Online Video Games Research Articles

Stress System Response and Decision Making in Heavy Episodic Users of Alcohol and Online Video Games

Objective: Few empirical studies have addressed stress system response and subsequent decision making in problematic online video game players who also consume alcohol. Method: Participants were randomly assigned to either receive a psychosocial stressor, including evaluated public speaking and mental arithmetic, or control condition. Salivary cortisol, cardiovascular and subjective responses were collected. Following, decision making was assessed using the Iowa Gambling Task. Results: In this sample of moderate internet gamers (N = 71; 45 male, 16.9% meeting suggested DSM-5 criteria for internet gaming disorder), 53.52% met gender-specific cut-points for heavy episodic drinking. Overall, participants in the TSST condition demonstrated elevated systolic and diastolic blood pressure, self-reported anxiety, and negative affect (ps < .05). However, response to the TSST was varied, particularly in individuals reporting binge internet gaming (6 h or more consecutive use in the last 30 d) who did not display the expected decline in positive affect in response to the TSST (p = .02). Differences in greater advantageous decision making between heavy episodic internet gaming participants in the stress condition, versus those reading a travel magazine, were also noted. These differences were not significant in participants reporting an absence of heavy episodic gaming behavior. Conclusions: These findings support the continued study of individuals who engage in problematic internet gaming behavior, particularly those who engage in heavy episodic use of alcohol.

Intensive online videogame involvement: A new global idiom of wellness and distress.

Extending classic anthropological "idioms of distress" research, we argue that intensive online videogame involvement is better conceptualized as a new global idiom, not only of distress but also of wellness, especially for emerging adults (late teens through the 20s). Drawing on cognitive anthropological cultural domain interviews conducted with a small sample of U.S. gamers (N = 26 free-list and 34 pile-sort respondents) (Study 1) and a large sample of survey data on gaming experience (N = 3629) (Study 2), we discuss the cultural meaning and social context of this new cultural idiom of wellness and distress. Our analysis suggests that the "addiction" frame provides a means for gamers to communicate their passion and commitment to online play, even furthering their enthusiasm for the hobby and community in the process, but also a way for players to express and even resolve life distress such as depression and loneliness. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has recently included "Internet gaming disorder" (IGD) as a possible behavioral addiction, akin to gambling, warranting further consideration for eventual formal inclusion in the next iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5). Our study leads us to suggest that clinicians only sparingly use IGD as a clinical category, given that medical and gamer understandings of "addictive" play differ so markedly. This includes better distinguishing positive online gaming involvement-also sometimes framed by gamers as "addictive"-from other play patterns more clearly entailing distress and dysfunction.

Neglected Performers in the Phenomenon of Live Game Broadcasting - From the Perspective of China and Europe

The boundaries of online video game (exclude live programs of large-scale e-sports competitions), whether in Europe or China, are not as clear as those of movies and music production. In today's society, the careers and activities derived from Internet and electronic products are more and more than before. Many netizens have begun to earn money and public praise by recording themselves playing online games and posting game videos on the Internet. However, the law on online game broadcasting is not clear, and game broadcast players have no right to their live works. This paper points out that although live game players cannot own the copyright of the game, they can have the performer right. Under Article 17 of the Copyright in the Digital Single Market, network broadcast platforms should also obtain authorization from game players while soliciting game copyright owners.

Multiple Dimensions of Binging: The Hidden Costs and Benefits

Binging has emerged as a trending phenomenon among consumers of online streaming services and other media outlets that offer content consumption on-demand. Current definitions of binging from content providers and market research firms were developed to describe television consumption and are usually based on the number of consecutive episodes of a single TV show that viewers watch in a single sitting. These definitions combine both the amount of content consumed and the category of the content, thus losing information on different ways that consumers might exhibit binge behaviors. In particular, to extend the literature, we define multiple dimensions of binging that account for the timing, volume, and type of content consumed. We quantify these dimensions using binging metrics that describe the extent to which an individual is engaging in binge consumption based on the interarrival times of consumption and breaks. We apply our binging metrics to two different datasets from contexts in which users not only consume content, but are also evaluated on their performance (i.e., online education and online video games). These applications allow us to examine how binging patterns may be predictive of downstream behaviors that are of importance to both consumers and content providers. In particular, we identify which binging types seem to help or hurt different performance outcomes. In addition, we examine how performance may be affected by counterfactual policy changes designed to manage binge behavior.

