Computer Games

I walk into the room and the smell of burning wood hits me immediately. The warmth from the fireplace grows as I step nearer to it. The fire needs to heat the little cottage through night so I add a log to the fire. There are a few sparks and embers. I throw a bigger log onto the fire and it drops with a thud. Again, there are barely any sparks or embers. The heat and the smell stay the same. They don’t change and I do not become habituated to it. Rather, they are just a steady stream, so I take off my VR headset and give my recommendations to the team programming the gameified world of the virtual museum of the future (one depicting an ancient Turkish settlement, being built now at the institution where one of us works). As much as this technological world seems almost too futuristic, it actually retrieves obsolete items from the past—a heater, a piece of wood, and a spray bottle—in keeping with McLuhan’s (1973) insights regarding media that provide strong participation goals and t...

Gry komputerowe stanowią istotny obszar kultury nowych mediów. W ostatnim czasie prezentowane są badania skupiające się na pozytywnym wpływie gier komputerowych na rozwój poznawczy oraz osobowościowy. Zmienia się ponadto dominująca narracja badaczy, gry komputerowe nie są omawiane już głównie przez pryzmat uzależnień behawioralnych. Celem artykułu jest prezentacja wyników badań obejmujących wpływ gier komputerowych na funkcjonowanie psychospołeczne dzieci oraz dorosłych.

The main aim of this research was to investigate the effect of computer games on student' critical thinking disposition and educational achievement. The research method was descriptive, and its type was casual-comparative. The sample included 270 female high school students in Andimeshk town selected by multistage cluster method. Ricketts questionnaire was used to test critical thinking and the researcher made questionnaires were used to test computer games. T-test and one-way ANOVA were employed to analysis of the data. The findings of the study showed that playing computer games has no significant effect on critical thinking, however, there were a significant effect of playing computer games on students' educational achievement (P<0/05). Furthermore, the results showed that the type of computer game has no significant effect on students' disposition to critical thinking and their educational achievement.

Computer games became more popular among the children with the wide use of internet, and its popularity brought about some criticisms along with it. Among these criticisms are the issues and problems regarding sociality. In this research, the effects of computer games on the secondary school students' social life and their academic behaviors were examined. The survey forms, which were developed by the researcher, were conducted on the 444 secondary school students who participated in the research. The result of the research shows that the respondents most prefer the action, sports, and brain training games and least prefer role-playing, educational and platform games. Besides, the results suggest that the computer games do not have a significant impact on the students' social life and academic behaviors and have a medium-level effect on the social loneliness and parents' criticism. It was also found that requesting permission for playing computer games in the 'Inform...

A detailed analysis of computer games which are populated with vampire characters inspired by the hero of Bram Stoker’s Dracula is devoted to the issue of the player’s identification with main characters of such computer games: the positive hero and the vampire. The paper's thesis can be illustrated by relationships between a positive hero character and a vampire figure in a number of computer games. Being parallel to those in contemporary literature and vampire films, such relationships are claimed to form a dynamic process whose ultimate result is the recreated unification of the personality which has been split into elements of good and evil, in conformity with the gothic vision of the world. In the initial opposition of a man and a vampire, the former is assigned a role of a positive hero whose goal amounts to the eradication of all evil in the world, symbolized by the latter. It is the vampire’s distinct traits that show that he is subject to projection of undesirable elements of human psyche, such as those which generate fear and horror: strong, unclear, indeterminate, amorphous, destructible elements connected to power and humiliation. What complicates this binary system is the ‘humanization’ of the vampire, whereby he is ascribed typical manlike features. This move serves to individualize the vampire and, to some extent, explain his hostile actions, which helps understand his ways. In this way the vampire transforms into a human-like being, his dark alter ego. The next stage in the process of reintegrating a split personality is determined by the introduction of a motif, whose origin goes back to Stoker’s Dracula, of a vampire bite (or baptism with vampire blood as in the novel), which spreads vampirism like an infectious disease. In fact, the vicissitudes of the hero bitten by the vampire and his inner fight with an alien element of vampirism illustrate man’s struggle with the dark side of his own self. This motif, present in computer games, is a mirror image of yet another story of the hero’s struggle with alien and evil power inside his personality, well-known from vampire literature and films. Finally, the player-controlled hero and his opponent, the vampire, gradually melt into one vampiric being. However, as shown in the paper, the full identification of the player with a vampire is not possible in the world of a computer game – the vampiric hero is typically destined to encounter a vampire who is older, mightier and inevitably crueller than himself.

