tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56647198710657177632024-03-13T01:02:21.213+00:00Digital games and learningJo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.comBlogger68125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-20044447461957309202015-10-26T10:36:00.000+00:002015-10-26T10:36:23.509+00:00CHIPLAY 2015: London, UK<div style="text-align: justify;">
At the beginning of the month CHI Play took place in London, and I think I've just about recovered :-) The papers should be accessible to the public for a whole year from <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793107">here</a> so make sure to check them out. <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/a-cox">Anna Cox </a>and <a href="https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~pcairns/">Paul Cairns</a> chaired
the conference, while I served as local arrangements chair - while there were probably a few challenging moments along the way, it was all worth it in the end. I also learnt an awful lot and promise to never
take conference organisation for granted again!</div>
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The conference kicked off the workshops on Sunday, where I helped run "<a href="http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/research/downloadandcount.php?PPnum=PP327">The false dichotomy between positive and negative affect in gameplay</a>", co-organised with <a href="http://hci.usask.ca/people/view.php?id=236">Max Birk</a>, <a href="http://hci.usask.ca/people/view.php?id=1">Regan Mandryk</a> and <a href="http://gridlab.bamdone.com/people/">Dan Johnson</a>. The workshop came out a discussion we had earlier in the year at <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.co.uk/2015/05/chi-2015-seoul-south-korea.html">CHI2015</a> about the lack of nuance around the concept of negative affect within gameplay experiences. We had a great mix of participants and some intense discussions about why we engage in gameplay we don't always enjoy and how the gameplay experience is often about a mix of emotion - whether this results from engaging in darker themes and/or overcoming failure and frustration. And we got through an awful lot of post-its (below) :-) We're hoping to continue developing ideas around this theme but in the meantime you can find the submissions to the workshop <a href="https://falsedichotomy2015.wordpress.com/accepted-abstracts/">here</a> - thanks to <a href="http://www.mmi-basel.ch/en/team/team/steinemann">Sharon Steinemann</a>, <a href="https://about.me/fraserallison">Elisa Mekler</a>, <a href="http://www.ofai.at/~stefan.rank/">Stefan Rank</a>, <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/174825">Carina Westling</a> and <a href="https://about.me/fraserallison">Fraser Allison</a> for their thoughtful contributions! </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kCisoPo5uWo/VikUrx7wq1I/AAAAAAAAAuA/i3KBdWspGxs/s1600/IMG_20151004_170311571_HDR.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-kCisoPo5uWo/VikUrx7wq1I/AAAAAAAAAuA/i3KBdWspGxs/s320/IMG_20151004_170311571_HDR.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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At the main conference, in the pretty impressive venue <a href="http://www.thelightateuston.org.uk/">"The Light at Euston</a>", I presented our paper <a class="reftitle" href="http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/research/downloadandcount.php?PPnum=PP327">Removing the HUD: The impact of non-diegetic game elements and expertise on player involvement</a> (Iacovides, I., Cox, A., Kennedy, R., Cairns, P., and Jennett, C.). There has been some previous work on looking at game interfaces and diegesis but not a lot of empirical work examining exactly how different types of elements actually influence the player experience. If you're not sure about the distinction between diegetic/non-diegetic check out this very helpful <a href="https://youtu.be/juVb1SDHWrk">video </a>:-) Our findings suggest that the removal of non-diegetic elements, such as
the heads-up display (which usually isn't part of the game world), was able to influence immersion in expert players
through increasing their cognitive involvement i.e. attention and sense of control.We only looked a single-player FPS game though so there is lots of scope to extend work in this area to look at particular types of non-diegetic/diegetic game elements and how they influence involvement across a whole whole range of contexts.</div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u-TXo-Ah6PE/ViZ5vI85GhI/AAAAAAAAAtg/5OSTn3GJC4c/s1600/CQi7mLFWcAAJ_-T.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-u-TXo-Ah6PE/ViZ5vI85GhI/AAAAAAAAAtg/5OSTn3GJC4c/s320/CQi7mLFWcAAJ_-T.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(photo from @elisamekler)</span></div>
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The session I was in at the start of the conference had really interesting talks from Dan about how different types of <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793118&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">social play relate to wellbeing</a>, Max on how <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793111&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">self-esteem relates to gameplay experiences</a>, while Alena Denisova presented work which found that the <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793109&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">placebo effect also applies to games</a> - if you tell people that the game they are playing has adaptive AI (even though it doesn't), they find the game more immersive as a result... There were so many great talks over the course of the conference, some of the others I particularly enjoyed included <a href="http://www.iggi.org.uk/ourstudents/tom-cole/">Tom Cole</a> making a distinction between <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793147&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">functional and emotional challenge</a> in games, <a href="https://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~zendle/">David Zendle</a> presenting research which suggested - despite media concerns - that <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793113&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">higher graphical fidelity actually decreases players access to aggressive concepts</a> while amore abstract version of the same game increased access; <a href="http://staff.qut.edu.au/staff/wyethp/">Peta Wyeth</a> discussing <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793142&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">flow during individual and cooperative gameplay</a> (when playing the very cute Droppit - see below); <a href="https://projects.groept.be/~emedia/?page_id=239">Vero Vanden Abeele</a> reminding us that <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793132&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">not all games are equal</a> and quality matters in game-based assessment; <a href="http://hci.usask.ca/people/view.php?id=276">Jason Bowey</a> talk about the ways in which <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793138&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">leaderboards can be manipulated to influence the player experience</a> (positively and negatively); <a href="http://hci.usask.ca/people/view.php?id=200">Mike Sheinin</a> discussabout fatigue and skill development in the rather fun <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793129&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">small based exertion game Jelly Pollo</a>; while I think <a href="https://urv.academia.edu/AlexandraSamperMart%C3%ADnez">Alexandra Samper-Martinez</a> and colleagues at the University of Lincoln have carried out the <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793140&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">longest social network game ethnography</a> (3 years) that I'm aware of! I was also impressed by <a href="http://www.sesp.northwestern.edu/profile/?p=18394&/PryceDavis/">Pryce Davis</a> who was presenting a paper he wasn't actually an author on because his colleagues couldn't make it - the research led to some interesting insights on games that teach programming to young students and employing <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793127">gender oriented cultural forms</a>. </div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FM-u9w5sIuA/Vike741SJbI/AAAAAAAAAuk/9NS1YCEpH6Y/s1600/Droppit.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="179" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FM-u9w5sIuA/Vike741SJbI/AAAAAAAAAuk/9NS1YCEpH6Y/s320/Droppit.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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In addition, I was intrigued by the work Fraser presented on how players respond to <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793144&CFID=723508179&CFTOKEN=23072458">different types of voice interaction</a> - the fact that some uses of voice command in games are more diegetic e.g. shouting "charge!" when playing Ryse: Son of Rome and others less so e.g. shouting "show map" at the screen in Tomb Raider, may be one way to explain why players preferred some forms of voice interaction over others. Admittedly this doesn't apply to all the examples mentioned e.g. Fifa14, but there could be scope here to think more about what roles players take on - and perhaps jump between - in each of these games in relation to how they interpret the commands they are giving. </div>
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Another particular highlight for me was Sharon's talk on <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2793107.2793125&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">increasing donating behaviour through a game for change</a>.The work focused on <a href="http://www.darfurisdying.com/">Darfur is Dying</a> and looked at how presentation mode (text, text with pictures, game) and level of interactivity (no-interaction e.g. reading or recording, interaction e.g. text with choices, gameplay) influenced donating behaviour. They found that while there were no differences for presentation mode, the interactive gameplay version was most likely to increase donations. I liked this work partly because it provides evidence that can games for change can make a difference compared to other media but also because the authors found that appreciation (rather than enjoyment) mediated donation behaviour. So while participants did enjoy the interactive conditions more, the increased donations were due to how thought-provoking or meaningful they found they experience. This seems to build on a growing area of serious experience in games, something which we contributed to <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12134045/Moving_Beyond_Fun_Evaluating_Serious_Experience_in_Digital_Games">earlier in the year</a>. It's a direction I'm keen to explore more so I'll be making sure to look at the scales they used and keep an eye out for future work!</div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8my7hSnXCVs/Vikw7P7QWPI/AAAAAAAAAvI/KUlKygiJSEA/s1600/Voxbox.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="223" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-8my7hSnXCVs/Vikw7P7QWPI/AAAAAAAAAvI/KUlKygiJSEA/s320/Voxbox.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;">(photo from @MattWood)</span></div>
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In addition, we had a great mix of excellent keynote speakers who covered a range of topics. The conference started with <a href="https://twitter.com/markbarlet?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author">Mark Barlet</a> from <a href="http://www.ablegamers.com/">AbleGamers</a> who provided lots of insight into the experiences of disablied gamers and how games can help improve quality of life. He also pointed a the <a href="http://www.includification.com/">Includification </a>site as a useful resource for game designers. On the second day, <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/y_rogers">Yvonne Rogers</a> from <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/">UCLIC</a> gave a great overview of the work she has been involved in which adopts a playful approach, often involving physical computing systems such as the <a href="http://voxboxproject.com/?page_id=9">VoxBox</a> questionnaire system (above), to engage people and communities in different ways. <a href="https://twitter.com/Doctoe?ref_src=twsrc^google|twcamp^serp|twgr^author">Jo Twist</a> from <a href="http://ukie.org.uk/">Ukie </a>then ended the conference with an overview of the state of the UK games industry - it's great to know someone who is as passionate as she is about games is a champion for the industry. Speaking of which, we also had some really good industry talks and I particularly appreciated how <a href="https://twitter.com/hastark">Heather Stark</a> from <a href="http://kinran.com/wordpress/">Kinran</a> who not only engaged with the conference throughout by asking thoughtful questions but in her presentation reflected on the relationship between academia and industry, as well on the <a href="http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/english/liminal">liminal</a> zone between experience design and product management. <br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1plt7kMlAOE/VikoEArWxrI/AAAAAAAAAu4/ko0U8RAyDZY/s1600/Mario.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-1plt7kMlAOE/VikoEArWxrI/AAAAAAAAAu4/ko0U8RAyDZY/s320/Mario.jpg" width="238" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> (photo from @Spotless)</span></div>
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On top of all that, it wouldn't have been right if we didn't have some actual games to play at the conference and this year we were spoilt for choice! At the Light, one of our sponsors, <a href="http://www.spotless.co.uk/">Spotless </a>ran a game competition where people needed to achieve the highest score in the Super MarioWorld on an old school NES (above) for different prizes, while Microsoft set up a comfortable play area for attendees to play a range of Xbox One titles during the breaks. We also had further games as part of the Come out and play track, including <a href="http://globalgamejam.org/2015/games/sacred-harvest">Sacred Harvest</a>, where you use the Playstation Move controller to appease the gods in various rituals, and Taphobos, which is described as "<a href="http://taphobos.com/">an immersive coffin experience</a>" i.e. it's a two player games that involves one of you putting on an Occulus Rift and getting in an actual coffin...<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"><span class="username js-action-profile-name" data-aria-label-part="">(photo from @pingualoty)</span><a class="tweet-timestamp js-permalink js-nav js-tooltip" data-original-title="9:37 AM - 5 Oct 2015" href="https://twitter.com/pingualoty/status/651073710024204288"><span class="_timestamp js-short-timestamp " data-aria-label-part="last" data-long-form="true" data-time-ms="1444063043000" data-time="1444063043"></span></a></span>
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There was also the evening reception at <a href="http://www.senatehouseevents.co.uk/">Senate House</a> (above), which hosted both the work-in-progress posters and the student game design competition entries. <a href="https://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/c-jennett">Charlene</a> and I managed to get around most of the games, which were just as impressive as <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.co.uk/2014/11/chi-play-2014-toronto.html">last year</a> :-) <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810265&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">CHI Plague</a> ran throughout the conference where, through QR code scans, teams of "earthlings" and "aliens" competed to protect their ranks by forming social connections at the conference. Some of the other entries I particularly enjoyed were <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810272&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">Matsya</a> (a simple yet beautiful game inspired by the Hindu Flood Myth) who won runner-up, <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810266&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">Alaska Steve</a> (where you use the Occulus Rift to look ahead and neutralise obstacles in the environment before the main character gets to them) and <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810270&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">Talk about Sex</a> (a multiplayer mobile phone game that encourages young people - and quite a few academics! - to engage in discussions around sex and intimacy). The very entertaining <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810274&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">Beam Me 'Round Scottie</a> won first place, as well as the people's choice award (below) - it's a two player game where one of you controls the main character, a captain on a Star Trek style away mission and the second is the engineer helps you out by supporting you (e.g. providing a shield wall to protect from attacks). In terms of the posters, I wish I'd had more time to go round and see more of them but I did have particularly good discussion with <a href="http://www.en.mcls.lmu.de/study_programs/reason/people/phd-students/diaz/index.html">Carlos Mauricio CastaƱo Diaz</a> about his work on how <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2810313&CFID=555003812&CFTOKEN=84523831">hypothetico-deductive reasoning skills develops in MOBAs</a>. I think there are some potential parallels here with previous studies we've done on <a href="https://www.academia.edu/9468980/Player_strategies_achieving_breakthroughs_and_progressing_in_single-player_and_cooperative_games">player strategies</a>, while in general it's great to see more research that looks at how people learn through play. </div>
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All in all, the conference and the reception were a lot of fun and it was great to find out about so much interesting work that is going on in the area. Thanks to Anna, Paul and all the <a href="http://chiplay.org/organizers/">organisers</a> for making it a fantastic conference - I'm already looking forward to CHIPLAY 2016 in Austin next year :-)</div>
<br />Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-81764882841735986512015-05-06T13:03:00.000+01:002015-05-06T14:07:21.608+01:00CHI 2015: Seoul, South KoreaLast week I was in Seoul for CHI 2015, where overall UCLIC had a <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/uclic-news-publication/CHI2015">really good year</a> and some great talks. With respect to my own work, I presented my paper with <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/a-cox">Anna Cox</a> on "<a href="https://www.academia.edu/12134045/Moving_Beyond_Fun_Evaluating_Serious_Experience_in_Digital_Games">Moving Beyond Fun: Evaluating Serious Experience in Digital Games</a>" on how we evaluated the games that were entered into our <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/ucl-student-game-design-competition.html">persuasive game design competition for students</a>. Not much work has been done around this sort of thing, so we developed a method that involved expert judging, play-testing with interviews and post-play emails to establish which of the entries was most likely to lead to reflection on <a href="http://www.errordiary.org/?page_id=7339">human error</a> and <a href="http://www.errordiary.org/?page_id=7392">blame culture</a> within the context of healthcare. In the paper we argue that our methods<span lang="EN-US"> allowed for a
consideration of domain relevance and potential to lead to reflection (expert
judging), gameplay experience and engagement with competition themes
(play-testing and interviews) and longer term resonance (follow-up emails).</span> While you can find the games entered into the competition <a href="http://www.errordiary.org/?page_id=7135">here</a>, the winner, <a href="http://www.errordiary.org/blog/wp-content/uploads/chimed-games/nurses-dilemma/index.html">Nurse's Dilemma</a> serves as a great example of how a one-off uncomfortable gaming experience can lead to reflection on previously taken for granted assumptions about responsibility and blame within healthcare. <br />
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I also went to the workshop on <a href="http://hcid.snu.ac.kr/chi15players/">diverse perspectives on players</a> which was a great opportunity to talk about player research, methods in the area (including <a href="https://www.academia.edu/12134004/Case_Studies_Understanding_Players_and_the_Contexts_in_which_they_Play">case studies</a>), and challenges the area is facing, such as ecological validity, conceptions of gameplay, plus the need to operationalise key terms and to agree on definitions! We ended up drawing a road map of our discussions - see pic below, where we really did end up with karaoke :-)<br />
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There were quite a few games sessions at CHI, though I was a little annoyed that one of them clashed with the session I was in, plus I missed the alt.chi talk on <a href="http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/16887/1/alt159-linehan.pdf">Games Against Health</a> but I guess that just means there is more to add to my reading list! I'm also going to have to add the work-in-progress paper <a class="gsc_title_link" data-clk="hl=en&sa=T&ei=_IRIVeDhLcz-rAH0sIDYCw" href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2732852">It Was Sad But Still Good: Gratifications of Emotionally Moving Game Experiences</a> by Julia Ayumi Bopp and colleagues as it sounds intriguing. Of the talks I did go to, there was a lot of interesting work presented including Alena Denisova on <a href="http://www-users.cs.york.ac.uk/~pcairns/papers/Denisova_CHI2015.pdf">1st vs. 3rd person perspectives and immersion</a>, <span class="ng-binding">Rodrigo Vicencio-Moreira</span> on <a href="http://brodrigo.net/Documents/aimassist2015-CameraReady-final.pdf">techniques for player balancing in FPS games</a>, Daniel Johnson and Lennart Nacke on <a href="http://eprints.qut.edu.au/82070/7/82070.pdf">characteristics of MOBA gameplay</a>, Peta Wyeth on differences between <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702468">playing cooperative games with avatars (people) and agents (AI characters)</a> and Sauvik Das on comparing <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CB4QFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.cc.gatech.edu%2F~riedl%2Fpubs%2Fchi15.pdf&ei=B6RIVYT7McPpaKOfgeAG&usg=AFQjCNHF6ZrmOV3xCzaQFvzvTd2c7v0gZQ&sig2=K5G0ochGfJXUl_fBW326Ig&bvm=bv.92291466,d.d2s">linear and open world game structures</a>. <br />
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I particularly enjoyed Melodie Vidal's talk about <a href="http://perceptual.mpi-inf.mpg.de/files/2015/01/Vidal_CHI15.pdf">The Royal Corgi</a>, a game that uses eye tracking as a mechanic (see video below). Basically, you play a character in medieval England who wants to gain favour in the royal court by becoming a trainer to the King's corgi and you have to convince other characters in the game that you are worthy of the job - and where you look will matter as some want you to look them in the eye (but not at their wife) and others expect deference and a lowered gaze... The idea seemed quite novel, where eye tracking was able offer an additional channel of communication and I was particularly interested in some of the strong reactions the game provoked.<br />
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Chris Preist also gave a really good talk on using <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702123.2702282&coll=DL&dl=ACM&CFID=671749003&CFTOKEN=72889516">gameplay as an extrinsic motivator for learning</a>, in this case as a way to encourage teenagers to revise for their Mathematics GCSE exams. They adopted an approach based on free-to-play games in a game that was like Clash of Clans where instead of having to make micro-payments to get resources and speed up the game, the students had to take a revision test. The students were allowed to play the game when they liked over three weeks and the findings indicated that those in the game condition improved significantly more those in the quiz only and control conditions - plus, the game condition students spent more time on the revision quiz than the quiz only group. Further, the qualitative data suggested it was at the expense of their normal gaming time. While there are some potential issues to consider - it could be argued that revision is not the same as having to learn new content, and it's not clear whether an intrinsic game could lead to larger learning gains or whether this approach would sustain revision over longer periods of time (see below) - but all in all it came across as a relatively simple way to get students to do more revision, which, in the authors words, is already "associated with the extrinsic motivation of passing an exam"!<br />
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With respect to the rest of the conference, the game competition has got me thinking a lot more about reflection so I made sure to go along to other talks that I thought might be relevant. Some of the highlights include Geraldine Fitzpatrick considering <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702284">reflection in relation to food waste</a> and highlighting the emotional dimension of the process (something which I'm not sure if always discussed), Eric Baumer introducing <a href="http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CCMQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fericbaumer.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2015%2F01%2FCHI2015-ReflectiveInformatics-05-camera.pdf&ei=7wBKVYusGoz_gwT5g4GYBg&usg=AFQjCNFtWIIEhkxuFcnGkJMUuEyFTz1DSQ&sig2=SPHhCE99SOzoJ2F3mkez4A&bvm=bv.92291466,d.eXY">conceptual dimension of reflective informatics</a> (relating to breakdown, inquiry, and transformation), and Jeffrey Bardzell highlighting how <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2702123.2702400&coll=DL&dl=GUIDE&CFID=509455035&CFTOKEN=49244401">research through design</a> can contribute to knowledge (through invoking experiences rather than representing reality). I'm getting quite intrigued by critical design but I do feel like I haven't quite got my head around it yet, so while I missed the talk, so I've put Pierce et al's paper on <span class="full_schedule_submission_h4"><span class="ng-binding" id="pn1641"><a href="http://thomasjenkins.net/papers/chi15_designandcriticality.pdf">Expanding and Refining Design and Criticality</a> in HCI on my reading list as well. </span></span><br />
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<span class="full_schedule_submission_h4"><span class="ng-binding" id="pn1641">I also enjoyed Ben Kirman and Shaun Lawson's talk that presented the <a href="http://eprints.lincoln.ac.uk/16774/1/Quantified%20Dog%20-%20Camera%20Ready%20FINAL.pdf">quantification of pets</a> as a case study that, through speculative design fiction, was essentially a critique of the quantified tracking movement. Besides getting a man in a dog suit to walk on stage, they presented a number of speculative design fictions, such as a dog collar that can tell you whether your dog is happy or sad and a way to track cat movements in gardens through their microchips (see <a href="http://www.thequantifiedpet.com/emotidog/index.html">quantifiedpet.com</a> for more details!), which they presented to focus groups consisting of pet owners an animal behaviour experts. While the owners mostly really liked the ideas behind the designs as they wanted to understand their pets more, the experts raised important concerns about the scientific basis of these technologies and how they might actually undermine the bond between animals and humans - particularly since that bond at least partially relies on human beings being able to interpret complex animal behaviour. So there was lots of food for thought here in relation to both trying to quantify pretty much everything but also in terms of using design fictions within research. </span></span><br />
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To close the conference we had <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gangnam_Style">Psy</a> as the final keynote speaker but while he gave a rather humble, honest and engaging talk about the explosion of Gangnam Style, and the conference centre was in the Gangnam district, I'm not entirely sure it had much to do with HCI... In general though CHI gave me lots to think about (and to read up
on!) and Seoul was a great city to visit - I'm glad I made sure I had a
little extra time to explore :-)<br />
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<span style="font-size: x-small;"> View from the National Museum of Korea</span></div>
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Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-77596813479386011782015-01-12T10:29:00.001+00:002015-01-12T10:29:38.173+00:00PhD Journal ArticlesI'm pleased to announce I now have two more papers published on my PhD research. The first article, "<a href="https://www.academia.edu/10122184/Game-play_breakdowns_and_breakthroughs_Exploring_the_relationship_between_action_understanding_and_involvement">Game-Play Breakdowns and Breakthroughs: Exploring the Relationship Between Action, Understanding and Involvement</a>" is in <a href="http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07370024.2014.987347">Human Computer Interaction</a> and focuses on the case studies I carried out how they resulted in a theory of the relationship between learning and involvement within the context of games. The theory is represented as a set of 14 claims
that relate to: <i>micro and macro involvement; breakdowns and breakthroughs in action, understanding and involvement; progress</i>; and <i>agency, meaning and compelling game-play</i>. In particular, the paper emphasises the ways in which players experience learning via breakthroughs
in understanding, where involvement is increased when the player feels
responsible for progress. We also argue that supporting the relationship between learning
and involvement is vital for ensuring the success of commercial and
educational games. (You can also find out a bit more about the methods I used in my 2013 DiGRA journal paper: "<a href="https://www.academia.edu/3564772/Making_sense_of_game-play_How_can_we_examine_learning_and_involvement">Making sense of game-play: How can we examine learning and involvement</a>"). <br />
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The second article, "<a href="https://www.academia.edu/10122107/The_gaming_involvement_and_informal_learning_framework">The Gaming Involvement and Informal Learning Framework</a>" is in <a href="http://sag.sagepub.com/content/early/2014/11/20/1046878114554191">Simulation & Gaming</a> and provides a good overview of the three studies I carried out in and also
presents the GIIL framework as the culmination of all my findings.
