Competitive video gaming is experiencing exponential growth. Advances in technology and global Internet penetration has created highly dedicated fan bases for games played at a competitive level. Game developing companies are beginning to focus their attention on making games for the new eSports market. How avid eSports fans view competitive gaming is disrupting traditional consumption models. Twitch.TV a site that streams live gaming content is seeing massive growth. Now, more than ever, dedicated gamers can live off of playing games – whether by competing in tournaments as sponsored players or running ads on their Twitch.TV live stream while they play. The communities that have developed around different genres of competitive games are as varied as traditional sports such as Major League Baseball or the National Football League. A new industry with a complex infrastructure is developing in this new market. / text

L’objectiu fonamental de la present tesi doctoral és l’estudi i l’edició crítica de les quatre Passions contingudes en el molt important repertori dramàtic mallorquí de finals del segle XVI, conegut com a Manuscrit Llabrés (Ms. 1139 de la Biblioteca de Catalunya). Aquestes quatre Passions escèniques, cadascuna de les quals conté una representació pel Dijous Sant i el Divendres Sant, constitueixen l’eix vertebrador al voltant del qual s’agrupen les altres peces del manuscrit. Les quatre Passions, que ens proposem d’editar i analitzar en la present tesi doctoral, són compostes per les peces dinou (Consueta del Ditious Sanct, folis 73ra-75ra), vint (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folis 75ra-76rb), vint-i-u (Cobles del Devallement de la Creu, folis 76va-77vb) i vint-i-dos (Consueta de la Resurectió de Jesucrist Nostre Senyor, folis 78ra-80vb); per les peces vint-i-set (Consueta del Ditious Sant, folis 103ra-106vb) i vint-i-vuit (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folis 107ra-109rb); per les peces trenta-vuit (Consueta del Ditious Sant, folis 162ra-167vb), trenta-nou (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folis 168ra-170vb) i quaranta-u (Consueta del Devallament, folis 175ra-176vb) i per les peces quaranta-dos (Representatió per lo Ditious de çena, folis 177ra-185va), quaranta-tres (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folis 186ra-188vb) i quaranta-nou (Representatió del Devallament de la Creu, foli 234ra). A banda d’establir el text degudament anotat de les dotze consuetes o obres dramàtiques del cicle de la Passió del Manuscrit Llabrés, totes menys la núm. 21 inèdites, procedirem a l’anàlisi lingüística de les peces editades, endegarem l’estudi de les seves fonts textuals i les situarem en la tradició passionística teatral catalana i europea, tot captant-ne l’originalitat i la significació. / This thesis has as its main objective the study and critical edition of the four passion plays included in the very important dramatic Majorcan play codex (end of the sixteenth century), known as the Llabrés Manuscript (Ms. 1139 of the Biblioteca de Catalunya). These four passion plays, each of which contains a play for Maundy Thursday and Good Friday, can be considered the central pivot for the other plays included in the manuscript either for prefiguring some scene of the Passion of Christ or for illustrating some aspect of the history of Redemption. The four passion plays, edited and analysed in the present thesis, and formed by the plays nº 19 (Consueta del Ditious Sanct, folios 73ra-75ra), nº 20 (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folios 75ra-76rb), nº 21 (Cobles del Devallement de la Creu, folios 76va-77vb) and nº 22 (Consueta de la Resurectió de Jesucrist Nostre Senyor, folios 78ra-80vb); the plays nº 27 (Consueta del Ditious Sant, folios 103ra-106vb) and nº 28 (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folios 107ra-109rb); the plays nº 38 (Consueta del Ditious Sant, folios 162ra-167vb), nº 39 (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folios 168ra-170vb) and nº 41 (Consueta del Devallament, folios 175ra-176vb) and the plays nº 42 (Representatió per lo Ditious de çena, folios 177ra-185va), nº 43 (Consueta del Divendres Sant, folios 186ra-188vb) and nº 49 (Representatió del Devallament de la Creu, folio 234ra). Apart from establishing the text of the twelve consuetes or plays of the Passion cycle of the Llabrés Manuscript, all except for nº 21 unpublished, we offer the linguistic analysis of the plays, we examine their textual sources and we situate them in the Catalan and European tradition of passion plays, taking into account their originality and significance.

This thesis outlines the structure and functionality of a selection of webseries, webshows, and eSports casting examples, in order to add to the discourse on online video. Webtelevision, or Web TV production, distribution, and financing systems will be detailed in the case studies made; and industry actors such as entrepreneurs, independents, corporations and conglomerates will be discussed and identified. Who are the producers, the advertisers, the distribution platforms, the sponsors, the rights holders, and how do they interact? In exploring the structure of some examples of Web TV, I wish to debunk the online-amateur association as an inaccurate or insufficient description which permeates much prior academic study on online video. Webshow content, business strategies, legal and copyright issues, as well as fan culture aspects will also be investigated; and in regards to eSports, the question of televised as opposed to streamcast tournaments will be examined.

