Video Game Environment Research Articles

The Proteus effect in Fallout: New Vegas: Investigating gender-conforming behaviours in videogames

Avatars are often a key component of many videogames, and users can frequently develop relationships with these virtual characters that can impact their gameplay behaviour. The purpose of the present study was to explore the Proteus effect (PE) and the impact that avatar gender can have on an individual’s gameplay experience in Fallout: New Vegas, a videogame environment that has not been present in any previous PE research. A total of 353 participants were recruited using an online survey measuring three previously unexplored gameplay behaviours, comprising (i) number of quests completed, (ii) number of locations discovered, and (iii) number of non-player characters (NPCs) or enemies killed. The results of the present study indicated that players controlling an avatar of the same gender to their physical selves demonstrated a significantly greater performance across the variables of quest completion and location discovery than players controlling an avatar of a different gender. Furthermore, a newly identified potential PE consequence was found in terms of the number of NPCs or enemies killed, with players controlling a female avatar achieving a significantly higher score on this measure irrespective of the physical world gender of the user.

Promoting Healthy Behaviors Through an RPG Videogame: An Elaboration Likelihood Model Based Approach

Serious games, due to their massiveness, attractiveness, and enjoyment, are widely used for education, promoting healthy behaviors, and for the prevention of sexually transmitted infections (STI) . Serious game design includes tailored narratives, game mechanics, and art for their purpose. Nevertheless, using theories of attitude change to create a videogame to promote healthy behavior is less common. Following contemporary theories on persuasion, we developed and tested an RPG videogame for mobile phones, in which participants had to think in favor of the use of condoms through a series of tasks within the game in order to promote positive attitudes and consonant behavioral intention (BI). Results show a positive correlation between thoughts, attitudes, and BI, and that attitudes can partially mediate (account for) the association between thoughts and BI. In this exploratory study, we showed that 1) it was possible to include an Elaboration Likelihood Model (ELM)-based approach into a videogame; 2) consistent with previous studies, attitudes partially mediated the association between thoughts and condom use (BI) in a videogame environment; and 3) applications of this strategy can be considered in the game design process to build new serious games for prevention in health care.

Design of a video game for assessment of executive functions in deaf and hearing children

This study investigates the effectiveness of a computerized cognitive test battery embedded within a video game to assess executive functions (EF) in deaf and hearing children. We evaluated a diverse cohort of 290 elementary school students aged 5 to 13 years (mean age = 8.86, SD = 1.96), comprising 74 sign language users, 14 Spanish-speaking deaf participants, 23 children with mixed communication methods, and 179 typically hearing individuals. Our statistical analysis focused on item discrimination, reliability, and criterion validation of the game-based assessments. The results indicated high reliability and effective discrimination of EF across the game’s three primary stages. External validation was conducted using the Matrices Test, educational attainment, and age as variables. A significant positive correlation (r = 0.377, p < 0.001) was observed between the Matrices Test scores and game-based achievement scores. Furthermore, linear regression analysis revealed education (Standardized Beta = 0.339) and age (Standardized Beta = 0.179) as significant predictors of performance in these scores. This study underscores the value of integrating computerized cognitive assessments within a video game environment for comprehensive neuropsychological evaluations, highlighting its potential in diverse child populations.

Towards Human-Level Safe Reinforcement Learning in Atari Library

Reinforcement learning (RL) is a powerful tool for training agents to perform complex tasks. However, from time-to-time RL agents often learn to behave in unsafe or unintended ways. This is especially true during the exploration phase, when the agent is trying to learn about its environment. This research acquires safe exploration methods from the field of robotics and evaluates their effectiveness compared to other algorithms that are commonly used in complex videogame environments without safe exploration. We also propose a method for hand-crafting catastrophic states, which are states that are known to be unsafe for the agent to visit. Our results show that our method and our hand-crafted safety constraints outperform state-of-the-art algorithms on relatively certain iterations. This means that our method is able to learn to behave safely while still achieving good performance. These results have implications for the future development of human-level safe learning with combination of model-based RL using complex videogame environments. By developing safe exploration methods, we can help to ensure that RL agents can be used in a variety of real-world applications, such as self-driving cars and robotics.