Essentially, the framework is able to account for both how and what people learn from gaming while also highlighting the
influence of player identity. Further, the iterative relationship between
identity, involvement and learning is emphasised: the more strongly someone
identifies themselves as a gamer, the greater their micro and macro-level
involvement and the more likely they are to learn from their gaming experiences. This is represented in the figure below (taken from my PhD thesis and also reprinted within the article).<br />
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Technically these articles are still in press but both journals have put them up online before print. It's great to have them out there and see all that hard work come together :-) <br />
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Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-58871623016822967142014-11-10T11:53:00.002+00:002014-11-10T11:54:24.693+00:00CHI Play 2014: Toronto<div style="text-align: justify;">
Last month I went to the first <a href="http://chiplay.org/">CHI Play</a> conference in Toronto - and it was fun :-) The full papers from the conference are openly available for a short time only so make sure to check them out <a href="http://chiplay.org/program/">here</a>.</div>
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On the Sunday I took part in the somewhat provocatively titled "Participatory Design for Serious Game Design: Truth and Lies" workshop organised by Rilla Khaled, Mina Vasalou, Vero Vanden Abeele, and Maarten Van Mechelen. Participatory design (PD) is something I've recently become more interested in and our submission "<a href="http://www.participatoryseriousgamedesign.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/CHI+MED-game-comp.pdf">Designing Persuasive Games through Competition</a>" was about how PD influenced the organisation of the competition I ran at UCL earlier this year and some of the tensions that arose during the whole process. The workshop was a great experience as I got to meet a load of interesting people and to hear about different types of <a href="http://www.participatoryseriousgamedesign.com/?page_id=304">PD game research</a>. And I learnt that defining PD, while a good learning experience, isn't particularly easy!</div>
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On the following day, I presented our paper on <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658697">Player Strategies: Achieving Breakthroughs and Progressing in Single-player and Cooperative Games</a> (Iacovides, Cox, Avakian & Knoll, 2014 - thanks to Anna Cox for the photo below!). The paper resulted from two <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/studying">UCLIC MSc</a> projects I supervised and the conference also gave me a chance to catch up with Tom Knoll, one of my co-authors who is now at <a href="http://www.amber-light.co.uk/">Amberlight</a>. The paper builds upon my PhD work by looking at the types of strategies players use in an attempt to overcome breakdowns and breakthroughs. In single-player games, we found players use trial & error, experiment, stop & think, repetition and take the hint, while in coop games this extended to also include knowledge exchange, guidance and surrendering control/taking over. My favourite design suggestion from this work came from co-author Ara Avakian who suggested incorporating a "Quantum leap mode" in coop games but you'll have to read the paper to find out more about that :-)<br />
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In related work, Conor Linehan spoke about "<a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658695&CFID=586964947&CFTOKEN=56994377" title="Learning Curves: Analysing Pace and Challenge in Four Successful Puzzle Games">Learning Curves: Analysing Pace and Challenge in Four Successful Puzzle Games</a>", where learning curves refer to the structure and pace at which challenges are introduced to the player. We discussed how there might scope to combine our work as it would interesting to see how these learning curves actually map on to what players actually experience - particular in relation to more and less "successful" types of game. Essentially, it would be worth finding out out whether you see similar patterns of breakdown and breakthrough around the introduction of different mechanics and whether different types of learning curve lead to different types of strategy.</div>
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Some of the other highlights of the conference related to considering the design process e.g. Kathrin Gelring and Bob de Schutter presenting a framework for <a href="http://chiplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CHI-PLAY-14-DeSchutter-Gerling-Gerontoludic-Design.pdf">Gerontoludic design</a>; Mina Vasalou reflecting on <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658689">cultural appropriation</a> when designing a Day of the Dead game for children; and Chad Richards considering the <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658683">importance of context in developing gamification systems</a>. Other highlights related to understanding game play practices e.g. Nicole Crenshaw highlighting the complexity of <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658689">naming practices in online games</a>; and Marcus Carter focusing on the <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658686">use multiple screens to play different games at the same time</a>. Meanwhile Zachary Toupes' categorisations of different <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658681">cooperative communication mechanics</a> (environment modifying, automated communication, immersive, expressive, emergent and attention focusing) got me thinking about how these forms of communication might relate to different kinds of player strategies.</div>
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There were also multiple presentations on games being used for different purposes such Michael Cristel discussing the development of <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658684">a game for teaching children about the Cognitive Triangle concept</a> of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors and Zachary Fitz-Walter discussing the <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658700">gamifying university orientation</a> (with mixed results). At a more meta-level, I also enjoyed Marcus' second presentation on <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2658700">paradigms in HCI game research</a> and I'm definitely planning on looking at the paper in more depth. In addition, there was also quite a large industry presence at the conference, where I particularly liked the idea of "guerilla techniques" for user testing mobile games (e.g. at a hot dog stand) by the team from <a href="http://scopely.com/">Scopely</a>. </div>
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The keynotes were both delivered by people in industry, though I have to admit being a little disappointed by Mike Ambinder from Valve. His talk was titled "<a href="http://chiplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CHI-PLAY-Keynote-1-Ambinder-Slides.pdf">Making the best of imperfect data</a>" and though he talked a lot about methodologies (e.g. user testing, data analytics) he mainly seemed to be lamenting the vast amounts of data he has access too and the constraints of not being able to do "proper" research in a commercial environment. Perhaps it's the result of having a background in experimental psychology (which I have too!) but it sounded like what he mainly wanted was the ability to measure everything, tools to automate data analysis and to magically remove all forms of bias. Which is fine, I guess, but I'm not really sure about the specifics of what he was wanted to find out and a lot of "why" questions he did seem to be asking a (e.g. rationales for player choice) really felt more suited to - dare I say it? - qualitative research... </div>
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In contrast, Jason <span class="st">VandenBerghe, Creative Director at Ubisoft, did a really good job of showing how he had engaged in research in this area and managed to use it in a positive way. Based on work such as the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Five_personality_traits">Big 5 personality traits</a> and Self Determination Theory (SDT - recently <a href="http://www.selfdeterminationtheory.org/SDT/documents/2010_PrzybylskiRigbyRyan_ROGP.pdf">applied to video games</a>) he presented the "<a href="http://chiplay.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/CHI-PLAY-Keynote-2-VandenBerghe.pdf">Engines of Play</a>" - this is basically a tool for considering player motivations over time and for communicating with his team. His talk clearly outlined a problem space, involved some great game examples, suggested areas for further improvement (e.g. what about players drives such as "collecting"?) and managed to be entertaining as well :-)</span><br />
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<span class="st">Oh, and I almost forgot the student game design competition! This was a really quite an impressive showcase - there were games about <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2662971">privacy</a>, <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2662983">sexual health</a>, and even <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2662972">poetry </a>while there were plenty of multiplayer opportunities e.g. a <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2662991">quest game involving IRC chat</a> (and a lot of arguing!). The winner of the competition was a very cool looking game called <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2662987">OHR </a>that took place in a Machinarium inspired world and required the use of physical electronic components. </span><span class="st">Below is a photo of Anna Cox enjoying a game where you have to shout into a mobile phone mic to avoid on-screen obstacles :-) Also, in the poster session, as part of <a href="http://citizencyberlab.eu/">Citizen Cyberlab</a>, Anna presented some work on <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2661315">RedWire</a>, a re-mixing tool for game design.</span></div>
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<span class="st">All in all, CHI Play was a good experience - and I'm sure I've missed loads out! I'm really looking forward to next year, where it looks like I'm going to be helping organise next year's conference in London :-) </span></div>
Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-27302459500511694542014-11-03T22:51:00.001+00:002014-11-04T14:09:32.354+00:00Serious experience in games<div style="text-align: justify;">
This post has been in my draft folder for ages - I actually forgot it was there for a while but I finally came back and finished it off.</div>
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So, I've been thinking more and more lately about game-play that is engaging but not exactly your traditional idea of "fun". Tim Marsh calls this sort of thing "<a href="http://www.seriousgames.sg/">serious experience</a>" and points out it can be quite a good way of raising awareness and getting people to think about various topics. In terms of the <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/news-events/game-page">recent competition that I organised for CHI+MED</a>, I was hoping that some of the entries would go in this direction, and it was something I think the winner - <a href="http://www.errordiary.org/?page_id=9031">Nurse's Dilemma</a> - managed to achieve. I'm probably going to say a bit more about the competition and the judging process at some point but for now I want to focus more on the commercial games I've been playing and how they've been able to provide compelling game-play that deals with serious topics in different ways.</div>
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Possibly the first example I came across, quite a while ago now, was <a href="http://www.jamieantonisse.com/hush/rwanda.html">Hush</a> (below). Hush was created back in 2007 by USC game design students Jamie Antonisse and Devon Johnson. Set 1994 Rwanda, during a Hutu raid on a Tutsi community but instead of
being a soldier, the player takes on the role of "Liliane", a mother trying to hush her
child to sleep. If the lullaby falters, the baby begins to cry, and the Hutu soldiers will discover their hiding place. This is a short but tense rhythm game that is effective in conveying a sense of dread - playing it not only affected me on an emotional level but made me want to find out more about the context it was set in. Hush has been described by Jonathan Belman and Mary Flannagan as providing "<a href="http://www.eludamos.org/index.php/eludamos/article/viewArticle/83/156">a viscerally engaging experience of the value of empathy</a>" and critiqued as a <i><a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131942/persuasive_games_videogame_.php" target="_self">vignette</a> </i>by Ian Bogost.</div>
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More recently, I played <a href="http://papersplea.se/">Papers, Please</a>, after downloading in on Steam. This is a rather different sort of game, set in a fictional
eastern European country where you play a border control officer. Game-play consists of checking an increasing number of documents and making sure there are no inconsistencies between the information they provide and what people say. It's a difficult game but after you get the hang of the initial mechanics, it's strangely compulsive. At the end of each day you get a summary screen where you realise your wages don't exactly go very far (see below). So before you know it, you start to appreciate the <i><a href="http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2013-08-09-papers-please-review" target="_self">"I was only following ordersā defence</a></i>ā as you struggle to provide for your family. There is humour here but the intriguing narrative and game mechanics create an experience that got me thinking about another controversial subject matter - immigration, on the side of both the immigrants and border guards!</div>
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The last game I'm going to mention is <a href="http://fullbright.company/gonehome/">Gone Home</a>. There has been some debate over whether this is <a href="http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2014-03-20-why-is-gone-home-a-game">an actual game or not</a>, but it felt like a game experience to me and one I was definitely engrossed by. You play Kaitlin Greenbriar who returns home one stormy night in the summer of 1995, after a year abroad to find there is no one home. Apart from a cryptic note from her sister Samantha, it's not clear what's happened so all you can do is explore the big old spooky mansion your family moved in while you were away to find out what's been going on. Note: spoiler alert below!</div>
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The strength of Gone Home is in it's narrative and I'm a sucker for a mystery that needs solving... Plus, I knew enough about the game to know zombies weren't going to jump out at you or anything. That said, the Fullbright team did a great job of creating a sense that something was about to happen... I have never come across a game that even attempted to deal with a direct LGBT storyline, let alone one that managed to do it in such a sensitive way. Perhaps I'm biased, but the narrative resonated with me in a personal way that's just not happened when I've been playing a game before. Playing it made me very glad that there are people out there who are experimenting with games as a medium and tapping into a broad range of human experience.</div>
Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-68389866544737012782014-01-06T20:03:00.003+00:002014-01-08T10:10:13.752+00:00UCL Student Game Design Competition<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Calling
all student game designers!!! <span style="color: black;">Do you believe that
games can be more than just a bit of fun? Is designing games your thing? Do you
think games can contribute to the understanding of science? If this sounds like
you, weād love to see you at the <b>Persuasive Games Competition</b>! </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">The <a href="http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/" target="_blank">CHI+MED project</a> (</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="color: black;">which involves researchers from Queen Mary University, City University, Swansea University and UCL) is inviting teams of students to design a game that will
be made freely available on <a href="http://www.errordiary.org/" target="_blank">errordiary.org</a>. Prizes will be awarded
at the final showcase, including Ā£1000 for first place, Ā£500 for runner up and
Ā£500 for the peopleās choice. Get started by registering <a href="http://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/persuasive-games-student-design-competition-tickets-9674768493" target="_blank"><i>here</i></a> for our kick-off event,
which will be taking place at UCL on Feb 1st 2014. The event is only open to students
(at any level of higher education, from any institution, and in any area) so
student ID will be required. At least one member of each team must have
attended the kick-off to take part in the competition. Please check out the details
on the <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/news-events/game-page" target="_blank"><i>website</i></a> (including the sources
of inspiration) and make sure to share the link with others. </span></span></span></div>
Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-29280793839191185872013-12-19T19:10:00.000+00:002013-12-19T19:13:56.736+00:00Failing in Games at Aarhus University Last month I was invited to present at the Aarhus University's Interacting Minds mini-conference on "Failing and Confusion in Games and Gaming" along with <a href="http://www.jesperjuul.net/">Jesper Juul</a>, <a href="http://dennisisawesome.com/">Dennis Ramirez</a> and <a href="http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/charlotte-jonasson%2802571013-42ae-46ec-a0e3-7cf220688754%29/persons/charlotte-jonasson%2802571013-42ae-46ec-a0e3-7cf220688754%29.html">Charlotte Janasson</a>. Thanks to <a href="http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/persons/id%2860f929af-bf0c-46e5-afb5-355c13a4f593%29.html">Andreas Lieberoth</a> for the invite and organising a seriously interesting day :-)<br />
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Mine was the final talk of the day, where I presented some of my PhD research on Investigating Game-play: Are Breakdowns in Action and Understanding Detrimental to Involvement? (see pic below). You can find my slides <a href="http://pure.au.dk/portal/en/activities/failing-and-confusion-in-games-and-gaming%28ff6784f6-ab3f-4cf0-8819-1c5a77884fda%29.html">here</a>. I'm waiting to hear back about a journal paper we put together on the findings but in the meantime you can check out <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3564772/Making_sense_of_game-play_How_can_we_examine_learning_and_involvement">my DiGRA paper</a> on why I did not find physiological data to be useful for identifying breakdowns and breakthroughs in game-play. My main argument was that action and understanding breakdowns will contribute to involvement when the player feels responsible for
overcoming them but that they will decrease involvement if they take too long to
overcome or have major consequences e.g. a loss of progress. There was some interesting discussion in the Q&A afterwards around defining involvement, whether "positive engagement" is a helpful term, the importance of triangulation and how we can avoid players getting into "negative cycles" where breakdowns don't lead to breakthroughs. While I think my work can help explain when certain breakdowns are likely to disrupt involvement, I think there is still plenty of scope to consider how and why some players are able to avoid these negative cycles and others don't.<br />
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(Thanks to Andreas Lieberoth for the <a href="https://twitter.com/lieberothdk/status/400620881929457664/photo/1">twitpic</a>)</div>
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In terms of the other presentations, I was glad to hear more about some of Andreas' initial work on <a href="http://www.scienceathome.org/index.php?Get+to+know+the+game">Quantum Moves</a> (a citizen science game) where they investigated player motivations e.g. in terms of fear of failing i.e. trying to avoid looking bad or achieving mastery challenges. While they chose a different focus, there is definitely some overlap with some <a href="https://www.academia.edu/3564990/Do_games_attract_or_sustain_engagement_in_citizen_science_a_study_of_volunteer_motivations">work I presented at CHI this year</a> in relation to the <a href="http://citizencyberlab.eu/">Citizen Cyberlab</a> project, looking at why people chose to play citizen science games. I'm definitely looking forward to Andreas visiting next term so we can get into some more discussion about our research. <br />
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Jesper then kicked off the main talks by discussing failure in games (he's also written a book about the topic called the <a href="http://www.jesperjuul.net/artoffailure/">Art of Failure</a>). Amusingly, he got different people in the audience to try out <a href="http://superhexagon.com/">Super Hexagon</a> and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yg7RBFTAD4g">China Miner</a> - I think I lasted about 10 seconds in the latter! Juul argued that while failure can be a source of learning, it's still an unpleasant experience and pointed out that there is a bit of a paradox going on here - normally we want to succeed but when we play games we seem to be seeking out experiences where we will fail (at least part of the time). I wonder though about how you define failure? I don't think all breakdowns are necessarily failures, often they are part of the challenge, or quickly overcome, whereas the word failure seems to indicate something more serious.<mention book=""> What was really interesting was how when he pointed out how games can promise to repair some sort of inadequacy in us, but it is an inadequacy the game actually created in the first place! </mention><mention book="">I think I'm going to have to read his book to get more to grips with the various paradoxes and philosophical arguments outlined in the talk but Jesper also suggested failure in games differs from real life as games offer a certain amount of plausible deniability e.g. "It's just a game", "It wasn't fair", or even "I wasn't trying that hard in the first place". I have thought about "its not fair" comments before - I see them as an indication that involvement has been disrupted, since the player sees the game rather than their own actions as being at fault - but either way I think they indicate a serious breakdown has occurred as player are essentially distancing themselves from the game. </mention><br />
<mention book=""><br /></mention>
<mention book="">Dennis' talk on his PhD research followed similar lines but he focused a little more of what failure means for learning and educational games. He pointed out that only 20% of players actually reached the end of Hitman Absolution (and apparently only 10% of players will see the end of any game) and argued that it's important to consider the metric being used to assess success within a game. Dennis also discussed various approaches to using games and assessing them - from <a href="http://blogs.kqed.org/mindshift/2012/04/whats-the-secret-sauce-to-a-great-educational-game/">chocolate covered broccoli</a> e.g. <a href="http://www.mathblaster.com/">Math Blaster</a> to thinking about model based assessment e.g. <a href="http://edgaps.org/gaps/wp-content/uploads/ShafferEpistemic_frames_for_epistemic_games.pdf">Schaffer's epistemic frames</a>. I particularly liked how he pointed out that we can't always infer competence from completion and when he discussed more recent approaches to evaluation that relate to "big data" (though also stressed the importance of talking to players too). For instance, he talked about <a href="http://www.gameslearningsociety.org/">some work going on at Wisconsin-Madison</a> that was looking at heat maps in terms of how different players move through the game. The fact that progress doesn't always guarantee learning is something I've considered in my PhD research i.e. you can achieve action breakthroughs without understanding (though chances are these will be less satisfying) but it was good to hear more about what that means in terms of assessing learning from an educational point of view. </mention><br />
