Mobile Digital Games Research Articles

Beware of What Lurks in the Margin: Glosses, Mobile Digital Games, and Incidental Vocabulary Learning

Beware of What Lurks in the Margin: Glosses, Mobile Digital Games, and Incidental Vocabulary Learning

The Dark Side of Fun: Understanding Dark Patterns and Literacy Needs in Early Childhood Mobile Gaming

Play has always been recognized as an essential aspect of human development, particularly during early childhood, as it contributes to learning, the formation of meanings, and experiencing the world. In today's digitalized society, early childhood education has increasingly integrated digital media into its practices, both in schools and at the family level. Mobile digital games (MDG) have received significant attention due to their impact on children's interactions, play, and learning. However, as young children engage more with MDGs, concerns about problem gaming have arisen, referring to conflicts and issues that emerge from game playing within everyday sociocultural contexts. Scholars such as Zagal et al. (2013) have identified certain game design patterns as "dark", which can be considered unethical as they manipulate players against their best interests. Given the prevalence of mobile gaming in early childhood, studying these dark patterns becomes even more crucial. This study aims to investigate the presence of dark patterns in MDG for young children (0-5 years old), through qualitative analysis. The five most popular free games for this age range on App Store (February 2023) were analysed, particularly focusing on the presence of temporal, monetary, social, and/or psychological dark patterns. The analysis uncovers the presence of temporal, monetary, and psychological dark patterns, including aesthetic manipulations, paywalls, and periodic rewards resembling gambling elements. The games also employ advertising strategies and engagement tactics that challenge young children's navigation. Parental control mechanisms offer limited safeguards, requiring continuous monitoring and parental involvement in play dynamics. The study highlights the importance of adult media and digital literacy in supporting children's online play effectively, while also emphasising the responsibility of game designers and developers to create healthier and less risky game experiences.

The Impact of Mobile Digital Game in Learning Arabic Language at Tertiary Level

In the 21st century, the advancement of technology has changed how people, especially the younger generation communicate and socialise with each other, as well as how they learn, acquire and process information. Therefore, this study aims to explore the impact on the employment of digital game-based learning in Arabic class at the tertiary level. This study is a qualitative study and data obtained through semi-structured interview sessions with 16 students at tertiary level, who exposed to the mobile digital game in learning the Arabic language. The students were chosen purposively based on several determining characteristics. The major findings indicated that the mobile digital game produces a significant effect on their learning achievement and enhances their Arabic vocabulary acquisition. Besides, the digital game-based learning also promotes a student-centred and interactive learning, while additionally creates an enjoyable environment for learning that could encourage student participation in class activities, sustain their learning engagement, and improve their motivation. This study explored opportunities for Arabic language lecturers to practice digital game-based learning as it promotes student-centred learning, which would enhance student’s participation in language activities and provide them with a joyful, fun, and active learning environment.

Predicting Purchase Decisions in Mobile Free-to-Play Games

Mobile digital games are dominantly released under the freemium business model, but only a small fraction of the players makes any purchases. The ability to predict who will make a purchase enables optimization of marketing efforts, and tailoring customer relationship management to the specific user's profile. Here this challenge is addressed via two models for predicting purchasing players, using a 100,000 player dataset: 1) A classification model focused on predicting whether a purchase will occur or not. 2) a regression model focused on predicting the number of purchases a user will make. Both models are presented within a decision and regression tree framework for building rules that are actionable by companies. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first study investigating purchase decisions in freemium mobile products from a user behavior perspective and adopting behavior-driven learning approaches to this problem.

Development and evaluation of a mobile digital quiz game for the promotion of malaria awareness, positive perceptions and appropriate practices

Development and evaluation of a mobile digital quiz game for the promotion of malaria awareness, positive perceptions and appropriate practices

Development and evaluation of a mobile digital quiz game for the promotion of malaria awareness, positive perceptions and appropriate practices

Development and evaluation of a mobile digital quiz game for the promotion of malaria awareness, positive perceptions and appropriate practices

Bearded Dragons at Play

Animals have long appeared as the subjects and characters in digital games, but game studies scholars have rarely considered animals as players of digital games. This paper examines the mobile digital game Ant Smasher and YouTube videos of bearded dragons playing the game. This article advocates for the inclusion of these bearded dragons in gamerspace as not only a personification of the gamer within the space but as a conduit for play, a channel for gamers to breach the boundaries of gamerspace – the cultural and discursive space surrounding digital games that negotiates the relationship between the digital game and its impact on the world at large. Through an analysis of 50 YouTube videos representing these play experiences, this article considers the place of these videos within gamerspace. The implications of this work serve to better understand the relationships between digital gaming, play, and human and non-human actors in interaction with haptic media. This example also expands upon our understandings of play as a whole.