Video Oyunu Ortamında Otonom Sürüş İçin Şerit Tespiti

To ensure comfortable and safe driving, the automotive industry has accelerated the development of autonomous vehicles in recent years. In the design of autonomous vehicles, challenging problems such as lane detection need to be solved. Convolutional neural networks, which show superior performance in many fields, have also been used in the lane detection problem. The datasets required to train CNN models are too large to be collected and labeled by manual effort. In this study, a method is proposed to automatically collect a labeled data set from the video game environment to be used in the detection of highway lanes. Different CNN models such as ResNet50, VGG16, Xception, and InceptionV3 networks are trained using the Transfer Learning method with 745,823 collected images. The images captured by the front vehicle camera are used as input, the coordinates of the points in the left and right lane and the center of the lane in the 2D plane in front of the vehicle and the angle of the vehicle are used as outputs. The performances of these models are tested and compared on the images collected from a road not used in the training set. According to the performance comparisons, ResNet50 performs best.

Concept and realisation of the laboratory of indoor cartography with the support of computer game environments

Concept and realisation of the laboratory of indoor cartography with the support of computer game environments

Can you feel the rhythm? Comparing vibrotactile and auditory stimuli in the rhythm video game Jump‘n'Rhythm

ABSTRACT Rhythm is essential in early music education. To acquire rhythm abilities, the synchronisation between body and rhythm patterns is fundamental. Extensive research has shown the link between the auditory-motor system and rhythm acquisition; however, other sensorimotor systems also improve rhythm skills. Rhythm acquisition can be trained using new technologies, such as video games; however, most of these use mainly auditory stimuli to improve it. Therefore, in this work, we explore tactile stimuli to improve rhythm skills using a video game and how visual elements affect rhythm perception using different stimuli. We evaluate and compare the synchronisation of 27 participants following either vibrotactile or auditory stimuli emitted through a rhythm video game in two difficulty levels and we evaluated the user experience. Consistent with the literature, our results indicate that participants synchronised slightly better using auditory than vibrotactile stimuli and players’ performance was better when they had visual guides. A fatigue effect persisted and increased over playtime in both conditions. In the current study, usability measures indicate no significant differences. These findings suggest that vibrotactile stimuli are also suitable to train rhythm skills in a video game environment and the game-elements play an important role in players' performance.

The Effects of Audio Narration and Feedback used in a Video Game Environment for the Acquisition of Conceptual Knowledge

The Effects of Audio Narration and Feedback used in a Video Game Environment for the Acquisition of Conceptual Knowledge

Video gaming and digital competence among elementary school students

ABSTRACT Engagement with video games can potentially advance student digital competence however, there is a digital skills gap by the time young people progress into adolescence. This current research explores how elementary school students’ digital self-efficacy might relate to experiences in video game environments to influence perceptions of digital competence. We examine the differential impact of sex, self-efficacy, and socioeconomic status (SES) on 7–10-year-old students’ (N = 613) perceptions of video gaming and their digital skills. Analysis revealed the unexpected finding that SES was inversely related to enjoyment for gaming and digital technology, with students in the lower-SES category responding more positively compared to students in higher SES categories. As expected, boys self-reported digital skills higher than girls across all SES categories. We argue for the use of gaming pedagogies to support learning in classrooms that accounts for nuances in students’ digital self-efficacy moderated by gender and SES.

Inductive biases in theory-based reinforcement learning

Understanding the inductive biases that allow humans to learn in complex environments has been an important goal of cognitive science. Yet, while we have discovered much about human biases in specific learning domains, much of this research has focused on simple tasks that lack the complexity of the real world. In contrast, video games involving agents and objects embedded in richly structured systems provide an experimentally tractable proxy for real-world complexity. Recent work has suggested that key aspects of human learning in domains like video games can be captured by model-based reinforcement learning (RL) with object-oriented relational models—what we term theory-based RL. Restricting the model class in this way provides an inductive bias that dramatically increases learning efficiency, but in this paper we show that humans employ a stronger set of biases in addition to syntactic constraints on the structure of theories. In particular, we catalog a set of semantic biases that constrain the content of theories. Building these semantic biases into a theory-based RL system produces more human-like learning in video game environments.

Exploiting semantic segmentation to boost reinforcement learning in video game environments

In this work we explore enhancing performance of reinforcement learning algorithms in video game environments by feeding it better, more relevant data. For this purpose, we use semantic segmentation to transform the images that would be used as input for the reinforcement learning algorithm from their original domain to a simplified semantic domain with just silhouettes and class labels instead of textures and colors, and then we train the reinforcement learning algorithm with these simplified images. We have conducted different experiments to study multiple aspects: feasibility of our proposal, and potential benefits to model generalization and transfer learning. Experiments have been performed with the Super Mario Bros video game as the testing environment. Our results show multiple advantages for this method. First, it proves that using semantic segmentation enables reaching higher performance than the baseline reinforcement learning algorithm without modifying the actual algorithm, and in fewer episodes; second, it shows noticeable performance improvements when training on multiple levels at the same time; and finally, it allows to apply transfer learning for models trained on visually different environments. We conclude that using semantic segmentation can certainly help reinforcement learning algorithms that work with visual data, by refining it. Our results also suggest that other computer vision techniques may also be beneficial for data prepossessing. Models and code will be available on github upon acceptance.