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<mention book=""><reaction talk="" to=""><comment> Charlotte provided a different perspective with
her talk on Learning from errors in education. While not focusing on digital games, she provided an interesting account of failure in real-life settings, in this case a vocational school. She made the argument that while not exactly a game, school isn't quite real-life either and vocational schools offer a sort of real-life work game - where failure is considered part of the learning process. Charlotte used an example of the students learning how to clean, cook and prepare flounder (apparently very tricky!). She noted that the instructors treat the school as a practice space where errors are ok, but not if they are made as a result of knowledge you should have acquired already. Further, it seems that developing expertise is about becoming more skilled at paying attention and knowing what to pay attention too. Her talk got me thinking about my work on <a href="http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/">CHI+MED</a> and errors within a healthcare environment, where I've been interested in how <a href="https://www.academia.edu/5479139/Supporting_learning_within_the_workplace_Device_training_in_healthcare">nurses are trained to use infusion devices</a>. But, if errors are an unavoidable part of work practice and learning from them can help you become an expert, then how on earth do you go about supporting this process in an environment where the consequences of errors could literally be life or death?! I guess using a pump isn't normally that complicated but I do wonder about what sort of knowledge nurses have and how they develop expertise in this context. </comment></reaction></mention><br />
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<mention book=""><reaction talk="" to=""><comment><comment>Overall it was a really good day and it got me thinking a lot about games, failure and errors in the workplace. It was a great opportunity to talk to attendees at the event, catch up with Andreas and <a href="http://www.yishaymor.org/">Yishay Mor</a>, and enjoy lots of discussion afterwards when we went out for a lovely meal in Aarhus :-) </comment></comment></reaction></mention><br />
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<span style="font-size: 10pt; line-height: 1.6;"></span> Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-45996684213188182932013-05-13T15:18:00.001+01:002013-05-13T15:18:17.782+01:00CHI 2013 (Part II) - Citizen Science, biometrics, gamification@work and student gamesSo on to part two. Apart attending a workshop, I also presented a poster at CHI: <a href="http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2468553&dl=ACM&coll=DL&CFID=329242119&CFTOKEN=31298536"><i>Do Games Attract or Sustain Engagement in Citizen Science? A Study of Volunteer Motivations</i></a> (see below). The poster is based on some work being carried out as part of the <a href="http://citizencyberlab.eu/">Citizen Cyberlab</a> project that <a href="http://ucl.academia.edu/CharleneIJennett">Charlene Jennett</a> and <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/a-cox">Anna Cox</a> are involved with. The paper reports on the findings of a set of pilot interviews that <a href="http://ucl.academia.edu/CassieCornishTrestrail">Cassandra Cornish-Trestail</a> carried out with people who play citizen science games - in this case, <a href="http://fold.it/portal/">Foldit</a> and <a href="http://eyewire.org/">Eyewire</a>. The answer to the question in the title is no, game mechanics didn't seem to attract volunteers but, in addition to tools such as chat facilities and forums, they do help to sustain involvement over time. Essentially, the people who play these games are already interested in science, they aren't gamers. In addition, what game mechanics allow for is greater participation in a range of social interactions while also providing ways in which to recognise volunteer achievements as being meaningful. I really quite enjoyed chatting about the poster and luckily there were quite a few interested people to chat too :-) <br />
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I got to meet <a href="http://big.cs.bris.ac.uk/people/massung">Elaine Massung</a> a researcher from Bristol who was involved in the <a href="http://big.cs.bris.ac.uk/projects/close-the-door">Close the Door</a> project - where they were investigating motivations around crowdsourcing to support forms of environmental activism. Interestingly, their work suggests that game mechanics such as points can actually decrease motivation for some people. I also met <a href="http://annebowser.com/">Anne Bowser</a>, a PhD student from Maryland University who presented the PLACE (Prototyping Location, Activities and Collective Experience - see below) framework for designing location based apps and games earlier on in the conference. I enjoyed hearing about Anne's work with on floracaching (a form of geocaching) and how they developed the <a href="http://www.biotrackers.net/">Biotracker </a>app <i>- </i><span class="st"><i></i> a serious geocaching game for citizen science that encourages players to gather plant phenology data</span>. I'm hoping to be able to use at some point in the UK too!<br />
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Anne presented at the session on game design, where I also got to hear about <a href="http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/199982">Pejman Mirza-Babaei</a>'s work on <a href="http://www.biometricstoryboards.com/News/News.html">Biometric storyboards</a>. Unfortunately, Pejman couldn't make the conference but his supervisor <a href="http://www.acagamic.com/lennart-nacke/">Lennart Nacke</a> was there to present the paper. I first became aware of Pejman's work during my PhD and it was really nice to see how far it had come. I'm not a big fan of biometrics, <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=5664719871065717763#editor/target=post;postID=7864561518735257796;onPublishedMenu=overview;onClosedMenu=overview;postNum=2;src=postname">I didn't find the raw data I collected to be useful in relation to identifying game-play breakdowns and breakthroughs within my case studies</a> but the tool that was presented during this talk was pretty cool. It allows for designers to consider the what they want players experience to be (see below) and provides a neat visualisation of the GSR (galvanic skin response) and EMG (electromyography) data that can them be compared with what was intended. The fact the Pejman also compared using this tool with a classic user testing approach (alongwith a control group) was great too and the results indicated that the BioST approach did lead to higher game-play quality. However, I do have some questions about the work carried out, even after reading the paper. The main thing I'm not sure about is whether the BioST approach took more time than the standard gamer user experience approach. This is important, as I know from visiting <a href="http://www.playablegames.net/">Playable games</a>, there isn't always a lot of time to get some feedback and provide suggestions to designers. There weren't actually that many differences between the BioST and Classic UT approach, is the former really worth it if it takes a lot longer? I was also unsure about how the tool dealt with artefacts such as movement - does the researcher have to manually clear these up and how long does this take? Finally, I noticed that the BioST tool allowed for player annotations where it looks like players were asked to review a recording of the game-play session and add their comments but I'm pretty sure the classic UT condition didn't also do this... Considering this is what I asked my participants to do and I got a lot of rich data from it, I wondered whether the conditions really were a fair comparison - could the player reviews have been helpful without the biometric data? Nevertheless, I do like that the tool presented does not consider biometric data alone as I think it's important to give player's a voice too. Also, I think the way in which the biometric data was visualised provided designers with a powerful tool for interpreting play experiences so I'd be keen to see more research like this. <br />
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Later on I attended the Gamification@Work panel, which has a really interesting mix of people including <a href="http://codingconduct.cc/">Sebastien Deterding</a> and a number of people from industry. I particularly liked Sebastien's emphasis on ensuring that autonomy isn't taken away from people when using gameful approaches at work. He also provided us with some quotes from games journalists which clearly indicated how when you have to do something for work, even playing games, the activity can lose it's appeal. I took a lot of notes in this session as it got me thinking about how I would design a game (or gamify a task) but I'm still mulling over these. The people from industry also had some insightful contributions to make but I couldn't help coming away from the session a little concerned about how game mechanics can be used to track performance and manipulate people into behaving in different ways. Why does this make me uncomforatble in relation to work but less so in relation to education or promoting health? Some interesting questions were also raised at the end and while measurements may be important for showing improvement (or lack of it) it's important to remember that not everything can be reduced to metrics. <br />
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Other highlights from the latter part of the conference include the student game competition - the quality of games was seriously impressive and I'd really quite like to check out a few of them including <a href="http://machineers.tumblr.com/">Machinneers</a> (a lovely looking puzzle adventure for children stealthily teaches logical thinking, problem solving and procedural literacy), <a href="http://atumgame.com/">ATUM</a> (an innovative multi-layer point and click game) and Squidge (a really cute game controller that monitors player heart rate - see below); the Women's Representations in Technology panel - again a seriously interesting mix of people and perspectives which got me thinking about feminism and how gender isn't necessarily binary;<span id="goog_496927349"></span> <a href="https://systems.cs.pub.ro/people/razvan.rughinis/">Razvan Rughinis'</a> <span id="goog_496927350"></span>paper on badges in education - where he discussed badge architectures and how they can be used to chart learning routes; and finally <a href="http://www.bruno-latour.fr/">Bruno Latour's</a> keynote - I have to be honest and say I did not find this the easiest talk to follow but I'm sure it got my brain working! There are definitely other people who have got a better handle on it than I do (e.g. <a href="http://civic.mit.edu/blog/natematias/what-baboon-notebooks-monads-state-surveillance-and-network-diagrams-have-in-common">J.Nathan Mathias)</a>. <br />
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It was a huge conference and in addition to the other talks I haven't mentioend, there are also a few sessions I didn't get to go to so I've also got paper on persuasive games and behaviour change to my reading list. In general though, the conference gave me lots to think about especially in terms of how I
want my own research to continue, especially in terms of considering games in relation to my work on CHI+MED, which there may be more to say about later on... Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-5492399837964668322013-05-11T20:20:00.001+01:002013-05-13T15:14:36.602+01:00CHI 2013: Paris (Part I) - MOMA, games and learning, game players and the Games SIGLast week I went to <a href="http://chi2013.acm.org/">CHI in Paris</a> - it's been a while since I've been to a major academic conference and I seem to have gotten out of the habit of blogging so I thought I would use this as an excuse to get back into it :-) Plus there was a lot of game sessions that have got me thinking.<br />
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It all started last Sunday with the <a href="http://cs.swan.ac.uk/~csyl/medichi2013.html">MediCHI workshop</a>. This was a good opportunity to talk to about the work I'm doing on <a href="http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/">CHI+MED</a>, with respect to medical device safety, and to meet others in the field. The main conference started on Monday with a keynote from Paola Antonelli from <a href="http://www.moma.org/">MOMA</a>. She gave us an overview of lots of intriguing design projects that MOMA has exhibited and while no specific HCI challenges were made explicit during the talk, I was reminded about how technology, including games, can make people think. Particularly interesting examples include <a href="http://www.christienmeindertsma.com/index.php?/books/pig-05049/">PIG 05049</a> (Christien Meindertsma) and the <a href="http://www.di10.rca.ac.uk/hiromiozaki/menstruation-machine.html">Menstruation Machine</a> (Hiromi Ozaki/Sputniko!). She also mentioned their recent <a href="http://www.moma.org/explore/inside_out/2012/11/29/video-games-14-in-the-collection-for-starters/">games collection</a> - extra points for the inclusion of <a href="http://hcsoftware.sourceforge.net/passage/">Passage </a>:-)<br />
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In terms of the game-related talks, <a href="http://www.hcii.cmu.edu/people/phd/erik-harpstead">Erik Harpstead</a> discussed an educational game they had developed (a single player physics game called <a href="http://rumbleblocks.etc.cmu.edu/"><i>RumbleBlocks</i></a> - see below) and how they used metrics to assess learning as part of the <a href="http://www.etc.cmu.edu/engage/">ENGAGE </a>project. A toolkit was presented for logging game events and that allows for a replay of game-play so player behaviour can be analysed further. This toolkit seems like it could be really useful but my main question was whether collecting this type of logging data can actually account for situations where players progress but without gaining any real understanding of the principles behind what they are doing. This concern was partially addressed during the talk when the replay analysis indicated that the gameplay mechanics actually contravened one of the learning goals (where students were not lowering the centre of their structures, even though they were building one with wider bases and that were more symmetrical). The misalignment between content and gameplay was seen to potentially explain why there was not a difference between pre and post-test regarding centre of mass and also suggested that the game needs to be redesigned to remedy this issue.<br />
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<a href="http://carnegie-mellon.academia.edu/JamesDerekLomas">Derek Lomas</a>' talk on optimising learning and motivation in educational games through using crowdsourcing techniques also got my attention. What was particularly interesting about this study was the huge amount of data collected (one study has 10,000 participants the other 70,000 - all who played the online math game <a href="https://www.brainpop.co.uk/games/battleshipnumberline/"><i>Battleship Numberline</i></a>) and the questioning of the inverted-U hypothesis regarding challenge and engagement. Basically, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29">flow theory</a> suggests that if something is too easy, boredom will occur and if it is too hard, you'll get frustration - so a moderate amount of challenge would be the most engaging. However, the findings from Derek's work actually suggest that people find spent the most time playing when the challenge level was lowest thus indicating that easier challenges are more engaging . Further, the studies indicated there is a trade-off between engagement and learning i.e. you can't have both... I'm going to have to read the paper for more details but there are several points here that I'd like to consider further. First, I'm questioning whether the length of time spent playing is a good measure of engagement (especially when children might be playing these games during school time - who is controlling the length of play if that is the case?). The terms engagement, motivation and enjoyment were all used interchangeably but I'm not sure they can all be reduced to amount of time spent playing. Surely I can enjoy something I play for less time more than something I might play for longer (e.g. if my motivation was to kill time)? Secondly, I want to look at how well integrated the game mechanics of <i>Battleship Numberline</i> are with the learning content - mainly because I don't like the idea that there needs to be a trade-off between engagement and learning! Further, given <a href="http://www.gamelearning.net/">Jake Habgood's</a> work on the importance of integrating game mechanics, flow and learning content I don't think there has to be. Finally, the authors also suggested that novelty might be more important than challenge in relation to engagement. This was particularly intriguing as I don't think it's something that has been explored in the literature on games and learning and I'm guessing there might be quite a lot to it.<br />
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Within the same session, <a href="http://cseweb.ucsd.edu/~srfoster/">Stephen Foster</a> talked about designing diverse and sustainable educational games that support competition and meta-cognition. Inspired by the way Chess and Starcarft II players relfect and review their game-play, Stephen presented a game called <i>CompetitiveSourcery</i> based on the pre-existing <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/eng.ucsd.edu/codespells/home"><i>CodeSpells</i></a> platoform. The game requires players to compete by designing "spells" in java and using them against each other. Three users were observed over two months as they prepared as a team for a tournament - this included playing the game but also discussing strategies, bebugging each other's code and updating a team wiki. In general, this was a good example of tapping into both micro and macro involvement for the purposes of learning but I was surprised not to see any mention of Gee's discussion player affinity groups that exist around games (though Gee is mentioned in the paper). Plus, the idea that teachers should consider meta-level activities isn't entirely new (see <a href="http://dera.ioe.ac.uk/1509/1/becta_2009_emergingtechnologies_games_report.pdf">Paul Pivec's BECTA report</a> for the importance of the meta-game) while encourgaing discussion through having a tournament has been done before (e.g. research on <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10956-010-9244-5#page-1">Racing Academy</a>). Also, while Stephen makes claims about the sustainability of this approach, there is always going to be an issue concerning whether all players will actually engage in the meta-level activities to the same extent. I'm not sure how you address that though...<br />
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There were several other game related sessions including <a href="http://hci.usask.ca/people/view.php?id=236">Max Birk</a> talking about the relationship between controller type and personality and <a href="http://jeffhuang.com/">Jeff Huang</a> talking about patterns of game-play and skill in Halo. For both these talks I wanted a bit more detail on the methods so I'm going to have to add them to the pile of post-CHI papers to follow-up. In relation to the former, I was a little confused about the relationship between my "real" self, my "ideal" self and my "game" self as I'm not sure any of these can be static constructs but there may be some interesting differences to explore here (do standard controllers really make gamers more neurotic?). In relation to the latter, an awful lot of logging data was collected but I was a little disappointed that "patterns of gameplay" was more about how long people play for and how often than it was about gameplay strategies (but that's only because I'm more interested in player strategies!). Other highlights included <a href="http://research.cs.queensu.ca/~graham/">Nicholas Graham </a>discussing a tabletop game where one person plays the game and the other orchestrates the experience in real time i.e. builds levels and obstacles. This reminded me a little of Sleep is Death but <i>Tabula Rasa</i> seemed a bit more light-hearted in it's approach to foster open-ended creativity. <a href="http://pennstate.academia.edu/TamaraPeyton">Tamara Peyton</a> (see below) then spoke about the alternate reality game <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_Bees">I Love Bees</a> and showed how leadership emerged from team-play. Interestingly, the players spontaneously used military terms and take on different roles within the team which she classified as General, Lieutenant and Private. I particularly liked that she emphasised that disjuncture can be as important as flow - essentially we should also be thinking about what it means to fail and how failing isn't necessarily a negative experience. <br />
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I also attended the SIG on Games and Entertainment and was pleased to see that there really is quite an active games community at CHI. <a href="http://www.katherineinterface.com/">Katherine Isbister</a> and <a href="http://www.irit.fr/~Regina.Bernhaupt/">Regina Bernhaupt</a> led the session but handed over the reigns of the SIG to <a href="http://nuweb.neu.edu/magy/">Magy Seif-El-Nasr</a> and <a href="http://www.behavioristics.com/biography.htm">Heather Desurvive</a>. The topics that came up ranged from needing to foster links between industry and academia, introducing further games courses at next year's conference, and discussing other venues for games research. It was clear that while some people were interested in the user experience side and methods for assessing game-play others where interested in using games as research tools e.g. for the purposes of collecting data. Regarding the latter, there was a suggestion that there might be a workshop or course next year with a focus on how you might evaluate this kind of large-scale data but I think that will depend on whether someone volunteers to run it! I enjoyed the session overall and found a good way to see the range of game-related interests across the CHI community.<br />
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Ok, I think that's enough for today. There is still plenty more to write but I'm going to have to leave it for another post! For now I'm going to leave you with a pic of <a href="http://ucl.academia.edu/CharleneIJennett">Charlene Jennett</a> hugging a bear to make one jump on screen :-)<br />
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<br />Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-78645615187352577962013-05-03T15:51:00.000+01:002014-11-19T18:46:09.839+00:00My PhD thesis<div style="text-align: justify;">
My thesis is finally available via ORO: <a href="http://www.academia.edu/3118144/Digital_Games_Motivation_Engagement_and_Informal_Learning">Digital Games: Motivation, Engagement and Informal Learning</a>. I've included the abstract below though please feel free to get in touch if you have any questions or comments :-)</div>
