In-game Events Research Articles

WEB BASED ARCHIVE MANAGEMENT APPLICATION CASE STUDY IN CIJERAH VILLAGE (E-ARCHIVE)

This research has the goal of producing a mathematics learning medium in which the game contains mathematical material, namely matrix material which is designed with various challenges, questions, and in-game events related to the matrix. The research method used is the research and development method. The research procedure is a simplification of Sugiyono's development steps, namely potentials and problems, data collection, product design, design validation, design improvement, product trials, product revisions, usage trials, and conclusions. The results of the study show that educational game media has proper characteristics. This can be seen from the evaluation of the experts, media experts obtained a proportion of 86.7% with a proper rating and material experts obtained a proportion of 88.3% with the assessment criteria, and math teachers of 90.85% with the appropriate assessment criteria. Contribution of the research is that this educational game media can be used by teachers in the learning process for matrix materials. This helps the teacher so that the learning process is more practical because the material is packaged in a game. In addition, this educational game media can also help students learn independently.

Set Players to Stun: Inducing Basic Psychological Need Frustration in a Casual Video Game

Abstract This study investigates the concept of psychological need frustration within the context of video games. We explore the potential of discrete in-game events, specifically the usage of widely popular ‘stun’ mechanics, to induce feelings of need frustration in players. We designed, developed and experimentally tested a bespoke video game with four conditions: No Stuns, Avoidable Stuns, Unavoidable Stuns and Layered Stuns (a combination of avoidable and unavoidable stuns). Our findings show that Unavoidable Stuns lead to statistically significantly greater autonomy need frustration. This finding has important implications for games research, as psychological need frustration is linked to negative effects on player engagement and wellbeing. Our results also highlight that a variety of stun mechanics can undermine psychological need satisfaction. Taken together, this work makes a meaningful contribution to HCI and games literature, showcasing that game mechanics can be designed in a way that undermines psychological needs.

The Functioning of Communicative Units in the In-game Text of Video Games

This article describes the results of a pragmatic analysis of communicative units that were selected from different types of in-game text (spoken and written game plot-related text and interface text) taken from six video games of various game genres (action-shooter, action-adventure, role-playing game, simulator etc.) and narrative genres (fantasy, science fiction, horror, military, medieval, western). It further offers a model for classification of the abovementioned units based on the pragmatic aim of the utterance, i.e. to assist the player during gameplay or to express the artistic aspects of the game. The two main pragmatic types of utterances have respectively been labelled as ludic and narrative. It has also been noted that ludic utterances are widespread in any video game, while narrative ones can only appear in games with an in-depth virtual world, and their perception by the player does not usually affect the completion of the game. The article further suggests to use the following terms to describe the different kinds of ludic utterances: 1) identificatory (helping to recognise and distinguish between the different subjects and objects of the in-game world); 2) informative (giving practical information about those objects); 3) explicitly appellative (directly encouraging the player to act); 4) implicitly appellative (encouraging the player to act, but in an indirect manner); 5) feedback (responding to the player’s actions). Among the narrative functions, the following terms have been offered: 1) storytelling (depicting the in-game events); 2) descriptive (artistically describing the in-game world and its characters); 3) compositional (outlining the structure of the game and assisting the player to navigate through it). The study also suggests that an utterance can combine multiple communicative functions, and the abovementioned functions be expressed not just verbally, but also via the visual, auditory, haptic and other modes since videogame discourse is a multimodal type of discourse. The results of this study can help in training of localization specialists as this research should facilitate their understanding of the pragmatic purpose behind the translated fragments of text.

Situational features of smartphone betting are linked to sports betting harm: An ecological momentary assessment study.