Regulating Habit-Forming Technology

Tech developers, like slot machine designers, strive to maximize the user’s “time on device.” They do so by designing habit-forming products – products that draw consciously on the same behavioral design strategies that the casino industry pioneered. The predictable result is that most tech users spend more “time on device” than they would like and a substantial minority develop life-changing behavioral problems similar to problem gambling. Other countries have begun to regulate habit-forming tech, and American jurisdictions may soon follow suit. Several state legislatures today are considering bills to regulate “loot boxes,” a highly addictive slot-machine-like mechanic that is common in online video games. The Federal Trade Commission has also announced an investigation into the practice. As public concern mounts, it is surprisingly easy to envision consumer regulation extending beyond video games to other types of apps. Just as tobacco regulations might prohibit brightly-colored packaging and fruity flavors, a social media regulation might limit the use of red notification badges or “streaks” that reward users for daily use. It is unclear how much of this regulation could survive First Amendment scrutiny; software, unlike other consumer products, is widely understood as a form of protected “expression.” But it is also unclear that well-drawn laws to combat compulsive technology use would seriously threaten First Amendment values. At a very low cost to the expressive interests of the tech companies, these laws may well enhance the quality and efficacy of online speech by mitigating distraction and promoting deliberation.

What Do Humans Perceive in Asset Returns?

In this article, the authors run experiments to test if and how human subjects can differentiate time series of actual asset returns from time series that are generated synthetically via various processes, including AR1. In contrast with previous anecdotal evidence, they find that subjects can distinguish between the two. These results show that temporal charts of asset prices convey to investors information that cannot be reproduced by summary statistics. They also provide a first refutation based on human perception of a strong form of the efficient-market hypothesis. Their experiments are implemented via an online video game (http://arora.ccs.neu.edu). The authors also link the subjects’ performance to statistical properties of the data and investigate whether subjects improve performance while playing.

Internet-related disorders-old and new challenges. Conference report on the 10thsymposium of the German Association on Internet-Related Disorders

Internet-related disorders have become agrowing challenge for psychosocial healthcare and society. For ten years, the German Association on Internet-Related Disorders has been acooperative network, bringing together caregiving professionals and researchers, fostering our knowledge and expertise in facing this health issue. The conference "Categorically after 10years," held in November 2018, was the annual meeting of these experts.This proceeding aims to depict the history of the conference, by referring to the many national and international experts of the past years that had crucial impact on the growing expertise of the association's members. The current conference mainly dealt with the expected inclusion of "gaming disorder" as anew diagnosis and other internet-related disorders in the ICD-11 that were announced by the World Health Organization (WHO) in summer 2018.Internet-related disorders have been clinically described as excessive and poorly controlled online behaviors that are causing detrimental consequences and result in decreasing psychosocial functioning. The main subtypes of internet-related disorders encompass the uncontrolled use of (online) computer games, pornography, and social networking sites.As in past years, this conference again offered the opportunity for exchange between researchers and healthcare professionals. The program contained an eclectic mix of lectures and workshops, offering asound review of current developments in internet-related disorders and future perspectives of prevention, diagnostics, and intervention strategies. Aparticular emphasis was set on the addictive potential of modern computer games, for instance by the implementation of monetarization strategies.

