I det moderna samhället har internet och spelande av olika slag som sker genom internet blivit alltmer populära aktiviteter. I takt med den explosionsartade utvecklingen har även problematiskt beteende följt i form av onlinespelsmissbruk, som blivit ett så pass omfattande problem att det idag omnämns som diagnosen ”Internet Gaming Disorder”, IGD. Företeelsen har dock inte enbart blivit mer framträdande vad gäller aktiviteten i sig utan också gällande mängden forskning som görs inom området. Den population som studeras flitigast och där onlinespelandet är som mest framträdande är bland yngre människor och främst bland pojkar och män. Mycket av den forskning som genomförts har behandlat onlinespelandets påverkan på individen samt dess inverkan på skola och utbildning. Syftet med denna studie är därför att undersöka huruvida onlinespelandet hos tredjeårselever på gymnasiet samvarierar med dennes självupplevda sociala umgänge samt skolprestation. Studien är genomförd utifrån en kvantitativ metod där en enkätundersökning utfördes inom åtta olika program på fyra av Norrköpings gymnasieskolor. Totalt besvarade 99 gymnasieelever enkäten. Studien analyseras med ett socialkonstruktivistiskt perspektiv för att söka förstå bakomliggande aspekter av onlinespelandet genom att diskutera sociala grupperingar och kategoriseringar som sker genom social interaktion. Studiens resultat stämmer ur flera avseenden överens med tidigare forskning där det tydligt går att se att killar spelar mer än tjejer. Studien visar även ett samband mellan onlinespelande och skola på så sätt att individer engagerade i spel bland annat visar en tendens till minskat intresse för studier.

In terms of both production and consumption, video games and gaming are a significant phenomenon in Russia, a fact acknowledged by the authorities and mainstream media. Although internet use in Russia has been a point of academic interest over the past few years, scholars have been slower to research video games despite their increasingly popular position in the media ecology of the region. Similarly, despite the abundance of theory and data on gaming in North America and Europe, game studies researchers have hardly skimmed the surface of the cultures, preferences and activities of gamers further afield. This dissertation investigates the online gaming sphere in Russia, presenting an empirical study of the industry, providing insight into gamers themselves, and analysing the media and political discourses surrounding gaming in Russia. In this study, I draw upon survey data, forum, website, and blog posts, user comments from gaming forums and analyses of local games to construct a picture of gaming activity and identity amongst gamers. In particular, I show how Russian-speaking gamers present themselves as members of a distinct subcultural group. Online gamers who participated in this study are shown to consume and discuss games in ways that can differ from elsewhere in the world, but they still retain common beliefs about the importance of expertise, taste and self-discipline within the gaming community. They display a great deal of knowledge about the games and communities available to them locally, while also consuming foreign games in selective and critical ways. For the reader conversant with game studies work, the dissertation constitutes a challenge to West-centric theories of gaming and gamers and demonstrates the importance of cultural context in shaping gaming practice. Throughout the dissertation, interactions between global and local, media and subcultural definitions of ‘gamer’ are crucial to understanding how gaming plays out in a Russian context. The self-definition of gamers differs greatly from mainstream media concepts of gamers. I contextualise discourses of the gaming self within an analysis of how the Russian media presents gamers as young people in need of moral and emotional guidance. Moreover, I show how contemporary media assessments of games and gamers have much in common with earlier moral panics about Western-inflected media and subcultures, such as rock music and style. Ultimately the gaming landscape in Russia is shown to be full of tensions, and the task of this dissertation is to identify, assess and compare these disparate discourses.