Smartphones extend the situational characteristics of sports betting beyond those available with land-based and computer platforms. This study examined 1) the role of situational features and betting platforms in harmful betting behaviours and short-term betting harm, and 2)whether people with more gambling problems have preferred situational features, engage more in harmful betting behaviours, and experience more severe short-term betting harm. An ecological momentary assessment analysed 1,378 betting sessions on sports, esports or daily fantasy sports, reported by 267 respondents (18-29 years; 50.9% male) over 10 weeks. Factor analysis revealed five situational features of betting sessions: 1) quick, easy access from home, 2) ability to bet anywhere anytime, 3) privacy while betting, 4) greater access to promotions and betting options, and 5)ability to use electronic financial transactions. Regression models underpinned the analyses. Greater short-term betting harm was significantly associated with the ability to bet anywhere anytime, privacy when betting, and greater access to promotions and betting options. Betting sessions when these features were prioritised were more likely to involve impulsive betting, use of betting inducements, and betting with more operators. Respondents with more gambling problems were more likely to prioritise privacy and the ability to bet anywhere anytime; and to bet on in-game events, use promotional inducements, bet with more operators, and report greater betting harm. Certain situational features of sports betting are empirically associated with engagement and subsequent harm. Only smartphone betting combines all three features associated with betting harm.

Fostering Innovation, Transition, and the Reconstruction of Forestry: Critical Thinking and Transdisciplinarity in Forest Education with Strategy Games

Forest education plays a crucial role in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals and promoting sustainable forest management amidst global challenges. However, existing programs struggle to keep pace with rapidly evolving crises and uncertainties that contribute to deforestation and forest degradation. To tackle these challenges, integrating innovative approaches into forest education is essential. This paper showcases the transformative use of a strategy game, MineSet, as an innovative teaching method for integrated forest management. The game facilitates deeply engaging experiences that provide unique insights into complex issues like deforestation. By assuming various stakeholder roles, graduate students actively engage with and confront the intricate tradeoffs inherent in forest management. This interactive and immersive role-play game not only fosters critical thinking skills but also promotes collaborative problem-solving, making MineSet a highly innovative and attractive tool in forest education. The importance of extended debriefings, facilitation throughout the game, and ongoing discussions should not be underestimated, as they establish meaningful and necessary connections between in-game events, validated educational material, and published research outcomes. Moreover, the game equips students with practical experience and a comprehensive understanding of landscape approaches, using the Congo Basin as a case study. We emphasize the potential of innovative forest education to foster sustainability, stimulate critical thinking, resolve conflicts, and prevent costly forest losses.

BDTA: events classification in table tennis sport using scaled-YOLOv4 framework

Computer vision algorithms based on deep learning have evolved to play a major role in sports analytics. Nevertheless, in sports like table tennis, detecting the ball is a challenge as the ball travels at a high velocity. However, the events in table tennis games can be detected and classified by obtaining the locations of the ball. Therefore, existing methodologies predict the trajectories of the ball but do not detect and classify the in-game events. This paper, therefore, proposes a ball detection and trajectory analysis (BDTA) approach to detect the location of the ball and predict the trajectory to classify events in a table tennis game. The proposed methodology is composed of two parts: i) Scaled-YOLOv4 which can detect the precise position of the ball ii) Analysis of trajectory based on ball coordinates to detect and classify the events. The dataset was prepared and labeled as a ball after enhancing the frame resolution with a super-resolution technique to get the accurate position of the ball. The proposed approach demonstrates 97.8% precision and 98.1% f1-score in detecting the location of the ball and 97.47% precision and achieved 97.8% f-score in classifying in-game events.

La reinvención del videojuego y nuevas formas de consumo en tiempos de confinamiento. Caso Fortnite

El propósito de este artículo es analizar cómo la industria del videojuego ha reinventado la manera de consumir contenido de entretenimiento en tiempos de confinamiento; en concreto, estudiamos el caso de Fortnite. El enfoque metodológico es de tipo cualitativo, apoyado en el análisis de contenido y el análisis del discurso de artículos y noticias procedentes de medios digitales españoles. Los resultados revelan tres factores que han propiciado la innovación en la industria: desarrollo de contenido novedoso, celebración de eventos in-game y valor agregado en la experiencia de los jugadores.