Sporting events strongly affect the relations of agents that become involved during the preparation and execution. This relationship can continue or may disappear. The purpose of this study is to explore the generation of cohesive and innovatory networks in two events: a triathlon and a stage-race mountain bike. The data analysis is based on the theory and techniques of social network analysis. Key players in the sports and tourist areas were interviewed before and after the first and second edition. The results indicate differences between the two events, but generally show that there is an evolution in the structure and complexity of the network. Considering the benefits of cohesive and well connected networks, creation and strengthening of networks between these actors should be a priority of public and private strategies / Els esdeveniments esportius afecten intensament les relacions dels agents que s’hi impliquen durant la preparació i execució. Aquesta relació pot continuar o pot desaparèixer. El propòsit d'aquest estudi és explorar la generació de xarxes cohesionades i innovatives en dos esdeveniments: un triatló i una marxa de BTT per etapes. L’anàlisi de les dades es fa a partir de teoria i tècniques de l’anàlisi de xarxes socials. Actors clau de les àrees esportives i turístiques dels municipis van ser entrevistats abans i després de la primera i la segona edició. Els resultats indiquen diferències entre els dos tipus d’esdeveniments, però en general mostren que hi ha una evolució en l'estructura i en la complexitat de la xarxa. Considerant els beneficis que tenen les xarxes cohesionades i ben connectades, la creació i enfortiment de xarxes entre aquests actors hauria de ser una prioritat de les estratègies públiques i privades

Submitted by Emanuel Varela Cardoso (emanuel.varela@ufcg.edu.br) on 2018-08-31T19:40:20Z No. of bitstreams: 1 FERNANDO FELIX DO NASCIMENTO JUNIOR – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC).pdf: 3433404 bytes, checksum: b5c42ff5d239a6628e636523baabae45 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-31T19:40:20Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 FERNANDO FELIX DO NASCIMENTO JUNIOR – DISSERTAÇÃO (PPGCC).pdf: 3433404 bytes, checksum: b5c42ff5d239a6628e636523baabae45 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2017-12-15 / Capes / Apesar da crescente popularidade dos esportes eletrônicos (eSports), ainda há uma escassez de trabalhos acadêmicos que exploram o comportamento de jogo das equipes. Compreender as características que ajudam discriminar entre equipes bem-sucedidas e malsucedidas poderia ajudar as equipes a melhorar suas estratégias, como determinar métricas de desempenho a serem alcançadas. Nesta dissertação, identificamos e caracterizamos padrões de comportamento de equipes com base nos dados de histórico de partidas de League of Legends, um eSport muito popular. Ao aplicar métodos de mineração de dados, como aprendizado da máquina e análise estatística, agrupamos o desempenho das equipes e investigamos para cada grupo como e em que medida essas características influenciam o sucesso e fracasso das equipes. Alguns grupos são mais propensos a terem equipes mais vencedoras do que outros, os resultados do nosso estudo ajudaram a descobrir as características que estão associadas a essa propensão e permitiram modelar métricas de desempenho de perfis de equipe bem sucedidas e malsucedidas. Encontramos ao todo 7 perfis, que foram categorizados em quatro grandes níveis em termos de proporção de equipes vencedoras: Fraco, Mais ou Menos, Bom e Top. / Despite the increasing popularity of electronic sports (eSports), there is still a scarcity of academic works exploring the playing behavior of teams. Understanding the features that help to discriminate between successful and unsuccessful teams would help teams improving their strategies, such as determine performance metrics to reach. In this dissertation, we identify and characterize team behavior patterns based on historical matches data from League of Legends, a very popular eSport. By applying methods from data mining, such as machine learning and statistical analysis, we clustered teams’ performance and investigate for each cluster how and to what extent these features have an influence on teams’ success and failure. Some clusters are more likely to have winning teams than others, the results of our study helped to discover the characteristics that are associated with this predisposition and allowed us to define performance metrics of successful and unsuccessful team profiles. At all, we found 7 profiles in which were categorized into four big levels in terms of winning team proportion: Weak, So-So, Good and Top.