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This thesis investigates the relationships between motivation, engagement and informal learning, with respect to digital games and adult players. Following the reconceptualisation of motivation and engagement (as forms of micro and macro level involvement respectively) three linked studies were conducted. In the first study, 30 players were interviewed via email about their gaming experiences. The resulting set of learning categories and themes drew attention to learning on a game, skill and personal level, which arose from micro-level gameplay and macro-level interaction with wider communities and resources. The second investigation consisted of eight case studies that examined how involvement and learning come together in practice. Participants were observed in the lab during two gameplay sessions and kept gaming diaries over a three week period. A method for categorising game-play breakdowns and breakthroughs (relating to action, understanding and involvement) was developed in order to analyse several hours of gameplay footage. The previous categories and themes were also applied to the data. The findings suggested a relationship between macro-involvement and player identity, which was further investigated by a third survey study(with 232 respondents). The survey helped to establish a link between identity, involvement, and learning; the more strongly someone identifies as a gamer, the more likely they are to learn from their involvement in gaming practice. Four main contributions are presented: (1) an empirical account of how informal learning occurs as a result of micro and macro-involvement within a gaming context, (2) an in-depth understanding of how breakdowns and breakthroughs relate to each other during play, (3) a set of categories that represent the range of learning experienced by players, and (4) a consideration of the role player identity serves with respect to learning and involvement.</div>
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Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-33521728649057061382012-08-21T21:59:00.000+01:002015-01-25T15:25:47.897+00:00"In The Game? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments"<div style="text-align: justify;">
It really has been ages since I last used this blog. Good news is I have finished the thesis! Viva passed, minor corrections and the final submission due at the start of Sept :-) I will make sure to post a link to it once the final version has been approved.</div>
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The last few months have been stupidly busy - I also started a new job at <a href="http://www.ucl.ac.uk/uclic/people/j_iacovides">UCLIC </a>- but I have managed to get some game-playing in. There are some thoughts I'd like to get down about those soon but for now I just wanted to post a video of my friend <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/openminded/?author=1">Rob Farrow</a> presenting a paper we wrote together at the <a href="http://www.arsgames.net/2012gamephilosophy/index.html">Philosophy and Computer Games conference</a> earlier this year. There's some points he makes about meaning and choice that I'd like to think about more - particularly in relation to Skyrim and Mass Effect 3.</div>
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But for now, here's "In The Game'? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments". Thanks Rob :-)</div>
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UPDATE: We also had a longer journal article published in <a href="http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13347-013-0111-1">Philosophy & Technology</a>, which you can find <a href="http://www.chi-med.ac.uk/researchers/downloadandcount.php?PPnum=PP173">here</a>.
Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-62115920625471080622012-01-12T13:56:00.000+00:002012-01-12T13:56:51.386+00:00Interactive punching bagOk, so this isn't directly game related but it could be, depending on what you use the device for. This summer, six 18/19-year-olds built an interactive punching bag as a summer project at the Open University. Think of it as a game interface, with lights, sounds and sensors. If you like it, please feel free to do so on youtube and to share the video as it would be great to give their work some exposure.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/ysPqGlUR4vM?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-25939706166098079642011-12-20T13:41:00.006+00:002012-01-05T20:49:01.732+00:00Open University press release on my research<a href="http://www8.open.ac.uk/platform/news-and-features/today%E2%80%99s-gaming-enthusiast-older-you-think-finds-ou-research-student">Today's gaming ethusiast is older than you might think, finds OU research student.</a><br />
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My first press release on my PhD work, with a bit of a Christmas hook :-)Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-82916476932153723292011-12-04T18:26:00.000+00:002011-12-04T18:26:52.303+00:00Being more open about my research<div style="text-align: justify;">As I mentioned in the last post, my recent part-time work where I've been looking at <a href="http://www8.open.ac.uk/iet/main/research-scholarship/our-research-scholarship-programmes/digital-scholarship">digital scholarship at the OU, </a>has got me thinking about what it might mean to be a scholar in the digital age and how openness can be a part of that. I have touched upon aspects of my research in this blog, but mostly I tend to use it as a way to reflect about my own gaming experiences and as a way to keep track of my thoughts about different events I go to. As I was writing up the <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2011/10/ecgbl-2011-athens.html">post about ECGBL 2011</a>, I realised that I really did want to say more about what I had been doing and this might be quite a useful thing to do, especially as I'm currently writing up my PhD thesis. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So, in terms of what I have done my research, consists of three phases. Phase one included a conceptual overview of different frameworks of engagement and motivation and a set of interviews with a range of different games players (from casual to hardcore). This led to the development of a set of learning categories, which I presented at <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2011/09/earli-2011.html">EARLI </a>this year (<a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/29477/">extended abstract</a>) where basically I found that people learn through games in three different ways: through play, through others and through external resources; and on three different levels: on a game level, skill level and personal level. The personal level refers to instances such as picking up general knowledge but also in terms of people mentioning things like developing perseverance and viewing game characters as role models - possibly an area that has received the least amount of attention in game studies though this is likely due to the difficulty of assessing it! I also developed a set of themes that relate to a concept <a href="http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?tid=11153&ttype=2">Mia Consalvo calls gaming capital</a> (in turn based upon <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cultural_capital">Bourdieu's notions of capital</a>), which players gain not just by being good at games but in terms of being knowledgeable about them. These themes were: competence, knowledge, community and identity. We published <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/28754/">a journal article</a> earlier this year, based on work I presented and <a href="http://www.gamebasedlearning2010.com/research">GBL 2010</a>, which introduces some of these concepts and outlines my position on engagement and motivation in terms of thinking about them as forms of involvement. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Phase two consisted of a set of case studies I carried out where I examined people playing games on a micro and macro level (i.e. analysing instances of play and wider involvement with players and resources). This consisted of eight case studies, again with a mix of players, some who identified as gamers and some who did not. At <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2011/09/digra-2011-hilversum-part-2.html">DiGRA</a>, I presented the methods I adopted (which you can access <a href="http://www.digra.org/dl/db/11307.01102.pdf">here</a>) while at ECGBL I focused on analysing game-play through analysing breakdowns and breakthroughs in terms of what they can tell us about learning and involvement in games (which you can find on ORO <a href="http://oro.open.ac.uk/29904/">here</a>). Whilst at ECGBL, I was asked about the use of <a href="http://www.gameproducer.net/2009/10/24/what-are-aaa-titles-updated-definition/">AAA games</a> within the case studies - I didn't choose to focus on these but the focus on consoles in the lab setup (see picture below) meant I was much less likely to look at more independent games like <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braid_%28video_game%29">Braid </a>or low budget games like <a href="http://www.farmville.com/">Farmville</a>. However, some of the observation sessions did involve more casual games like <a href="http://bigbrainacademy.com/">Big Brain Academy</a> and some less familiar titles like <a href="http://thatgamecompany.com/games/flower/">Flower </a>(which was produced by an indie developer) and <a href="http://www.endlessocean.com/">Endless Ocean 2</a>. Plus, I did try and tap into the different types of games people play by asking them to keep a diary of their experiences outside of the lab, though admittedly there is less detailed information about these in terms of considering breakdowns and breakthroughs. I was also asked about the types of players that took part but pointed out I was more interested in tapping into a range of experience by getting older/younger, male/female, casual players/gamers to take part in order to maximise the differences between cases, than in considering whether someone was an "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bartle_Test">explorer</a>" or not. I probably should have been more explicit about how I was trying to contribute to a general theory of how involvement and learning relate to each other rather than trying to make statistical generalisations about how involvement and learning might differ with respect to player type/motivation and genre. That said, as I'm writing up, I will need to point out that in terms of the observation sessions at least, any claims I will make will relate to games where players control some sort of avatar and navigate through virtual environments (with Big Brain Academy as the only exception).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another question I got asked at ECGBL was about how I actually identified breakdowns and breakthroughs with respect to action, understanding and involvement. In terms of <i>action</i>, this is pretty simple as strategies were either effective or not, while <i>understanding </i>was also relatively easy as this was something pretty clear from the post-play interviews (though occasionally breakthroughs would be more gradual). I also pointed out that I collected an awful lot of data so I was primarily focused on major issues, rather than a fine grained analysis of everything. However, <i>involvement </i>was definitely harder to identify, especially in terms of breakthroughs as it wasn't always clear exactly when these occurred and sometimes it may have been a much more gradual process. It seemed a lot easier to identify when flow breaks down for instance, than when it is actually happening. During the analysis, I ended up identifying involvement in affective terms i.e. with respect to evidence of negative emotion (where boredom or frustration would indicate a breakdown) and positive emotion (where enjoyment or satisfaction would indicate a breakthrough). On reflection though, I'm not sure the concept of breakthroughs could be applied as easily to involvement. This is something I discuss further in the thesis, while I also consider the relationship between the different types of breakdowns and breakthroughs. Note: I also collected a range of physiological data during the observation sessions - initially in the hopes it would help us identify different types of breaks but it turned out to be less useful than we hoped as it too difficult to interpret under these circumstances (i.e. because we didn't use a controlled experimental set up).<br />
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Finally, I was asked about how my work related to education - but since my focus is on learning that occurs when we are involved in games we play outside of formal educational contexts, I can't actually say an awful lot about that. However, I do think that building a better understanding what happens when we play the games that we do can help us design more involving educational games that are able to support effective learning e.g. by suggesting that it is important to avoid situations where progress can occur without being accompanied by understanding breakthroughs. So I think my work will have implications for education but the a more significant contribution will be to the area of informal learning. <br />
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One thing I didn't discuss at ECGBL that came out of the analysis of the diaries I asked players to keep (over a three week period), was that there wasn't really a lot of interaction with the wider gaming community. Sure, participants reported talking to other people about games and using various online resources to keep up to date with news and developments; while occasionally, they consulted guides or walkthroughs, but there really wasn't a whole lot going on in terms of people <i>contributing </i>to these sorts of things. Further, it seemed that the participants who identified as gamers were the ones who reported using resources more frequently than the non-gamers. As this was a small set of case studies, this led to us thinking about investigating this sort of thing on a wider scale through the use of a survey; in the final phase of my PhD.<br />
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It seemed important to consider this sort of macro level involvement in more detail, and how it might relate to identity and learning, as it links in to a lot of the stuff <a href="http://www.jamespaulgee.com/">James Paul Gee</a> discusses when he talks about games and learning; in particular with respect to semiotic domains and affinity groups/spaces. I'm not going to go into the results in detail (as that's a whole chapter's worth of discussion!) but it does seem that players who identify as hardcore are not only likely to interact with wider range of resources but that they also more likely to say they have learnt from their gaming experiences. This is significant, because while Gee talks about the importance of identity in learning, he discusses this is terms of a player reflecting on their personal identity in relationship to their avatar rather than in terms of how they identify as a gamer. We just got a short view points paper accepted by <a href="http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals/cjem">Learning, Media and Technology</a> on the preliminary analysis of the questionnaire, so I'm quite looking forward to writing up the main analysis after I submit. <br />
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I'm not sure how coherant that all is and I still need to link everything so I can sum up how involvement and learning come together on a micro and macro level, but it's been interesting trying to sum up what I've been doing over the last few years! Now just need to get on with finishing off the thesis... <br />
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</div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-5655027612883124482011-10-26T13:52:00.000+01:002011-10-26T13:52:17.274+01:00ECGBL 2011 - Athens<div style="text-align: justify;">After rearranging flights to avoid the air traffic control strike, I made it to Athens last week for the <a href="http://www.academic-conferences.org/ecgbl/ecgbl2011/ecgbl11-home.htm">5th European Conference of Game Based Learning</a>. Not everyone was so lucky but I was pretty impressed with the conference organisers for managing to make sure the conference went ahead and that we all were looked after so well whilst we were there. It was a bit surreal having to avoid the crowds of protesters on the way to the conference venue and trying to make sure we didn't get caught up in any of the running battles with riot police on the way back... We did avoid the worst of it (which, on the first conference day involved ducking into a restaurant for a little while until the trouble outside died down!) with only piles of burnt rubbish around the city to remind of us of what was going on (see below).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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Oh, and t-shirts like this :-)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ikEgxf2e2yI/TqczBwrCmdI/AAAAAAAAAJo/h4M_sny_-Mw/s1600/T-shirt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="302" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ikEgxf2e2yI/TqczBwrCmdI/AAAAAAAAAJo/h4M_sny_-Mw/s320/T-shirt.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
In terms of the conference itself, I am very glad I managed to make it as it was a great opportunity to meet up with people I had met before, like <a href="http://www2.le.ac.uk/Members/am14/home/alex-moseley">Alex Moseley</a> from Leicester and <a href="http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.c.huizenga/">Jantina Huizenga</a> from Amsterdam and to talk to new people about games and research like <a href="http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=22378647&authType=NAME_SEARCH&authToken=ex5X&locale=en_US&srchid=96c60c93-5e4f-4999-8330-cebc4752321a-0&srchindex=1&srchtotal=323&goback=%2Efps_PBCK_magnus+johansson_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*1_*2_*1_Y_*1_*1_*1_false_1_R_*1_*51_*1_*51_true_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2_*2&pvs=ps&trk=pp_profile_name_link">Magnus Johansson </a>and <a href="http://jyu.academia.edu/KimmoOksanen">Kimmo Oksanen</a>. In terms of the talks, one of the highlights came from <a href="http://www.worcester.ac.uk/discover/carlo-fabricatore.html">Carlo Fabricatore</a> from the University of Worcester, UK and <a href="http://www.learndev.org/BtSM2009-CommunityProfile.html">Ximena Lopez </a>from Initium Studios, Italy introducing the area of sustainability games - something I also know my OU friend <a href="http://www.kreitmayer.com/">Stefan Kreitmayer</a> who I went to the conference with was very interested in (since he is working on creating collaborative games that deal with climate change issues). The presenters provided a good rationale for how games are able to support problem solving and systems thinking, and a review of some of the existing games you can find online. The review revealed that there is definitely room for improvement as there aren't a lot of games out there that consider sustainability in terms of environmental, economic and social issues, or that actually allow for emergent complexity. Further, a lot of these games seem to be directed at children so there it would be interesting to see more of them aimed at adults. While it wasn't the focus of the presentation, it also made me wonder how you might be able to evaluate this sort of systems thinking within a formal educational context.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Another talk I enjoyed, came from Matthew Jewell, a game designer from <a href="http://www.rosettastone.co.uk/">Rosetta Stone</a> which produces language learning tools. He presented a game called Prospero which includes speech recognition software so players can practice their grammar (see below). This was pretty interesting because the game is part of a portal of flash games that are directed at different levels of language learning and it made me think a lot about intrinsic/extrinsic motivation and integrating game mechanics with learning. Prospero is a neat little game that gives players points for pronouncing the correct sentences and utilising a treasure hunting mechanic to allow players to choose a task, which also provides further reward to the player. I think you can also compete with other players if you want. On the surface, this seems to go against a lot of what is discussed in the literature (the importance of intrinsic motivators etc) but in reality I can see how it's a really effective way to get players to practice what is a essentially a dull task (learning correct grammar) in order to become proficient at it. Further, the only way to progress in the game is to pronounce phrases accurately and I can see how variable reward (in the form of finding treasure) can provide help provide the sort of "stickiness" that Matthew was aiming to achieve. And at this level of learning at least, it does seem like it will help make the player more likely to practice. I'm not entirely sure how Rosetta Stone evaluate their products (or if they want to share that info!) while I'd be curious to see some of the other games in the portal and how they work, especially since the <a href="http://blog.rosettastone.com/2010/11/03/prospero-digging-for-buried-treasure-in-rosetta-world/">Rosetta blog </a>suggests: "once you gain a little more confidence, you can progress to one of our conversational games, like Identi or Chatonium." I guess I'm curious about whether the gaming mechanisms evolve along with the learning complexity. In general, I really enjoyed talking with Matthew about games as he pointed out things like how casual games can be ignored by game-based learning research in favour of more complex solutions and he made me think about how maybe the lines between the extrinsic and intrinsic motivation are more blurred than we sometimes like to think! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n_Wt7idOsRs/TqcpY23HAKI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/mPFMY3WylaQ/s1600/Prospero.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-n_Wt7idOsRs/TqcpY23HAKI/AAAAAAAAAJQ/mPFMY3WylaQ/s320/Prospero.jpg" width="320" /></a> </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My own session on breakdowns and breakthroughs experienced during game-play went ok too, and seemed to generate some interest. I'm actually going to do a seperate blog post on this as I'd like to introduce my research a bit more as I'm realising that it's not something I've been too explicit about on this blog. I've recently taken up some part time work on a project about digital scholarship which has made me think more about openess and what that might mean so I think it will be interesting to be actually put some of my work out there, especially in relation to what I have presented at recent conferences. In general though, the questions I got were interesting and gave me plenty to think about in terms of writing up my thesis. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were a couple of other interesting talks, such as <a href="http://unicatt.academia.edu/LorenzoRomeo">Lorenzo Romeo's</a> talk on reflective flow, which got me thinking about whether games really do support experiential learning or whether we tend to use the term to describe active learning i.e. learning by doing - can learning in the context of game-play really be seen as a <a href="http://www.infed.org/biblio/b-explrn.htm">"direct encounter with the phenomenon being studied"?</a> (this relates a little to conversations I've had with <a href="http://www.open.ac.uk/blogs/openminded/?author=1">Rob Farrow</a> about how <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99iTDUcBuRQ">embodiment </a>relates to games); and <a href="http://www.jcu.edu.au/business/staff/academic/JCUDEV_018540.html">Colin Lemmon</a> giving a really interesting insight into all the problems designers face when trying to develop and get funding for serious game applications. The keynotes also provided food for thought with <a href="http://hci.ece.upatras.gr/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=30&Itemid=56#publish">Nikolaos Avouris</a> providing an useful introduction into the use of games in museum contexts (and how their is really a lot of improvement here in terms of the educational value they actually provide and tapping into more social and mobile experiences - e.g. contrast Play with the Frieze, where you have to match pairs of pictures of the <a href="http://www.theacropolismuseum.gr/default.php?pname=Parthenon&la=2&collection=16">frieze </a>at the new Acropolis Museum; with <a href="http://ghostsofachance.com/">Ghost of a Chance</a> at the Smithsonian American Art Museum). <a href="http://www.seriousgamesinstitute.co.uk/people/default.aspx?i=3edf9212-e074-4f5d-901e-49b73637c1fb">Sara de Freitas</a> also gave a talk on the<a href="http://www.academic-conferences.org/pdfs/ecgbl11_dayone_keynote.pdf"> Gamification of Life</a> which provided an interesting overview into the work the <a href="http://www.seriousgames.org.uk/">Serious Games Insitute</a> is doing and the challenges of doing work in this area. Unfortunately, the conference was a bit pressed for time at this point so it was a bit of whirlwind tour but I would have liked to have heard more about the evaluations carried out. Also, I'm a little confused about her use of the term gamification as it seemed to be used as way of referring to anything involving games (as opposed to the <a href="http://gamification-research.org/2011/10/when-perspectives-collide-bringing-together-game-studies-and-hci/">DiGRA gamification session</a> definition of using game-elements in non-game contexts i.e. not whole games) so it would have been interesting to find out why she applied the term to the work that she discussed. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: small;">All in all, it was an interesting couple of days and I really benefitted from the chance to talk to other researchers about games and games research. I think I did see a bit more of the questioning I felt wasn't there at <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2008/10/european-conference-of-game-based.html">ECGBL 2008</a>, though it was a shame there were quite a few people that couldn't make it so - depsite the fantastic efforts of the organisers, it wasn't quite the experience it could have been. I also think that the conference would benefit from tightening up the review process a little (perhaps by adding an additional reviewer?) as there were a couple of things that surprised me a little in the presentations e.g. the use of the somewhat outdated and unpopular term "edutainment"</span> (though as in any international conference, translation might be an issue here). I'm also very glad I got to see Athens after the protests as the lively and historically amazing city that it is so will leave with a photo of the Acropolis from my hotel room :-)</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ct281ZAOLPU/TqcpQUkKl7I/AAAAAAAAAJI/OD2OLTt2CQ0/s1600/DSCN0403.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ct281ZAOLPU/TqcpQUkKl7I/AAAAAAAAAJI/OD2OLTt2CQ0/s320/DSCN0403.JPG" width="320" /></a> </div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-710751825896806432011-09-21T20:59:00.005+01:002011-09-22T12:23:45.309+01:00DiGRA 2011: Hilversum (Part 2)<div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next day started just as well as the first with a keynote from <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/suzanne-de-castell/">Suzanne de Castell</a> and <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/jen-jenson/">Jen Jenson</a> titled "Playing with fire: Libertarian ludolgies" (see below). They have done a lot of work over the years investigating technology and gender issues in terms of access, equity and design, with their latest research indicating that many of the "facts" we take for granted about gender e.g. girls dislike competitive play, are actually artefacts of novice play. In fact they were able to alter play styles by setting up conditions for girls to become experts and replicate these across different sites. Suzanne and Jen went on to highlight issues such as neoliberal tolerance for misogyny and violence (e.g. where expert female player try to hide their gender instead of having to deal with a barrage of abuse from other players - see <a href="http://fatuglyorslutty.com/about/">Fat, Ugly or Slutty</a> for examples and an attempt to deal with this sort of thing), the need for researchers to go beyond describing how things are and think about how to change them for the better and considering games within a wider media landscape. They suggested that we need better theories of ludic epistemology that recognise the intrinsic value of games and play; to develop innovative methods and interventions by also considering the role of the researcher plays in the process of investigation; to engage in more accountable design so we're not just producing better goods and reflecting society but using games to persuade and foster identity building; and finally they stressed the importance of critical intellectual discussion within the area. I think they said a lot of things that needed to be said, and I particularly liked the point made about shoddy research which claims to make predictions but really just describes the status quo, hence the need for critical debate and more rigorous research. Also, their perspective is hugely important in an area which often sees games and technology as "boys' toys" and I'm pretty sure their plea for researchers to think about change was at least one of the fires they wanted to set. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><insert pic=""></insert></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1iX0QdPuYmA/Tno4SHrSi5I/AAAAAAAAAIY/KLicTuuL2AI/s1600/Jen_Suz.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-1iX0QdPuYmA/Tno4SHrSi5I/AAAAAAAAAIY/KLicTuuL2AI/s320/Jen_Suz.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
After that I went along to an interesting match on identity in massively multiplier games which reflected some of the issues mentioned in the earlier keynote. <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/arne-schroeder/">Arne Schrƶder</a> talked about how game spaces tended to be predominantly white, straight and male, and while there was some experimentation with gender and sexuality it was more a kind of "identity tourism" than a genuine attempt at role-playing. He also gave examples of female and gay players who had left guilds due to sexist and homophobic remarks. <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/nick-taylor/">Nick Taylor</a> echoed some of this when he talked about "sex-swapping" as opposed to real attempts to "gender-swap" within games. He also made some interesting points about how identity shouldn't be seen as a singular construct with a one-to-one mapping between player and avatar, especially given the fact that players often have more than one avatar they use. Further, it seems that adopting different genders and/or sexualities tended not to be seen as transgressive play but as part of expert behaviour where the player was seeking to explore as much of the game as possible. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I also went to a match on values between <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/ril/">Rilla Khaled</a> and <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/jonathan-belman/">Jonathan Belman</a>. Rilla talked about work carried out with <a href="http://www.pippinbarr.com/">Pippin Barr</a>, where they examined the cultural values expressed in the Sims 3 and Fallout 3. They wanted to see whether these games embodied individualistic or collectivist value systems and found that while they expressed a mix of both, they tended to be more individualistic. I thought this might have something to do with the culture the designers came from, and would be quite interested to see how it would differ if looking at games directed and non-western audiences. Jonathan is doing his PhD on empathy in games and he spoke specifically about the <a href="http://www.valuesatplay.org/">http://www.valuesatplay.org/</a> project which developed a card system to guide the design process. Students were asked to pick different <a href="http://www.tiltfactor.org/grow-a-game">Grow-a-game cards</a> (link also leads to free online version) consisting of a game verb (e.g. singing), a value (e.g. liberty), and a social issue (e.g. homelessness) and given the task of creating a game within these constraints. I hadn't realised it but one of the games to come from this project was <a href="http://www.bettergamecontest.org/?q=node/74">Hush</a>, where you play a Tutsi mother who must try and calm her baby during a Hutu raid. Apart from introducing an approach to value conscious design, the match also indicated how games are not value neutral, regardless of whether designers realise it or not. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">During the day there was a also keynote from <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/antanas-mockus-shivickas/">Antanas Mockus Å ivickas</a>, who is served as mayor of Bogota, Columbia. Now this seems pretty random, and it is because he's carried out all sorts of <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xYKQ3yEEok">wacky and wonderful stunts</a> whilst elected in order to promote change and improve the lives of day to day people. For instance, he hired hundreds of mimes in order to reduce traffic violations, dressed up as "Supercivico" to serve as a role model for civic behaviour and using a symbolic vaccine to reduce intra-familial violence. His talk highlighted the importance of considering legal, moral and social concerns when it comes to improving citizenship and harmonising the law (see below) and indicated how playful activities really can make a difference. All very inspiring!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eWI7MYUxPUw/Tno41ehzdwI/AAAAAAAAAIc/qS_XrHO9EQ8/s1600/DSCN0306.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eWI7MYUxPUw/Tno41ehzdwI/AAAAAAAAAIc/qS_XrHO9EQ8/s320/DSCN0306.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
After this I attended a roundtable on gamification, which was helpful in part as it provided an overview of the <a href="http://gamification-research.org/chi2011/">CHI gamification workshop</a>. Despite the fact that many of the applications seemed directed at promoting "good" behaviours e.g. reducing environmental impact, gamification worries me because it reminds of badly designed edutainment - as it seems to involve slapping on a game-layer in order to get you to do something. Surely we've been trying to get away from this sort of extrinsic motivation? Also, as was raised during the session, some of these things might change behaviour in the short term but what about long term impact? The panel were pretty good and pointed out that there are HCI researchers who are interested in intrinsic motivation and a more phenomenological perspective. Plus, <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/dan-dixon/">Dan Dixon</a> suggested that we should move away from the term gamification (and its negative connotations) and use <i>gameful design</i> as an alternative (see pic below). It's clear this is a growing area of interest so it's something worth keeping an eye on, as I have a feeling we're going to have to sift through a lot of bad examples before finding out how to successfully use "game design elements in non-gaming contexts" in a way that doesn't feel like manipulation. Also, when it comes to things we have real trouble with, <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZztLac0Q1EI">maybe we need all the help we can get</a>, whatever form it's in. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gllwGIKufc4/Tno5Bb9_vHI/AAAAAAAAAIg/QeQL78Iir7M/s1600/DSCN0308.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-gllwGIKufc4/Tno5Bb9_vHI/AAAAAAAAAIg/QeQL78Iir7M/s320/DSCN0308.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
My match was on learning was next, with <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/pilar-lacasa/">Pilar Lacasa</a> who was speaking about the use of machinima based on Spore that students produced in biology classrooms. It seems the curriculum is more flexible in Spain so teachers could focus on supporting the development of digital literacies rather than having to assess whether playing Spore and creating machinima led to a greater understanding of biology. It was interesting to see some how different students approached the project, especially when they blended game-play footage with that of the real world. My talk seemed to go ok, though I had an awful lot to explain in about 10 minutes. The paper I submitted was more concerned with introducing the method I developed for my main case study approach, rather than on presenting findings, so most of the questions were about the set-up. Though I did like the fact that when I mentioned <a href="http://www.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/msh/index.htm">Sharples</a> work on breakdowns and breakthroughs a lot of people seemed to write it down! So what games did I use? (I allowed participants to choose during the first session, but then asked them to play something they usually didn't in the second). I seemed to adopt quite an experimental setup, didn't that conflict with trying to tap into the wider context of game-play? (While I did use a lab - because I couldn't sit around people's houses! - I did not carry out a controlled experiment and tried to make sure it was as comfortable as possible). Were there any differences between what I observed in the lab and what was recorded in the diaries? (The diary reports on game-play were much less detailed, and the lab sessions probably did "prompt" game-play). I also got asked about my research questions (which revolve around the role of breakdowns and breakthroughs and identifying learning beyond learning how to play) and about how I identified involvement and did I try to measure it? Short answer, no I didn't try and measure involvement. Though we did try and use physiological data in order to do identify it, this turned out to be much harder than we originally thought and not something that could be done during observation, as originally hoped. So most of the breaks were identified from the post-play interview transcript and now we're trying to figure out how to triangulate that with the physiological data. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">After this there was a bit of rant from game scholars about various things - Mary Flanagan spoke about how few women there are in the games industry (see below); Frans MƤyrƤ complained about the media constantly asking about the detrimental effects of games (suggesting <a href="http://fransmayra.fi/2011/09/16/games-are-not-dangerous-enough/">games are actually not dangerous enough!</a>); <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/maggie-greene/">Maggie Greene</a> had a go at established academics for not using the power they have to improve the situation for grad students (e.g. by getting involved as public intellectuals to promote the area), especially in a climate of reduced employment funding; <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/espen-aarseth/">Espen Aarseth</a> stressed the importance of rigorous reviews and constructive criticism; which was echoed by Suzanne de Castell who also ranted about the fact that we tend to think of gender as a binary construct and we should be careful to avoid "hostile research" which makes assumptions based on bad theory and backs them up with bad methods e.g. all RPG players are depressed and anti-social. Mary Flanagan then followed this up with a keynote on critical play and designing games from a social justice perspective (see below). She was PI of the Values@Play project so there was mention of using games to promote specific values and with respect the holy grail of educational research - transfer. I really liked that she mentioned that a lot of game design produces extrinsic motivation and referenced a study where children were found to spend less time drawing when they were given rewards for the activity. She also suggested systems thinking reveals that big shifts come from small incremental ones, and concluded with a quote from Jane Goodall: "The greatest danger to our future is apathy".<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_4arG3mGuvs/Tno7HuWvW4I/AAAAAAAAAIw/9C4wi5XNaJU/s1600/DSCN0312.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-_4arG3mGuvs/Tno7HuWvW4I/AAAAAAAAAIw/9C4wi5XNaJU/s320/DSCN0312.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-JRGJBXknk6w/Tno5jPxh4JI/AAAAAAAAAIo/dZVCFP4ad7U/s1600/DSCN0310.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
I think that just about covers it! I did also catch the last half of the session on <a href="http://www.minecraft.net/">Minecraft </a>where some children were being interviewed on stage whilst they showed us round the game they had set up along with one of their parents (who I think also taught at the University). It was really interesting to hear them talk about the game and what they had built - an impressive replica of Helm's Deep. At one point they were asked whether they thought they could "win" the game, to which one of them responded that perhaps you could if you mined everything! Given all the talk about values of the conference I couldn't help but wonder what that meant about in terms of what they were taking from the game... There was also some talk about how they would often look at YouTube videos for inspiration about what to create in the game, but I think only one of the older ones posted videos himself. They definitely seemed to get a lot of of the experience and their own Minecraft community too. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nqwnXq9gO1c/TnpAI7wFHqI/AAAAAAAAAI0/mJkFQjY7ZXU/s1600/DSCN0323.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-nqwnXq9gO1c/TnpAI7wFHqI/AAAAAAAAAI0/mJkFQjY7ZXU/s320/DSCN0323.JPG" width="320" /></a></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><insert pic=""></insert></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So all in all it was quite an inspiring couple of days and I'm very glad I went. Thanks to the organisers for putting on a great conference and to everyone else who took part; including the students of the Utrecht School of Arts who had their exhibits on display during the event. Below is a photo of me and Jantina playing a student developed game called <a href="http://fingleforipad.com/">Fingle </a>- if you have an iPad I recommend you check it out!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eHj5mSaAvPc/Tno6xChGwTI/AAAAAAAAAIs/UlWPefNDcno/s1600/DSCN0302.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-eHj5mSaAvPc/Tno6xChGwTI/AAAAAAAAAIs/UlWPefNDcno/s320/DSCN0302.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;">Oh and for further impressions of the conference, check out those videos:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/29140646">Opening Party</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/29140457">Day 1</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/29195645">Day 2</a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://vimeo.com/29195744">Day 3</a></div></div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-24582890744717270292011-09-21T01:00:00.005+01:002011-09-22T12:02:47.352+01:00DiGRA 2011: Hilversum (Part 1)<div style="text-align: justify;">I recently got back from the <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/">5th DiGRA conference</a> - it was held at the Utrecht School of Arts in Hilversum, and has seriously given me a lot to think about! So much so that I think I'm going to have to split the post into two parts.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_6c_j92PyYY/TnkdsZOSV6I/AAAAAAAAAII/4r_EJAlHyGw/s1600/koala.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-_6c_j92PyYY/TnkdsZOSV6I/AAAAAAAAAII/4r_EJAlHyGw/s320/koala.jpg" width="213" /></a>The conference opened on the Wednesday night at club <a href="http://www.devorstin.nl/English/">De Vorstin</a> setting up a playful atmosphere with <a href="http://vimeo.com/21747866">Chick n' Run</a> races (where you have to rock back and forth on adult-sized play garden chickens against an opponent), <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aAOplz5ri5k">B.U.T.T.O.N.</a> (encouraging Brutally Unfair Tactics are Totally OK Now as you physically do all you can to win or stop your opponents from winning - one of many there from the <a href="http://www.copenhagengamecollective.org/">Copehagen Game Collective</a>), and a <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TP8Vvj_yFjc&feature=youtu.be">Do It Yourself DJ installation</a> (with which you can mix audio samples using old school cassette tapes) to name just a few of the attractions on offer. Plus <a href="http://kidkoala.com/">Kid Koala</a> performed the opening "keynote" - gotta love a conference that's opened by a guy in a koala suit!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The next day, <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/eric-zimmerman/">Eric Zimmerman's</a> keynote gave the audience plenty of food for thought when he used quotes from <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Art_in_theory_1900_2000.html?id=SWu4SB92fHMC">Art in Theory</a> and replacing the word art with games to show how there really are quite a few parallels between the two. Further, no one seems to feel the need to justify art or discusses how to make it "educational"! He stressed that games are an important cultural and aesthetic form in their own right and had a go at educators who see games as instruments for transmitting content efficiently (or not, as the case may be). He argued that though developing gaming literacies such as problem solving, systems thinking and community building we should be able to understand and fix the systemic problems that affect the world we live, in what he termed the "ludic century". This wasn't suggesting that we should gamify everything but that we should recognise the value games have in their own right, with game researchers leading the way!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
All the presentation sessions took places in cabins outside (see below), where speakers were matched together on topics in order to promote discussion. This worked well when the topics were similar enough but sometimes it felt like a bit of a stretch, and though powerpoint was technically banned, it didn't stop most people from presenting slides in some form or another. Most of the presentations were short though, which did allow for more interaction, especially with plenty of time planned between matches.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E1AvOpiYkv0/TnkiEcO5WEI/AAAAAAAAAIM/xVZ9swGxLyw/s1600/DSCN0301.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-E1AvOpiYkv0/TnkiEcO5WEI/AAAAAAAAAIM/xVZ9swGxLyw/s320/DSCN0301.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
It was clear the presenters of the first session I went to afterwards were still thinking about the opening keynote. <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/marcelo-de-vasconcellos/">Marcelo de Vasconcellos</a> started the match (each presenter was matched on topics for the conference sessions) with a discussion of how games might be used for promoting public health communication in Brazil, while <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/mary-flanagan/">Mary Flanagan</a> and <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/jonathan-belman/">Jonathan Belman</a> introduced their <a href="http://www.tiltfactor.org/pox">Save the People! Pox boardgame</a> which was developed as part of the Science literacy curriculum in order to teach how immunisation and viruses work. The session also led to an interesting discussion on transfer and how you might test for it. I think there was a concern that this was the sort of thing Eric Zimmerman was attacking but I think that the problem lies with this idea of using games to deliver course content. If we do use art as a parallel, while you might not make art to be educational in the formal sense, there is often a desire to use it as a way to change thinking and broaden perspectives. Education should be more than about whether you can transmit information efficiently, but it doesn't mean you games can't be designed in order to foster understanding and the development of different skills. Going back to the talks though, it was interesting to hear that players of the iPad version of Pox tended to play the game a lot faster - it would seem that a physical board (or mat) and hand held game pieces encourage people to take their time, which seems like something worth investigating.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Speaking of board games, they aren't something I've ever really thought to much about before to be honest. But one of the keynotes was by <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/reiner-knizia/">Reiner Knizia</a> a board game designer who is responsible for selling over 15 million games - I really had no idea how big the industry was! He spoke about the design of games in terms of how games relate to real life, considering intuitive input/outputs, creating an appealing game system, using highly visible hooks and engaging game communities. There was a panel afterwards (below) which also included Andrew Sheerin and <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/james-wallis/">James Wallis</a> which discussed board games trends, academic perspectives, and subversion in games. Turns out James was at the Hide & Seek session I went to introducing the special edition of his "not-quite" role-play game <a href="http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/2470/the-extraordinary-adventures-of-baron-munchausen">The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen</a>, but it was great to meet him at the conference and talk about games of all sorts. I also met Andrew after the panel, whose company Terror Bull games developed <a href="http://www.terrorbullgames.co.uk/games/war_on_terror_game.php">"War on Terror: The Boardgame"</a>. It's not a game I had heard of before but hearing about it, and the fact that it comes with a balaclava, made me think it's something I'm curious to try out. It was interesting to talk to him later on about the potential educational uses of such games, especially in terms of how they might act as catalysts for discussion. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-al4TT0HIiBY/TnkjijsRkBI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/7Bd9mHC5WRg/s1600/DSCN0297.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-al4TT0HIiBY/TnkjijsRkBI/AAAAAAAAAIQ/7Bd9mHC5WRg/s320/DSCN0297.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