Learning to automatically spectate games for Esports using object detection mechanism

Human game observers, who control in-game cameras and provide viewers with an engaging experience, are a vital part of electronic sports (Esports) which has emerged as a rapidly growing industry in recent years. However, such a professional human observer poses several problems. For example, they are prone to missing events occurring concurrently across the map. Further, human game observers are difficult to afford when only a small number of spectators are spectating the game. Consequently, various methods to create automatic observers have been explored, and these methods are based on defining in-game events and focus on defined events. However, these event-based methods necessitate detailed predefined events, demanding high domain knowledge when developing. Additionally, these methods cannot show scenes that contain undefined events. In this paper, we propose a method to overcome these problems by utilizing multiple human observational data and an object detection method, Mask R-CNN, in a real-time strategy game (e.g., StarCraft). By learning from human observational data, our method can observe scenes that are not defined as events in advance. The proposed model utilizes an object detection mechanism to find the area where the human spectator is interested. We consider the pattern of the two-dimensional spatial area that the spectator is looking at as the object to find, rather than treating a single unit or building as an object which is conventionally done in object detection. Consequently, we show that our automatic observer outperforms both current rule-based methods and human observers. The game observation video that compares our method and the rule-based method is available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=61JIfSrLHVk.

Automatic event detection in football using tracking data

One of the main shortcomings of event data in football, which has been extensively used for analytics in the recent years, is that it still requires manual collection, thus limiting its availability to a reduced number of tournaments. In this work, we propose a deterministic decision tree-based algorithm to automatically extract football events using tracking data, which consists of two steps: (1) a possession step that evaluates which player was in possession of the ball at each frame in the tracking data, as well as the distinct player configurations during the time intervals where the ball is not in play to inform set piece detection; (2) an event detection step that combines the changes in ball possession computed in the first step with the laws of football to determine in-game events and set pieces. The automatically generated events are benchmarked against manually annotated events and we show that in most event categories the proposed methodology achieves +90% detection rate across different tournaments and tracking data providers. Finally, we demonstrate how the contextual information offered by tracking data can be leveraged to increase the granularity of auto-detected events, and exhibit how the proposed framework may be used to conduct a myriad of data analyses in football.

Capture, analyse, visualise: An exemplar of performance analysis in practice in field hockey.

The goal of performance analysis is to capture the multitude of factors that affect sports strategy, and present them in an informative, interpretable, and accessible format. The aim of this study was to outline a performance analysis process in field hockey that captures, analyses and visualises strategy in layers of detail culminating in the creation of an RStudio Shiny application. Computerised notational analysis systems were developed to capture in-game events and ball tracking data of 74 matches from the Women’s Pro League 2019. Game styles were developed using k-means cluster analysis to reduce detailed in-game events into practical profiles to identify the attack types, game actions and tempo of a team’s strategy. Ball movement profiles were developed to identify the predictability (entropy) and direction (progression rates) of ball movements, and consequent distribution of possession in different attacking zones. The Shiny application, an interactive web-platform, links the information from simple game profiles with detailed game variables to understand each teams’ holistic game plan, how they are different, and how to exploit these differences. The process outlined can be applied to any team invasion sport to understand, develop and communicate successful strategies under different match situations.

Prefrontal cortical activation in Internet Gaming Disorder Scale high scorers during actual real-time internet gaming: A preliminary study using fNIRS.