Desde su introducción, los juegos en linea no han ido bien con todo el mundo. Se refiere en particular a los grupos de edad adulta. Los padres suelen quejarse sobre cómo sus hijos se sienta pegada al ordenador y pantallas de televisión jugando juegos de video cuando deberían haberlo hecho correr y juega al aire libre o mejor leer un libro de cuentos.

VR은 오감을 사용해 타자의 시공간을 여기에 옮겨올 수 있다는 점에서 공감장치로 이해되고 있다. 하지만 공감이란 타자의 공간을 그저 생생하게 체험하는 데에서 완성되지 않는다. 공감의 해상도는 높은 것이 좋지만 결국에는 이를 통해 신체적 공동성을 형성하는 일 즉 이 가상의 세계와 연루된다는 감각 없이는 책임감을 끌어낼 수 없다. 이는 곧 도덕적 능력의 실패로 이어진다. 이에 공감의 해상도를 높이는 만큼 공감의 상상력 또한 요구된다.
컷과 프레임이 거의 필요없는 VR 연출의 중점은 그것에 동참하는 관객의 시선을 존재론적으로 질문하게 만들고, 동시에 윤리적으로 참여하게 만드는 데 향해 있어야 한다. 이 글은 VR이 공감장치가 되기 위한 조건을 검토하고 최종적으로 VR의 연출이 지향해야 할 바를 윤리적 측면에서 고찰하고자 한다.
VR is understood as a empathy machine in that it can transfer the time and space of the other person using the five senses. However, empathy is not complete in experiencing a vivid experience of the other's space. The resolution of empathy is good, but in the end, it can not bring about responsibility without the feeling of forming a physical communion, that is, being involved with this virtual world. This leads to failure of moral ability. Therefore, the imagination of empathy is required as the resolution of sympathy is increased.
The emphasis of VR directing, which requires little cuts and frames, should be directed at making the audience's eye on it question on the ontological basis, while at the same time making them ethically involved. This article examines the conditions for VR to become a sympathetic device and examines ethically what VR directing should ultimately be.

From the editors' introduction: "Ouellette examines both games studies and professional and technical communication, offering a critique through the lenses of gender studies and queer theory in 'Come Out Playing: Computer Games and the Discursive Practices of Gender, Sex, and Sexuality.' In examining play as part of the professional institution of computer games, Ouellette notes that the absence of GLBTQ subjectivities speaks to a weakness in both technical communication and games. Indeed, he writes succinctly: 'The exclusion, or relegation, of the very topic of gender, sex, and sexuality itself reveals much about the phenomenon' (p. 41). Thus, he sees an opportunity to play with identity and to see through the often nominalizing discourse surrounding technique and technology."

Mit diesem Titel liegt eine veröffentlichte Magisterarbeit vor, deren redaktioneller Beschreibungstext auf dem Buchrücken einen „Blick über den Tellerrand hinaus“ verspricht. Dieses Versprechen soll sich durch drei Leitaspekte einlösen, die den Einfluss von virtuellen Welten auf das menschliche Verhalten fokussieren, zweitens das Suchtpotenzial und die Isolation von der Außenwelt thematisieren und drittens die neuen sozialen Komponenten beleuchten, die durch die ‚Begehung’ virtueller Welten ermöglicht werden.

