Zugl.: München, Univ., Diss., 2009

Fler timmar och större intresse läggs idag ner på onlinerollspel vilka under de senaste åren blivit omåttligt populära. Våra sociala beteenden har idag förändrats och vi behöver inte längre fysiskt beträda det rum vi vanligen kommunicerade i. Vi öppnar istället upp dörrarna till en ny dimension där du “är” en virtuell identitet, och där du kanske har väldigt många fler möjligheter än i ditt fysiska liv. World of Warcraft är just ett sådant spel vilket underhåller tusentals av spelare och som kommer ligga till grund för denna uppsats. Syftet är att skapa en dokumentation av och ge en insyn i dessa nya sociala miljöer som vi finner i World of Warcraft. Vad har tillexempel en online identitet för betydelse för jaget (spelaren) och kan det som händer i ett community på internet påverka våra fysiska sociala liv? Samma sak händer om man vänder på frågan, vad händer med spelvärldens sociala liv om man inte spelar tillräckligt mycket, hur påverkar det spelandet i sig? Är en spelare tvungen att välja bara en social arena, eller finns det en god möjlighet till en balans mellan miljöerna? Frågor om interagerbarhet, interaktivitet och kommunikation i spelet kommer också att vara centrala i uppsatsen, eftersom dessa i någon form påverkar oss som individer och sociala varelser. Alltså vad är det som lockar och varför kan vi som individer bli påverkade av detta? De komponenter jag finner mest bidragande till delaktighet i World of Warcraft diskuteras och analyseras sedan utifrån utvalda teoretiska utgångspunkter. Syftet är också att utifrån videoinspelade intervjuer med spelarna ge en slags bild av hur fenomenet kan se ut. I Själva dokumentärfilmen ( som tillhör uppsatsen och som finns på separat DVD) läggs Fokus på intervjuerna, (där de intervjuade får en chans att säga sin mening) och de spelmiljöer man kan stöta på i World of Warcraft . Vi följer spelaren in i världen .Med dessa rörliga bilder kan vi också få större förståelse för vad World of Warcraft är och vad det betyder för miljontals människor. I intervjuerna med dessa respondenter försöker jag att gå in i samtal som är mer djupgående och kvalitativa. Denna form av undersökning, där så få personer medverkar kan inte kvantitativt framlägga ett övergripande mönster av hur majoritetens spelvanor ser ut.

<p>Fler timmar och större intresse läggs idag ner på onlinerollspel vilka under de senaste åren blivit omåttligt populära. Våra sociala beteenden har idag förändrats och vi behöver inte längre fysiskt beträda det rum vi vanligen kommunicerade i. Vi öppnar istället upp dörrarna till en ny dimension där du “är” en virtuell identitet, och där du kanske har väldigt många fler möjligheter än i ditt fysiska liv. World of Warcraft är just ett sådant spel vilket underhåller tusentals av spelare och som kommer ligga till grund för denna uppsats.</p><p>Syftet är att skapa en dokumentation av och ge en insyn i dessa nya sociala miljöer som vi finner i World of Warcraft. Vad har tillexempel en online identitet för betydelse för jaget (spelaren) och kan det som händer i ett community på internet påverka våra fysiska sociala liv? Samma sak händer om man vänder på frågan, vad händer med spelvärldens sociala liv om man inte spelar tillräckligt mycket, hur påverkar det spelandet i sig? Är en spelare tvungen att välja bara en social arena, eller finns det en god möjlighet till en balans mellan miljöerna? Frågor om interagerbarhet, interaktivitet och kommunikation i spelet kommer också att vara centrala i uppsatsen, eftersom dessa i någon form påverkar oss som individer och sociala varelser.</p><p>Alltså vad är det som lockar och varför kan vi som individer bli påverkade av detta?</p><p>De komponenter jag finner mest bidragande till delaktighet i World of Warcraft diskuteras och analyseras sedan utifrån utvalda teoretiska utgångspunkter. Syftet är också att utifrån videoinspelade intervjuer med spelarna ge en slags bild av hur fenomenet kan se ut. I Själva dokumentärfilmen ( som tillhör uppsatsen och som finns på separat DVD) läggs Fokus på intervjuerna, (där de intervjuade får en chans att säga sin mening) och de spelmiljöer man kan stöta på i World of Warcraft . Vi följer spelaren in i världen .Med dessa rörliga bilder kan vi också få större förståelse för vad World of Warcraft är och vad det betyder för miljontals människor.</p><p>I intervjuerna med dessa respondenter försöker jag att gå in i samtal som är mer djupgående och kvalitativa. Denna form av undersökning, där så få personer medverkar kan inte kvantitativt framlägga ett övergripande mönster av hur majoritetens spelvanor ser ut.</p><p> </p>