BackgroundObservation of real-time neural characteristics during gameplay would provide distinct evidence for discriminating the currently controversial diagnosis of internet gaming disorder (IGD), and elucidate neural mechanisms that may be involved in addiction. We aimed to provide preliminary findings on possible neural features of IGD during real-time internet gaming using functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS).MethodsPrefrontal cortical activations accompanying positive and negative in-game events were investigated. Positive events: (1) participant’s champion slays or assists in slaying an opponent without being slain. (2) the opposing team’s nexus is destroyed. Negative events: (1) participant’s champion is slain without slaying or assisting in slaying any opponent. (2) the team’s nexus is destroyed. Collected data were compared between the IGD group and control group, each with 15 participants.ResultsThe IGD group scored significantly higher than the CTRL group on the craving scale. Following positive events, the IGD group displayed significantly stronger activation in the DLPFC. Following negative events, the IGD group displayed significantly weaker activation in the lateral OFC.Discussion and ConclusionsIndividuals scoring high on the IGD scale may crave for more internet gaming after encountering desired events during the game. Such observations are supported by the correlation between the craving scale and DLPFC activation. The IGD group may also show diminished punishment sensitivity to negative in-game experiences rendering them to continue playing the game. The present study provides preliminary evidence that IGD may demonstrate neural characteristics observed in other addictive disorders and suggests the use of fNIRS in behavioral addiction studies.

Game play and the effectiveness of sponsor signage: visual attention to brand messages in live sport broadcasts

PurposeTechnological innovations could allow for real-time control of sponsor exposure during sport broadcasts to increase the capacity of sponsor messages to attract attention. While such an approach requires knowledge on the interplay between in-game events and viewers' attention to sponsor signage previous studies have disregarded factors pertaining to the competition itself. To address this gap, this paper investigates the impact of game-related variables on the allocation of viewer attention in live broadcasts.Design/methodology/approachEye tracking is used to examine the impact of variations in score, ball position and ball possession on soccer fans' attention to sponsor messages during broadcasts. In total, the data comprise n = 36,604 second-by-second observations from 11 participants and games.FindingsLogistic regression analysis reveals game time effects and significant interaction effects between possession and the score as well as the ball position variable. Sponsors receive less attention if the attacking team controls the ball near the opponents' goal, particularly if the viewers' preferred team is in possession.Practical implicationsProperty owners and sponsors can exploit these findings to determine the value of sponsor brand exposure more precisely. New systems could further increase message effectiveness through adjustments of sponsor exposure based on real time match event data.Originality/valueThis study is the first to explore the influence of game-related variables on attention to sponsors. By employing live broadcasts in a near-realistic setting, it further addresses a gap in the literature and adds to the knowledge on sponsor message processing.

Taking Playful Scholarship Seriously: Discursive Game Design as a Means of Tackling Intractable Controversies

The article at hand explores the concept of playful scholarship, focusing specifically on the use of playfulness in re-assessing the collaboration between academia and societal partners to tackle “intractable policy controversies” (Schön and Rein 1994, p. 23)—i.e., challenges in which opposing parties operate with conflicting frames (often without even noticing). After arguing that earlier attempts at using games in academia often only evoke the rhetoric rather than the spirit of play (Sicart 2014) and thereby limit spaces for actually playful scholarship, we emphasize how the heuristic of playful game design (rather than game play) can help address this issue.To illustrate our point, we draw on a recent research project about drug policies in the Netherlands, in which concerns of (among others) law enforcement, policy-makers and healthcare workers are characteristically entangled. In this project, we first we defined the societal context of drug policies as an “ecology of games” (Long 1958; Lubell 2013) and proposed two ‘base games’—one created from scratch and the other inspired by the CIA-developed card game Collection Deck. These games were iteratively played by a diverse group of academic and non-academic stakeholders using self-modifying rules that allowed participants themselves to engage in “playful design” (Flanagan 2014), changing, adding or removing rules in order to identify where the game-as-model deviated from their lived experience (and how they might translate their experiences into the ‘language’ of the game). Drawing on ethnographic data collected over the course of six months, we investigate how the contingent ‘versions’ of the game as boundary objects (Leigh Star 2010) facilitated a playful attitude towards the otherwise characteristically entrenched discourse on Dutch drug policies.As a basic frame of reference, we use and adapt Lieberman’s original definition of playfulness, based on “physical, social, and cognitive spontaneity, manifest joy, and sense of humor” (2014, p. 23), and Shen’s differentiation between “situations for play” (2020, p. 540) and “playful states” (2020, p. 542) to interpret the processes in our community of practice. More specifically, we observe the impact of playful objects and object play (Riede et al. 2018) as well as bricolage (Antonijevic and Cahoy 2018) on playful attitudes within the group. This showed the constant tension between, on the one hand, expectations that the game itself should ‘produce’ new insights and, on the other, as Sicart recommends, “carnivalesque” (2014, p. 23) attempts at resisting ‘utilitarian’ play (e.g., exploring ideas that would be ruled out by conventional wisdom as optional in-game scenarios or events).Finally, we conclude with how adopting a playful game designer’s rather than a player’s perspective may challenge habitualized practices and corresponding roles inherent in public-private partnerships within academia. This makes different preconceptions amongst stakeholders visible, facilitates perspective change, and acknowledges the interconnected frames within intractable controversies by continually re-designing the base games.

