Video Game Development Research Articles

Institutional policing work in a constellation of labels and spaces of place: video game development management insights

Purpose This paper aims to explore (a) the dynamics of place and space in an institutional setting and (b) institutional work done in different spaces of the same place. Design/methodology/approach Traditional ethnographic methods (participant-observation, interviews and artefacts) were used over the course of 12 months of fieldwork in a multi-organizational video game development space. Findings The paper presents two main findings. First, the authors show how the place was a dynamic rainbow constellation and manifested as different spaces over time and for different actors. The authors describe the spaces based on existing literature (accelerator, experimental, incubator or coworking space) or inductively (atrium and hybrid). Second, the authors show how institutional work changed depending on the spatial conceptions of the institutional place. In particular, the authors show dynamic rainbow constellation of fluid spaces raises different forms of institutional policing work (self, backroom, spectacle, tangential and preventative) and the conditions under which institutional policing work is subtly fluid and takes form, but also changes. Originality/value Significant contributions are made to understanding how actors work at forming a rainbow constellation ring of fluid labels and spaces of a place. This paper explicates and amplifies the forms of institutional policing work, providing a novel case example of that social interaction.

Playing with the Classics, Playing the Classics—The Cyborg Ninja Genji in the Video Game Overwatch

Tackling fundamental questions crucial for content creation in video game development, the article analyzes the cyborg ninja Genji character in an American video game Overwatch. It argues that Overwatch, while falling into global trends of Neomedievalism and techno-Orientalism, made Genji more famous and cooler (in the sense of the “Cool Japan” strategy) as a character and hero than ever before. It also emphasizes that since it is through Overwatch that most students currently access the term “Genji” online, the video game claimed the right to control the future of certain elements of premodern Japan’s cultural heritage.

The Ideological Dilemma in Using Games in Global Citizenship and Development Education

The objective of this paper is to contribute to discourse informing the use of computer games in Global Citizenship and Development Education. In doing so, it addresses the incompatibility and conflict between the values imbedded in games and those informing development education practice. It is aimed at both formal and informal educators who see the potential in using games in their practice and want to reconcile this dilemma. It is also aimed at policy makers and influencers who want to shape the structures governing such digital spaces in the public interest. The research involved an interdisciplinary literature review across the fields of Education, Game Design, colonialism and social activism. The analysis takes a postcolonial perspective and is informed by the theory and practice of critical pedagogy in youth work and development education. The study was conducted as part of Doctoral research and project work with NGOs over a seven-year period to 2024. In this context it is important to note that this is a rapidly changing and evolving sector. The development of computer games and immersive technologies over the past 20 years has been transformational, in their interactive capabilities and global proliferation, particularly with the emergence of “The Metaverse”. Such expansion has been critiqued as a process of Colonialism, where young people’s time, creativity, identities and attention is being commodified, monetised, packaged and sold to the highest bidder. The structure of the games industry, their content and the ecosystem surrounding gaming are all ideologically driven. Such ideology aligns with one of three systems: the neoliberal hegemony emanating from transnational corporations and market economies; the state control being exerted by China and others; or a blind commitment to opensource being advocated by many industry innovators, developers and users. When using games in an educational context, and particularly when addressing Social Justice and Global Citizenship, the values and cultures underpinning all three of these ideologies are problematic. It is the contention in this paper that such spaces can also be developed as informal educational spaces informed by values aligned with critical global citizenship and development education. Now is the time for development educational practitioners, conscientious games designers and policymakers to collaborate, to act, to legislate, to experiment and carve out a safe, progressive, dynamic, decolonised digital space for engagement with issues of global citizenship and development education

Neural networks utilization in the video game industry

The scope of the video game industry and the use of neural networks in it have been studied. The impact of this technology on the computer games development process has been analyzed, the efficiency of its application in this area noted. The generalized scheme of video games development with identification of the stages most favorable for neural networks application has been considered. The possibilities of artificial intelligence in the video game characters’ visual image development, starting from the idea stage, touching the concept creation and ending with the realization stage, have been studied. The possibility of optimizing this process by implementing neural network technology has been shown. The neural networks application in the processes of writing game scripts and implementing dialog voicing in a game has been analyzed. The difference between the variability of plots and conversations of game characters created with the use of artificial intelligence model has been shown. The future concept of using neural networks as a digital twin of a video game developer has been considered. Estimates of the video game industry development through the generative artificial intelligence implementation have been formulated. As the study result, the positive influence of neural networks application on the computer games development up to the possible full automation of the industry under consideration due to the active use of this technology in the near future has been proved.