Ülkemizde her on yılda büyük bir sıçrama ile yükselen dijital oyun dünyası, sadece kodlamadan ve programlamadan ibaret değil. Bu bağlamda 90’lı yıllardan buyana başta Amerika ve Avrupa olmak üzere akademik bir çalışma alanı olarak ortaya çıkan Oyun Çalışmaları, ülkemizde de giderek gelişen ve birçok akademisyenin araştırma yaptığı bir başlık haline gelmiştir.
Kitap içerisinde yedi tanesi Türkiye, yedi tanesi de global odaklı toplamda 14 farklı bölüm bulunmaktadır. 18 yazarın katkıda bulunduğu bölümler arasında, Rol Yapma Oyunlarından, Kutu Oyunlarına, Çizgi Romandan, Sanal Gerçekliğe kadar uzanan, bir anlamda oyun kültürünü oluşturan ve oluşturmaya devam eden birbirinden farklı başlık sıralanmaktadır. Editörlüğünü Dr. Ertuğrul Süngü ve Doç. Dr. Barbaros Bostan hocaların üstlendiğin kitabın, kapak tasarımı da Murat Kalkavan tarafından yapıldı. Kitap Nobel Yayınevi tarafından basıldı.

Por meio da compreensão do ativismo de fãs como uma forma de resistência cotidiana cultural, econômica e criativa, o objetivo deste capítulo busca problematizar as relações entre participação, resistência e consumo de fãs do jogo on-line League of Legends (LoL). Enquanto suporte empírico, apresenta-se um mapeamento sobre algumas práticas do ativismo de fãs-jogadores no antigo fórum oficial de LoL no Brasil, a partir de uma triangulação metodológica com destaque para o uso de inspirações etnográficas. Após as reflexões teóricas e as análises, propõe-se uma tipologia das práticas de resistência cotidiana na comunidade de LoL baseada em quatro modos. Os resultados desta abordagem indicam que a diversidade do universo das produções digitais e práticas de parte dos fãs de LoL ressignificam as compreensões sobre resistência e participação, questionando a dualidade existente entre a cidadania e o consumo da cultura pop, agindo como catalizadores que reinterpretam e excedem os limites do fandom.

The article is about the self-agency relation of a player and perspectives of view in computer games. The ability of an action "on" the screen and inside the game world is that what makes the player to be both the consumer and creator. The Ability of operating on avatar, direct navigating in the virtual space and a controlling over camera are reshaping the perspective of the view which is known from visual narrative media. Technological extenses of the screen so as cameras, are looking at the player and scanning himself and the space around him by electronic sensors. It makes possible to complement visual contents with details from reality. However, the player thanks to prime mover given to him by mechanic and graphic interfaces, can react on the content in the real time and manipulate at the same time.

Each game can be defined in game theory as a mathematical object. In order to do that, every game must have four essential elements: players, actions, payoffs and information ("PAPI"). But all these elements are common in all games. What is that element that makes a game unique? Storytelling predates writing, and it was the only way at some point to tell a story and pass it on from generation to generation. Nowadays, we often see a new term called, gamification. What is gamification and what relation does it have with storytelling? Is storytelling an essential element to gamification? Gamification as a term is nothing more than taking game mechanics and applying them to something that already exists in order to motivate and make it more appealing. In this paper, we are going to discuss how storytelling affects gamification in general.

Bernard Perron, Professor für Film und Videospiele an der Universität Montreal, legt mit seinem neuesten Buch The World of Scary Video Games: A Study in Videoludic Horror einen äußerst umfangreichen Einblick in das Horror-Genre im digitalen Spiel vor und analysiert darüber hinaus  einige besonders populäre Exemplare. Das knapp 400 Seiten starke „compendium on videoludic horror“ (S.133) bezieht in Teilen auch frühere Werke Perrons mit ein (zum Beispiel Auszüge aus Ders.: Silent Hill: The Terror Engine. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press, 2012 oder Ders.: „Le survival horror: un genre vidéoludique idéal pour une étude genrée“ In: Lignon, Fanny [Hg.]: Genre et jeux vidéo. Toulouse: Presses universitaires du Mirail, 2015, S.95-117) und ist strukturell in drei große Kapitel mit jeweils mehreren Unterkapiteln untergliedert, die sich detailliert mit den Aspekten des interaktiven Horrors, speziell der Kategorie des Survival Horrors befassen.