Online multiplayer games as virtual laboratories for collecting data on social-ecological decision making.

Article impact statement: Online games can improve the collection of data on human decision-making in situations relevant to conservation and stakeholder trade-offs. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.

Random Number Generation Problems based on Cognitive Biases for In-Game Events

Random Number Generation Problems based on Cognitive Biases for In-Game Events

Annotation-Assisted Clustering of Player Profiles in Cultural Games: A Case for Tensor Analytics in Julia

Computer games play an increasingly important role in cultural heritage preservation. They keep tradition alive in the digital domain, reflect public perception about historical events, and make history, and even legends, vivid, through means such as advanced storytelling and alternative timelines. In this context, understanding the respective underlying player base is a major success factor as different game elements elicit various emotional responses across players. To this end, player profiles are often built from a combination of low- and high-level attributes. The former pertain to ordinary activity, such as collecting points or badges, whereas the latter to the outcome of strategic decisions, such as participation in in-game events such as tournaments and auctions. When available, annotations about in-game items or player activity supplement these profiles. In this article, we describe how such annotations may be integrated into different player profile clustering schemes derived from a template Simon–Ando iterative process. As a concrete example, the proposed methodology was applied to a custom benchmark dataset comprising the player base of a cultural game. The findings are interpreted in the light of Bartle taxonomy, one of the most prominent player categorization. Moreover, the clustering quality is based on intra-cluster distance and cluster compactness. Based on these results, recommendations in an affective context for maximizing engagement are proposed for the particular game player base composition.

Impact of Visual and Sound Orchestration on Physiological Arousal and Tension in a Horror Game

Horror games represent a very specific genre specifically designed to elicit fear. These games provide a tremendous emotional experience balanced between stress and satisfaction. Yet, over time, the player acquires further insight of the mechanisms of the game, dissipating the creepy climate that reduces the emotional impact intended. This article hypothesises that exploring existing facets within a game such as visuals and sounds might establish a good approach to renew the gaming experience. To understand the players' emotional reactions toward context alteration, an adaptation of a published game (P.T. by Konami 2014) was used. This context refers mainly to light effects, sounds, and in-game events. To learn which game effects induce the strongest physiological reactions, an experiment was conducted, and correlation between the physiological data, collected through the measure of the galvanic skin response, and that of the perceived emotion provided by participants, was investigated. Results show that the order in which effects are arranged can produce extensive emotional responses. They also suggest that psychological impact can be increased not only by the visual horror itself, but also through the process that slowly builds up to it, in particular the usage of sounds.

XML-Based Video Game Description Language

This paper presents the XML-based Video Game Description Language (XVGDL), a new language for specifying Video games which is based on the Extensible Markup Language (XML). The proposal is portable and extensible, and allows games to not only be defined at engine level but also includes specific features that can lead the game design process whilst simultaneously reducing the gap between game specification and its corresponding game implementation. XVGDL is as generic as possible, making it possible to describe different genres of games. This paper focuses on presenting the basis of the language. The paper describes the syntax as well as the components of XVGDL, and provides examples of their use. Defining games via XML structures provides all the advantages of the management of XML files and opens up interesting lines of research. Our proposal provides a number of novel features. So, XVGDL game definitions can be managed as any other XML file, which means that it can be automatically handled by any XML file management software. Another interesting feature is that XVGDL can specify game components (e.g., game Artificial), in-game processes (e.g., the procedural generation of maps) or in-game events (e.g., the checking of the conditions to end a game match) via the association with external (possibly non-XML) files. Moreover, XVGDL files can be easily validated as any XML file what means that validations against a particular Document Type Definition (DTD) or XML Schema Definition (XSD) are possible. In addition, the paper presents a first prototype implementation of a (text-based) interpreter that allows XVGDL game specifications as a playable game to be executed. This tool not only validates our proposal but also represents a first step towards smoothing the path to obtaining an executable version of a game from its game specification.