Employee Proactiveness to Engage in Sustainable Consumption Leading to Societal Benefits

Our manuscript aims to advance our understanding of employee engagement in sustainable consumption through collaborative learning. Learning is one of the keys to sustain competitive advantage and to keep business fresh and relevant in a constantly evolving global business environment. Consequently, collaborative learning is a crucial skill that companies expect their prospective employees to demonstrate at work. In our study, we hold that collaborative learning will increase employee proactiveness to engage in sustainable consumption when moral identity is present. Moral identity refers to a moral state that is internal and projected to others and therefore consists of two dimensions: internalization and symbolisation. Moral identity along with collaborative learning and employee proactiveness to engage in sustainable consumption at a workplace leading to societal benefits (i.e., economic, social and psychological) in the housing, mobility and food consumption domain has not received much attention in academia. We theoretically investigate this phenomenon in the context of massively-multiplayer online video games and offer a conceptual model. In our study, we conceptually put forward propositions linking moral identity, engagement in sustainable consumption and societal benefits along with antecedents of collaborative learning: achievement, social presence, immersion and video game frequency. Based on our conceptual model, we provide implications for public policy makers and practitioners. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.5755/j01.ee.30.1.17385

Prevalence of problematic online gaming among undergraduate medical students and its relation to well-being, self-esteem and depressive mood in Goa, India

Background: Online video games are one of the most popular recreational activities irrespective of age, gender and culture. Gaming disorder has been recently included in the 11th Revision of the international classification of diseases (ICD-11). Thus online video game addiction among people is a serious mental health issue and unfortunately, research on this addiction is still in its infancy. Thus the present study examines the prevalence of problematic online gaming among undergraduate medical students and its association with demographic variables, and health-related measures like well-being, self-esteem and depressive mood.Methods: The present cross-sectional study was conducted among the undergraduate students of Goa medical college using online survey method. Problematic online gaming was assessed using the problematic online gaming questionnaire short form (POGQ-SF). Additionally, well-being was assessed using the satisfaction with life scale (SWLS), self-esteem was assessed using Rosenberg’s self- esteem scale (RSES) and depressive mood was assessed using the patient health questionnaire (PHQ-9).Results: According to POGQ-SF, 8% of the study participants showed problematic online gaming. It was significantly associated with sex of the study participants, frequency of online gaming, duration of internet use per day and duration of a gaming session.Conclusions: Playing online games is a widespread activity among undergraduate medical students and a substantial proportion of these students exhibit addictive behaviours with regards to online gaming. Further research in terms of longitudinal studies involving larger samples of general population is needed to throw light on causal relationship between problematic online gaming and related factors.

Comparison of the Video Game Functional Assessment-Revised (VGFA-R) and Internet Gaming Disorder Test (IGD-20).

Initially labeled as internet addiction in the mid-1990s (e.g., Griffiths, 1996; Young, 1996), researchers have since focused on how specific online activities result in negative consequences for those who overuse and have problems with online applications such as online gambling and online sex (Griffiths, 2000; Potenza, 2017). More recently, this has been applied to online problematic video game play, often used synonymously with terms such as online video game addiction, online gaming addiction, and Internet gaming disorder (IGD). With the publication of the fifth edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013), IGD was identified by the APA as warranting further study. The current proposed diagnostic criterion in the DSM-5 requires the presence of five of nine symptoms over a 12-month period. These include: (a) preoccupation or obsession with Internet games, (b) withdrawal symptoms when not playing Internet games, (c) an increasing need over time to spend more and more time playing video games, (d) failed attempts to stop or curb Internet gaming, (e) loss of interest in other activities such as hobbies, (f) continued overuse of Internet games even with knowledge of the impact of overuse on their life, (g) lying about extent of Internet game usage, (h) uses Internet games to relieve anxiety or guilt, and (i) has lost or put at risk an opportunity or relationship because of Internet games (American Psychiatric Association [APA], 2013). However, it is unclear if the disorder represents addiction to the internet or if IGD evaluates specific behaviors occurring within the context of the video gaming (Starcevic and Billieux, 2017; Young and Brand, 2017).