This paper examines social aspects of computer and video gaming, includingplayers' perceptions of socialization surrounding gaming, its importance to theplayers, as well as factors that can lead to bad behavior online. In addition, adesign process based on the research results is showcased. The research issummarized and used as a basis for the design decisions. The purpose of thispaper is to contribute to the knowledge surrounding gaming and its impact onsocialization, with the goal of bettering our understanding of gaming in a social context. Through an analysis of existing literature together with empirical data collectedfrom users and other online platforms, this report aims to provide insights into thecauses and consequences of toxic behavior. The results indicate that severalfactors contribute to the occurrence of toxicity, e.g. anonymity, disinhibition,competition and other social dynamics in gaming environments. In addition, theconsequences of these negative interactions and how it affects players, such asmood and general experience, are examined. In addition, potential measures toreduce toxicity are discussed, along with the importance of promoting positivesocietal norms, implementing effective reporting and moderation systems, andpromoting empathy and inclusivity. Finally, a design proposal is presented thatrepresents an idea for an interface that facilitates the process of finding likeminded players, which previously has not displayed signs of toxicity. In conclusion, this report highlights the complex issue of toxic behavior in gaming. Delving into its causes and effects, this paper could provide valuableinsights for researchers and game developers to address and combat toxicity,ultimately fostering a more positive and inclusive climate around gaming. / Denna rapport undersöker sociala aspekter av dator- och TV-spelande, inklusivespelares uppfattning om socialisering kring spelandet, dess betydelse för spelarnaoch faktorer som kan leda till dåligt beteende online. Dessutom presenteras endesignprocess som baseras på forskningsresultaten. Forskningen sammanfattasoch används som grund för designbeslut. Syftet med rapporten är att bidra tillkunskapen om spelande och dess påverkan på socialisering, med målet att ökaförståelsen för spelande i en social kontext. Genom en analys av befintlig litteratur tillsammans med empiriska data somsamlats in från användare och andra plattformar online, ämnar denna rapport geinsikter i orsaker och konsekvenser av toxic behavior. Resultaten pekar på att flerafaktorer bidrar till att toxicitet uppstår, e.g. anonymitet, disinhibition, konkurrensoch andra sociala dynamiker i spelmiljöer. Utöver det undersöks konsekvensernaav dessa negativa interaktioner och hur det påverkar spelarna, som humör ochgenerell upplevelse. Dessutom presenteras potentiella åtgärder för att minskatoxicitet, samt diskuteras vikten av att främja positiva samhällsnormer,implementering av effektiva rapporterings- och modereringssystem, ochfrämjandet av empati och inkludering. Till sist presenteras ett gestaltningsförslagsom representerar en idé för ett gränssnitt som underlättar processen av att hittalikasinnade spelare som inte har uttryckt tecken på toxicitet. Sammanfattningsvis belyser denna rapport den komplexa frågan om toxicbehavior i spel. Genom att fördjupa sig i dess orsaker och effekter kan detta gevärdefulla insikter för forskare och spelutvecklare för att ta itu med och bekämpatoxicitet, för att i slutändan främja ett mer positivt och inkluderande klimat kringgaming.

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The purpose of this study is to research toxicity through how it was understood, experienced, and described by game enthusiasts. The toxicity described is further explored through theories of cultural and symbolic domination and through feminist game studies and the lens of masculinity theory. I have thus looked at the cultural fields of online gaming as social domains sometimes structured by hierarchies, where subjects may be positioned in relation to one another by virtue of norms, their identities, habitus, symbolic capital and through (more or less symbolic) violence.  The study is based on semi-structured interviews with six gaming enthusiasts who are about twenty to forty years old, five identifying as men and one identifying as a woman. Interpretation has been conducted through a thematic and discourse analytically inspired method, and through the theoretical framework primarily consisting of Bourdieu´s (developed) theoretical concepts of fields, capital, habitus and symbolic violence, combined with Iris Marion Young’s theory of cultural dominance and social constructionist theories on masculinity. The study shows how subjects may make sense of online gaming as a social arena often associated to online violence and discrimination, and how this can be further analysed from a gender studies perspective.

Gaming is still commonly assumed to be a male activity, making gender differences prevalent in many areas of gaming. This research focuses on investigating how gender assumptions affect teammates’ responses in regard to strategic calls in the competitive online multiplayer game League of Legends. In order to explore this topic, A/B testing is utilized through playing highly competitive “ranked” games, alternating the gender of the in-game character played, and making strategic calls and requests to the other players on the team. Our results indicate that the strategic calls made with the female presenting character had a slightly higher follow-rate as compared to the male character. The female character also received a friend request, which was not the case for the male character. These findings are then discussed in relation to the hegemonic masculinity theory and the gender performativity theory, as well as a comparison with previous research.