With the popularity of online role-playing games, a web-based battle application is designed to help the players to improve their characters for the combat. The developed prototype concentrates on one-player-multi-characters mode. The project consists of three major objectives. The first one focuses on the development of web-based interfaces for user registration and login. This functionality benefits the user with an individual and personalized member account. The second goal is to improve the existing web-application for character creation so the user data input is stored in a database for posterior retrieval. The third objective refers to the development of a web-based battle application that allows players to test created characters in a battle, one character against another one. This project also contributed with a logical database model that overcomes some design issues, such as normalization problems, in the current database model.

This project responds to a problem in scholarship describing the relationship between virtual avatars and their physical users. In Life on the Screen, Sherry Turkle identifies points of slippage wherein the persona of the avatar becomes conflated with the user‘s sense of self to create an authentic self predicated on both real and virtual experiences (Turkle 184-5). Although the conflation of the authentic self with the virtual has provided various affordances for serious games or other pedagogical projects such as classrooms hosted through the game Second Life, the processes enabling identification with an avatar have been largely overlooked. This project examines several layers of influence that affect how users play with identity to create successful social performances within an online community connected to a work of fiction. In doing so, the user must consider his or her own motivations for creating a persona, how these motivations will allow the avatar to achieve social acceptance, and how these social performances connect to the scene created by the work of fiction. Using an online role-playing forum based on a work of fiction as a site of analysis, this project will borrow from game studies, dramatism, and identity theory to create a framework for discussing processes through which users identify with their virtual avatars.

Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:43:06Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Adriana Kei Ohashi Sato.pdf: 1422574 bytes, checksum: 540e2341a2b34d4eca47c4af926c8a33 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2007-09-14 / This work intends to analyze design as the object that generates answers to the user's (gamer's) expectations based on the collective imaginarium. In turn, this imaginarium originates in a specific social-cultural context. Considering men as symbolic beings, they look for the reason of their existence by attribuing meaning to objects. Those meanings are interpreted by society, creating values, behaviors and cultural references. This work presents fundamental concepts about design and its presence in the social-cultural context, being design the language that interprets and re-signify the electronic game based on the collective imaginarium. / A presente pesquisa procura analisar o design como objeto gerador de respostas às expectativas do usuário (jogador) a partir do imaginário coletivo. Por sua vez, este imaginário, tem a sua origem em um determinado contexto sócio-cultural. Considerando o homem como um ser simbólico, este busca o sentido para sua existência por meio da atribuição de significados aos objetos. Tais significados são interpretados pela sociedade criando seus valores, comportamentos e referenciais culturais. Ao longo deste trabalho são apresentados conceitos fundamentais sobre o design e sua presença no contexto sócio-cultural, sendo o design, a linguagem que interpreta e resignifica, a partir do imaginário coletivo, um jogo eletrônico.