Mechanisms of Disclosure: A Socio-technical Perspective on Sociality in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-playing Games

It is a mainstay in game studies that Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games are boasting social relations and community formation. Considering games as “sociotechnical” environments, this article studies how the usage of external communication technologies in an online video game guild shapes the members’ social dynamics. Based on a one-year ethnographic study of a women’s guild in The Elder Scrolls Online (TESO), the analysis shows that the infrastructure of TESO guards anonymous interaction by default and contributes to the game as a “safe space.” The displacement of guild communication to media platforms outside the game, however, unleashed mechanisms of disclosure: a leakage of information from the private, domestic domain via TeamSpeak and the “sharing” imperative of personal information on Facebook. Such techno-induced forms of personal disclosure act as a double-edged sword: they strengthen the guild’s social bonds but, simultaneously, breed tensions, peer-to-peer surveillance, and social control within the guild.

Collaborative intelligence and gamification for on-line malaria species differentiation

BackgroundCurrent World Health Organization recommendations for the management of malaria include the need for a parasitological confirmation prior to triggering appropriate treatment. The use of rapid diagnostic tests (RDTs) for malaria has contributed to a better infection recognition and a more targeted treatment. Nevertheless, low-density infections and parasites that fail to produce HRP2 can cause false-negative RDT results. Microscopy has traditionally been the methodology most commonly used to quantify malaria and characterize the infecting species, but the wider use of this technique remains challenging, as it requires trained personnel and processing capacity.ObjectiveIn this study, the feasibility of an on-line system for remote malaria species identification and differentiation has been investigated by crowdsourcing the analysis of digitalized infected thin blood smears by non-expert observers using a mobile app.MethodsAn on-line videogame in which players learned how to differentiate the young trophozoite stage of the five Plasmodium species has been designed. Images were digitalized with a smartphone camera adapted to the ocular of a conventional light microscope. Images from infected red blood cells were cropped and puzzled into an on-line game. During the game, players had to decide the malaria species (Plasmodium falciparum, Plasmodium malariae, Plasmodium vivax, Plasmodium ovale, Plasmodium knowlesi) of the infected cells that were shown in the screen. After 2 months, each player’s decisions were analysed individually and collectively.ResultsOn-line volunteers playing the game made more than 500,000 assessments for species differentiation. Statistically, when the choice of several players was combined (n > 25), they were able to significantly discriminate Plasmodium species, reaching a level of accuracy of 99% for all species combinations, except for P. knowlesi (80%). Non-expert decisions on which Plasmodium species was shown in the screen were made in less than 3 s.ConclusionThese findings show that it is possible to train malaria-naïve non-experts to identify and differentiate malaria species in digitalized thin blood samples. Although the accuracy of a single player is not perfect, the combination of the responses of multiple casual gamers can achieve an accuracy that is within the range of the diagnostic accuracy made by a trained microscopist.

Online Gamers, Lived Experiences, and Sense of Belonging: Students at the University of the Free State, Bloemfontein

Individuals who partake in video games are often regarded with prejudice. It is an activity that is perceived to be mainly related to senseless leisure and teenage entertainment. However, many diverse people make video games such an important part of their lives that they become passionately engaged in it. Video games and online video gaming offer the player immersive experiences unlike any other forms of media. A phenomenological and interpretive exploration is undertaken in order to gain a deeper understanding of the narratives of online gamers and their experiences of a sense of belonging to the associated online communities. Through the use of in-depth interviews, the article explores various aspects of the life stories of a group of eight South African university students. It attempts to show how online gaming has become a part of their lifeworlds. The aim of this article is to present the narratives of online gamers as rich and descriptive accounts that maintain the voices of the participants. Various aspects of the lifeworlds of online gamers are explored. Firstly, an exploration is undertaken to gain an understanding of what it means to be a gamer. It focuses on how a person can become involved with gaming and how it can evolve into something that a person is engaged with on a daily basis. Secondly, it explores how video games influence the perception of reality of gamers. Immersion in video games can transfer a player into an alternative reality and can take the focus away from the real world. This can lead to feelings of joy and excitement, but can also lead to escapism. Lastly, the article shifts attention towards how online video gamers experience online communities. Players can have positive experiences with random strangers online, but because of the anonymous nature of the online environment, it can also lead to negative and isolating experiences.