Forms of Representation of Military Culture in Computer Games

The purpose of this article is to identify the forms of representation of military culture in computer games. In the course of the research, six types of interpretations of military culture were presented on the basis of a systematic approach, which made it possible to formulate a more general, broad concept that served as a basis for the subsequent discovery of its aspects and representations in computer games developed since the 2000s. The representation of aspects of military culture in games is reflected in four forms of representation: through game theme, individual game elements and stories, game genre, and game mechanics. The first one takes into account that the military theme is revealed in computer games in several forms of relation to reality: military-historical games; games thematically related to the modern army and modern military conflicts; games modelling military conflicts of the near future; fantasy games representing the army or armed forces of the distant future; fantasy games. The second demonstrates that mechanical elements and plot moves related to military culture can be present in games of almost all genres. The third defines genres related to military culture, the division of which is along the lines of personalized participation in military actions/simulation of a certain command and operation level, and each of them has its own aspects. The distinctive feature of the above forms is a limited representation of military culture, subjective focus on individual aspects. The fourth form of representation assumes a positive forecast of the development of computer games about military culture. It is expected that a simulator of everyday activities of servicemen will appear, which would make it possible to take a new look at military games and reflect the requirements of Russian legislation in the field of defense. This will help, among other things, to shape the directions of the state cultural policy for the development and preservation of the spiritual and moral foundations and traditional values of Russian culture embodied in modern forms and genres of art.

Pembuatan Game 2D Melawan Virus Menggunakan Unity Engine

A game or game is something that can be played with certain rules so that there are winners and there are losers, usually in a context that is not serious with the purpose of refreshing. Various games include; action, action-adventure, simulation, construction, and management, role playing games (RPG), strategy, racing, sports, puzzles, and word games. To create a digital game, a game engine designed to develop video games on various platforms is required. The Unity Engine can be used to create 2D (two-dimensional) and 3D (three-dimensional) games and supports a wide range of cross-platform devices such as smartphones, PCs, PlayStation 5, and many other platforms. In this study, the researcher wants to implement the creation of a 2D game called LAVIR using the GDLC (Game Development Life Cycle) method. The creation of this game aims to reduce anxiety, fear and eliminate boredom.

Local issues and global challenges: understanding marketing within the Trans-Tasman video game industry

While there is a growing body of literature concerning video game production by smaller developers, there has been little examination of their marketing and business practices. This article presents the first exploration of the marketing skills, knowledge, and practices within the Trans-Tasman video game industry. Data was collected from thirty-three video game developers across Australia and New Zealand utilizing semi-structured interviews and analyzed using thematic analysis. It was found that, despite developers generally recognizing the importance of marketing, their marketing skills, knowledge, and practices were mixed and uneven. While some developers were undertaking integrated activities such as evaluation and brand management, others did not understand how to. The findings and insights generated have contributed to understandings about Trans-Tasman video game production and have begun to address an important knowledge gap concerning video game developers’ marketing skills, knowledge, and practices.