In this paper, the concept of using agent behaviors in the 3D environment of Unity was investigated after an introduction to the first cases of Game AI Research in history. The Machine Learning Agents Toolkit was analyzed, and its structure with different use cases was explained. The limitations of using Unity Engine as a platform of Game AI Research and their effects on AI Agents Decision Making Ability were discussed. Finally, possible solutions to overcome these limitations were evaluated. It was concluded that Unity was a solid Platform for Game AI Research and its drawbacks could be nullified by specified methods.

Abstract: This article discusses the processes involved in the construction of group membership and cohesion in a semiprofessional team of esports in the city of Belém, the capital of the state of Pará, in the Brazilian Amazonian territory. This effort discusses what characterizes the progression and union of a particular team in a local competitive scenario in which ephemeral teams predominate. Based on an eleven-month ethnography with a set of players engaged in professional competitive practice, and through observations from field research, we compiled a set of 12 essential characteristics filled out by the team. Also, this study points to the development of an ethos of professionalism in a peripheral context, indicating the existence of an Amazonian esports scenario – in the North Region of the Brazil, with emphasis in Belém, Pará. The results indicate the subsistence of a social fabric composed of a variety of other elements that, in turn, constitute an ethos of group camaraderie that plays a central role in the competitive dynamics that underlie the team as a group.

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Luck (2009) argues that gamers face a dilemma when it comes to performing certain virtual acts. Most gamers regularly commit acts of virtual murder, and take these acts to be morally permissible. They are permissible because unlike real murder, no one is harmed in performing them; their only victims are computer-controlled characters, and such characters are not moral patients. What Luck points out is that this justification equally applies to virtual pedophelia, but gamers intuitively think that such acts are not morally permissible. The result is a dilemma: either gamers must reject the intuition that virtual pedophelic acts are impermissible and so accept partaking in such acts, or they must reject the intuition that virtual murder acts are permissible, and so abstain from many (if not most) extant games. While the prevailing solution to this dilemma has been to try and find a morally relevant feature to distinguish the two cases, I argue that a different route should be pursued. It is neither the case that all acts of virtual murder are morally permissible, nor are all acts of virtual pedophelia impermissible. Our intuitions falter and produce this dilemma because they are not sensitive to the different contexts in which games present virtual acts.

5 The researchers made use of descriptive research method involving 100 High School, grade school, out of school youth and college undergraduate as respondents. Results showed that majority of the respondents are aged 13 – 15, female, High School students, weekly and once a day frequency of use of social networking sites in 1 – 3 hours at home, with weekly allowance of 400 – 599/199 – 100 and below laptop as the most gadgets used and Facebook as the mostly used social networking sites. They agreed that most of them felt connected to school and community, felt more relieved when talking with friends, experiencing lack of sleep, being a moody person and most of them became more indulged to computer games.

This article presents the category of emersion in videogames. The author of this article understands emersion as an experience of such elements of a game that weaken the impression of non-mediated participation in events presented in the game (some researchers call this impression "immersion"). Emersive elements of the game reveal the mediated character of the action the player takes part in. Emersion may have varied status: it may be incidental (e.g. when it is a result of an unforeseen glitch), repeatable (e.g. as a result of a mechanism typical for a specific genre) or designed.
The last case seems to be the most interesting one, because designed emerisve elements may provide meaningful or artistic results. Designed emersive factors bring new possibilities of creation, which are not achievable through the non-digital and non-interactive forms of expression.

This book is about the three identities of the videogame, the gamer, and Game Studies. I write that there are no definitive truths but rather discourses and constructions; ideas, actions, beliefs, and practices related to videogames are discourses that merge and shape our perception of videogames as an area of study of its own right. These discursive responses meet and clash creating what we call truths, which are temporary and negotiable.