Інтернет-залежність у юнацтва як об’єкт соціально-педагогічної профілактики

The article summarizes the key adolescentes’ psychophysical neoplasms that influence formation of Internet addiction. The author argues that adolescentes’ Internet addiction is a negative social phenomenon which still are being neglected by Ukrainian researchers. It was also mentioned that the most assuming subtypes of Internet addiction (among five general subtypes which are based on the most problematic types of online applications) for young people are gambling or online computer games and social networking site addiction. The issues of social interaction on the Internet have the opportunity to adolescences for self-realization in the system of social ties, which are not embodied in a real life. European scientists have highlighted the general stages of Internet addiction formation, which, in our opinion, reflects with high rate on young people. Related studies suggested that the disorder is associated with social, academic and family impairment. The main features of dependent young people are: preoccupation with the Internet, inability to control using, hiding or lying about the behavior, psychological withdrawal, and continued use despite the consequences of the behavior. The specific features of socio-pedagogical activity in the context of social pedagogy’s social-educational paradigm is noted. It has been found that socio-pedagogical prevention of Internet addiction in adolescence is expedient and effective if it is based on the revealed features of this age period.

A Survey on Autonomic Provisioning and Management of QoS in SDN Networks

In today’s Internet, killer network services and applications, such as video and audio streaming, network storage, and online video games, are pushing the network infrastructure resources to the edge. By design and for the most part, the Internet is the best offer delivery ecosystem with little or no end-to-end quality-of-service (QoS) guarantees. Even, frameworks, such as IntServ and DiffServ that were designed and implemented to provide QoS guarantees, still fail to solve this problem at a wide scale. Software-defined networking (SDN) is a fast emerging networking paradigm that promises to provide end-to-end QoS guaranteeing by offering greater network flexibility, abstraction, control, and programmability to network resources. In this paper, we review, survey, and discuss the current state of the art on QoS provisioning in the area of SDN, with respect to applying the concept of autonomic computing (AC) to automatically support, provision, monitor, and maintain QoS requirements. This paper includes in-depth classification, taxonomy, and comparative analysis for the autonomic-based QoS provisioning in accordance with the famous influential and widely adopted the monitor-analyze-plan-execute-knowledge (MAPE-K) IBM architectural model for autonomic computing.

The Cyber Awareness of Online Video Game Players

The cyber awareness of online video game players (n = 183) was investigated by examining their online safety practices and the degree to which they were exposed to threats. With findings revealing that gamers engaged in poor online practices, despite expressing concern for their safety, this investigation supports the view that gamers are unaware of the possible consequences of their online actions, and/or continue to show resistance to cybersecurity practices perceived to hinder gameplay. While the findings should be regarded as preliminary, game developers and publishers, policymakers, and researchers may find them valuable in obtaining a clearer understanding of gamers' cyber awareness and online practices. Coupled with ongoing research, these findings may also prove valuable for the identification of strategies that may be used to curb risky online behavior.

