Playing online games against computer- vs. human-controlled opponents: Effects on presence,flow, and enjoyment

The purpose of this study was to examine whether playing online games against other users leads to different experiences in comparison with playing against computer-controlled opponents. Thereby, a one-factorial multivariate design was used (computer-controlled vs. human-controlled opponent). Dependent variables were the participants’ feelings of presence and flow. Additionally, the amount of enjoyment was measured. The findings indicate that the type of opponent influences playing experiences: participants who played against a human-controlled opponent reported more experiences of presence, flow, and enjoyment, whereby the strongest effect refers to the experience of presence. Furthermore, strong relations between presence, flow, and enjoyment were observed. Further analyzes suggest that flow mediates the relationship between presence and enjoyment.     

Al in computer games: Survey and perspectives

Computer games have traditionally implemented empirical solutions to many Al problems and are now turning to more traditional Al algorithms. After introducing the role of Al in gameplay, we review the main techniques used in current computer games such as Finite-State Transition Networks, rule-based systems and search algorithms. We describe the implementation of Al in several commercial computer games, as well as academic research in Al targeting computer games applications. We conclude this review by discussing future trends and proposing research directions.     

Designing sound-based computer games

Designing interactive entertainment for visually impaired users poses several challenges. This article points out some key issues faced when developing sound-based computer games. The three games described here were developed for the Swedish Library of Talking Books and Braille (TPB), to be published on the TPB Internet site (TPB 2002). These games, Towers of Hanoi, Memory and Tag, can be played without the aid of graphics, although they do also feature animations of a style designed for partially sighted players. The games are fairly simple Macromedia Flash? applications, suitable for web publishing, and while not so complex as some other titles, they still emphasise some crucial design issues of creating sound-based interactive media.     

Advanced overtaking behaviors for blocking opponents in racing games using a fuzzy architecture

In car racing, blocking refers to maneuvers that can prevent, disturb or completely block an overtaking action by an incoming car. In this paper, we present an advanced overtaking behavior that is able to deal with opponents implementing blocking strategies of various difficulty level. The behavior we developed has been integrated in an existing fuzzy-based architecture for driving simulated cars and tested using The Open Car Racing Simulator (TORCS). We compared a driver implementing our overtaking strategy against four of the bots available in the TORCS distribution and Simplix, a state-of-the-art driver which won several competitions. The comparison was carried out against opponents implementing three blocking strategies of increasing difficulty and two different scenarios: (i) a basic scenario with one opponent on a straight stretch to overtake as quickly as possible; (ii) an advanced scenario involving a race on a non-trivial track against several opponents. The results from the basic scenario show that our strategy can always overtake the opponent car; in particular, our strategy is slightly more risky than the other ones and may result in a little damage, however, all the other controllers show a more careful and safe policy that often prevents them to complete an overtaking maneuver. When racing against several opponents on complex tracks, our strategy results in the best trade-off between the time spent being blocked by an opponent ahead and the number of overtaking maneuvers completed.     

Video game values: Human–computer interaction and games

Current human–computer interaction (HCI) research into video games rarely considers how they are different from other forms of software. This leads to research that, while useful concerning standard issues of interface design, does not address the nature of video games as games specifically. Unlike most software, video games are not made to support external, user-defined tasks, but instead define their own activities for players to engage in. We argue that video games contain systems of values which players perceive and adopt, and which shape the play of the game. A focus on video game values promotes a holistic view of video games as software, media, and as games specifically, which leads to a genuine video game HCI.     

Equal opportunity tactic: Redesigning and applying competition games in classrooms

Competition, despite its potential drawbacks, is an easily adopted and frequently used motivator in classrooms. Individual abilities, in the years of schooling, are inevitably different, and performance in competition is heavily ability dependent, resulting that more-able students always win while less-able students always lose. Students easily perceive how well they perform through the result of competition, which is termed as perceived performance in this paper. Consistently demonstrating lower perceived performance than their peers, the less-able students feel discouraged and frustrated, hardly having the same opportunity for owning the sense of achievement as the more-able students. In this study, the authors designed a computerized mechanism, equal opportunity tactic, to lessen the difference in perceived performance between more-able and less-able students. Equal opportunity tactic is incorporated into a version of a competitive learning game called AnswerMatching, in which every student is assigned an opponent with similar ability. An experiment was also conducted to preliminarily investigate the effectiveness and effects of the tactic. Results showed that equal opportunity tactic could reduce the effect of individual ability difference on the perceived performance as well as the belief about how well students could achieve. In other words, less-able students could have similar opportunity of success and build confidence similar to more-able students in a competition.     