Virtual field experiences in a web-based video game environment: open-ended examples of existing and fictional field sites

Abstract. We present two original, video-game-style field geology experiences designed to allow flexible, open-ended exploration for geologic mapping and structural geology. One simulation features the Whaleback anticline, a site in central Pennsylvania (USA), with a three-dimensional exposure of a 30 m high fold, based on a terrain model that was acquired through structure-from-motion photogrammetry. The second example is a fictional location with simplified geology, which was built with digital modeling software and inspired by the geology of northwestern Washington. Users move through the terrain, as if in the field, selecting where to make observations of the geologic structure. Additionally, these virtual field experiences provide novel visualization opportunities through tools like a geodetic compass that instantly plots data to a stereonet and a jetpack simulation, which allows the user to interrogate geologic surfaces in hard-to-reach locations. We designed the virtual field experiences in a widely used video-game-creation software and published the field simulations for access via the internet and common web browsers so that no special hardware or software is required to play. We implemented these field simulations to partially replace field and lab exercises in two different courses offered remotely through the University of Washington Department of Earth and Space Sciences, with assignments that address many of the learning goals of traditional in-person exercises. Because the virtual field experiences are open-ended, other instructors can design different exercises to meet different learning goals. While this game environment currently serves as an enhancement to remote education, this format can also augment traditional educational experiences, overcoming several challenges to accessing the field or particular outcrops and, thereby, broadening opportunities for participation and scientific collaboration.

From Gaming to Hating: Extreme‐Right Ideological Indoctrination and Mobilization for Violence of Children on Online Gaming Platforms

As a consequence of numerous extreme‐right terror attacks in which the perpetrators posted their manifestos and attack life streams on online platforms adjacent to the video gaming community, as well as radicalized within that environment to a significant degree (e.g., Christchurch, New Zealand; Halle, Germany), increasing scholarly and policymaker interest is focusing on far‐right radicalization and recruitment within online video game environments. Yet little empirical insights exist about the specific engagement between right‐wing extremists and their potential recruits on these platforms. This study presents findings from a qualitative exploration of German police‐investigation files for two children who radicalized on gaming platforms to become involved in extreme‐right criminal behavior, including the plotting of a terrorist attack. The study demonstrates the importance of online and offline factor interaction, especially regarding the role of familiar criminogenic factors, as well as the social–emotional bonding between potential recruits and extremist gamers created through shared gaming experiences that lead to high‐intensity extremist radicalization aimed at offline behavioral changes. The study did not find evidence for strategic organizational far‐right recruitment campaigns, but rather multidirectional social‐networking processes which were also initiated by the potential recruits.

Learning to select goals in Automated Planning with Deep-Q Learning

In this work we propose a planning and acting architecture endowed with a module which learns to select subgoals with Deep Q-Learning. This allows us to decrease the load of a planner when faced with scenarios with real-time restrictions. We have trained this architecture on a video game environment used as a standard test-bed for intelligent systems applications, testing it on different levels of the same game to evaluate its generalization abilities. We have measured the performance of our approach as more training data is made available, as well as compared it with both a state-of-the-art, classical planner and the standard Deep Q-Learning algorithm. The results obtained show our model performs better than the alternative methods considered, when both plan quality (plan length) and time requirements are taken into account. On the one hand, it is more sample-efficient than standard Deep Q-Learning, and it is able to generalize better across levels. On the other hand, it reduces problem-solving time when compared with a state-of-the-art automated planner, at the expense of obtaining plans with only 9% more actions.

Taxes in video games: overview, purposes, relevance

Taxation and video games are intertwined and affect each other: businesses and players are affected by tax legislation while taxes are, in turn, represented in video games and virtual environments. This article addresses the representation and relevance of taxation in the video game environment, its design, and assessment from a tax perspective. Here we show that video game companies often misrepresent taxes in video games, depicting them as unjustified obligatory payments without a fiscal nature. Such misrepresentations entail negative connotations for users devaluing the taxation concept. Thus, video games design should embed taxation in virtual economies in a more accurate manner. Also, the article outlines how in-games taxation may overlap with real-life tax obligations of players. There is no common position on tax implications of earnings in virtual environments among legislators and researchers. Currently, the gaming industry catches up with technological developments very fast and often promotes them. It will cause more tax issues related to activities in the virtual environments in the future. Thus, these issues should be addressed in a timely manner.