Assessing Video Game Habits and Pathological Behaviour in Children through a New Scale: Psychometric Properties of the Video-Gaming Scale—For Children (VGS-C)

The purpose of this study was to develop an instrument to assess video-gaming habits and pathological behavior in children. The Video Game Scale—For Children (VGS-C) was developed by adapting the VGS—For Adolescents (VGS-A). The final scale was composed of two sections: Section A, with unscored items, assessing a wide series of video-gaming habits, and Section B, with scored items, measuring pathological use of video games by adapting the DSM—5 criteria for Internet Gaming Disorder. Participants were 201 children attending primary school in Italy (47% males; mean age = 8.7 years). Concerning Section A, preferred video games, daily frequency of video-gaming, used devices, amount of time spent on video game sessions, gaming on Internet, preferred online video games, and social partners in playing video games, were analyzed. Regarding Section B, Confirmatory Factor Analysis attested the hypothesized one-factor structure, and an adequate reliability was found. The association of video-gaming habits with pathological video-gaming attested the validity of the scale. Tolerance and escape were the pathological symptoms more frequently experienced by children. Findings suggest that the VGS-C could be a valuable instrument to assess video-gaming habits and pathological behavior in children.

Riformulazioni e reinterpretazioni transmediali di Romeo and Juliet

Abstract – This chapter examines a selected corpus of multisemiotic reformulations of Romeo and Juliet , which is subject to multimodal processes of re-narration and re-interpretation that are meant to make Shakespeare’s tragedy more accessible to different types of implied receivers, according to their age, gender and familiarity with the media hosting the retextualizations. Three case studies shall be explored: a short clip produced for the British Council and available on the Internet in the context of the Shakespeare Lives! festival; an online video game commissioned by ‘Shakespeare Country’ in order to promote Warwickshire county to international tourists as well as to introduce children and younger receivers to the basic story of Romeo and Juliet ; an amateur video game that resorts to discourse hybridization between the original text, intralinguistic simplification and the style of ‘Japanese role-play games’ in order to foster an interactive re-enactment of the play. By means of multimodal analyses of the selected corpus of extracts, this chapter will enquire into the cognitive-functional nature of the ‘transmedial reformulations’ under discussion, revealing the influence of the authors’ expectations concerning implied receivers on the verbal and multimodal aspects of target versions, and the pragmatic inferences that senders wish to prompt in viewers and players through the associations between register features, lexical and structural dimensions, and non-verbal characteristics.

Inclusion du trouble lié aux jeux vidéos dans la CIM-11 : Réalité clinique ou pathologisation de la vie quotidienne ?

There has been a growing recognition that online video gaming may become excessive and lead to functional impairments. The Eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) plan to include Gaming disorder in its section on Disorders Due to Substance Use or Addictive Behaviors. The description of Gaming disorder prepared by the WHO as part of the development of the ICD-11 was criticized. In particular, claims were made that the inclusion of “gaming disorders” in such a classification is premature and result in pathologizing healthy gamers and engender moral panics. The talk will be described how the ICD-11 Gaming disorder avoids potential ‘overpathologizing’ with its explicit reference to functional impairment caused by gaming, and therefore improves upon a number of flawed previous approaches to identifying cases with suspected gaming-related harms. We contend that moral panics are more likely to occur and be exacerbated by misinformation and lack of understanding, rather than proceed from having a clear diagnostic system. While we acknowledge the literature in this field has limitations and gaps in knowledge that warrant critical attention, the best available evidence supports the need for a diagnostic entity of gaming disorder to guide intervention services for affected individuals

New frontiers in futures games: leveraging game sector developments

In the last decade, games have grown into a dominant and highly diverse form of media, characterized by a number of transformations in the game sector that offer new opportunities for games in a futures context. These developments include changes in the cultural presence, the production and dissemination of games, which in turn have led to changes in their content and forms. This paper investigates to what extend such game sector developments have been utilized by games in a futures context, and building on this analysis, where the key opportunities are to leverage game sector developments to advance the field of futures games. Connections are made between game sector developments on the one hand and alternate reality games, massively multiplayer games, experiential futures games, online video games, game design engines and game jams on the other. Key recommendations resulting from this analysis include researching new player bases, adapting existing games, blurring the lines between commercial games and futures games, developing new futures games design and dissemination infrastructure, integrating futures games and present action, and organizing new funding mechanisms for futures games.