To adolescents, online game provides a rich playground for developing competence in leadership, coordination, teamwork, and cooperation. Adopting the perspective of positive psychology and social cognitive theory, this research investigates how factors such as personal and social factors may impact adolescents' learning outcomes and subjective will-being. The results show that game efficacy, adolescents' game attitudes, and social influences are important factors that influence adolescents' online game behavior. Moreover, playing online games may improve adolescents' psychological affects and learning, which in turn enhance players' subjective well-being. These results provide a new perspective to game researchers, teachers and parents and can help game manufactures and government in designing games and making policies.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-08-17T13:20:08Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Ayres Razera.pdf: 1685514 bytes, checksum: 0f3c94e0ba6321b9ab0ecec435acdf70 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-08-17T13:20:08Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Bruno Ayres Razera.pdf: 1685514 bytes, checksum: 0f3c94e0ba6321b9ab0ecec435acdf70 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-06-26 / Conselho Nacional de Pesquisa e Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico - CNPq / The research investigates how the game mode Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), by strategic concomitance, directs the player to operate by the visibility, to build the meaning of their simulacra identity. Concomitance, according to linguistics, is the designation of one or more actions, things or facts that occur simultaneously; coexistence or simultaneity. In this study the strategic concomitance has the coexistence as the relation of a strategist sender with the subject that provides his own tactic in simultaneity, working values in a same logical line. The most popular game of the genre, World of Warcraft (WOW), is taken as an object, as the immersion of its players is sanctioned by its great geographic reach and number of users who remain, year after year, faithful to the product, generating a movement large volume financial instrument, as well as employing new electronic technology tools and practices. The act of playing keeps the subject in interaction with other subjects and in the operation of this visibility that they construct identity simulations, shaped by the enunciative choices to make-see. In the analysis of the game, the use of the device called "transmog" was used to transform the appearance of the player's equipment. Syntagmatic operations call the device in its placement in discourse and thus build the axiology that makes the subject have to be, a simulacrum of socialized doing that establishes visibility as its main value. The theoretical-methodological support for the analysis is given by the discursive semiotic theory of Greimas (2014, 2007, 2002), which structures the generative path of meaning, the basis of the construction of meaning. It is also supported by Landowski's (1992, 1997, 2013, 2014a, 2014b) socio-demographic concept that, through the regimes of meaning and interaction, as well as through the regimes of visibility, allows to elucidate lived practices of the participants and their simulacrums built in the game. The theories of other semioticians are also bases for the elaboration of the axiological taxonomy of transmog. The bibliographical references also include a review of the history of the games and the survey of works with this theme. To carry out the study, there are analyzes of the transmog phenomenon, highlighting the dynamics of the interactions of the audience of World of Warcraft; in short, the study of the discursive practices of this device in the game, surrounded by the regimes of visibility, meaning and interaction. It was possible, with this, to verify the hypothesis that the visibility values in the game allow to maintain and extend the immersion of the players in a continuity, corresponding to the social practices: transmog, this device in game, does not determine the values in game, as facilitator and computer of an axiological exchange shared to the player. In addition, this work contributed to the theoretical basis for the area of communication that deals with the strategies of the gaming industry / A pesquisa investiga como a modalidade de game Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG), por concomitância estratégica, direciona o jogador a operar pela visibilidade, para a construção do sentido de seus simulacros identitários. Concomitância, de acordo com a linguística, é a designação de uma ou mais ações, coisas ou fatos que ocorrem em simultâneo; coexistência ou simultaneidade. Neste estudo a concomitância estratégica tem como coexistência a relação de um destinador estrategista com o sujeito que provê própria tática em simultaneidade, trabalhando valores em uma mesma linha lógica. O game World of Warcraft (WOW), mais popular do gênero, é tomado como objeto, pois a imersão de seus jogadores é sancionada por seu grande alcance geográfico e número de usuários que permanecem, ano após ano, fiéis ao produto, gerando uma movimentação financeira de grande volume, além de empregar instrumentos e práticas novas de tecnologias eletrônicas. O ato de jogar coloca o sujeito em interação com outros sujeitos e é na operação dessa visibilidade que são construídos simulacros identitários, moldados pelas escolhas enunciativas para fazer-ver. Recortou-se, na análise do game, o uso do dispositivo denominado como “transmog”, que consiste em permitir transformar esteticamente a aparência dos equipamentos do jogador. As operações sintagmáticas convocam o dispositivo na sua colocação em discurso e assim constroem a axiologia que faz o sujeito ter para ser, simulacro do fazer socializado que instaura a visibilidade como seu principal valor. O suporte teórico-metodológico para a análise é dado pela teoria semiótica discursiva de Greimas (2014; 2007; 2002), que estrutura o percurso gerativo de sentido, a base da construção da significação. Apoia-se também na sociossemiótica de Landowski (1992; 1997; 2013; 2014a; 2014b) que, pelos regimes de sentido e de interação, assim como pelos regimes de visibilidade, permite elucidar práticas vividas dos partícipes e do seu fazer em sociedade, pelos simulacros construídos no game. As teorias de outros semioticistas são também bases para a elaboração da taxonomia axiológica do transmog. Os referenciais bibliográficos incluem ainda uma revisão da história dos games e do levantamento de trabalhos com esta temática. Para realizar o estudo, há análises do fenômeno do transmog, destacando a dinâmica das interações do público de World of Warcraft; em minudência, a do estudo das práticas discursivas desse dispositivo no game, nos envoltos dos regimes de visibilidade, de sentido e de interação. Foi possível, com isso, verificar a hipótese de que os valores de visibilidade no game possibilitam manter e ampliar a imersão dos jogadores em uma continuidade, correspondente às práticas sociais: o transmog, este dispositivo in game, não determina os valores em jogo, funcionando como facilitador e ordenador de um câmbio axiológico partilhado ao jogador. Além disso, este trabalho contribuiu para o embasamento teórico para a área da comunicação que trata das estratégias da indústria dos games