Learning and Playing in Wubble World

Children do not learn the meanings of words from parsing and understanding gigabytes of text; instead meanings are learned from competent speakers who relate language to what's happening in the child's environment. We present a word learning algorithm that operates in a video game environment where the players fill the role of the competent speakers and train softbots to learn language as a child would. We provide empirical evidence that the word learning algorithm successfully learns the meanings for some words in this environment and the children enjoy playing the game.

Learning when to wait and when to act.

Choosing how long to wait in order to optimize reward is a complex decision. We embedded these decisions within a video-game environment in which the amount of reward smoothly increased the longer one waited. The availability of external cues varied in order to determine how they affected the decision to wait to achieve the goal of maximizing the reward rate. As a group, people were most optimal when they could directly observe the growth in reward, and this information overshadowed a static color cue that did not require extended observation. These results were considered within the context of improving the choice between acting versus waiting in order to maximize reward rates.

Avatar-Based Self-Influence in a Traditional CMC Environment

Abstract. Dubbed the Proteus effect, research has shown that avatars influence user behavior in virtual reality and video game environments ( Yee &amp; Bailenson, 2007 , 2009 ); however, does this same effect occur in the less dynamic but more prevalent traditional computer-mediated communication (CMC)? As CMC evolves to allow user avatars, the question of its influence increases in importance. This study examines the Proteus effect in traditional CMC, which tends to be dominated by text-based communication. Embodiment is presented as a moderator for the Proteus effect. Two methods for inducing embodiment (via choice and via familiarizing tasks) were tested along with a proposed model for the Proteus effect in social media environments. A 2 (avatar) × 2 (embodiment by choice) × 2 (embodiment by familiarizing tasks) between-subject design with 406 participants showed a significant main effect of familiarizing tasks on embodiment, an interaction effect of avatar embodiment and avatar condition on aggressive behavior, and an unpredicted main effect of embodiment on aggressive attitude.

Game-Based Learning in Project Sustainability Management Education

Projects and project-based activities account for over 30% of the global GPD and act as significant vehicles in the transition towards a more sustainable future. Sustainability strategies are typically enacted and implemented through projects in project-based organisations and firms. Incorporating sustainability principles into the project, product, and service management processes with successful project decision making is a challenging task and requires new personnel competencies and skills. Project sustainability management education requires the embedding of sustainability principles into project management education in a purposeful, integrative, innovative, and seamless manner. One way to facilitate this process is educational games. Active and experiential teaching methods will enable learning and practising complex project management activities in a simulative environment and are challenging at the same time. To extend knowledge of designing and using educational games for project sustainability management education, we explore the development and use of a novel educational game solution called the Project Business Game. It provides students and teachers with a computer game environment and game-based learning solution in which project planning, stakeholder management, cost management, decision making, and risk management skills can be enhanced by means of experiential, situational, and problem-based learning. The use of the game was explored in the context of educating European students of ‘Junior Expert in Circular Economy’ on a blended learning course in spring 2021. Action design research was applied as a research method. The results describe the requirements and goals for the instruction and the game design process based on these needs and experiences of the implementation. The findings indicate the strong suitability of using game-based learning methods to teach project sustainability management and create positive student experiences of achieving learning goals and improving engagement.

Body Movin’: Ecocritical and Postcolonial Readings of the Travelling Body in the Tomb Raider Series

When Lara Croft travels, she travels light – sans suitcase, but in most cases with enough firepower to take opposing forces ranging from dinosaurs to bloodthirsty locals. However, her big guns seems often unnecessary titillation, for she can manage very well without them thanks to her exquisite acrobatic and hand-to-hand combat skills. She will vault over any obstacle, swim across rapid flowing rivers and abseil the steepest ravines. Lara Croft’s travels are often as physical as the virtual world would allow. That physicality returns our attention to the oft forgotten aspect of travelling namely the body of the traveller, not only defined by its position in space, but also by the ordinary and extraordinary circumstances of its biological interaction with the surrounding environment.In this paper I would like to explore the interplay between the body of the traveller and contexts it is located in. These contexts range from the narrative and gameplay aspects of the Tomb Raider series, but also go beyond the border of the game and are realised in the transformative and reflective cultural milieu of the game. In particular I want to focus on the representations of Lara Croft as an archetypal “action girl” and “adventurer archaeologist” and how these representations are realised in reference to the changing (maturing?) video game environments. In the framework of postcolonial and ecocritical theories I want to explore the dyads of body/the purported exotic, body/natural environment, as well as physical/mental aspects of travelling.