Becker Video Game Design

5th Annual International conference to be held in Bali, May 7-8, 2012

From the abstract: "We believe creativity has not been a prevalent element in the videogame medium. While many issues might be at fault, in this paper we propose that one of the underlying causes resides in the game design discipline itself, more specifically in the way scholars, journalists and audiences promulgate normative thinking. This notion is developed with arguments that explore how normative thinking has shaped three dimensions of the medium - form, value and expression. It takes into consideration major trends in journalism and production, as well as an analysis of books and scientific articles that concern the subject. We then propose alternatives on how to frame the currently available knowledge in the discipline in a way that can help foster creativity instead of constraining it."

From the abstract: "This paper presents a design project of a computer game for integration in multisensory stimulation environments, to be played by children with intellectual disability. The LED-ME prototype is based on accessible technological solutions and dispenses the manipulation of peripheral devices resorting to Camspace® software. The different stages of the project are presented, from the design problem, to the definition of design guidelines, the pilot test and discussion of results. The LED-ME game is suitable for use in multisensory environments, enabling moments of play that require basic cognitive and motor skills."

"Abstract. If iteration is the rule in modern software development practices, this is more the case in game development. While the secret recipe for fun in games remains hidden, game development will remain a highly iterative trial-and-error design process. In this paper we present a semi-automatic process that, through FCA, can assist in the software design of modern videogames. Through FCA we can identify candidate distributions of responsibilities among components, and let the users edit such distributions. We support iteration by facilitating the application of past edits when going through a new iteration of identifying candidate components to accommodate for new version of the game requirements."

Interdisciplinary team at University of Albany, supported by Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA), in partnership with a local game company

Monty Sharma, recently general manager at Vioxx, appointed Mass DiGi GM

An interactive computer game "to detect and quantify the influence of color on the performance of people executing tasks that require attention and showed to be attractive for people with ADHD. "

Supplement to Fall 2011 Occupational Outlook Handbook describes careers related to video game development, salary averages, types of companies

Ongoing study funded by National Institute of Child Health and Human Development involving some 300 minority youths ages 9 t0 14 based on research that skills learned in video game play will translate into real life personal health management

"The continuous quest for ever increasing fidelity in 3D virtual worlds is running parallel to the emergence and adoption of low-cost technologies to implement such environments. In education and training, complex simulations can now be implemented on standard desktop technologies. However, such tools lack the means to represent multisensory data beyond audio-visual feedback. This paper reports on a study that involved the design, development and implementation of a 3D learning environment for underground mine evacuation. The requirements of the environment are discussed in terms of the sensory information that needs to be conveyed and techniques are described to achieve this using multiple modes of representation, appropriate levels of abstraction and synesthesia to make up for the lack of tactile and olfactory sensory cues. The study found that audio-visual cues that used such techniques were effective in communicating complex sensory information for novice miners."

"using physiological signals to study psychological phenomena" in game playing

Partnership between Becker video game design students and Worcester Youth Center to design a game for whynotstop.org

Student game showcasing project "first jointly planned effort between USC's School of Cinematic Arts' interactive media division and its Viterbi School of Engineering's department of computer science. The two schools have offered an advanced games class together since 2007."

A thesis evaluating cloud gaming attributes and surveying consumer attitudes toward cloud gaming features

Convesation with Tim Loew and Ken Surdan of Turbine, focusing on education and jobs in Mass. game industry

Economist overview of mass growth of video game sales and usage

Consideration of two types of gamer communities and proposals for design

"In this study we build and analyze corpora of internet message board discussions and use this analysis to build a model that attempts to predict videogame sales figures. Weekly corpora are built by downloading and processing text consisting of the discussions of a large community focused on the topic of videogames. This text is then analyzed to determine which videogame titles generate the most discussion within the community for each week. We use support vector regression to create a model that is able to make predictions about future sales figures"

Evaluation involving three NASA-based multiplayer game partnerships

Compares transmitting information to students by three different instructional methods including video games