Multi-User Virtual Environments (MUVEs) and Massively Multi-player On- line Games (MMOGs) are a popular, immersive genre of computer game. For some disabled users, eye-gaze offers the only input modality with the potential for sufficiently high bandwidth to support the range of time-critical interaction tasks required to play. Although, there has been much research into gaze interaction techniques for computer interaction over the past twenty years, much of this has focused on 2D desktop application control. There has been some work that investigates the use of gaze interaction as an additional input device for gaming but very little on using gaze on its own. Further, configuration of these techniques usually requires expert knowledge often beyond the capabilities of a parent, carer or support worker. The work presented in this thesis addresses these issues by the investigation of novel gaze-only interaction techniques. These are to enable at least a beginner level of game play to take place together with a means of adapting the techniques to suit an individual. To achieve this, a collection of novel gaze based interaction techniques have been evaluated through empirical studies. These have been encompassed within an extensible software architecture that has been made available for free download. Further, a metric of reliability is developed that when used as a measure within a specially designed diagnostic test, allows the interaction technique to be adapted to suit an individual. Methods of selecting interaction techniques based upon game task are also explored and a novel methodology based on expert task analysis is developed to aid selection.

This dissertation is an exploration of the practice of social digital gaming, using a mixed methods approach with complementary data and analytical methods. The main themes are the prevalence and meaning of gamers’ experiences of social gaming and the underlying structures limiting or assisting social gaming, both material and social. Applying an everyday perspective, focus is on gamers’ day-to-day practices and experiences. Studies I and II enquire into relational aspects of social gaming based on interviews and survey data. Study III investigates the relationship between game design and gamer agency and its importance for social interaction with strangers, using in-game participant observation. Lastly in Study IV, building on interviews, female gamers come to the fore as their gender construction in an online game is examined with the aim of understanding the connection between online and offline. The main result concerns how social gaming takes place in various social relations. How gaming comes to be―what it means―is dependent on the relations between gamers, be they family members, real life friends, Internet friends or strangers. In these interactions, gender and sexual identity are realized; in the relations between gamers, physical proximate or online. Finally, virtuality is shown to be a social accomplishment of the people engaging in games rather than a property of the games themselves. Focus on the relational unveils how gaming comes to be in the process of interaction, a process at the same time dependent on underlying structures, i.e. games as designed platforms with certain affordances for social behaviour. We are able, thus, to reconcile the social constructivist position that (social) gaming is created in the relations between gamers engaging in games with the more formalist approach that games are rule based structures. Games create a foundation for interaction that can further develop into the creation/maintenance of relationships and identity. / <p>At the time of the doctoral defense, the following papers were unpublished and had a status as follows: Paper 1: Manuscript. Paper 2: Manuscript. Paper 3: Manuscript.</p>

Online services such as e-marketplaces, social networking sites, online gaming environments etc have grown in popularity in the recent years. These services represent situation where participants do not get to negotiate face to face before interaction and most of the time parties to transaction remain anonymous. It is thus necessary to have a system that rightly assesses trustworthiness of the other party in order to maintain quality assurance in such systems. Recent works on Trust and Reputation in online communities have focused on identifying probable defaulters, but less effort has been put to come up with system that make cooperation attractive over defection in order to achieve cooperation without enforcement. Our work in this regard concerns design and investigation of trust assessment systems that not only filter defaulters but also promote evolution of cooperativeness in player society. Based on the concept of game theory and prisoner's dilemma, we model business games and design incentive method, compensation method, acquaintance based assessment method and decision theoretic assessment method as mechanisms to assure trustworthiness in online business environments. Effectiveness of each of these methods in promoting the evolution of cooperation in player society has been investigated. Our results show that these methods contribute positively in promoting cooperative evolution. We have further extended our trust assessment model to suit the needs of a mobile ad-hoc network setting. The effectiveness of this model has been tested against its capability to reduce packet drop rate and energy conservation. In both of these the results show promise.