便是實現了這樣的需求。 / Taking the prevailing "video game live streaming" activities as research object, this thesis takes "play" and "game" as a set of core concepts, and begins the exploration into their conceptual effect. Setting out the arguments with "How to Play" question, this thesis concludes that the mentality and activities in video game live streaming are in an "in-between" condition. Between video game activity and playful disturbance, seriousness and playfulness, there are gameplay with actual effect. Taking the technical conditions into consideration, video game live streaming consists of live media transportation and live interaction. Users' experiences synchronize with each other, thus contribute to the "togetherness" mediated through the Internet, and also the carnivalistic interactions and disturbance in the live channel. From the fuss and disturbance in the chatroom to the appropriation of streaming "plugins", this thesis argues that these actions conducted by streamer and users contribute to the "distractive" scenario, and the conducts are all based on "the interest of play". Different from serious and immersive mentality which is deemed as the fundamental of playing and gaming, the gameplay in live stream is based on distraction, which is the core condition that brings tension and thus playfulness. All the users in video game live streaming, the streamer included, are connected and forged into a synchronized togetherness by this kind of distractive, carnivalistic playfulness. Digital video games have tributes of enclosure, which require concentration, seriousness and absorption. Video game live streaming opens up this kind of enclosure, and brings people in and around the video game activities. In the live channel, users experience the joy and fun of the game itself together in a synchronized way, and also act on the interest of play, creating distraction and disturbance that bring to playful experiences, and that explains why this kind of Internet activity prevails. This thesis shows that the need of gameplay comes not only from game activities themselves, but also from the desire to "play together". In a digital age, video game live streaming is just the fulfillment of this kind of desire.