Digital Game-based Learning as an Innovation to Enhance Student’s Achievement for Arabic Language Classroom

Various studies have investigated the potential of employing digital games in education to help students’ increase their learning achievement and their academic performance. Over the years, scholar have recognised how games could become a good learning tool that can improve learner’s performance and sustain their engagement in teaching and learning activities. Therefore, the objective of this study is to explore whether mobile digital games, as a cybergogical tool, can be used to support Arabic language teaching and learning. This study is a quasi-experiment designed to determine the effectiveness of mobile digital games in supporting the learning of Arabic. This study 70 students who are taking the elementary Arabic language course in Universiti Malaysia Kelantan (UMK), Malaysia. The participants were selected through random purposive sampling. The students were divided into two groups; experimental group and control group. After the intervention of mobile digital game, the achievement scores of both groups were collected practically. The data collected were analysed using inferential quantitative analysis by using the IBM SPSS Statistics 24 software. This study reported that the adoption of mobile digital games significantly increases students’ achievement in Arabic language learning.

How instability in virtual economies of mobile digital games drives and ruins profit

The digital gaming business has changed in the last years. Digital games are no longer just products. They developed into services. People play games not only on a stationary device, but on mobile devices, too. The change of gaming devices also had an impact on game design. Competition between mobile digital games mostly takes place at a download price of zero. Today the Freemium monetization method is the dominant monetization method. Players of digital games often have to go through a core loop by repeating the same tasks inside the game. The stability of the virtual economy inside the game affects the game’s core loop. This paper discusses the role of instability in virtual economies in the context of core loops. A small instability inside a virtual economy can increase revenue of a digital game. Players tend to stay in a game because of sunk cost fallacy. If instability inside a virtual economy happens for a too long time players will quit playing and revenue will decrease.

A Smartphone Game to Prevent HIV among Young Kenyans: Household Dynamics of Gameplay in a Feasibility Study.

mHealth interventions often favour individual-level effects. This is particularly problematic in contexts where social support and shifts in social norms are critical to sustained behaviour change. Mobile digital games represent a promising health education strategy for youth, including in low-resource settings. We sought to better understand the interpersonal and social interactions that can be elicited by digital games for health. We piloted Tumaini, a smartphone game rooted in interactive narrative designed to prevent HIV among young Africans (aged 11-14), in a randomised controlled feasibility study and analysed reports of the household dynamics surrounding gameplay. Following a 16-day intervention period, phone gameplay log files were downloaded and intervention arm participants (n=30) completed a gameplay experience survey; eight focus group discussions were held, four with intervention arm participants (n=27), four with their parents (n=22). This study took place in Kisumu, Kenya, in Spring 2017. Descriptive statistics were computed from survey responses and log files. Focus group transcripts were labelled, analysed thematically, and compared demographically using MaxQDA software. Data from log files, survey and focus groups indicate that the game generated considerable interaction and dialogue with parents, siblings, and friends, and served as a catalyst for children to act as advocates for healthful decisions about sex, both within the family and beyond. The game showed a high level of acceptability with parents. Serious digital games using a smartphone platform can generate considerable household interaction. Games can model and facilitate these exchanges, maximising multi-level effects. An additional app for parents could reinforce these effects.

Design and evaluation of mobile game for older people: an empirical study

In a society that is not well adapted to people aged 60 and over, digital games can be an option of leisure and culture for them. However, to achieve this benefit, game designers must consider age-related constraints so that older users can play comfortably. This paper presents the results of a process of designing a mobile digital game focused on older people. Thirty older people participated in the evaluation of the first version of the developed game and twenty five in the evaluation of the second version. The results indicate that, despite having visual and auditory restrictions, this target audience gives importance to images, colors, sounds and soundtrack. In addition, we conclude that a game designed for older people should also have simple rewards, reinforcement messages and language adapted to the target audience, considering their preferences and low experience with the use of technology.