Other highlights of the first day include <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/valentina-rao2/">Valentina Rao</a> who discussed how we might be able to interpret games as a form of experiential discourse, and considering the design of serious games with specific communicative purposes. During this match on critical thinking <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/daniel-joseph/">Daniel Joseph</a> spoke about ludotopian and ludocapitalist rhetoric surrounding games, in terms of how people see games in terms of "the sublime" e.g. recreating the Starship Enterprise in Minecraft and Jane McGonigal talking about how games can save the world, and in terms gamification and making money from it e.g. <a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1491864049">Gabe Zickermann.</a> Dan suggested that the truth is probably somewhere in between and we won't really know it until games have become prosaic, commonplace and cheap i.e. until we don't notice them so much! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I also went to a match on engagement, where I met <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/gordon-calleja/">Gordon Calleja</a>, who was talking about incorporation and the framework on player involvement I have been using within my research, and <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/henrik-schoenau-fog2/">Henrik Schoenau-Fog</a> who is looking at the continuation desires of players with respect to creating a player engagement framework. The fact that incorporation is not an experience that all games lead too was discussed, since it combines a feeling of intense involvement with a sense of inhabiting a virtual world. So you'd have to control an avatar, most likely in 3D space in order to achieve it. However, I do think Calleja's model and the frames within it can still be applied to most games, and that learning occurs when player's internalise each of the relevant frames. I did like the fact that Henrik distinguished between motivation (the carrot) and engagement (the hook) when he talked about continuation desires, as I don't think it's something that a lot of research considers. I was also intrigued by his introduction of First Person Victim (see below) in terms of thinking about how you can engage people to go through certain experiences which may not be that pleasant, in order to help them consider the plight of others and take part in discussion. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Zs5P2H2s3z0?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Earlier in the day, I went along to a live book review on <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/garry-crawford/">Garry Crawford's</a> book Video Gamers where <b style="font-weight: normal;"><a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/speakers/frans-maeyrae/">Frans MƤyrƤ</a> interviewed him about it on stage (below). Coming from a cultural sociological background, Garry was interested in how games fit into wider cultures and gamers lives. It's a book about players rather than games that aims to provide a fresh perspective to the area through including ideas about Bourdieu's notion of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Habitus_%28sociology%29">habitus</a>, Goffman's <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Framing_%28social_sciences%29">frame analysis</a> and through questioning concepts such as the magic circle. </b><b style="font-weight: normal;">It was an interesting session and I think I'm going to have to get hold of the book to find out more. Specifically, I'd like to find out whether he makes any distinction between different types of gamers and players (or are just all people who play games gamers) and while I appreciate he was focusing on people rather than games, I'd like to know if there was a consideration of how different games might relate to different gaming cultures and practices. </b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nTViswpI0rY/Tnkj5AKhh2I/AAAAAAAAAIU/CDNkYXIu3wo/s1600/DSCN0296.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-nTViswpI0rY/Tnkj5AKhh2I/AAAAAAAAAIU/CDNkYXIu3wo/s320/DSCN0296.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><b style="font-weight: normal;"></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: normal;"><br />
</b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><b style="font-weight: normal;">Ok, I think that's enough for now - more later! </b></div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-68850228629091840382011-09-01T22:09:00.003+01:002011-09-08T18:35:29.345+01:00EARLI 2011: Exeter<div style="text-align: justify;">Hmm, can't believe it's been two years since the last EARLI! This time it was held at the University of Exeter, so a little easier to get to, but I only went for a couple of days as I have another two conferences lined up over the next couple of months and I really do have lots of PhD work to be getting on with if I'm going to finish it anytime soon... The <a href="http://www.earli2011.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=1">conference </a>is still running at the moment but I wanted to get my thoughts down while they are still fresh. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ACSP3Yx4eA4/Tl_sEqdqLNI/AAAAAAAAAHc/X1zwQ_TaI08/s1600/uni+exeter+sign+130907.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="150" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ACSP3Yx4eA4/Tl_sEqdqLNI/AAAAAAAAAHc/X1zwQ_TaI08/s200/uni+exeter+sign+130907.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;">EARLI seemed bigger than ever this year with over 20 parallel sessions during each slot. But with so much of an emphasis on formal education and assessment there wasn't actually too much that I had to decide between. Obviously EARLI is an education conference so that's bound to be the focus and I suppose another reason why I didn't spend too long there was because I knew there wasn't a lot I would find especially relevant. I think there might have been even fewer presentations relating to games than last time but I am glad I got a chance to present at the main conference and that I had the opportunity to meet up with other people there. Plus I'm sure it's a good thing to be exposed to work in different areas and be reminded of what else is going on in the field of education.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I found myself going along to presentations about multimedia learning, motivational, social and affective processes, and comprehension of texts and graphics. Highlights include <a href="http://www.uni-erfurt.de/aewebf/lernen-medien/team/mitarbeiterinnen/dr-steffi-heidig-geb-domagk/?L=9">Steffi Heidig</a> presenting the Interact model (during her second presentation in the session, since her colleagues were stuck in the US because of hurricane Irene), which tries to consider both cognitive and emotional effects in relation to learning environments; contributing to a roundtable discussion about maths in relation to critical thinking skills and then CSCL environments (which I don't really know much about but quite enjoyed talking about anyway!); <a href="http://www.formazione.univr.it/fol/main?ent=persona&id=3854">Daniela Raccanello</a> discussing achievement emotions with respect to different subjects (also presenting the rather depressing finding that as class level increases, students experience less positive emotions and more negative ones); <a href="http://www.units.it/persone/index.php/from/abook/persona/685">Lucia Lumbelli</a> presenting work on self-explaining and the Simpsons; and <a href="http://www.utwente.nl/gw/ist/medewerkers/wetenschappelijke_staf/jan_van_der_meij/">Jan van der Meij</a> discussing different learning diagram designs in relation to eye-tracking data.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The main session of interest to me though was one which included four game-related sessions. The first presentation was by <a href="http://johnmquick.tumblr.com/">John Quick</a>, a PhD student from Arizona State University who is looking at how game design features relate to personality traits. He presented six design characteristics (fantasy, exploration, realism, challenge, companionship, and competition) and a number of player characteristics that relate to them in the form of player types e.g. imaginative realist explorer. I'm still not 100% sure how the "meeting new people" item ended up in the competition (rather than the companionship) category but I did like the idea of mapping design aspects to different personalities. I do reckon mood also has influence on the choices player's make (and external factors such as time available and social context) but it's hard not to agree that players still have underlying, longer-term preferences that affect the games they tend to play. I look forward to reading more about how the categories were developed and how they might be applied in terms of design.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Next there was <a href="http://ci.unlv.edu/faculty/schrader">P.G.Schrader</a> talking about expert and novice behaviour in World of Warcraft, with a focus on examining spatial and social behaviour within immersive environment (they were more interested in the fact WoW is a virtual world than a game). I quite like the way this was set up and the use of observation protocols to track behaviours, though I should probably look into what the behavioural assessment matrix (BAM) actually is. However, given the small sample size and the increasing the p value (0.1 rather than the usual 0.05) I couldn't help but think they were over claiming a little. I know it's exploratory work, and they cited precedent for doing so, but I'd like to see further results especially in relation to the claim that novices require more than an hour before engaging in social interactions within immersive environments. Though the difference was quite large in this case, I think it reflects that (1) it's unlikely players <i>have to</i> engage with other people straight away in order progress with play (2) players probably don't want to join others and engage in collaborative activity before they have acquired a certain level of competence in the first place. Again, it'll be good to get hold of the longer paper as it'll be interesting to go through what they did in a bit more detail. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Then we had <a href="http://www.idunn.no/ts/dk/2009/01/art01">Vigdis Vangsnes</a> talking about games as multi-modal performances and adopting a hermeneutic phenomenological model to consider quality in serious games. I quite like the idea of thinking of game-play as a performance but I have to confess that I wasn't quite sure how the framework was going to be applied in practice. It all seemed quite theoretical at this stage, as admittedly it's a work in progress, but a couple of examples might have been helpful to illustrate how this approach offers a unique insight into assessing game quality. The session then concluded with <a href="http://www.kuleuven.be/wieiswie/en/person/u0064506">Sylke Vandercruysse</a> presenting a review of different studies on game-based learning. Including papers about "(quasi-) experimental research that made use of a computer-based-game in an educational setting", they only found about 20 or so that fit their criteria. One of their aims was to investigate the claim that the increased motivation produced by games increases learning and it didn't look like they found strong evidence to support it. Again, it would be useful to get hold of the longer reference (I think there is an article in press) to see exactly all the criteria were but it did seem clear that the area would benefit from better designed studies and consistent definitions of learning, engagement and motivation. <span style="font-size: x-small;"></span><br />
The other game-related session I went to was roundtable discussion with <a href="http://home.medewerker.uva.nl/j.c.huizenga/">Jantina Huizenga</a> (who I met at JURE/EARLI <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2009/09/jure-and-earli-2009.html">last time</a>). Jantina carried out a similar review (though this time finding 46 studies) - where we had a really interesting discussion about the different claims being made about games in education in terms of motivation (with learning content), engagement (with the game) and learning (in terms of factual knowledge, cognitive skills, and meta-cognitive skills). I think we concluded that the area would benefit from better designed studies that actually describe the games and interventions in more detail and make sure to back up their claims with empirical evidence. Oh and studies should actually define key words such as game, engagement and motivation. I know the field of game-based learning is relatively new but I'm really hoping the area will see an improvement in terms of quality soon as it's makes it harder for the field to be taken seriously. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">My session wasn't till the next day, and while I would have preferred to have been included in the previous day's session with all the other games presentations, it did seem to go relatively well. (Note: if going to present on games at EARLI don't pick Multimedia and Hypermedia as a research strand, try Learning and Technology instead). I was presenting the learning categories I developed from my first email interview study - so not only qualitative research but focusing on informal learning, hopefully the audience appreciated a bit of break! I guess this is old news in terms of my PhD but the submission date was back in October so I didn't have much else to present at that point. It all seemed to go down ok with people quite interested in the quotes I was presenting to back up the creation of different categories. I did get a question about how you might test for learning beyond the game, which I kind of expected, though to be fair I don't think I was being asked why I hadn't included these tests in my own research. I also got quite an interesting question about when people look up information they encounter during play in terms of how do they know when references are factual or not. I'm not sure that's something I've thought about before but I guess you would have to at least some prior knowledge to be able to distinguish between the made up stuff and real world references. I'd like to think most people would be able to tell the difference, though perhaps there's a study in there where you could see whether the majority actually can. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Finally, I also have to say I really enjoyed <a href="http://www.psychology.nottingham.ac.uk/staff/Shaaron.Ainsworth/">Shaaron Ainsworth's</a> keynote on "Understanding and transforming multi-representational learning" (which I think you will be able to watch later from <a href="http://www.earli2011.org/nqcontent.cfm?a_id=489">here</a>). Ok, so I'm slightly biased as I know Shaaron and because I actually got cited in the keynote (!) for a paper she presented at EARLI 2005 based on my undergraduate project but it was clear the rest of the audience felt the same way. Some of the content was familiar (due to studying at Nottingham but also with respect to Shaaron's work with Jake Habgood on the game <a href="http://zombiedivision.co.uk/">Zombie Division</a>) and some wasn't - in particular I was quite interested in the more recent focus on learning through drawing i.e. getting students to create representations. The gist of it was along the lines that learning is increasingly involve the use of multiple representations and we really should be thinking beyond general design principles about what actually works in practice and under what circumstances. And yes, that applies to games too! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All in all, I did appreciate going to EARLI. I'll admit I'm more excited about <a href="http://gamesconference.hku.nl/">DiGRA </a>in a couple of weeks since it's more games focused, but I did have the chance to present my work to a different audience, get more up to date about what's going on in educational research and I definitely enjoyed catching up with researchers I'd met before and meeting some new ones. Oh, and special thanks to my supervisor <a href="http://iet.open.ac.uk/people/j.c.aczel">James Aczel</a> and his family for putting me up in Exeter :-) </div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-70409845858502931282011-04-03T18:43:00.005+01:002011-09-08T18:39:01.266+01:00Mass Effect 2 (PS3)<div style="text-align: justify;">I want to talk about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_Effect_2">Mass Effect 2</a> because it's the first seriously long game in ages that I've been thoroughly engrossed in and wanted to play non-stop. Heavy Rain was probably the last title that had that effect on me, but it really didn't take too long to get through, and according to my save game files I've spent over 40 hours playing Mass Effect during the last three weeks... There's another post I'm thinking of writing about my gaming habits and how game-play fits into my life but first I want to reflect on why this game sucked me in as much as it did.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen='allowfullscreen' webkitallowfullscreen='webkitallowfullscreen' mozallowfullscreen='mozallowfullscreen' width='320' height='266' src='https://www.youtube.com/embed/Y2O-0-fQOOs?feature=player_embedded' frameborder='0'></iframe></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I was interested in the first Mass Effect when it came out but I didn't have an Xbox 360, and my laptop wouldn't have been able to cope with it. I'd also heard a lot about it from my friend Paul, who went on to enthuse about the second installment. So when I heard it was coming out on PS3, I was already excited. An action-RPG set in the future where I get to command a space ship and my choices affect the way the narrative progresses? I was definitely intrigued. I've not seriously played an RPG since <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baldur%27s_Gate">Baldur's Gate</a> years ago (and no, I don't think the tongue-in-cheek <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DeathSpank">Deathspank</a> really counts...), but I guess that was the last time I got this involved in a game story. Incidentally, Baldur's Gate was also created by <a href="http://www.bioware.com/">Bioware</a>. Mass Effect is the kind of game where narrative really does count, but I think it's the relationships you have with the rest of your team that make the narrative matter. I was utterly engrossed in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heavy_Rain">Heavy Rain</a> but it didn't take long to play through (plus there is some <a href="http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/96957-Heavy-Rain-Is-Not-a-Game">debate </a>on whether it actually is a game or not). And while Deathspank was engaging in an amusing sort of way, I didn't really care about what was going on, not enough to try and finish it or even to spend that much time playing it on my own. But in Mass Effect 2, I had to make all sorts of choices along the way in terms of how I interact with people and what I do next which I knew would affect how the development of the plot.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So I finished it last weekend, and even now I'm still wondering whether I made the right decisions. Obligatory SPOILER ALERT as I'm going to go on discuss some of the plot and how it panned out. I think one of the moments that surprised me was how I ended up interacting with a character called Grunt (see below). Grunt is a member of the <a href="http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Krogan">Krogan</a> species who was genetically engineered in a vat by a scientist who was trying to create the "perfect" Krogran.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mhidsER_lh0/TZiqFpY6qHI/AAAAAAAAAHY/efhrL7r7RXs/s1600/Grunt.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="274" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-mhidsER_lh0/TZiqFpY6qHI/AAAAAAAAAHY/efhrL7r7RXs/s320/Grunt.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Soon after awaking/recruiting him, it's clear he's having some sort of difficulty dealing with his rage (hardly surprising since, despite being fully grown, he's only been out of the vat for a short while - experiencing the Krogan version of teenage angst perhaps?) so off we go to his homeworld to figure out if there is anything wrong with him and he ends up having to go on some sort of rite of passage. Now the Krogans are a pretty aggressive race (I guess sort of like Klingons but more animal like) and even though I've played most of the game so far by choosing the paragon (i.e. good guy) options, I start to play it differently now. Because Grunt is Krogan, and I want the others to respect him (and his choice to be part of my team) - in fact I want to encourage Grunt to be the best Krogan he could possibly be. It's odd, but he sort of felt like my adopted child and I wanted him to connect with his culture... I know the plot is a little bit ridiculous (but it did start with me being resurrected from being dead), and I know that is an odd feeling to have about a character I regularly took into battle but I'm really not sure how else to explain why I started acting all tough and aggressive all of a sudden. The only other thing I can say in my defence is that behaving how I did just sort of made sense, it just seemed like the best way to communicate with the Krogans. When in Rome... </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So that's one team member. There are several others, and after a while you start to realise you like some of them more than others. I would find myself going to visit people, after missions just to hear what they had to say, some more than others. For instance, I enjoyed both serious and hilarious conversations with Mordin (the Salarian scientist <a href="http://gaygamer.net/2010/01/video_mass_effect_2_does_gilbe.html">who sings Gilbert and Sullivan</a>). You can even have pursue a romantic relationships with one of them, though this part of the game impressed me less. Partly because while you are allowed to have inter-species relationships with alien team members, you can't pursue same sex relationships (except perhaps with the <a href="http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Asari">Asari </a>who, though they look female, do not have a gender). If you choose to play a female Shepard, you can still flirt with human Yeoman Kelly Chambers (but there is definitely no man-on-man action), even have dinner with her (after which she will feed your fish and so stop them from dying when you are off ship, lol) but it's not considered pursuing a relationship - so it's all sort of implicit (until perhaps the end of the game, where it just gets weird). What I mean by it's not "considered a relationship" is that don't get the paramour achievement for pursuing this, but you will if you get together with one of your team mates. The problem I have with this side of the game, isn't that you can engage in this sort of things or even that it's reduced to an achievement (pretty much all of the game is tbh). It's that after a certain period of time, it's the only way for you to interact with your team mates. If you are female, the women just keep saying they are busy, and if you don't pursue the romantic options the men start to do the same. I guess the only way to continue to talk to someone is to become physically intimate with them.