The purpose of this study was to gain a better understanding of the gaming behaviors of married individuals and couples who play Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game(s) (MMORPGs) including gaming addiction, time spent gaming, satisfaction in gaming participation, gaming interaction (between joint gaming spouses), and socio-demographic variables and the subsequent marital satisfaction levels of both individuals in the couple. Hypotheses were generally supported, excluding the hours spent gaming. 685 couples were separated and analyzed according to whether both individuals in the marriage gamed or just one individual gamed (couple-gaming type). Couples in which only one individual gamed (individual-gamer couples) had significantly lower marital satisfaction than all other groups and couples in which both gamed about the same amount of time (equal-gamers) held the highest marital satisfaction of the groups. Prediction models of marital satisfaction were determined for each couple-gaming type. The strongest predictions present in most of the models for marital satisfaction were the frequency that the couple retired to bed at the same time and the frequency that the couple quarreled specifically about gaming. Much MMORPG research has been presented on youth and adults, however to date there is no research on married gamers. Recent research on the video game habits of emerging adults called for further in depth investigation of the implications of video game use in the family formation stage of life.

Wie sollen Rechtssysteme auf Regeln reagieren, die Provider von Netzgemeinschaften wie Facebook oder World of Warcraft Nutzenden auferlegen? Das positive Recht gibt hierauf keine verlässliche Antwort. Erst ein Verständnis der Legitimität der Regeln ermöglicht ein Austarieren des Verhältnisses zwischen den Regelwerken von Netzgemeinschaften und Rechtssystemen. Nach Literaturstimmen sollen die Regeln durch außerrechtliche Mechanismen (z.B. direktdemokratische Verfahren), eine gerichtliche Kontrolle nach verfassungsrechtlichen Kriterien oder Zivilverfassungen legitimiert werden. Es ist aber zweifelhaft, ob Netzgemeinschaften legitime außerrechtliche Mechanismen schaffen können, ob sie wie Staaten behandelt werden sollten und ob Zivilverfassungen entstehen werden. Die Arbeit schlägt ein alternatives Modell vor: Im deutschen Zivilrecht zeichnet sich ein Legitimitätsmodell für private Regeln ab, das auf Regeln von Netzgemeinschaften anwendbar ist und als transnationale Schablone dienen kann. Danach werden die Regeln durch die Zustimmung und das Wohl der Nutzenden legitimiert. Letzteres gewährleistet ein Ausbeutungsschutz der Nutzenden in Form einer gerichtlichen Kontrolle. Die Anwendung des Modells führt zu folgenden Erkenntnissen: 1. Geschriebene Regeln sind schwach durch Zustimmung legitimiert. Eine gerichtliche Kontrolle nach vertragsrechtlichen Kriterien (bei Regelungen des Austauschverhältnisses zwischen Providern und Nutzenden) oder grundrechtlichen Kriterien (bei Verhaltensregeln) verleiht ihnen zusätzliche Legitimität. Die Kontrollintensität hängt von der Höhe des Ausbeutungsrisikos und der Existenz von legitimen außerrechtlichen Mechanismen ab. 2. Code-Regeln (z.B. Newsfeed- Algorithmen) sind auch nur schwach durch Zustimmung legitimiert. Gerichtliche Kontrollmöglichkeiten, die sie gegenüber Nutzenden legitimieren, müssen noch geschaffen werden. 3. Geschriebene und Code-Regeln sind illegitim gegenüber Nichtnutzenden, weil sie nicht auf deren Zustimmung beruhen. / How should legal systems respond to rules that virtual community providers such as Facebook or World of Warcraft impose on users? To answer this question, we must look beyond black letter law. Only an understanding of the legitimacy of these rules allows us to balance out their relationship with legal systems. Current scholarship theorizes their legitimacy as follows: Non-legal mechanisms (e.g. direct voting systems), judicial review according to constitutional principles, or digital civil constitutions may legitimize the rules. Yet, three points remain doubtful: whether virtual communities can develop legitimate self-governance mechanisms, whether they should be treated like states, and whether digital civil constitutions will effectively emerge. This work proposes an alternative legitimacy model: German private law reflects a legitimacy model for private rule-making applicable to rules of virtual communities which can serve as a transnational template. This model suggests that the rules can derive legitimacy from two sources: user consent and the common good of users, the latter ensured by judicial review protecting users against exploitation. This leads to the following key findings: 1. Written rules of virtual communities are weakly legitimized by user consent but derive additional legitimacy from judicial review. Contract law standard applies to rules that govern the bilateral exchange relationship between providers and users. General rules of conduct for users are checked against fundamental rights. The required intensity of review depends on the risk of user exploitation and the presence of legitimate self-governance mechanisms. 2. Rules embedded in computer code (e.g. newsfeed algorithms) are poorly legitimized by user consent. Judicial review procedures legitimizing them towards users still need to be established. 3. Both written rules and rules embedded in computer code are not legitimate towards non-users since non-users have not consented to them.