<p>This dissertation is a study of the development of a video game called Anarchy Online. This game was developed by the Funcom company between 1995 and 2001, and is a so-called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). This genre of video games differs from traditional games in that it offers a persistent virtual world that gamers can access at all hours of the night or day. It is also a world where gamers make avatars that play with or against each other. All in all, it is as much a social sphere as a game. The popularity of MMORGPGs has continued to increase, and today there are several million gamers worldwide who participate in these virtual worlds. Because virtual worlds are places where many people socialize, play, and spend a great deal of time, there is a need to form an understanding of them. In this thesis, I am studying how Anarchy Online was produced in order to understand the assumptions behind the rules governing the interaction in this specific virtual world were selected and organized. In doing so, I am using material from two sources: the developers and the game itself. This material was gathered through interviews, documents, and virtual ethnographic observations.</p><p>Ultimately, games consist of codes; but in order to program the code, they need to be specified by a game content. The analysis shows that the content of the game is defined by the developers’ view of a good society – the belief in a human being’s need for self-actualization and social interaction. The thesis thus concludes with the observation that the need to select the discourses and/or philosophies for content and possible gamers’ actions requires the development of games and virtual worlds such as Anarchy Online to be more than the creation of an entertaining product. Rather, discourses were recreated from the physical world in which the developers live. In the end, gamers are locked into a discoursive prison created by the developers.</p>

This dissertation is a study of the development of a video game called Anarchy Online. This game was developed by the Funcom company between 1995 and 2001, and is a so-called Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG). This genre of video games differs from traditional games in that it offers a persistent virtual world that gamers can access at all hours of the night or day. It is also a world where gamers make avatars that play with or against each other. All in all, it is as much a social sphere as a game. The popularity of MMORGPGs has continued to increase, and today there are several million gamers worldwide who participate in these virtual worlds. Because virtual worlds are places where many people socialize, play, and spend a great deal of time, there is a need to form an understanding of them. In this thesis, I am studying how Anarchy Online was produced in order to understand the assumptions behind the rules governing the interaction in this specific virtual world were selected and organized. In doing so, I am using material from two sources: the developers and the game itself. This material was gathered through interviews, documents, and virtual ethnographic observations. Ultimately, games consist of codes; but in order to program the code, they need to be specified by a game content. The analysis shows that the content of the game is defined by the developers’ view of a good society – the belief in a human being’s need for self-actualization and social interaction. The thesis thus concludes with the observation that the need to select the discourses and/or philosophies for content and possible gamers’ actions requires the development of games and virtual worlds such as Anarchy Online to be more than the creation of an entertaining product. Rather, discourses were recreated from the physical world in which the developers live. In the end, gamers are locked into a discoursive prison created by the developers.

The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyze the innovations in the home video game industry and their impact on the competitive strategies of the companies in the indus-try. The existing literature about business cycles and business dynamics is scarce from busi-ness administrative perspective. This thesis contributes to fill the gap in the academic literature. The choice of the home video game industry has been done, due to its fast growing economic nature and the rapid changes that can be noticed, especially for the last decade. A qualitative research method with secondary qualitative and quantitative data and primary qualitative data through interviews has been used for this thesis. The home video game industry is highly driven by technological product innovations. Incremental innovations do not affect in a significant way the dynamics within the industry. Radical innovations create a competitive advantage through differentiation and they increase market share for the company which followed this strategy. Disruptive innovations open new markets, change the business environment for every firm and generate a shift in consumer preferences. Hence, the company which implements a disruptive innovation gains extensive market share. Innovations are possible due to the strategic orientation a company aims to pursue. If a company pursues a high market orientation and a low inno-vation orientation it manufactures an upgraded product to keep customers satisfied. When the firm pursues a high market and innovation orientation, the final product includes cha-racteristics that the customers desire. While at the same time the product created offers services and features hard to be matched by the competition. Finally, if a firm pursues a high innovation orientation and a low market orientation strategy, it creates an easier and more convenient alternative on the existing products while being cheaper. At the same time this strategic orientation disregards the established customers' desires.The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyze the innovations in the home video game industry and their impact on the competitive strategies of the companies in the indus-try. The existing literature about business cycles and business dynamics is scarce from busi-ness administrative perspective. This thesis contributes to fill the gap in the academic litera-ture. The choice of the home video game industry has been done, due to its fast growing economic nature and the rapid changes that can be noticed, especially for the last decade. A qualitative research method with secondary qualitative and quantitative data and primary qualitative data through interviews has been used for this thesis.The home video game industry is highly driven by technological product innovations. Incremental innovations do not affect in a significant way the dynamics within the industry. Radical innovations create a competitive advantage through differentiation and they increase market share for the company which followed this strategy. Disruptive innovations open new markets, change the business environment for every firm and generate a shift in consumer preferences. Hence, the company which implements a disruptive innovation gains extensive market share. Innovations are possible due to the strategic orientation a company aims to pursue. If a company pursues a high market orientation and a low inno-vation orientation it manufactures an upgraded product to keep customers satisfied. When the firm pursues a high market and innovation orientation, the final product includes cha-racteristics that the customers desire. While at the same time the product created offers services and features hard to be matched by the competition. Finally, if a firm pursues a high innovation orientation and a low market orientation strategy, it creates an easier and more convenient alternative on the existing products while being cheaper. At the same time this strategic orientation disregards the established customers' desires.

