Today’s video game players sit in front of their screens immersing themselves within the fictional environment of the video game. They connect their physical self to the game-controller and their cerebral self to the game-world. The video game medium becomes a cybernetic and psychological appendage, a prosthesis that allows game players to share their consciousness across actual and virtual realities. Such an appendage has the ability to expand the personal spatial environment of the game players as they navigate the spaces of an increasingly complex, digitally constructed extension of the imagination. The thesis begins with an autobiographical summary of personal experiences in the suburbs and the resultant escape from suburbia that video games provide. The thesis then presents a series of experiential diaries generated from gameplay. This is followed by a conceptual analysis that uses six meditations to discuss the spaces and experiences presented in the diaries. The purpose of the conceptual analysis is to investigate how the narrative and spatial experiences of single player role playing video games expand our perceptions of architecture and space beyond the real-world. The spaces of these games represent a new way of thinking about, experiencing and creating architecture.

The online game industry grows rapidly in these few years. Attrated by the huge market revenue, many game developers start to produce or publish the online game products. This results in a large amount of online game products. The purpose of this study is to understand the consumer behavior of online games. The lifestyle and the demography will be discussed in this study. The focus of this study is to find out if the consumer behavior will be affected by the difference of the lifestyle and demography. This thesis is based on the E.K.B. Model to develop the structure of consumer behavior, and refers to the A.I.O.structure for the lifestyle dimensions. A structured questionnaire is used to investigate the consumer behavior for online games. The findings are as follows: First, the characteristics of online game consumers are Male, 19 to 30 years old, student, college degree and income per month under 10,000. Second, consumers tend to use internet to find related information. Third, while selecting an online game product, consumers put more emphasis on the company service. Fourth, most consumers purchase the online game and the subscription fee card in the convenience stores, but the percentage of consumers obtain these via internet is increasing. As for lifestyle and demography, demogrphy affects consumer behavior significantly, but the lifestyle doesn¡¦t. Online game developers or publishers should provide good service. Also they can develop different marketing strategies for different market segments based on the demography.

Abstract The purpose of this study was to develop mathematical games to assist children in learning addition and subtraction computation. The investigator designed games and experimented through four extra lessons, then studied children¡¦s mathematical learning after the lessons. Participants of this study were second grade children from two elementary schools in Kaohsiung. The experimentation was divided into three phases: pilot phase, first edition phase, and, second edition phase. Data collection and administration included pre-test and post-test; questionnaire of children¡¦s attitude towards mathematics; questionnaire of children¡¦s attitude towards games; record sheets for loan of games; children¡¦s worksheets; learning diaries; researcher¡¦s observation notes; and, researcher¡¦s reflections on design of games. The researcher referred to the above data source, later, evaluated according to the results of experimentation, and completed final revisions. Data analyses and results were three: Design, implementation, and revision. Design. When designing a game, the materials followed that of children¡¦s real life experiences. The characteristics of the four games were: Cooperation, challenge, education, and, chance and luck. Implementation. Children changed from ¡§individual responsibility¡¨ to ¡§co-ordination and cooperation in group¡¨, from ¡§assurance¡¨ to ¡§lack of confidence¡¨, from ¡§marginal participation¡¨ to ¡§eager to play with laughter¡¨, and ¡§no control of shouting¡¨. From the data analyses, children performed well in cognition, attitude, and skills. Revision. The principles of modification were to evaluate games¡¦ strengths and weaknesses, and adjusting games design. The respective revisions were tutoring play, children as key persons, formulating regulations, and, enriching contents. The findings of this study suggested that children benefit from mathematical games and constitute mathematical learning in two-digit number computation. If instructors try hard to design games, be keen in administration, and adjusted games, children will learn through games and result more effective mathematics learning. Finally, it is concluded that the goal of enhancing mathematics learning through games-based instruction as feasible. Key word¡Gmathematics games, addition and subtraction computation