This perspective is inspired by Foucauldian ideas and present few questions about videogame-related identities in and outside of academe. Does Game Studies have a conceptual core? What makes game studies difficult to be disciplined in academe? What do we learn from the scholarly and popular discourses on videogames that would help understand the identity questions related to games?

I go on to describe what makes the videogame identity according to game studies: aesthetics, fictions, meaning-making, performance, transformation, etc. and what makes it difficult for game studies being an open market of ideas and an academic "un-discipline". This leads me to the gamer's identity: an aficionado first, and a connoisseur of fictional worlds.

Аннотация: Использование компьютерных игр при изучении математики в начальной является эффективным методом повышения рост личностной мотивации к занятиям математикой повышенной сложности, ускоряет интеллектуальное развитие, и расширяет математического кругозора младших школьников. Оно развивает умений человека 21 века и овладение компьютерной грамотности и имеет большой воспитательный эффект в плане воздействия на эмоционально волевой потенциал ученика.      Ключевые слова: Математика, повышенная сложность, компьютерные игры, начальная школа, умения 21 века.

THE USE OF COMPUTER GAMES AT THE WORK OF MATHEMATICS OF INCREASED COMPLEXITY IN THE ELEMENTARY SCHOOL FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE MATHEMATICAL THINKING OF YOUNG SCHOOLCHILDREN
The use of computer games for studying mathematics in elementary school is an effective method of increasing the personal motivation to engage in the mathematics of increased complexity, accelerating intellectual development and expending the mathematical outlook of younger schoolchildren. It develops the skills of the 21st century, computer literacy and has a great educational effect on the emotionally potential of the student's personality.
Keywords: Mathematics, increased complexity, computer games, elementary school, 21st-century skills.

Computer games are bright example of the evolution of digital media and modern audiovisual technologies. Extremely popular now, computer games have come a long way from the primitive arcade games to full virtual worlds like "Fallout 3" with millions details and moral dilemmas. This paper devoted to the research of ethical issues of modern computer games. In terms of methodology, we can identify two main problematic aspects in the study of the ethical dimension of computer games: external and internal. First, the external aspect include the problem of computer game addiction. It traditionally marked negatively both in secular ethical systems (game addiction as a form of drug addiction), and in religious ethics (computer games distract from the spiritual life). Second, the problem of the influence of game violence on human behavior in society (direct connection between game violence and asocial actions is not proven). The inner aspect of ethical research methodologically more linked with the phenomenology of computer games. Here, in the view of heterogeneity and genre differentiation of computer games ethical issues are considered within the virtual worlds of computer games. In simple arcade and action genres (shooters, slashers, fightings) there are no complicated ethical dilemmas, because the main task of the player is to perform a specific mission. The more complicated role-playing games involve not only the creation of the "character" and his internal and external development, but also exploration of the virtual world, where the player constantly faced a variety of ambiguous situations that suggests moral choices. Despite the widespread representation of the elements of religious ethics (such as Christian charity) in role-playing games prevail ethical systems of pseudo-pagan cults ("Cults of Tamriel" in the "The Elder Scrolls") or even anti-Christian motives ("Diablo" , "Dungeon Keeper"). The historical strategies represent specific historical elements of religious ethics (jihad or auto de fe). The real-time or turn-based strategies use the concept of morality as a fixed level of combat readiness of virtual forces. If the majority of simulators are ethically neutral (as their opposite, arcade games), the economic simulators actualize moral dilemmas and concept of responsibility in making of decisions ("SimCity ).

Digital games as transmedia works of art – Games as social environments – The aesthetics of play – Digital games in pedagogy – Cineludic aesthetics– Ethics in games – these were some of the important and fascinating topics addressed during the international research conference "Clash of Realities" in 2015 and 2016 by more than a hundred international speakers, academics as well as artists. This volume represents the best contributions – by, inter alia, Janet H. Murray, David OReilly, Eric Zimmerman, Thomas Elsaesser, Lorenz Engell, Susana Tosca, Miguel Sicart, Frans Mäyrä, and Mark J.P. Wolf.