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The other aspect of the relationship system is that certain options are only available if you have received enough paragon or renegade points. You get these points based on how you act within the game, and on how you interact with people. This seems to presume we either want to be "good" or "bad" but sometimses situations are more complex than that and seem to call different kinds of behaviour, regardless of what you might actually believe. I know the game usually allows you to choose different responses but in order to unlock different options later on, it forces you to generally pick one mode over the other. At one stage, I sided with one character over another in an argument and I just didn't have enough points to resolve the issue. I kept trying to get more paragon points, just so I could try and sort things out, but that felt like a strange thing to be thinking during the game - I realised that I was considering my choices on the basis of whether it would give me enough points to convince <a href="http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Miranda">Miranda</a> to talk to me again. Perhaps the real problem here is that there were consequences to me not managing to get those points. You see, after the argument, Miranda was no longer loyal to the team, I guess she stopped trusting me. And so after the final mission, Miranda was the only person who didn't make it back alive... I really ended up feeling like I had failed her. Seriously, when did games start getting me <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2010/03/heavy-rain-ps3.html">to feel guilty about the choices I make within them</a>?! </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Even now I'm thinking about the decisions I made. Maybe I shouldn't have decided to kill the heretic <a href="http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Geth">Geth </a>(an AI race, but some of members had sided with the bad guys in the first game). To me it seemed like the more ethical option - the other was to reprogram them i.e. brainwash them, but I figured they should be free to make a choice about what they believe, just as I made a choice about defending myself and the galaxy against their beliefs. The game didn't agree with my logic, so I got renegade points instead of paragon ones, and so I still couldn't resolve the argument. Maybe I should have taken Miranda with me on the final battle, at least that way I could have protected her, instead of her dying with the other team. Or maybe I should have sided with her in the first place, instead of Jack - who honestly started to irritate me after a while.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So that's one of things I was going over after I played it - the other was about the decision I made to pass on the Reaper technology to Cerberus. The Reapers are the big bad in the game - they are a threat to the entire galaxy and it is clear I will have to face them again in the third game (the decisions I have made will also influence the story of Mass Effect 3). Cerberus is the organisation I work for and who resurrected me, led by the <a href="http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Illusive_Man">Illusive Man</a> (voiced by Martin Sheen) but it is clear they are a bit dodgy and perhaps worryingly pro-human. I decided to pass on the technology because I thought it would give me an advantage next time, but now I'm wondering whether I've really just given Cerberus the tools to make humans the dominant force in the galaxy... Lol, I'm still debating whether to play the final level again so I can save Miranda and destroy the technology!</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">There were other moments in the game that got me thinking about moral issues - the <a href="http://masseffect.wikia.com/wiki/Genophage">genophage</a> the Salarians created in order to try and restrict the Krogan birth rate, the decision by a human scientist to use his autistic brother as a subject for an experiment etc - and I think this is the sort of thing that had me hooked. I wanted to get to the next cut scene and find out what was going to happen next, but I also had to seriously think about the issues the game raised and what sort of character I wanted the Shepard I was playing to be. I guess this was the first game in a while where I thought I might be doing some of that <a href="http://einiverse.eingang.org/2010/07/08/elsheindra-and-the-tripartite-identity/">projective identity thinking that Gee talks about. </a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The actual combat was fine, not as hard as I thought it might be, and helped by the fact that I could essentially pause it whilst I picked my team's next attack/weapon. I actually started the game on the easiest option because I thought my lack of experience with shooters would stop me from progressing - but I changed this back to normal after the first couple of fights. Ultimately, it was the story and the choices I was presented with that I really cared about. And it is these things that will ensure I play the next installment. It wasn't all done perfectly, I actually kind of wish I hadn't chosen to go back to my ship and talk to people after the final mission. I was disappointed nobody had anything to say about Miranda's death (all there that happened was a little cut scene, showing a solitary coffin - her office being empty actually seemed more poignant). I also got annoyed with Grunt because he contradicted himself by telling me I shouldn't have given the tech to Cerberus, despite the fact that he encouraged me to take it at the time. Hmm, in fact they pretty much all seemed to think I had made the wrong decision, is that why I want to re-play it? And then there was Kelly. She was really visibly shaken after having been rescued from the Collector ship so her showing up in my cabin later in a revealing outfit to do a bit of "sexy" dance just seemed bizarre and out of character... Like a reward for horny teenage boys for having finished the game, rather than a genuine part of the story. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Despite a few small niggles, I seriously did enjoy playing Mass Effect 2. It was mostly very well put together, and there is something about knowing your actions will have meaningful consequences that makes makes the experiences all the more powerful. Will I replay it? Probably, but I haven't decided whether I'll redo the last level with my current character or try it again with a new one where I'll act completely different to how I did. I also have the option of playing it again with the same character but now I'm all levelled up. All I know for sure is that I'm looking forward to Mass Effect 3 :-)</div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-21722864719899570422010-11-01T18:21:00.000+00:002010-11-01T18:21:39.292+00:00GameCity 5 and Jonathan Blow's commentary on Braid<div style="text-align: justify;">So like I said I was in Nottingham last week for a couple of things, as well as the ITAG conference there was the <a href="http://www.gamecity.org/">GameCity 5</a>. I went along last year too, so had a better idea what to expect this time. The festival had the usual marquee in Market Square though one half of the arena was devoted to EA and the Nottingham Primary Care Trust who partnered up to "bring you the Best Health club in the WORLD" (according to the GameCity website anyway). That was a bit weird to be honest - games promoting fitness... still not sure I've got my head around all that though that doesn't mean I think it's a bad thing, just different. The other side was much closer to home though, as it was full of couches and TVs so people could comfortably try out different games:</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TM7kDuVo7NI/AAAAAAAAAG8/UNe2cHdS5aw/s1600/DSC00118.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TM7kDuVo7NI/AAAAAAAAAG8/UNe2cHdS5aw/s320/DSC00118.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">Like the new <a href="http://universe.lego.com/en-us/splash/default.aspx">Lego Universe</a> - a massively multiplayer experience that has just been launched. It looked cute and funny, though I got the impression it's being aimed at younger players.</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TM7kNEcWlRI/AAAAAAAAAHA/b0PLTOjmCLg/s1600/DSC00114.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TM7kNEcWlRI/AAAAAAAAAHA/b0PLTOjmCLg/s320/DSC00114.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
<div style="text-align: justify;">And Confetti Carnival, developed by <a href="http://www.spikysnail.com/">Spiky Snail</a> which was a lot of fun. The designers were kind enough to answer my questions about the platform and release date - apparently while they would like it to be multi-platform, that really depends on what deal they get, and it should be ready for release by the second half of 2011. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The main highlight of the festival for me though was hearing Jonathan Blow do a sort of directors commentary on <a href="http://braid-game.com/">Braid</a>:</div><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TM7kVFSB6cI/AAAAAAAAAHE/Ji_J7Z2zi_g/s1600/DSC00105.JPG" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TM7kVFSB6cI/AAAAAAAAAHE/Ji_J7Z2zi_g/s320/DSC00105.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><br />
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<div style="text-align: justify;">It was seriously interesting, not just because it made me want to give Braid another go but because of what he said about game design. He first demoed the original prototype which he threw together in about 8 days to show his friends. The final game took about three years and looks a lot better, but it was quite interesting to see a lot of the main concepts (including the time reversal mechanic) in what was essentially a retro Marioesque platformer with crude graphics. Jonathan pretty much played through most of the game, explaining each world, though it was clear he wasn't going to say very much about the story. I think in some ways what the story means came across as something he didn't know how to verbalise, rather than something he was just refusing to talk about. And like most things, you can't control how people respond to what you've created.<br />
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But anyway, what really struck me about his talk was what he said about designing the puzzles and wanting to make them intrinsically motivating (a phrase he actually used, though he did admit only coming across it after the game was finished). The idea was to try and create an intriguing universe of simple rules that players could figure out one step and a time. He would often try and achieve this by giving the player the clues they needed within the single screen they were occupying. He even talked about trying to encourage "incubation" (though that's not what he called it - it's another psychological mechanism, which occurs when you get stuck on a problem and only seem to be able to solve it by leaving it alone for a while and doing something else). So he would try and get players to store a symbolic representation of the salient puzzle pieces, by keeping the levels as simple as possible. He also talked about wanting the game to be non-linear, I think in the sense that you were meant to come back to different puzzles, but after a play-test he ended up changing it so people could play it all the way through if they wanted (though he didn't seem sure that was the best decision). During the Q&A session, he also mentioned Skinner in the sense that variable rewards are always a better design mechanic than a consistent one. This linked to the pattern-breaking concept he'd mentioned too - while he made a lot about introducing the rules to the player of each world in a scaffolded way, he also pointed out that it was good to break those rules as it gives the game greater depth. As the game progresses, there are even more pattern breaking incidents, signaling to the player that the end is drawing near.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">All of what I've just said is about the puzzle solving elements of the game. Braid also has a narrative which is ostensibly about a boy called Tim who wants to find the Princess, but it seems to really be about being about relationships and making mistakes and whether you can ever take those back. Again, this is is a reference there to the early Mario platformers, except with Braid you actually start to consider why the hero is looking for the Princess in the first place. There is a lot of text in the game, but Jonathan made a choice to make it irrelevant to the game-play since you can go through the whole thing without paying attention to any of it. I'd argue that doing so means you would lose out on a richer game-play experience but I think the decision was based on an awareness that not all game-players like sitting through lots of text. I think the reason I enjoyed his talk so much was that he made me appreciate all the time, energy and love that was put into this game. I'm not a designer, and I've never really tried to make my own game, but hearing him made me think that this is what people who want to design educational games should listen too. There is a very particular kind of learning going on here - mostly in the form of cognitive problem solving - and I'm not sure how well that maps on to different curricula objectives but there is no way you could deny that players aren't learning as they progress through the game. Even Jonathan admitted that he found out new ways to solve certain puzzles, after he had finished it! Maybe the key is to think about how to create a universe who's rules you want the student to learn, rather than to consider how to lots of educational content into a game? The thing is, I also think you could get a lot of out studying how something like Braid was put together, not so much in terms of the coding underneath but mainly in terms of the ideas behind it and how they are reflected in the game-play mechanisms and design rhetoric. I think I'm starting to see a place for the study of games alongside the study of films or books - something that involves a lot more than <a href="http://www.google.co.uk/imgres?imgurl=http://0.tqn.com/d/kidscooking/1/I/k/1/-/-/choccoveredbroc.jpg&imgrefurl=http://kidscooking.about.com/od/snacksdipsappetizers/r/chocobroccoli.htm&usg=__VtpF0rj3sZ4Q3GyUcELfknjimLg=&h=157&w=210&sz=13&hl=en&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=cv_n8eErzg67KM:&tbnh=111&tbnw=161&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dchocolate%2Bcovered%2Bbroccoli%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26client%3Dfirefox-a%26sa%3DN%26rls%3Dorg.mozilla:en-GB:official%26biw%3D1366%26bih%3D539%26tbs%3Disch:1&um=1&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=1001&vpy=149&dur=185&hovh=120&hovw=161&tx=96&ty=69&ei=ZAPPTL_XD4mFswbN9ZSnAQ&oei=ZAPPTL_XD4mFswbN9ZSnAQ&esq=1&page=1&ndsp=23&ved=1t:429,r:5,s:0">chocolate covered broccoli</a> and a bit more imagination than trying to simulate real world activity as closely as you possibly can. Something which Michael Abbott, is trying to do at <a href="http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2010/08/portal-booklist.html">Wabash College with Portal</a>. Which reminds me, Portal actually has a developer's commentary you can access after you finish the game - it might be quite useful to see more of this sort of thing. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'll admit though, when I first tried Braid, I didn't quite get the time mechanic and while I had been meaning to get back to it, it wasn't until after hearing Jonathan speak and seeing the game in action that I decided to give it another go. And if I'm really honest, though I did complete it, I did resort to using YouTube walkthroughs. As with playing <a href="http://joiacovides.blogspot.com/2008/08/portal-ps3.html">Portal, </a>sometimes it was more about confirming I had the right solution - and needing to know whether I should keep trying what I was doing until I got it right - than having absolutely no idea what to do. I had also real trouble with the shadow mechanic so needed to see it action. I know I get impatient sometimes, but I really do think it's better that I get a little help than get put off the game entirely and stop playing. So I still got to enjoy exploring and learning about the Braid universe, while figuring out (most of) the puzzles on my own. I'm not saying the game was perfect but it did a lot more right for me than it did wrong, though I know there are <a href="http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/43121">other</a> <a href="http://www.brainygamer.com/the_brainy_gamer/2008/08/a-conversation.html">opinions</a> out there. Also, I have to admit that hearing Jonathan talk made me go back to it and appreciate the game differently - if I hadn't, I wonder whether I would have bothered? </div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-31249117945169865752010-11-01T17:51:00.001+00:002010-11-23T23:49:40.358+00:00ITAG conferenceI was in Nottingham last week for a couple of things, including the<a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1395467663"> </a><a href="http://www.blogger.com/goog_1395467663">Interactive Technologies and Games: Education, Health and Game</a><a href="http://www.itag-ehd.com/">s</a> conference. Unfortunately I ended up missing the first day due to a minor mishap, but was glad to make the second half of the conference. It took place in Nottingham Trent's new conference centre - which was a really cool venue, apart from trying to figure out the lifts, and the random (false) fire alarm that went off towards the end of lunch. <br />
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The day started with a keynote speech from <a href="http://www.gerardjones.com/">Gerard Jones</a>. He's a comic book author and write who wrote "Killing Monsters: Why Children need Fantasy, Super heroes, and Make-Believe Violence" which I read a while ago and would recommend to anyone worried about letting their kids play with toy guns and/or video games. His talk had very little to do with the book, in fact he wanted to talk about inclusion and how games are not isolating but are actually quite social. He then went on to talk about games can help people feel a sense of achievement through providing different ways of being good at something. He also pointed out that there is more of an emphasis now on games being designed for all, though the market itself seems to be a rapidly shifting one. I think his main message was that games are an arena with the potential for us all to move into from different angles, but by his own admission the talk was more a reflection on the sorts of things he'd been thinking about, as opposed to something more conclusive. I think at one point he also said something about how games can help people be good at something (like socialising) that they wouldn't be that good at in the real world - which really didn't sound that positive or inclusive since it sort of implies that games are for people with poor social skills...<br />
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The next talk was from Andrea Lewis, as Masters student at Nottingham Trent, who carried out a thematic analysis on the motivation behind female casual game-play. I would have liked a little more on methods but 20 minutes isn't exactly a generous slot when you've got a lot of material to get through! Two main things came out of this for me; one, it brought up the casual/hardcore thing again and made it clear it really isn't can't be just about the type of game or how long you play for and two, I wonder whether men and women's motivations for playing games is that different? I know there is a gender divide when it comes to the types of games men and women seem to prefer playing, but it's something I've not really made a point of addressing in my own research. I think that's because my main study involves the use of multiple case studies, I'm really not trying to make any gender based generalisations on a set of cases that should be able to stand on their own. <br />
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Other highlights of the day include <a href="http://www2.warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/wie/courses/degrees/docs/who/students/edrhal">Wee-Hoe Tan</a> talking about how game designers and subject experts really should collaborate more (and mentioning that commercial game designers tend to look down on educational game designers for reducing the "essence" of games!); James Lewis talking about the Novint Falcon and how it can be used alongside games to promote stroke rehabilitation (though he also raised a valid point about whether you'd even want to replace a social situation within a stroke club that encourages movement e.g. chess, with a single player activity such as using the Novint Falcon); and <a href="http://uoa.academia.edu/MariaSaridaki">Maria Saridaki</a> talking about motivation in the context of people with intellectual difficulties in terms of how important it is to consider the educational environment itself and the motivation of the teachers themselves. <br />
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There was some accessibility issues raised, the most surprising of which to me concerned Facebook. <a href="http://www.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/Students/lewthwaite-sarah.php">Sarah Lewthwaite</a>, a PhD student from the <a href="http://www.lsri.nottingham.ac.uk/index.php">LSRI</a> spoke about examining the social role Facebook plays in the life university students who identify as disabled. So while she discussed one student who suffered from depression and her use of a puppy application to connect with her friends from home, she also noted that for those with visual difficulties Facebook isn't exactly accessible, especially when it comes to it's third party applications. I guess what I hadn't considered before is that not being able to view these things as a new student can put you at a disadvantage from other students who can - to put it in Bourdieu's terms (which she did) it can lead to having less social capital, and generally feeling a bit left out. Another thing that surprised me, again because I've never really thought about it, came out of <a href="http://www.jigsaweducation.com/articles/july-2010/a-space-to-be.aspx">Sarah Pople's</a> talk on how schools and universities can work together to develop games for students with disabilities. I remembered some of the games she mentioned from being at the conference last year and was pleased to see that again some of the students had come along to demo the games during the talk. But what I hadn't realised was that, due to the nature of their disabilities, only 16 out of 140 students were actually able to play these games. Apparently only 10% of students at the school can read and write while others need special controllers and switches to operate computers. It seems even more essential in this case that developers work with schools in order to find out how they can really make games accessible to all. <br />
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There were quite a few other interesting talks but I think that about covers my main highlights. ITAG isn't a very big conference but it is very friendly and it's always good to hear the different ways in which games and technology can make people's lives better. Thanks to <a href="http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/Profiles/58676-1-9/Professor_David_Brown.aspx">David Brown</a> and colleagues for putting it all together.Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-58999294363673857832010-10-26T13:10:00.004+01:002013-12-14T17:42:12.521+00:00Jane McGonigal's sermon on Productivity<div style="text-align: justify;">
On Sunday I went to a talk organised by the <a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/">School of Life</a>. They called it a sermon, it also took place in a what I think what used to be a church hall, and there were hymns. One of the hymns was Video killed the Radio Star, but we did actually have to stand up and sing along. It was all a bit random really in quite an enjoyable way and the reason I went was so I could hear <a href="http://www.avantgame.com/">Jane McGonigal</a> talk about <a href="http://www.theschooloflife.com/Sermons/Jane-McGonigal-on-Productivity">Productivity</a> and games. </div>