The impact of microtransactions on the gamification of digital games

This article explores the impact of microtransactions as a form of monetization of game content and further gamification of digital games and video games. The relationship between gambling and monetized video games is considered, as well as the essence of gamblification of video games as a form of media convergence and the practice of spreading gambling in society. The main subject of the study is the question of whether the use of monetized game content leads to gambling addiction, since, unlike gambling, which under the laws of most countries is allowed to be accessed upon reaching the age of majority, monetized game content does not have age restrictions, and thus can affect not yet formed child (adolescent) psyche. Despite the fact that microtransactions in the gaming industry can provide additional streams to support video game development, research also shows the presence of so-called «predatory» monetization schemes. The article presents experimental studies of simulated gambling (such as social casino games, loot box purchases, etc.) by adolescents and their transition to gambling after reaching adulthood. Emphasis is placed on various approaches to gamification of digital and video games. From the position that microtransactions in video games do not affect later cognitive behavior and do not lead to gambling tendencies, to the fact that microtransactions have a negative effect on video game culture because they not only lead to addiction, but also create an imbalance in the gaming community. The latter is explained by the fact that it often takes several tens of hours to achieve something in a digital game, microtransactions allow you to reduce this time to a minimum for a certain amount of money. In any case, this issue is difficult not only from a social and psychological point of view, but also from a legal and economic point of view, and therefore requires additional research.

SyDRA: An approach to understand game engine architecture

Game engines are tools to facilitate video game development. They provide graphics, sound, and physics simulation features, which would have to be otherwise implemented by developers. Even though essential for modern commercial video game development, game engines are complex and developers often struggle to understand their architecture, leading to maintainability and evolution issues that negatively affect video game productions. In this paper, we present the Subsystem-Dependency Recovery Approach (SyDRA), which helps game engine developers understand game engine architecture and therefore make informed game engine development choices. By applying this approach to 10 open-source game engines, we obtain architectural models that can be used to compare game engine architectures and identify and solve issues of excessive coupling and folder nesting. Through a controlled experiment, we show that the inspection of the architectural models derived from SyDRA enables developers to complete tasks related to architectural understanding and impact analysis in less time and with higher correctness than without these models.

Why the Gaming Industry Needs Responsible AI

Incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) into the development, operation, and servicing of video games adds new issues to an already-complex landscape of ethical concerns. Practices, tools, and governance structures developed in responsible AI can offer effective ways to navigate this complexity.

Legal Regulation of “Skinning” Games

The development of video games has formed a complex and diversified huge system. It is precisely because of the variety of modern video games and abundant layers, "skinning" games and other infringement problems are endless. What kind of electronic games are worth protecting, and which part of them need to be protected, is the problem of today's legislation and justice. Judicial practice is basically through the copyright law or anti-unfair competition law to regulate the infringement of electronic games, but both have different degrees of inadequacy. If the development of "skinning" games is allowed to continue, the excellent but small-scale and medium-sized game developers will be driven out of the game market, and the future of electronic games will not go too far. Therefore, it is essential to strengthen intellectual property protection and improve the level of innovation by setting up a special category of protection through the Copyright Law and leading the development of the video game industry by judicial means.

Managing the narratives in narrative media brands

ABSTRACT Research on media brands is a growth area, but recently most of this research has focused on news media brands leaving the management of narrative media brands underexplored. This article explores how the creators of narrative media brands manage their narratives, characters, and storyworlds. Thirty-one semi-structured interviews were conducted with authors and video game developers and analysed using thematic analysis. The results suggest participants had a general appreciation of the importance of the brand management and marketing of their creations’ narratives, characters, and storyworlds, but a deeper understanding of their necessity for success was lacking, particularly for the fiction authors.

The Soulsification of video games

AbstractThe Soulsification process emerged during video game development and it influenced both player experience and industry practices. This phenomenon began to manifest following the commercial success of early Souls games such as Demon’s Souls and Dark Souls, which are renowned for their punishing gameplay difficulty, complex level design, and methodical combat mechanics. This process reshapes the design of video games by making them similar to those mentioned above, and it is increasingly adopted by developers. Consequently, they become so-called Soulslike games which are influenced by FromSoftware’s Souls series. To understand this phenomenon, the number of Soulslike video game releases is analyzed. Furthermore, to understand player opinions about these games, a questionnaire was created and completed by 100 participants. The results indicate that the Soulsification process commenced in 2014, persists, and will likely continue into the future. Similarly, players generally embrace this genre and report an overall positive experience with it. These findings can inform the development of future Soulslike games.