This work aims to improve our knowledge about Swedish video game journalists, a new occupation in a quickly expanding business. Through a survey sent out to over 50 Swedish video game journalists, the result indicate some unexpected facts. Men largely dominate the profession; just 10 % of the work forces are females. This relation was notable in our survey, as well as in earlier studies. Video game journalists between 26 and 35 years old seems to be the largest age group, which we think is a bit surprising considering how new this form of journalism is, and the fact the internet provides opportunities for every enthusiastic video game writer. The professionalism of video game journalists has been debated over a long time, with many people arguing that this type of work has little to do with traditional journalism. In our survey, a large part of the respondents made clear that they consider themselves to be writers rather than journalists. The majority of the Swedish video game journalists don't have a journalistic education, whether it's from high school or university. Most of them don't value education as much as writing skill, talent, passion and knowledge about video games. The minority arguing about the importance of education motivates their standpoint with arguments of classical journalistic ethics and values. One respondent told us that the whole industry would benefit from more highly educated journalists, another one pointed out that a lot of ground has been covered in the last 5-6 years, although there ́s still a great distance compared to traditional journalism.

<p>The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyze the innovations in the home video game industry and their impact on the competitive strategies of the companies in the indus-try. The existing literature about business cycles and business dynamics is scarce from busi-ness administrative perspective. This thesis contributes to fill the gap in the academic literature. The choice of the home video game industry has been done, due to its fast growing economic nature and the rapid changes that can be noticed, especially for the last decade. A qualitative research method with secondary qualitative and quantitative data and primary qualitative data through interviews has been used for this thesis. The home video game industry is highly driven by technological product innovations. Incremental innovations do not affect in a significant way the dynamics within the industry. Radical innovations create a competitive advantage through differentiation and they increase market share for the company which followed this strategy. Disruptive innovations open new markets, change the business environment for every firm and generate a shift in consumer preferences. Hence, the company which implements a disruptive innovation gains extensive market share. Innovations are possible due to the strategic orientation a company aims to pursue. If a company pursues a high market orientation and a low inno-vation orientation it manufactures an upgraded product to keep customers satisfied. When the firm pursues a high market and innovation orientation, the final product includes cha-racteristics that the customers desire. While at the same time the product created offers services and features hard to be matched by the competition. Finally, if a firm pursues a high innovation orientation and a low market orientation strategy, it creates an easier and more convenient alternative on the existing products while being cheaper. At the same time this strategic orientation disregards the established customers' desires.The purpose of this thesis is to present and analyze the innovations in the home video game industry and their impact on the competitive strategies of the companies in the indus-try. The existing literature about business cycles and business dynamics is scarce from busi-ness administrative perspective. This thesis contributes to fill the gap in the academic litera-ture. The choice of the home video game industry has been done, due to its fast growing economic nature and the rapid changes that can be noticed, especially for the last decade. A qualitative research method with secondary qualitative and quantitative data and primary qualitative data through interviews has been used for this thesis.The home video game industry is highly driven by technological product innovations. Incremental innovations do not affect in a significant way the dynamics within the industry. Radical innovations create a competitive advantage through differentiation and they increase market share for the company which followed this strategy. Disruptive innovations open new markets, change the business environment for every firm and generate a shift in consumer preferences. Hence, the company which implements a disruptive innovation gains extensive market share. Innovations are possible due to the strategic orientation a company aims to pursue. If a company pursues a high market orientation and a low inno-vation orientation it manufactures an upgraded product to keep customers satisfied. When the firm pursues a high market and innovation orientation, the final product includes cha-racteristics that the customers desire. While at the same time the product created offers services and features hard to be matched by the competition. Finally, if a firm pursues a high innovation orientation and a low market orientation strategy, it creates an easier and more convenient alternative on the existing products while being cheaper. At the same time this strategic orientation disregards the established customers' desires.</p>