Development of a Mobile Game to Influence Behavior Determinants of HIV Service Uptake Among Key Populations in the Philippines: User-Centered Design Process.

BackgroundOpportunities in digital distribution place mobile games as a promising platform for games for health. However, designing a game that can compete in the saturated mobile games market and deliver persuasive health messages can feel like an insurmountable challenge. Although user-centered design is widely advocated, factors such as the user’s subject domain expertise, budget constraints, and poor data collection methods can restrict the benefits of user involvement.ObjectiveThis study aimed to develop a playable and acceptable game for health, targeted at young key populations in the Philippines.MethodsAuthors identified a range of user-centered design methods to be used in tandem from published literature. The resulting design process involved a phased approach, with 40 primary and secondary users engaged during the initial ideation and prototype testing stages. Selected methods included participatory design workshops, playtests, playability heuristics, and focus group discussions. Subject domain experts were allocated roles in the development team. Data were analyzed using a framework approach. Conceptual frameworks in health intervention acceptability and game design guided the analysis. In-game events were captured through the Unity Analytics service to monitor uptake and game use over a 12-month period.ResultsEarly user involvement revealed a strong desire for online multiplayer gameplay, yet most reported that access to this type of game was restricted because of technical and economic constraints. A role-playing game (RPG) with combat elements was identified as a very appealing gameplay style. Findings guided us to a game that could be played offline and that blended RPG elements, such as narrative and turn-based combat, with match-3 puzzles. Although the game received a positive response during playtests, gameplay was at times perceived as repetitive and predicted to only appeal to casual gamers. Knowledge transfer was predominantly achieved through interpretation of the game’s narrative, highlighting this as an important design element. Uptake of the game was positive; between December 1, 2017, and December 1, 2018, 3325 unique device installs were reported globally. Game metrics provided evidence of adoption by young key populations in the Philippines. Game uptake and use were substantially higher in regions where direct engagement with target users took place.ConclusionsUser-centered design activities supported the identification of important contextual requirements. Multiple data collection methods enabled triangulation of findings to mediate the inherent biases of the different techniques. Game acceptance is dependent on the ability of the development team to implement design solutions that address the needs and desires of target users. If target users are expected to develop design solutions, they must have adequate expertise and a significant role within the development team. Facilitating meaningful partnerships between health professionals, the games industry, and end users will support the games for health industry as it matures.

Offensive or defensive play in soccer: a game-theoretical approach

Abstract In many sports, such as soccer, a coach has to decide whether to adopt an “offensive” or a “defensive” approach to a match. This strategic decision depends on the strengths and weaknesses of his team with respect to the opponent, but also on the strategy chosen by the opponent’s coach. The fact that a draw also results in a point, which may be important for the ranking, further complicates this decision, as the coach must assess whether it is better to adopt a defensive team formation in order to obtain a draw, or to aim for victory despite the increased risk of defeat. We study this topic by means of a game-theoretical approach, and we develop an algorithm which allows to compute the optimal strategy. The algorithm tests the stability of the outcome with respect to uncertainty in the estimated win probabilities. Furthermore, our approach can handle in-game events, which may provoke changes in optimal strategy. Finally, our model also allows us to assess the effect of various point systems on the willingness of teams to opt for attacking play. Our method is applied to a case study, based on the match Italy – Costa Rica (World Cup 2014).