"what makes a video game replayable and why exactly the replayability of a game should matter to the companies producing the games and the consumers buying them.
Information on replayability is very important to both the companies producing games and the consumers purchasing them. It is necessary for companies to achieve a balance in the amount of replayability a video game possesses. In other words, companies should aim for a certain ―value‖ of game play per dollar. If a game is not replayable, consumers will quickly tire
7
of the game and discard it, as it does not have high replay value. This takes away from the popularity of the game and possible sales from future games in the same series. On the other hand, if the game is too replayable, the consumer may not feel a need to buy any more games and video game companies will be unable to generate a profit. For companies, the value of the game requires a delicate balance to produce a game which will keep players interested long enough for the company to develop a new game before they tire of the game they have, but not too long so that when the company release the new game the buyers are in line waiting for it."
Wordplay and the Discourse of Video Games: Analyzing Words, Design and Play Routledge Studies in New Media and Cyberculture, 2012 Publisher Description: In this timely new book, Christopher Paul analyzes how the words we use to talk about video games and the structures that are produced within games shape a particular way of gaming by focusing on how games create meaning, lead to identification and division, persuade, and circulate ideas.
Abstract: "Through the use of an online discussion, this study collected the detailed perspectives of 29
'hardcore' and 'casual' gamers, regarding the topic of FPS video games. It investigates what the
gamers want in a FPS by means of an online discussion which builds on the benefits of both
ethnography and focus group methodologies. Since the study's main goal was exploratory, a
qualitative approach was considered the most appropriate; in addition to this, the method used
to collect the data was done within a grounded theory framework.
This study finds that, though graphics have historically been a major factor in driving the success
of a FPS video game, this is no longer the case. Gamers expect there to be a balance between the
different components, with a more holistic gaming experience desired, and that too much focus
on one component at the expense of another will result in an unsatisfactory video game
experience. This can be seen in comments given by the participants indicating too much emphasis
of the graphics quality in a FPS and not enough on story or the multiplayer aspects results in a
video game which is neither fun nor praiseworthy. The latter is perceived significant as with such
an oversaturation in the video game market, developers rely heavily on positive word of mouth to
advertise their games.
This study's main goal was to develop a better understanding of the expectations of gamers
regarding FPS; in doing so, it has laid out the basis for producing a 'magic formula' for a great FPS
video game. It has also highlighted several other areas which need further investigation in order
to better understand the behavioural motives and actions of gamers from both 'hardcore' and
'casual' communities."
Abstract: "With the advent of the increasingly participatory Internet
and the growing power of the crowd, "Serious Games" have
proven to be a fertile approach for gathering task-specific
natural language data at very low cost. In this paper we outline
a game we call Doodling, based on the sketch-andconvey
metaphor used in the popular board game Pictionary
®2, with the goal of generating useful natural language
data. We explore whether such a paradigm can be successfully
extended for conveying more complex syntactic and
semantic constructs than the words or short phrases typically
used in the board game. Through a series of user experiments,
we show that this is indeed the case, and that valuable
parallel language data may be produced as a byproduct.
In addition, we explore extensions to this paradigm along
two axes - going online (vs. face-to-face) and going crosslingual.
The results in each of the sets of experiments confirm
the potential of Doodling game to generate data in
large quantities and across languages, and thus provide a
new means of developing data sets and technologies for resource-
poor languages."
When writer Brendan Keogh first reached out to us about a piece he was writing on 48-hour game development, we were a bit skeptical. Can a story about people sitting at computers be engaging? Does it fit in with the rest of our game coverage? Will readers want to stick around for something so massive?
"A data game is a game that allows the
player(s) to explore data that is derived from outside the
game, by transforming the data into something that can be
played with. In other words, games as a form of interactive
data visualisation."
Abstract: "This paper discusses the theoretical choices underpinning the creation of a video game called Medicina. This game is designed to broadly foster better language skills among international nursing students with English as a Second Language (ESL) and more specifically to teach confusable medication names and improve reaction time to verbal orders. Research shows that the intentional learning of vocabulary is important to language learning. Without adequate vocabulary knowledge, it is difficult for an international student to interact in professional and university settings. This situation is compounded by the expectation that students will learn key vocabulary incidentally through academic pre-readings, despite the research demonstrating this to be an inefficient and inadequate method of learning. Moreover, medication names are low-frequency vocabulary. Thus, the international student who seeks to enter the health profession encounters the task of learning an entire subset of language but without the amount of exposure theorised as being necessary to it. Repeated exposure to these words is needed, leading to automaticity. The paper will outline how the language-learning video game is designed to encourage discrimination between word forms, allowing for multiple exposures to both written and spoken vocabulary, and promoting automaticity in pharmacological terminology."
"Five word summary: Nazis in Hell fighting demons. Five more words: It's pure Javascript and HTML5. Today's the day I finally decided to release Subbania to the public."
Abstract: "In
this study, we device a digital game, which possessed scientific and fun, base on the conception of insects
(DGBI), then can use it to test elementary school student's conception about insect. The DGBI materials
creating pattern use as the ADDIE model. First step is to analyze the DGBI materials. We analyze student's
alternative conceptions of insect and what the teaching staff needs to teach in the section of insect,
and then we develop three teaching units, namely the ―Bugs Adventure‖, ―Legs and Wings "and"
Mouthparts and feeding habits‖. Second, design the DGBI. Making DGBI has a clear teaching aim,
multi-learning strategy like conception puzzle, computer simulation and conception mapping etc, an artistic
and convenient operating media interface and a learning content that is easy to understand by the
words and video in the DGBI materials. Third, develop the DGBI. Developing DGBI includes making
animation component and composing animation component, these animation components makes 94.4% of
students prefer to use DGBI materials to learn the conceptions of insect, especially the constructional detail
magnify function and interactive game design in the teaching materials increase the student's learning
interest. Forth, implement DGBI. We invite Two national college professors and four senior science
teachers to use DGBI, and then we interview them to collect the testing amendments, and corrected
it.Fifth, evaluate DGBI. We use quasi-experiment design and questionnaire survey to evaluate DGBI. In
the quasi-experiment design, we select 111 students for four classes in an elementary school in New
Taipei City and ask them to use DGBI, and then we tested them by the ―Insects Conceptions test‖. We
found that after using the DGBI materials, the student's post-test scores (13.64) is higher than the pre-test
scores (7.55), and there are significant differences (t = 16.47,p = .00)and helps the student to establish the
correct concept of insect
"first, we give empirical evidence that shows the extent to which productive training (i.e. vocalizing words) is superior to receptive vocabulary training, and discuss the use of scaffolding hints to "unpack" factors in the learner‟s linguistic knowledge that may impact reading. Second, we discuss what our results suggest for future research in HCI."