Dynamic competition in IT security: A differential games approach

Hackers evaluate potential targets to identify poorly defended firms to attack, creating competition in IT security between firms that possess similar information assets. We utilize a differential game framework to analyze the continuous time IT security investment decisions of firms in such a target group. We derive the steady state equilibrium of the duopolistic differential game, show how implicit competition induces overspending in IT defense, and then demonstrate how such overinvestment can be combated by innovatively managing the otherwise misaligned incentives for coordination. We show that in order to achieve cooperation, the firm with the higher asset value must take the lead and provide appropriate incentives to elicit participation of the other firm. Our analysis indicates that IT security planning should not remain an internal, firm-level decision, but also incorporate the actions of those firms that hackers consider as alternative targets.     

A systematic literature review of empirical evidence on computer games and serious games

This paper examines the literature on computer games and serious games in regard to the potential positive impacts of gaming on users aged 14 years or above, especially with respect to learning, skill enhancement and engagement. Search terms identified 129 papers reporting empirical evidence about the impacts and outcomes of computer games and serious games with respect to learning and engagement and a multidimensional approach to categorizing games was developed. The findings revealed that playing computer games is linked to a range of perceptual, cognitive, behavioural, affective and motivational impacts and outcomes. The most frequently occurring outcomes and impacts were knowledge acquisition/content understanding and affective and motivational outcomes. The range of indicators and measures used in the included papers are discussed, together with methodological limitations and recommendations for further work in this area.     

多线程技术及其在电脑游戏中的应用

对多线程的概念进行了分析,在游戏的轮流模型中,针对实现多人游戏（或多游戏机灵）目标动作的内存消耗和编程的复杂化的问题,提出并实现了一个基于多线程的游戏模型和应用实例。讨论了多线程游戏模型中的通信和同步,提出了用多线程技术开发游戏软件时所面临的新问题。     

Software engineering research for computer games: A systematic review

ContextCurrently, computer game development is one of the fastest growing industries in the worldwide economy. In addition to that, computer games are rapidly evolving in the sense that newer game versions arrive in a very short interval. Thus, software engineering techniques are needed for game development in order to achieve greater flexibility and maintainability, less cost and effort, better design, etc. In addition, games present several characteristics that differentiate their development from classical software development.ObjectiveThis study aims to assess the state of the art on research concerning software engineering for computer games and discuss possible important areas for future research.MethodWe employed a standard methodology for systematic literature reviews using four well known digital libraries.ResultsSoftware engineering for computer games is a research domain that has doubled its research activity during the last 5 years. The dominant research topic has proven to be requirements engineering, while topics such as software verification and maintenance have been neglected up to now.ConclusionThe results of the study suggest that software engineering for computer games is a field that embraces many techniques and methods from conventional software engineering and adapts them so as to fit the specific requirements of game development. In addition to that, the study proposes the employment of more elaborate empirical methods, i.e. controlled experiments and case studies, in game software engineering research, which, have not been extensively used up to now.     

Ender's game redux [computer games]

In this article the author explains the context of his brother's e-mail, who is a US Army surgeon in Iraq. The e-mail concisely summarizes the convergence of entertainment technology and military training. He also describes the influence of game technology in his training.     

Applying inexpensive AI techniques to computer games

Groo (Generic Robot, Object-Oriented) and tt14m (Trash-Talking 14-year-old Moron) are two systems that use simple and computationally inexpensive artificial intelligence mechanisms to produce engaging character behavior for computer games, while remaining within the performance constraints of modern game development. Groo engages in intelligent tactical behavior in a first-person-shooter death-match game using a fairly simple and static behavior network, while tt14m uses simple text processing to attempt engagement in the social aspects of the game "Counter-Strike".     

Online behavior change detection in computer games

Player Modelling has been receiving much attention from the game community in the recent years. The ability to build accurate models of player behavior can be useful in many aspects of a game. One important aspect is the tracking of a player’s behavior along time, informing every time a change is perceived. This way, the game Artificial Intelligence can adapt itself to better respond to this new behavior. In order to build models of player behavior, researchers frequently resort to Machine Learning techniques. Such methods work on previously recorded game metrics representing player’s interactions with the game environment. However, if the player changes styles over time, the constructed models get out of date. In order to address this drawback, this work proposes the use of and incremental learning technique to track a player’s behavior during his/her interaction with the game environment. Our approach attempts to automatically detect the moments in time when the player changes behavior. We apply a change detection technique from the area of Data Stream Mining that is based on incremental clustering and novelty detection. We also propose three modifications to the original technique, in order to formalize change detection, improve detection rate and reduce detection delay. Simulations were performed considering data produced by the Unreal Tournament game, showing the applicability of the method to online tracking of a player’s behavior and informing whenever behavior changes occur.     

