In light of the growing concern about the psychological impact of computer, console and handheld electronic games (digital games), this research explores the thoughts and thinking strategies of game players (gamers) during gameplay. It attempts to achieve this goal by means of using a form of verbal analysis based on the 'think out loud' method of Protocol Analysis. The recordings of gamers engaged in the 'think out loud' exercise during gameplay at a gaming networking session were transcribed and analyzed. These gamers participated in two different genres of games. The fist was a First-Person Shooter (FPS) and the second a Real Time Strategy (RTS). The content of the different transcripts were categorized using cognitive models and theories. From this process a nine category classification framework was developed. By dividing identified thought segments into these different categories, a quantitative frequency analysis was possible. This supplemented the overall qualitative exploration of gamers’ thoughts and thinking strategies. The results of this study indicate that different genres of games stimulate different concentrations of different types of thoughts. Overall these concentrations numerically classify gaming as an activity in terms of perception, cognition, emotion, and self immersion. It also indicated that each genre has its own unique influence and that each player is uniquely engaged. Besides providing insight into gamers’ thoughts and thinking strategies, this study also provides evidence that an adapted form of verbal analysis is suitable in exploring a visually absorbing activity such as gaming. / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2006. / Psychology / unrestricted

The video games industry is taking more sustainability responsibilities since video games can reach a broad and tremendous audience. Apart from adopting sustainable business strategies, games companies also need to navigate various stakeholders’ expectations and draft strategies to communicate with them. However, despite an abundance of corporate social responsibility literature, there is no existing research specifically focusing on how the video games industry can contribute to this topic. The social and environmental responsibilities of games companies are usually discussed separately. Therefore, this project aims to explain, in the video games industry, how social and environmental impacts are addressed in the form of corporate social responsibility and how companies meet stakeholders’ needs as a part of their sustainable business strategies. Six companies in the Swedish games industry were selected and interviewed. Together with the published sustainability reports, a theory-based content analysis was applied. The results indicate that games companies have mature strategies to tackle social impacts. For environmental impacts, on the contrary, there are no united strategies. The measures used to address environmental impacts vary from corporate to corporate due to the significant differences in business models. Besides publishing documents to communicate with stakeholders, games companies can also communicate sustainability via their games, which can be done by integrating sustainability in game mechanics or as an add-on feature. In conclusion, achieving a competitive advantage is the ultimate goal in engaging corporate social responsibility. Also, stakeholders’ expectations push companies to be more sustainable. Communicating sustainability via games may raise environmental awareness among the players; however, it might only apply to a specific group of people. / Video game is a product that reaches millions of players worldwide. Therefore, it comes with responsibilities for the developers to ensure that the products do not result in negative impacts. Apart from social impacts, such as gender inequality and toxic player communities, there is also a rising environmental awareness among the games companies lately. However, existing research mainly discusses games companies’ social and environmental responsibilities separately. This project aims to explore how games companies address social and environmental issues in sustainability and how they communicate their sustainability efforts to their stakeholders. Six companies in the Swedish games industry were selected and interviewed. Together with the published sustainability reports, a theory-based content analysis was applied. The results show that games companies have a well-developed strategy to tackle social issues. In contrast, the measures to environmental issues vary due to differences in business models and their roles in the value chain. Games companies communicate their sustainability in two forms – through documentation and in-game features. To conclude, the main goal for companies to engage in sustainability is primarily to increase competitive advantage, and stakeholders’ expectations drive their sustainability engagement. Communicating sustainability via games may raise environmental awareness among the players; however, it might only apply to a specific group of people.