Computer Simulators - Modern Tools For Training Future Officers And Sergets

The purpose of this article was to consider the prerequisites for the emergence, stages and prospects for the development of military computer games in the Republic of Kazakhstan, used in combat training of the armed forces of a number of states, as well as an attempt to conduct a comparative assessment of various military simulators using developed military computer programs. Simulators of military weapons at the present stage play an important role in preparing future reserve officers and sergeants in the Republic of Kazakhstan for real combat operations. They are computer programs or physical devices that help simulate various aspects of military combat activities. One of the main advantages of using computer simulations is the ability to create realistic combat conditions without having to risk lives and resources. Future officers and NCOs can enhance their professional skills through simulations to develop strategic and tactical skills, make real-time decisions and coordinate the actions of their units. In our opinion, the use of military weapons simulators provides an opportunity to gain excellent skills in working with military weapons, reduces training time for beginners, improves reactions and quick decision-making, and of course reduces the risk of injury during training. So, simulators of weapons and military equipment will contribute to the training of future reserve officers and sergeants, helping to develop their skills, leadership qualities and make effective decisions in combat situations. A modern approach effectively complements traditional military training.

Artificial Intelligence Usage in Forming Computer Games Space

The computer games industry is growing rapidly today, and the number of users of these games (players) is increasing. All of this has an impact on modern society. The development of new computer games involves constant evolution in such areas as technological innovations, the development of game genres, and analysis of market trends in the entertainment sector. The development of artificial intelligence and its application in the development of computer games contribute to the dynamic change of the landscape and expansion of the space and genres of games. The purpose of the article is to study and analyse the state of the modern computer games industry, taking into account the main genres and trends in the use of artificial intelligence in their development and the formation of the corresponding game space, to assess technological innovations, to analyse the market and to forecast the future development of the game industry. The research methods are the main methodological approaches and technological means of artificial intelligence for the development of computer games and the formation of the corresponding game space. Such methods include, in particular, systematic and comparative analyses to identify the features of computer games of various genres and types, the method of expert assessments, which involves the analysis of literary sources and information resources, interviews and surveys of game industry experts. The novelty of the study is a comprehensive analysis of modern technologies, in particular generative artificial intelligence, their use in the development of computer games and trends in the formation of the space of such games. Conclusions. The main trends in the development of computer games have been identified. The factors that influence their market are identified and forecasts are made for the future development of this industry. The paper analyses the use of artificial intelligence, in particular generative artificial intelligence, in the development of computer games (to optimise game creation and reduce budgets) and the formation of the corresponding game space, generative artificial intelligence has opened a new era of development of the computer game space. The impact of artificial intelligence on the balance between integration and immersion in the real world is determined. The current state of virtual reality games with their achievements and problems is analysed, which is crucial for understanding their future development trajectory. The new trends and technologies considered point to the future of the computer games space.

Gendered engines: episode and Dorian’s gamemaking toolkits

ABSTRACT In a landscape where videogame development has long been dominated by a patriarchal tech culture, gendered engines create spaces for girls’ participation. In this paper I explore two gamemaking toolkits that are attached to existing—and highly gendered—interactive fiction applications, Episode and Dorian. The engines belong to a broader history of initiatives hailing girls to pursue STEM fields, yet they more-so draw on girls’ hobbyist coding practices, namely those rooted in fandom activities. The engines’ monetisation infrastructures, however, engage in an ethos of post-feminist entrepreneurism that entangles leisure and work. I analyse Episode and Dorian’s gendered branding and emphasis on romance storytelling as a limiting design convention, though I also consider the subversive potential at play when the hyperfeminine comes into contact with the masculinised realms of videogames and gamemaking.

Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame

<p>In 2019, the Notre-Dame de Paris was devastated by a fire. The importance of the Notre-Dame as world heritage was underlined by the countless contributions, donations and solidarity all around the world that pledged to help to rebuild the cathedral. Among all contributions Ubisoft’s idea to offer its game Assassin's Creed: Unity for free to the public was arguably most celebrated as innovative and creative measure to secure heritage in case of its destruction. This case opens up new perspectives and roles of heritage management as also the development and distribution of video games in the twenty first century. The case of Ubisoft’s Notre-Dame is discussed in this paper under a comparative analysis to the game Never Alone and a critical inquiry towards the benefits, consequences and repercussions of the growing importance of synchronising heritage protection with video game production. Also, the perceptive aspect of connecting to heritage as player through a game and its spatial aspects will be explained under Chapman’s concept of narrative gardens.</p>

A novel transformer‐based graph generation model for vectorized road design

AbstractRoad network design, as an important part of landscape modeling, shows a great significance in automatic driving, video game development, and disaster simulation. To date, this task remains labor‐intensive, tedious and time‐consuming. Many improved techniques have been proposed during the last two decades. Nevertheless, most of the state‐of‐the‐art methods still encounter problems of intuitiveness, usefulness and/or interactivity. As a rapid deviation from the conventional road design, this paper advocates an improved road modeling framework for automatic and interactive road production driven by geographical maps (including elevation, water, vegetation maps). Our method integrates the capability of flexible image generation models with powerful transformer architecture to afford a vectorized road network. We firstly construct a dataset that includes road graphs, density map and their corresponding geographical maps. Secondly, we develop a density map generation network based on image translation model with an attention mechanism to predict a road density map. The usage of density map facilitates faster convergence and better performance, which also serves as the input for road graph generation. Thirdly, we employ the transformer architecture to evolve density maps to road graphs. Our comprehensive experimental results have verified the efficiency, robustness and applicability of our newly‐proposed framework for road design.

Computer Game Development for Balancing Chemical Equations Skill in Chemistry Education

This computer game was designed and developed to enhance the skills of high school students in balancing chemical equations. The game simulates a trip to the beach and consists of three missions, ranging from easy to difficult levels, enabling players to engage in a contextual learning experience. The objectives of this computer game development were to compare learning achievement before and after using the game and to evaluate the level of satisfaction in learning through the game. The study sample consisted of 27 high school students in Mathayom Suksa four, selected from a medium-sized school in Pathumthani Province, Thailand, using purposive sampling. The research employed two primary assessment tools: 1) a pretest-posttest to assess the understanding of balancing chemical equations and 2) a satisfaction evaluation form to evaluate the computer game. Data analysis was performed using the mean, standard deviation (S.D.), t-test, and normalized gain (<g>). The findings revealed that the mean learning achievement after using the computer game (13.52) was significantly higher than the mean before using the computer game (11.52) at a significance level of 0.01. The overall normalized gain for the class was at a moderate level. Furthermore, the majority of the participants expressed high satisfaction with a mean score of 4.56, indicating that the computer game was user-friendly and conducive to learning. The content, which presented chemical reactions in daily life within the computer game, was also easily comprehensible. Therefore, it could be effectively utilized to enhance classroom learning and applied to other areas of knowledge.

Search-based co-creation of software models: The case of particle systems for video games

Context:The video game industry is one of the fastest-growing industries in the world. However, the creation of content is the bottleneck of the industry nowadays. Objective:In this paper, we propose a new approach for co-creating content by means of combining an evolutionary algorithm Map-Elites, and software models. Our approach involves generating a large number of software models and selecting the best ones based on a fitness function. This fitness function is guided by the human, who chooses which content fits their interests best. Method:We evaluated this approach in the domain of Particle Systems (PS). PS are a popular type of content used to create visual effects such as explosions, fire, smoke, or rain. Our evaluation also involves industry experts of different roles in the video game development process. Using our approach, they were tasked to create PS for their games. Then, they compared the generated models with handmade ones. Results:Our results show that practitioners chose the generated models four out of five times over handmade ones as a better fit for their projects. Furthermore, models created with our approach by non-experts in five minutes are similar in quality to the ones hand-made by an expert in 15 min. Conclusion:In conclusion, using human artistic taste to guide the algorithm renders positive results in creative tasks such as content generation for video games. With minor adjustments, the generated content can be game-ready, accelerating development.