One of the primary goals of personality assessment is to provide meaningful information regarding an individual’s characteristic way of thinking, feeling, and behaving. Given the interaction between the individual and the context, however, there is much debate as to how well personality tests do what they intend. In this paper, the limitations of text-based personality assessments are examined, and the use of virtual simulations as an alternative to conventional tests is explored. A research study is proposed comparing a virtual test with a written test on a variety of criteria. Modern technology and the growing popularity of gaming suggest that researchers may find virtual simulations as a more immersive, flexible, and accurate forms of assessment. / text

Exergames combine physical activity and entertainment in an effort to increase people’s motivation to exercise. Multiplayer exergames attempt to include the motivating aspects of group activity by allowing two or more people to play together. In most multiplayer exergames, a player’s in-game performance is limited by her physical abilities. Less fit players are demotivated by repeated losses to more fit opponents, while fitter players face a lack of competition from unfit opponents. This situation makes it difficult for people of disparate physical abilities to play exergames together. This research presents heart rate balancing, a novel player balancing technique to better support engaging experiences in multiplayer exergames. Heart rate balancing bases players’ in-game performance on their effort relative to fitness level rather than their raw power. More specifically, heart rate monitoring is used to set in-game performance based on how closely a person adheres to her target heart rate. Experiments with heart rate balancing show that the technique improves competition between players. A strong correlation was found between people’s perceived effort and their in-game performance with heart rate balancing. The degree to which players noticed the balancing mechanism varied depending on game type. However, heart rate balancing did not interfere with people’s ability to play exergames. These results indicate that the heart rate balancing technique is a promising approach for improving enjoyment and engagement in multiplayer exergames. / Thesis (Ph.D, Computing) -- Queen's University, 2012-09-26 23:38:57.625

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Despite the growing popularity and expansion of video game interaction techniques and research in the area of hand gesture recognition, the application of hand gesture video game interaction using arm, hand, and finger motion has not been extensively explored. Most current gesture-based approaches to video game interaction neglect the use of the fingers for interaction, but inclusion of the fingers will allow for more natural and unique interaction and merits further research. To implement arm, hand and finger-based interaction for the video game domain, several problems must be solved including gesture recognition, segmentation, hand visualization, and video game interaction that responds to arm, hand, and finger input. Solutions to each of these problems have been implemented. The potential of this interaction style is illustrated through the introduction of an arm, hand, and finger controlled video game system that responds to players' hand gestures. It includes a finger-gesture recognizer as well as a video game system employing various interaction styles. This consists of a first person shooter game, a driving game, and a menu interaction system. Several users interacted with and played these games, and this form of interaction is especially suitable for real time interaction in first-person games. This is perhaps the first implementation of its kind for video game interaction. Based on test results, arm, hand, and finger interaction a viable form of interaction that deserves further research. This implementation bridges the gap between existing gesture interaction methods and more advanced virtual reality techniques. It successfully combines the solutions to each problem mentioned above into a single, working video game system. This type of interaction has proved to be more intuitive than existing gesture controls in many situations and also less complex to implement than a full virtual reality setup. It allows more control by using the hands' natural motion and allows each hand to interact independently. It can also be reliably implemented using today's technology. This implementation is a base system that can be greatly expanded on. Many possibilities for future work can be applied to this form of interaction.

Thesis (M.Sc.)--University of Alberta, 2009. / Title from PDF file main screen (viewed on Apr. 1, 2010). A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science, Department of Computing Science, University of Alberta. Includes bibliographical references.