VR gaming is an emerging market with relatively new technology when compared to PC and console gaming. Streamed VR gaming is when the VR game is being streamed from another device to the VR headset. This experiment will show how the VR hardware and software performs under network constraints such as RTT and packet loss for streamed VR gaming specifically. User QoE (quality of experience) will be gathered and compiled into MOS (mean opinion score) for later use in graphs to determine negative trends. All collected data will also be sent to the Infovista technical team so they can make theoretical models on how user QoE is affected by network conditions. This thesis will show how the QoS (quality of service) factors, such as latency and packet loss, impact the users overall QoE and the VR headsets FPS. Before the subjective experiment could begin a testbed was chosen and setup, a VR game was decided on, and a streaming service was tested on. During the experiment the game Serious Sam VR: The Last Hope was played and NVIDIA’s CloudXR streaming service was used. The testbed setup consisted of two PCs, one router, one access point, a tablet used for user reviews, and a VR headset with two handheld controllers. The software program ALTRUIST was used for managing the user data and applying the desired network conditions such as latency. Each user experiment tested 28 different network conditions with varying values of RTT (round trip time), Packet loss, RTT with packet loss, and RTT with random jitter. 30 users were gathered for the actual experiment where the Calendly application was used to manage the user appointments. The results consisted of objective and subjective data gathered during the experiments. From the objective data it could be determined that RTT primarily affects the FPS in the VR headset. Packet loss affected the FPS but to a minor degree compared to RTT. RTT of 175 ms received an average FPS of 53 while 24% packet loss yielded approximately 65 FPS. Random jitter had close to no impact on the FPS according to the results. The subjective data suggests that RTT of 75 ms and below yields a good user MOS and RTT of 175 ms gives an acceptable user MOS at 3 out of 5. Packet loss of 6% and below gives a good user MOS while 12% and above results in poor MOS. RTT with random jitter performs average to poorly with Standard deviation of 3 and above, for low RTT values. For future experiments it is advisableto use ALTRUIST or a similar software to help the researcher during the experiment.

Följande studie hanterar ämnet eSport. Med hjälp av uses & gratifications theory kommer eSportpublik studeras och analyseras, med syftet att förstå vilka motivationer som leder till att man vill titta på eSport. Studien kommer med hjälp av kvalitativ metod, det vill säga intervjuer och observationer, med tillämpande mini enkäter i observationerna studera publiken som tittar på eSport. Uses & gratifications är en teori som ofta tillämpas vid kvalitativ metod då de gratifikationer man analyserar är enkelt tillämpbara i intervjufrågor. Studien kom fram till att de viktigaste gratifikationerna för eSportpublik var underhållning samt tidsfördriv. Viktigt är det att notera att dessa faktorer var uppmuntrande för tolkning, där informanter har gett olika definitioner av samma faktorer, samt ger flera förklaringar på samma ord. Det är utifrån denna syn som arbetet har analyserats och ge ett definitivt svar på frågan varför publiken tittar på eSport. / The following essay studies the subject of eSport. The concept audience will be analysed with help of the uses & gratifications theory to create an understanding about the audience in eSport. The study will also with the help of qualitative methods, to be specific interviews and observations, with an applied mini- survey in the observations study the audiences of eSport. Uses & gratifications is a theory that a lot of the time is applicable in qualitative methods because the gratifications that are analyzed very often are easily applicable when writing questions for interviews. The result was that the most important gratifications for the audience of eSport was entertainment and killing time. It’s also important to note that these factors were encouraged for interpretation, and given multiple explanations regarding the same word. It’s based on this view that the study has been analyzed and given a definitive answer on the question why the audience watches eSport.