For an eSports commentator, the ability to promote the rivalry between the competitors is just as important as fast and accurate commentary. Thus, it is of interest how an experienced commentator achieves this promotional language per some theoretical framework. Using the relatively new and unexplored linguistic field of promotional metadiscourse the quality of commentary can be evaluated quantifiably. Thus, this paper investigates the promotional language used by accomplished eSports commentators, in contrast to inexperienced novices, in the game StarCraft II. This is achieved with a lexical analysis of two StarCraft II commentaries using categories of promotional language previously identified in press releases. Experienced commentators were found to have a much more extensive and varied vocabulary than their inexperienced counterparts, adopting stronger evaluative adjectives and adverbs, as well as metaphorical language, in their commentaries. After comparing the commentaries with each other, the comments of two experienced commentators were compared. In this analysis, the same results were found in regards to commentator experience, as the less experienced commentator in this team featured less varied and weaker evaluative language than his more experienced co-commentator, yet more varied and evaluative than the novices. This paper shows that metadiscursive analysis methods can be fruitfully applied to non-academic discourses, as well as shining a light on the entertainment genre of eSports as a subject for further study. / Denna uppsats utforskar språket som används av etablerade eSportskommentatorer, i jämförelse med oerfarna nybörjare, i spelet StarCraft II. Detta har gjorts genom att analysera eSportskommentarmaterialet från två matcher med hjälp av en modell med kategorier för befrämjande språk, framställd för pressmeddelanden. Analysen fann att erfarna kommentatorer hade ett betydligt bredare och mer varierat ordförråd än sina mer oerfarna motparter, till exempel, genom användandet av mer starkt värderande adjektiv, förstärkande adverb och metaforer. Efter analysen av de två kommentarmaterialen gjordes en analys för liknande mönster av de två erfarna kommentatorernas språk. Denna jämförande analys fann att skillnaden i ordvalet även var knuten till kommentatorns erfarenhet, då den mindre erfarne kommentatorn hade ett mer begränsat och mindre varierat ordförråd än den mer erfarne kommentatorn, men betydligt mer varierat än noviserna. Denna uppsats visar att metadiskursiva metoder kan användas för att analysera icke-akademiskt språk, samtidigt som den visar på ett behov att undersöka E-sportsspråket som en genre.

Electronic sports (esports) is an activity in which players compete against each other in video games. It could be beneficial for the esports industry if players were to perform more consistently. The user interface in the game is one aspect that could impact player performance. In this study, the six user interface element types defined by Fagerholt and Lorentzon in 2009 were used as the context for comparing player performance. The purpose of this thesis was to discover how the graphical user interface of competitive first-person shooter (FPS) games affect the player’s ability to perform mechanically and comprehend information, as well as determining what players value in such user interfaces. This was achieved through the use of experiments and interviews in the context of a game that was developed for this study. In the game, the participants played through levels with different user interfaces in which player performance was tracked. This study discovered that the diegetic user interface performed the best in mechanical performance and information comprehension. Meta-perception resulted in some of the worst mechanical performance. More cluttered user interfaces appeared to worsen reaction times. There was also a vague indication suggesting that more cluttered user interfaces worsen information comprehension. In terms of user preferences, the non-diegetic user interface was the most preferred. In contrast, the participants preferred the geometric user interface the least. Through the thematic analysis, it was discovered that various factors may be beneficial to consider when designing user interfaces using different types of elements. The factors are beneficial to consider because they may affect player performance. The factors are concerned with the following: information balance, contrast, clutteredness, use of numbers, position of elements, use of health bars, element sizes and presentation of ammunition stacks. However, further studies generating statistically significant results would be required to confirm these insights.

Over the past decades, the scholarly discourse of violent video games as a possible influence for aggressive behaviors has gained much attention, primarily relying on the content of such games. This study aims to explore the environment of competitive multiplayer gaming interms of technicality (e.g. game mechanics), social interactions within a video game, and additional resources outside of the game as possible influential factors for toxic behaviors in competitive multiplayer games. Bourdieusian social theory is applied to gain a better understanding of the relationship between agents (players) and the field (competitive gaming) and the relevance of gaming capital. This study is based on a digital ethnographic approach to gain a comprehensive understanding of the gaming environment, and reports on semi-structured online interviews with 14 participants aged between 17-40, to gain insight on players’ perception and responses towards toxic behaviors in competitive games. This study proposes a spectrum of toxic behaviors in competitive multiplayer games, in which actions may be distinguished based on the form of expression (eg. verbal, physical or in-game). Primary findings suggest there may be a causal relationship between a player’s knowledge ofa game and their conveyance of toxicity, regardless of age and gender. The degree of toxicity may vary depending on the player, and is more frequently performed by men. Lastly, toxic behaviors should not be examined in isolation from contextual factors such as game mechanics or social interactions, but need to be further explored as a medium-specific phenomenon.

No description available.

Spectating esports online has been getting more and more popular in recent years. In order to cater to everyone’s needs and provide the best experience for spectators from all backgrounds, it is important to understand the unique motivations for each type of person to watch esports. In this paper, we build on past research not only in the field of esports, but also traditional sports and sociology to conduct a thorough study uncovering factors that influence people’s esports viewership habits. To achieve this, a survey (n = 542) was conducted, the data from which was analyzed in light of our theoretical framework. Our results showed that while motivating factors are somewhat homogenous across demographics, there are still minor patterns and predictors that can be used to describe the habits of different groups. Our main findings were the importance of tight-knit communities in fighting games, the different roles of communities and competitiveness between genders, and younger people’s preference for co-streams.