The process of reading a modernist poem is just as much a process of deconstructing it: the language is designed to make meaning through inefficient means, like the aforementioned fragmentation and assemblage. The reader must decode the text. This is what I want to extract as a point of entry to my videogame analysis. The process of reading is not unlike the process of playing. Instead of linguistic structures, a player must navigate a game‟s internal rule system. The pleasure for both the reader and player comes from decoding the poem and game, respectively. I am not making claims that relationships between modernist poetry and videogames are inherent or innate. Similarly, I am not providing a framework to apply one medium to the other. Instead I want to investigate how each medium uses its affordances to take advantage of its potential for creative expression. I do not consider poetry or literature to be superior to videogames, nor am I invoking the argument that videogames should imitate earlier media. My goal is to compare specific modernist poems and videogames to see how each medium makes meaning through its respective processes.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2000. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 172-183). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Ohio State University, 2004. / Title from first page of PDF file. Document formatted into pages; contains xiii, 168 p.; also includes graphics. Includes abstract and vita. Advisor: Phillip Ward, College of Education. Includes bibliographical references (p. 130-137).

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Research)--Naval Postgraduate School, September 1990. / Thesis Advisor(s): Caldwell, William J. ; Johnson, Laura D. Second Reader: Whitaker, Lyn R. "September 1990." Description based on title screen as viewed on December 18, 2009. DTIC Descriptor(s): Test And Evaluation, Data Bases, Warfare, Land Warfare, Maximum Likelihood Estimation, Theory, Coherence, Planning, War Games, Battles, Corps Level Organizations. DTIC Identifier(s): Army Operations, War Games, Land Combat Operations, Theses, Army Planning, Data Bases, Mathematical Models. Author(s) subject terms: Land warfare, military planning, military science, theory of combat, categorical modeling, multivariate analysis. Includes bibliographical references (p. 52-53). Also available in print.

Thesis (M.S. in Operations Analysis)--Naval Postgraduate School, June 2003. / Thesis advisor(s): Thomas W. Lucas, Samuel E. Buttrey. Includes bibliographical references (p. 73). Also available online.

The aim of this research lies in the study of how Japanese console videos games have been re-territorialized into Taiwan in Taiwanese context. Since making its debut in 1970s, video game industry has developed into a multi-billion dollar business in which Japanese console and game developers have been the pioneers. Academic studies on video games, however, had been largely focusing on the physical and mental affection of video game playing, and it is until recent years that video game has begun to be analyzed as a cultural product. Looking to fill the research space of how video games have been consumed and received under different geographical and social contexts, this research examine show Taiwanese, the former colonial subjects of Japan, localize Japanese console video games through measures during the process of production, re-production, circulation, and consumption in the context of Taiwanese society. Attention has been particularly paid to Taipei City Mall, where gamer gatherings of a Japanese video game had been regularly held. Through intensive participatory observation on the gathering and in-depth case studies on a few selected personalities, the author will show how a Japanese cultural good is being re-territorialized under an alien social context. The thesis then argues a new paradigm, in which the individual desire is considered as equally important with other mediation factors, should be adopted in conceptualizing the migration of a cultural good. / published_or_final_version / Modern Languages and Cultures / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

Peer-to-peer networks are types of computer networks where each computer (a peer) may have several direct communication channels with other computers. This is similar to how people know and interact with each other, including the problems of how communications among each other take place. Depending on the resources being shared among peers, various protocols have been developed to propagate these resources. These protocols include routing the resources based on similarities between the resources and peers as well as forcing the topology of peers to control different types of resources. Peer-to-peer networks help simulate societies, but communication routing is dependent on the medium being passed among the peers. Games have been a part of human culture for a long time and have not only provided entertainment to people, both individuals and groups, but also a means to better understand the real world by practising on a model world instead. Such models have become more prevalent through the advent of computer games, were virtual worlds can imitate the real world even further with each technological advancement. As these progressions advance, so to does the expectation of multiple persons interacting with each other in a virtual world as they do in the real world. This leads us to the question: “How can computer games be augmented to take advantage of peer-to-peer models?” In this thesis, we explore the possibilities and requirements of running computer games over peer-to-peer networks. We accomplish this by proposing models and mechanisms to be used by all peers to allow a game to be played over a peer-to-peer network. We evaluate our solution to illustrate how well it performs in various scenarios, including the type of peer-to-peer network used, the quality of knowledge models used for our mechanisms and the behaviours of the players themselves.