This paper concerns with the emotions of a single-player computer game’s player. It identifies a challenge for games research trying to account for player’s experience from the detached and objective ‘scientific’ point-of-view. The paper suggests that  by looking at gameplay from the player’s  perspective, we can describe defining  characteristics, based on which inter-subjectively plausible assumptions about  player’s emotions could be made. In this paper one such characteristic is identified  as  the  gameplay  condition,  which  is  further  elaborated  in  relation  to  goals  in  singleplayer games.

In this article I am considering the situation of interactivity and interactive film in the institutional context of the cinema that is outlined by the rules of cinematographic industry. I draw attention to the fact that despite the ongoing digitalization in all cinematographic areas: production, distribution, presentation, and reception, interactivity is seen as a non-film feature and, as a consequence, it is marginalized. Cinematography opens up to any digital technological innovations that do not violate a standard model of film experience. Interactivity is seen here as a feature of games and not of films. An interactive film that is thrown to the periphery of institutionalized cinema, becomes a phenomenon of audiovisual avant-garde that is a common part of both cinema and art.

This article explores the significance of computer games in shaping imaginations of the past. Focusing on Hearts of Iron IV,  I consider how the format can encourage revision of the Nazi past, going against the grain of efforts towards critical Vergangenheitsbewältigung, or working through the past. The article explores how gamers can take up positions perpetuating the myth of a clean Wehrmacht while perpetuating narratives of a barbarian Eastern Europe where the USSR poses the greatest threat to humanity. I show how reconstructions of historical narratives in digital spaces deserve more critical interrogation as a medium for the production of counterfactual history, especially given how popular and successful they are as depictions of the past, albeit a counterfactual one that draws on players’ affective urges and distorts historical reality.

Video games are temporal artifacts: They change with time as players interact with them in accordance with rules. In this study, Federico Alvarez Igarzábal investigates the formal aspects of video games that determine how these changes are produced and sequenced. Theories of time perception drawn from the cognitive sciences lay the groundwork for an in-depth analysis of these features, making for a comprehensive account of time in this novel medium. This book-length study dedicated to time perception and video games is an indispensable resource for game scholars and game developers alike. Its reader-friendly style makes it readily accessible to the interested layperson.

Building on phenomenological insights on the constitution of experienced significance within computer game play, derived from the author's earlier research on Tetris variations with explicit content, this paper presents a comparative close-playing analysis of a number of casual games about climate change. In this analysis, differences emerge between the means by which the games make their contents appear as significant to the players. These differences may have implications to the design of serious games: aligning the actual gameplay and the intended message can assist in safeguarding against players' transgressive interpretations.

Agency in relation to digital games is a feeling of empowerment that a player gets when he or she understands the world in which they are playing and as such can influence the way the game evolutions. In this study I will support my definition of what agency is in relation to digital games by looking at the work of theorists such as Janet Murray, Justin Parsler, Wardrip & Fruin,  Tanya Krzywinska among others. I will also look at writing by games designers such as Doug Church and Jeff Welsh. I will discuss agency by using examples from games such as World of Warcraft, Tell Tale games series and

This thesis aims to show the impact of the e-Sports phenomenon in the Philippines
starting from the years 2000-2015. The e-Sports phenomenon in the Philippines started in the
2000s, brought in by influx of Korean immigrants who had a thriving e-Sports culture of their
own back home in Korea. This thesis is supported by the theory of cultural diffusion by way of
relocation. The e-Sports phenomenon in the Philippines has brought about the creation of
corporations like Mineski, The Net Com (TnC), etc.; created leagues such as the Mineski ProGaming
League (MPGL), etc.; and has sent representative players to travel to countries like
Germany, South Korea, Singapore, etc. Though it has been 15 years, the e-Sports scene in the
Philippines is still largely underdeveloped and is still struggling for their big break into Philippine
mainstream media. This thesis will employ the descriptive-analytic method in understanding the
study. The significance of this paper is to raise awareness regarding the e-Sports phenomenon
and its impact and relevance to contemporary Philippine culture, and also aims to show the
contributions and achievements of the Philippine e-Sports industry.