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Då tidigare forskning har stort fokus på psykopatologi finns intresse att undersöka ungas vanor online i förhållande till psykiskt välbefinnande. I denna enkätbaserade tvärsnittsstudie undersöktes hur ungas vanor online (socialt användande, huvudsaklig aktivitet och tid), mattering, anti-mattering, och upplevelse av restriktioner under Covid-19-pandemin relaterar till ensamhet och subjektiv livskvalitet. Svar från 125st ungdomar mellan 18–25 år analyserades med hjälp av deskriptiv statistik, Spearman’s sambandsanalyser, Multipel regressionsanalys, MANOVA och loglinjär analys. Resultatet gav blandade svar angående tid (<4, 4+ h/dag) där tid inte på egen hand kunde predicera subjektiv livskvalitet, samtidigt visades ett samband mellan att spendera över 4 h/dag aktivt online och lägre subjektiv livskvalitet. Socialt användande var inte relaterat till något av utfallsmåtten. Huvudsaklig aktivitet (‘Gaming’, ‘Sociala medier’, ‘Gaming och sociala medier lika mycket’) uteslöts ur analys på grund av snedvridet urval. Resultaten av denna studie kunde alltså inte fullt ut stödja vikten av unga människors vanor online med avseende på ensamhet och subjektiv livskvalitet. Dock gav resultaten att mattering och anti-mattering tillsammans kan förklara varians i subjektiv livskvalitet och ensamhet. Dessutom erhölls samband mellan upplevelsen av att pandemins restriktioner påverkat hur betydelsefull och betydelselös den unge kände sig med mattering, anti-mattering, subjektiv livskvalitet och ensamhet. Föreliggande studie bidrar till ny kunskap om mattering, anti-mattering, ensamhet och subjektiv livskvalitet hos unga. Detta genom att visa hur viktiga mellanmänskliga upplevelser är i tider av osäkerhet. Studien problematiserar också att ungas vanor online kan behöva operationaliseras på andra vis för att representera kvalitet snarare än kvantitet. / Previous research has a strong focus on psychopathology rather than psychological well-being regarding online habits of young people. This cross-sectional study based on a survey explored how online habits of young people (social usage, main activity and time), mattering, anti-mattering, and experience of restrictions during the COVID-19 pandemic relates to loneliness and subjective quality of life (QoL). Responses from 125 people between the ages of 18–25 were analyzed using descriptive statistics, Spearman's correlation analyzes, multiple regression analysis, MANOVA and loglinear analysis. Results were indecisive regarding time (<4, 4+ h/day). Time on its own could not predict subjective QoL, whereas spending over 4 h/day actively online was associated with lower subjective QoL. Social usage was not related to the outcome measures. Main activity(‘Gaming’, ‘Social media’, ‘Gaming and Social Media equally’) was excluded from analysis due to skewness. Thus, the results of this study could not fully support the importance of young peoples’ habits online regarding loneliness and subjective QoL. However, the results showed that mattering and anti-mattering together could predict subjective QoL and loneliness. In addition, the experience of how restrictions affected how significant and insignificant the participants felt was associated with mattering, anti-mattering, subjective QoL and loneliness. Present study contributes knowledge about mattering, anti-mattering, loneliness and subjective QoL in young people. This by showing how important interpersonal experiences are in times of uncertainty. The study also problematizes that young people's online habits may need to be operationalized in other ways to represent quality rather than quantity.

The low levels of gender diversity is an characteristic that is directly associated with the gaming industry. The gaming industry is multi-dollar business with huge influence on technological advancement and possesses a great power and influence over its users. It is in a position to shape how users view the world and how they interact with it. Studies within the field of gaming have previously showed that gaming can have a significant impact on children and adolescents’ behavior. Therefore, it becomes of great interest to examine how gender imbalance is created and how it is explained by the gaming firms. The study will examine these questions through a Swedish perspective. The methodology of this research paper can be divided into two main section. Firstly, a literature review was conducted to gather information about relevant theories, concepts and previous research. Thereafter, ten individuals working for different Swedish gaming companies were interviewed to gather their perspective and view on the topic. The results showed that the gaming firms explained the gender imbalance and how it is created through gender and societal norms. However, when discussing the structure of the company, culture and other practices, results indicated that the gaming firms play a larger contributing role to the imbalance through; male-dominated gender structures and cultures that makes it difficult for women to progress and feel belonged in the company, establishing requirements that exclude certain candidates, and by having a confused perceptive regarding the situation. / Den låga könsmångfalden är något som är direkt associerat med spelindustrin. Spelindustrin är en enorm industri som har stort inflyttande på teknisk utveckling samt har stort inflyttande över sina användare och kan forma hur de ser på världen och interagerar med den. Studier inom spelområdet har tidigare visat att spel kan ha en inflytande på barn och ungdomars beteende. Därför har det blivit ett stort intresse att undersöka hur könsubalans skapas och hur det förklaras av spelbolagen. Denna studie kommer att undersöka dessa frågor ur ett svenskt perspektiv. Metodiken för denna forskningsrapport kan delas in i två huvudavsnitt. Först genomfördes en litteraturstudie för att samla information om relevanta teorier, begrepp och tidigare forskning. Därefter intervjuades tio personer som arbetar inom svenska gaming bolag för att samla in deras perspektiv och syn på ämnet. Resultaten visade att spelföretagen förklarade obalansen mellan könen och hur det skapas genom köns- och samhällsnormer. Men när man diskuterade företagets struktur, kultur och andra aspekter, visade resultaten att spel bolagen har en större bidragande roll till obalansen än vad de själva tror. Dessa företag utformas av mansdominerade köns strukturer och kulturer som gör det svårt för kvinnor att utvecklas och känna sig del av företaget, formar krav som exkluderar vissa kandidater och så vidare som bidrar till en låg könsmångfald inom branschen.