Are heavy users of computer games and social media more computer literate?

Adolescents spend a substantial part of their leisure time with playing games and using social media such as Facebook. The present paper examines the link between adolescents' computer and Internet activities and computer literacy (defined as the ability to work with a computer efficiently). A cross-sectional study with N = 200 adolescents, aged 17 on average, was conducted. Hierarchical regression analyses showed that an increase in time spent playing games on a PC/Mac was related to higher scores on practical and theoretical computer knowledge. Moreover, practical computer knowledge was higher for adolescents who liked playing shooters, fantasy games, or Facebook-games. Frequency of social media use was associated with higher scores in practical computer knowledge. A bootstrap analysis indicated that this relationship was mediated by a decrease in computer anxiety, not by more positive attitudes toward the computer. Gender yielded substantial main effects on the media literacy variables but the associations between the computer and Internet activities and the literacy aspects were similar for boys and girls. This study is expected to encourage future longitudinal research on adolescents' incidental learning during leisure time computer and Internet activities.     

Airline revenue management games with simultaneous price and quantity competition

This paper treats airline revenue management under simultaneous price and quantity competition in a network. Within this setting, a competitor's demand is a function of his price as well as the competitor's price and booking limits. We present a model to optimize a competitor's behavior in a network revenue management game. To the best of our knowledge, our model is the first of this type. We also present an approach to compute a possibly approximate Nash equilibrium in the game assuming that the competitors make decisions based on our model. Since the model is non-linear, we compute equilibrium prices and booking limits separately. The procedure's performance is shown in a computational study. When both price competition and quantity competition are taken into account, prices as well as demands tend to increase leading to higher revenues compared to monopolistic prices.     

How gamers manage aggression: Situating skills in collaborative computer games

In the discussion on what players learn from digital games, there are two major camps in clear opposition to each other. As one side picks up on negative elements found in games the other side focuses on positive aspects. While the agendas differ, the basic arguments still depart from a shared logic: that engagement in game-related activities fosters the development of behaviors that are transferred to situations beyond the game itself. With an approach informed by ethnomethodology, in this paper we probe the underlying logic connected to studies that argue for such general effects of games. By focusing on proficient gamers involved in the core game activity of boss encounters in a massively multiplayer online game, we examine the fundamentals that must be learnt and mastered for succeeding in an ordinary collaborative gaming practice where aggression is portrayed. On the basis of our empirical analysis we then address the contentious links between concrete instances of play and generic effects. As expected, the results point to “aggression” as well as “collaboration” as major components in the gaming experience, but our analysis also suggests that the practices associated with these notions are locally tied to the game. Based on these results, we propose that to reverse this relationship and claim that game environments foster collaboration or aggression in general first assumes strong theoretical claims about the nature of cognition and learning, and second, risks confusing the debate with hyperbole.     

Computer games in pre-school settings: Didactical challenges when commercial educational computer games are implemented in kindergartens

This article focuses on the didactical implications when commercial educational computer games are used in Norwegian kindergartens by analysing the dramaturgy and the didactics of one particular game and the game in use in a pedagogical context. Our justification for analysing the game by using dramaturgic theory is that we consider the game to be a multimodal performance utilising text, graphics, pictures, sound and animation. Similarly we analyse the didactic situation by using dramaturgic theories and concepts because we consider the didactic meeting between the medium (the game), children (the player(s), and teacher to be a dramaturgic situation comprising different roles, actions in progress, time and space. Our data material shows that the pre-school teacher is more or less absent during the children's playing with the computer games, but when the pre-school teacher involves him/herself, she finds it difficult to realise her ideal socio-cultural didactical project in which dialogue is a central medium for exploration and learning. Through our analysis of the data material we find that there are two different dramaturgies at stake; the built-in interactive dramaturgy of the game materialised in the gaming situation and the dialogical dramaturgy that the pre-school teacher tries to create in the didactical situation. This implies that there is a didactical dissonance between the learning space which the game and the learning space the pre-school teacher wants to construct and orchestrate.