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She started off by talking about how a lot of our ideas about what it means to be a productive member of society are based on a combination of protestant work ethic (God wants us to be busy) and the rise of capitalism. Which seems to ultilmately lead to a lot of guilt when we end up doing things that don't seem to produce anything. So in this light, playing games for hours on end is really just a colossal waste of time, right?</div>
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Well, maybe not. After getting to write down a to-do list and then make it into a paper plane to throw into the audience, she went on to talk about the research she's done and how four things seemed to keep coming up in relation to question what do games produce; whole hearted engagement, hope for success, opportunities to develop social bonds and a sense we can be part of something bigger than ourselves. But if that's not enough for you, her findings actual map on quite well to research being carried out that focuses on <a href="http://www.authentichappiness.sas.upenn.edu/Default.aspx">positive psychology</a> - the sort of psychology that focuses on how we can be happy rather than on all the things that can go wrong. According to research that will be published next spring (in Dr.Seligman's new book Flourish) we need the following:</div>
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1) Positive emotion (Pe)</div>
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2) Relationships (R)</div>
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3) Meaning (M)</div>
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4) Achievement (A)</div>
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And just to make it easier for us to remember, Jane got some audiences members to spell out that acronym for us (thanks to <a href="http://twitpic.com/photos/GrahamBM">GrahamBM</a> for the Twitpic):</div>
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We all then engaged in a round of massively-multiplayer thumb wrestling to illustrate how playing games can achieve all four of those things. For those of you who have never had the pleasure of playing massively-multiplayer thumb wrestling, you're missing out ;-) Basically, though her argument is that by games can actually help solve wider social problems by increasing PeRMA. Through productive engagement in activities we find meaningful and that make us feel good, we can cement our social ties and feel part of something bigger. For those interested in these ideas more and about games how you could designe games that explictly address social issues keep an eye out for her book "Reality is Broken: Why Games Make Us Better and How They Can Change the World" which is out early next year.</div>
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There was a short Q&A session after the sermon, where one person asked how games were different to drugs. I thought this was a pretty good question as you do hear about how games are "addictive" and I guess, like drug taking, the activity is often be seen as completely unproductive. Jane responded by pointing out that drugs tend to be quick fixes, that take a toll on our bodies and end up leaving people feeling lower than before. In contrast, research has shown that the positive emotions received from playing games tend to spill over into other parts of our lives. Also, apparently there is some sort of gamer tipping point, where after 21 hours of play a week, most players realise that they aren't getting any more from the activity. (Note to self: I really should find what research she is referring to). Somebody also asked something about using games in education and Jane was keen to point out that she wasn't trying to gamify every activity but that even so, understanding how and why games appeal could influence certain underlying educational principles - which effectively sums up my own research. All in all it was a really enjoyable morning, and what better way to end than by drinking tea and eating space invader biscuits :-) (thanks to <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/kitschbitch/">Katy Lindemann</a> for the putting up the Flickr photo)<br />
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how much do I agree with all this? Well, quite a lot really but maybe not entirely. I really do think Jane McGonigal is doing an awesome job getting inspiring games out there and in talking positively about games. I think that games can definitely increase PeRMA and like that there is actual research backing this up. I'm not sure how much that will convince people who don't play games though, and I don't think it will convince them to play games. Especially, for those who start talking about how they heard about players in China or Korea who died because they didn't leave their computer for days, and about how it would still be much better for children to go outside and play. I'm not denying that for some people at least, games can become a problem, but like any activity you enjoy doing, surely there's nothing wrong with them being part of a balanced well-rounded life? I also think that for a lot of people who take games seriously, probably for a lot of people who call themselves gamers and see games as a social activity to share with friends, gaming is a major source of PeRMA and that's why they like it. I think what people don't realise is that even when you're playing something on your own, this can still feed into your social relationships if you have friends who are interested in what you're doing.</div>
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I suppose what I'm not sure about, is whether everyone who plays games gets the same benefits? So the aunt you get to play Wii Sports at Christmas, I can see how she would enjoy having a go, how it's a shared family experience and how the activity makes sense in that context even but will she really feel like she's achieving anything? Maybe that has more to say about how we much we value our experiences but when Jane said something along the lines that she has never met a pessimistic gamer, who didn't think they could succeed, I'm not sure I'd agree they don't exist. I mean maybe they would call themselves a gamer, but I've seen plenty of people put off from even trying something because they don't think they are good enough. And, I have given up on games myself when it's just gotten too hard... I definitely haven't finished all the games I have - what does that say about my ability to achieve things? Jane mentioned signature strenghts, but what if I'm noticing weaknesses instead?!</div>
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Maybe I'm taking it a bit too far, I do finish some games at least, I suppose the ones I get the most pleasure out of, so perhaps that's enough. But I am still curious about different types of players and how often people actually finish their games. The two main things I want to take with me from the sermon though, are to rethink my ideas about productivity and the fact that there is research out there about the positive effects of game-playing. Plus, I don't have to feel guilty about not writing my thesis yet, as there are plenty of activties I need to do first, including (though obviously not limited to) playing games, cos they increase my PeRMA quotient and make me flourish ;-)<br />
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Update: I forgot to add a link to the <a href="http://gameful.org/">Gameful</a> site - after thanking her for the talk and telling her a bit about my research, Jane suggested that I check it out once it launches. It seems to be a resource for anyone interested in making and using games that have a positive impact on people's live. You can find out a bit more about it on her blog <a href="http://blog.avantgame.com/2010/08/gameful-secret-hq-for-worldchanging.html">here</a>. </div>
Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-8505220500332193142010-10-04T22:35:00.001+01:002010-10-04T22:37:16.973+01:00Eurogamer Expo 2010<div style="text-align: justify;">I spent yesterday afternoon at the <a href="http://expo.eurogamer.net/">Eurogamer Expo</a> at Earl's Court in London. Here's a photo of me trying out <a href="http://fallout.bethsoft.com/eng/games/fnv-overview.html">Fallout: New Vegas</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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As I just picked up from where someone else left off, I had no idea what I was doing so ended up shooting randomly at some people I think I was probably supposed to help. I didn't play for long as the people weren't very happy with me shooting at them and I died pretty soon after, so I'm not sure what to say about it. It felt a lot like the previous Fallout I guess, though the colours were less grey and more orange this time. Hmm, I'm thinking whatever happens after this PhD, I'm probably not going to get paid for writing game reviews... I know these events are supposed to give you a chance to try new releases, but I'm not sure how comfortable I feel playing in public. It seems a little too close to performing, even though I'm pretty sure no one is actually judging how well I'm doing. Plus, I think when it comes to new games, I prefer to try them out in my own time and space so I have a chance to get a feel for them - without the possibility of a queue forming. Though I was impressed with these guys trying out <a href="http://www.xbox.com/en-US/games/splash/d/dancecentral/">Dance Central</a> on Kinnect.<br />
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So I saw <a href="http://www.xbox.com/en-GB/kinect">Kinnect </a>and the <a href="http://us.playstation.com/ps3/playstation-move/">Playstation Move</a> but didn't see any games for them that made me think I <span style="font-style: italic; font-weight: bold;">must </span>try them. A lot of them seem to be party games - Wii Sports type spin-offs - which is fine, but I'm not sure that's going to convince me to shell out for either of them (especially when I already have a Wii). I'm sure there was an Xbox game that only literally involved you jumping, again, and again... Apparently, Heavy Rain has been modified so you can play it with the Move now, but I didn't have much luck finding it. I would have gone back after attending the last developer session to check again but the ensuing tube strike meant I wanted to leave a little earlier than I had originally planned.<br />
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If I'm really honest, a lot of the games at the exhibition came across as looking quite similar. Most of them involved running around with a weapon attacking monsters/aliens/humans in a post-apocalyptic/alien/war setting. <a href="http://www.littlebigplanet.com/en-gb/2/">Little Big Planet 2</a> was there, and looks as cute as the first, though apparently the level editors are easier to use. I also saw <a href="http://www.rockband.com/">Rock Band 3</a> , which now has a keyboard accessory (even more plastic toys for my living room!). Nintendo was there too, but once I realised they weren't showing off a <a href="http://e3.nintendo.com/3ds/">3DS</a> I moved on. Speaking of 3D, I did notice a lot of the games were being played with 3D glasses, and I think there were some 3D TVs. I probably would have been more impressed though, if the glasses <a href="http://www.nvidia.com/object/3d-vision-main.html">NVidia</a> gave out to watch their 3D demo had actually worked... I guess I'm just not convinced the technology is there yet, even if I could afford it! There was also an indie arcade, which perhaps I should have spent a bit more time at if I was looking for something different, but generally, I really can't say much really stood out. Maybe that says more about my reluctance to try lots of things though, than about what was on offer.<br />
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What I really did enjoy though was the developer sessions. First, I got to see <a href="http://www.giantbomb.com/michael-m-simpson/72-27217/">Mike Simpson</a> from <a href="http://www.creative-assembly.co.uk/">Creative Assembly</a> talk about <a href="http://www.totalwar.com/shogun2"><i>Shogun 2</i></a><i> </i>. I never played the original Total War game but what I saw and heard made me want to try out the second one. I think what I liked about it was how he talked about them using history - and not like it was a problem - in terms of it being the inspiration for the game and wanted to keep as close to it as possible. Someone asked whether the team had trouble deciding between whether to make it historical or fun, but his answer suggested that was actually quite a rare occurrence, with a lot of the fun stemming from the history itself. He also talked a lot about game strategy, perhaps with out meaning too, but it was pretty interesting to hear him talk during the demo about things like the best way to defeat archers (use a cavalry unit to sneak up behind them). I guess he (and experienced players) would take that sort of knowledge for granted but the rest of us have to pick it up as we play. It looks very pretty too, with a lot of work going into the details, like the Japanese trees. Apparently, it's been 10 years in the making (if you count the time if took to produce the original) - a lot of patience has gone into this game, and it shows. <br />
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The other session I went to was held by <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tim_Willits">Tim Willits</a> (<a href="http://www.idsoftware.com/">id Software</a>) about <a href="http://rage.com/home.php"><i>RAGE</i></a> there latest shooter. For those of you who don't know (and to be honest, I didn't until my friend Ashley told me at the expo), Tim Willits was involved in Doom and Quake, and there were a lot of people in the audience who were very pleased to be able to see him. He spoke a bit about <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Tech_5">Id tech 5</a> - the companies latest game engine - which allows for much more graphical detail. There was someone else there who played through sections of the game, but you could see that Tim was keen to point out how the engine allowed them to give different areas of the game, and enemies, a unique feel. He made a point about player choice too - through the addition of engineering items you can create your own weapons, while there are different sub-missions you can take on that allow you to indulge in vehicular combat, for instance, if you want to. It looks great but it was kind of funny to sit through the demo though. I mean, it's not really the sort of game I go for and I couldn't help but think that the story and mechanics were feeling strangely familiar - post-apocalyptic world, mutants, doing side-missions etc - and for all the talk about choice, the choices are mostly about how you decide to kill the bad guys . It's not like I can choose to set up a business and make money or find a cure for the mutants or something. But the majority of the audience was there to see an extremely polished shooter with awesome graphics, and I'm positive that is what they will get when it comes out next year.<br />
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I feel like I'm being a bit negative about shooters. What's wrong with wanting to indulge in a bit of carnage? It's not fair really, and probably the reason I don't like them so much is I'm not very good at them (and can't be bothered to get good). And obviously, there's a serious market for these sorts of games but I guess I'm just personally, not that interested. I did notice though that both Mike Simpson and Tim Willets talked about expansion packs, downloadable content and modding communities. Before the games are even out, they are figuring out ways to make them last longer (and presumably ways in which to make more money out of them - but when games like this have taken years to develop, who can blame them?). There must be a way serious games could do the same? Plus, both studios have a history of supporting modding, so it was nice to see that they were keen to continue that. It made me think a little about gaming audiences, and how I don't really know anyone who creates mods. A friend of mine from uni used too, but that's about it. I wonder how many people out there do and what they think about games like Little Big Planet which attempt to make that sort of thing easier for players? Though I imagine, building a mod for Quake is very different to creating a level for LBP...<br />
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All in all, I enjoyed the expo. I'll have to see whether I'll go next year or not, but for now, here is a rather blurry photo of someone playing a driving game on Kinnect. I think it sums up well why I don't want to play a driving game on Kinnect.<br />
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</div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-13238890431646148992010-09-30T14:10:00.010+01:002010-09-30T19:54:19.911+01:00Sam & Max and my research<div style="text-align: justify;">Again, it's been a while. I have the excuse of spending the last few months running my main data collection study, though I have also been playing games throughout. Maybe I've been quite busy, but maybe I also haven't felt like I've had a lot to say. Recently though, I've been thinking more and more about one particular series I've been playing and how I got back into it after being convinced to give it another go as a result of one of my data collection sessions.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Over the past few months, I've been asking participants to keep a set of gaming diaries and to come into the lab we've set up in the department to play games. They had to keep the diary for three weeks and come in on three seperate occassions so I could hook them up to various physiological equipment (to measure changes in muscle tension, galvanic skin response and heart rate) and observe them playing games. The sessions lasted about 2-3hours so all in all it was quite an investement from them. Even when all I could offer was a Amazon voucher just to say thanks, 9 people actually agreed to take part and for that I am very grateful :-)<br /><br />Anyway, during the first two sessions I would ask people to bring in a game of their choice, preferably something they'd been playing. But for the final session I would pick a game for them. For my first participant - who is also a friend of mine but for the purposes of anonymity, let's call him Matt - I chose Sam and Max: Save the World . It's a point and click type adventure, with lots of puzzle solving where you play Sam and Max who Wikipedia describes as <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_%26_Max_Save_the_World">"self-styled vigilante private investigators, the former an anthropomorphic dog and the latter a 'hyperkinetic rabbity thing'"</a> as they set about uncovering a hypnotism conspiracy.<br /><br /><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TKSaqrLdEMI/AAAAAAAAAGU/ukS5iXcNDUo/s1600/sam-max-wii.jpg"><img style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 298px;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_Lm8KXOAANsA/TKSaqrLdEMI/AAAAAAAAAGU/ukS5iXcNDUo/s400/sam-max-wii.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5522709100999020738" border="0" /></a><br /><br />I picked the game up ages ago for the Wii and though I played for a bit, I got stuck at one point early on and just never went back to it. I'm going to be honest here, while I wanted to choose something Matt hadn't played before (and that contrasted in pace to his own choices - survival horror/FPS), I also chose it because I thought he would find it boring. And I wanted to see whether all that physiological data I've been collecting would reflect that. I'm still working on the data so I'm going to have to save the in depth analyses for later on (and hopefully publication...) but he didn't find it boring. He liked it. That didn't mean he wasn't frustrated by some aspects of it, but he seemed to enjoy it. What really surprised me was that him liking it made me want to try it again. So I did, and I finished it this time. And then I bought the next series, Beyond Time and Space on Steam (because it wasn't on the Wii) and finished that. And then I played the latest series The Devil's Playhouse, and had to wait for <a href="http://www.telltalegames.com/">Telltale</a> to complete the last two episodes so I could finish that too.<br /><br />So what happened? Why did I write the game off only so soon? What made me go back to it? How many other games do I have that I never really gave a fair shot? Looking back, I remember wanting to like Save the World but getting a little annoyed by all the dialogue and getting impatient with some of the puzzles. Even though I did think it was funny, I guess I didn't think it was funny enough to keep playing. So when I got stuck, maybe it didn't feel like there was enough incentive to go back. It was a good couple of years ago now when I got the game so I can't say for sure, but I also imagine that I got distracted by other games that I had at the time. So I forgot about it, until I started my study and had to come up with games for other people to play. That's already going to put it back on my radar, but then Matt seemed to enjoy it and we talked about it afterwards, and it made me want to give it another go. I think the fact that we are also friends who talk about games has something to do with it too. Though I don't think he's played the game since, him playing it in the session made me feel more like a shared experience, and when I refer to the series he knows what I'm talking about. Could that alone have increased my involvement with the game? I think it might have. And I'm glad it did.<br /><br />I'm not saying it's a perfect series. Like most point and click adventures, the puzzles are less about creative problem solving and more about trying to figure out how the designer wants you to solve it. The dialogue is funny, but there is a lot of it and the story doesn't always really make a whole lot of sense... It was ok playing it with the Wii controls but the later games weren only out on Steam so I had to switch. I think the second game, Beyond Time and Space was the weakest of the three I played - it felt rushed, shorter than the others, with puzzles that made even less sense than normal. But the more I played, the better I got at it (and yes I did sometimes resort to walkthroughs or increased the in-game hint level, but I noticed as time went on this happened less too). Maybe I learnt how to think like the designers, but the puzzles didn't feel as frustrating. So even if the narrative was a little out there, I kept progressing, and I still wanted to know what was going to happen next. But I needed a reason to get past the initital hurdle I came across and that seemed to come from sharing the experience with someone else. Without them even being in the same room! And now it's got me wondering what other games I would have enjoyed? Also, I'm wondering what I would have given up on if I hadn't had others to share the experience with?!<br /><br />All of this ties in with my reseach because I'm not just interested in what happens when we play but why we choose to play anything in the first place. Like I said, the analysis is at a pretty early stage but if I can uncover at least part of that, and explain how it all might relate to learning, then I might just have something decent to put in my thesis ;-) Plus, it's something I need to consider when I am doing my analysis - if my participants had an impact on my game-playing, then how did I impact theirs?<br /></div>Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5664719871065717763.post-61154380329308727702010-06-23T15:52:00.005+01:002010-06-23T16:11:51.216+01:00Tax breaks and the games industryThe governement has decided <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/scotland/tayside_and_central/10382765.stm">not to go through with the pledge to provide tax relief to the games industry.</a><br /><br />This worries me. In my last post on the Game-based learning conference I mentioned Richard Wilson from <a href="http://www.tiga.org/">TIGA</a> talking about how important it was for the industry to receive tax breaks to encourage business to grow and expand. The parties seemed to be behind it initially - so what's changed? I can see how removing tax incentives might save money in the short term but surely it makes more sense to encourage local talent and industry to grow to create more jobs and make more money in the long term?Jo Iacovideshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02079512738667774052noreply@blogger.com0