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Syfte: Syftet med studien är att lyfta maktperspektivet genom en kritisk diskursanalys av debatten kring konceptualiseringen av en diagnos för problematiskt digitalt spelande (PDS). Som professionella inom socialt arbete är PDS ett högaktuellt problem som nyligen har fått en ny officiell diagnos; Gaming Disorder, som ett nytt verktyg i praktiken. Teori: Studiens teoretiska förankring ligger i socialkonstruktionism, maktteori och diskursteori, som samtliga fokuserade på konceptualisering av diagnoser och diagnosens makt i samhället. Metod: Metoden för studien är främst kvalitativ genom en kritisk diskursanalys, men nyttjar även ett mer kvantitativt redskap genom korpuslingvistik. Korpuslingvistiken användes för att identifiera diskurser i debatten som sedan genomgick en tematiserad indelning inför den kritiska diskursanalysen. Resultat: Studiens resultat fokuserar främst på den diskursiva och sociala praktiken i en kritisk diskursanalys, detta då maktperspektivet uppfattades som starkast i dessa nivåer. Resultatet tyder på en fördelning mellan två oeniga fält av experter i debatten. där ena fältet har en stark koppling till WHO, vilket diskuteras i denna studie. / Aim: The aim with the study is to lift the power perspective through a critical discourse analysis of the debate about the conceptualization of a diagnosis for problematic digital gaming (PDS). For professionals in social work, PDS is a highly topical problem which recently gained a new official diagnosis, Gaming Disorder, as a new tool in social work. Theory: The study's theoretical grounding is in social constructionism, power theory and discourse theory, which all have been focused on the conceptualization of diagnoses and the power of diagnoses in society. Method: The method for the study is mainly qualitative through a critical discourse analysis but uses also a more quantitative tool through corpus linguistics. The corpus linguistics was used to identify discourses in the debate which later went through a thematization before the critical discourse analysis. Result: The study's result mainly focuses on discourse practice and social practice; due to that this was where the power perspective was perceived the strongest. The result indicates a division between two fields of discordant experts in the debate, where one field has a strong connection to WHO, which is discussed in this study.

Cloud gaming over mobile networks enables players to play high-resource consuming games on low-end devices with various intrinsic restrictions such as limited battery lifetime and computational capacity. For mobile cloud gaming(MCG), the remaining battery level on the device is one of the critical factors that affect the sensitivity of user satisfaction. Thus, an android application is developed to measure the energy consumption of mobile devices that measure the power consumption of the device such that the obtained values correspond with the specific network conditions and users. The collected values are studied to identify if the energy consumption of the device is impacted by the network degradation that might occur during MCG in cellular networks. Results demonstrate that the energy consumption is at its highest when packet loss is 45% at 2ms RoundTrip Time (RTT) delay. Moreover, a qualitative study on the perceived Quality of Experience (QoE) of MCG over mobile networks is conducted and its impact on the energy consumption of the device is investigated where 31 users play a cloud-based First Person Shooter (FPS) for approximately 2 hours each. The results demonstrate the existence of the relationship between energy consumption and perceived QoE whereas negates the hypothesis of the existence of the relationship between QoE and CPU resources. In addition, to make comparisons of energy consumption of MCG with online mobile gaming (OMG), another test is carried out where each user plays another non-cloud-based FPS game and it is found that MCG is more efficient than OMG under the least energy-consuming network condition (2ms RTT delay) by 33.3% and the most energy consuming network condition (45% packet loss at 2ms RTT) by 32.7% in 4G cellular network.