Category: DiGRA 2015

Gao Jihe (高济禾), Jiejiao Tech Co.Ltd (街角科技)

Game prototyping has become a common practice in game design. Existing prototyping studies focused on the core mechanics, the level design, interface and so on. The rise of online multiplayer gaming has make in-game social engagement and interaction becoming an increasingly important component of game mechanism. However, a systematic research methods focusing on the influences of in-game social rules and mechanisms to a player group have not yet formed. We propose an approach of ABM (multi-agent simulation) method to study in-game social interaction, by establishing a simulation environment including the player’s agent and the rules of in-game interaction. By implementing ABM approach, the social interaction outcomes could be tested independent from other aspects of game design.

利用ABM方法对网络游戏的社交互动机制进行原型研究

利用原型对游戏设计进行验证已经成为游戏项目开发的通行做法，现有的原型研究主要针对游戏的核心游戏机制、关卡设计、交互界面等方面。多人在线游戏的兴起和发展，使社交逐渐成为游戏机制中越来越重要的构成。而针对于某个玩家群体，游戏社交机制会产生什么样的宏观和微观结果，还没有形成系统的研究方法。我们提出一种利用ABM（多代理人仿真）方法建立对游戏群体互动机制进行验证的方案，通过建立一个包括玩家agent和社交互动规则的仿真环境，能够独立于游戏其他设计环节，对玩家的群体互动效果进行独立仿真验证。

Author info

GAO Jihe is founder of Jiejiao Technology, a startup company focus on automatic data collecting and processing using agent-based modeling methods. Former business consultant specialized in market research, marketing strategy, marketing data analyzing.
Email: jihe.gao@jiejiaotech.com

编剧在新时代游戏制作中的作用
作者：WANG Zihan (王梓涵)
身份：作家 游戏编剧 自由撰稿人 翻译

在我的眼中，游戏从来都是当之无愧的第九艺术，而既然是艺术，就离不开传统的塑造方式，比如剧本。纵观中外游戏发展史，剧情在游戏制作中的地位走了一条波浪式的曲折之路——从最初的偏安一隅到上世纪九十年代的重中之重，如今又略显势微。在其辉煌时，著名的编剧如Chris Avellone、Tim Cain曾为我们带来过《异域镇魂曲》、《辐射》这样的经典，其中《异域镇魂曲》更是因90%的游戏时间都在阅读剧本而不朽。而今天，随着硬件技术的飞速发展以及移动游戏、主机游戏的崛起，编剧似乎越来越没那么重要了。在这个新的时代里，游戏编剧真的会走向沉沦、偶尔只靠一款款《永恒之柱》这样的游戏宣告自己的存在感？还是破釜沉舟，以一种新的面目左右游戏制作的大方向？

介绍：笔名半神巫妖，有十几年游戏从业经历，2000年参与官方《博德之门》汉化，2003年主持了《命令与征服：将军》MOD《五星之光》的制作，取得国内外共计五十万下载量并获得EA官方的来信。现为中国最大单机游戏网站3DM主编，自由撰稿人，常年为包括《大众软件》在内的知名游戏媒体撰写游戏产业文章。同时作为游戏编剧，曾为包括单机游戏《御天降魔传》在内的诸多单机游戏、手游撰写剧本、官方小说。另外翻译出版了包括《心灵之眼》、《上古卷轴》官方小说在内的诸多文学作品。作为项目负责人汉化了包括《上古卷轴5：天际》、《星际战甲》在内的诸多游戏，大多成为官方汉化。

Chen Ziyun, Popsoft

After development of half a century, video games became a highly complex interactive entertainment product, where the traditional classification such as AVG, RPG, RTS, was confronted by the mixed-type games and became insufficient. Recently, with the smartphone popularization and new gamers’ explosion, the old classification system lost its explanatory ability and failed to explain the popularity of newly emerged games. As a media practitioner, I can see the pressing need of a new classification system, which I will state in detail in this paper. Technique, Strategie, Simulation and Culture are the four pillars that constitute the evaluation system that’s based on my practice, experience and analysis.

文化好玩，情怀有价——评估电子游戏的四个维度

大众软件 陈子赟

电子游戏历经半个世纪的发展，已经成为高度复杂的互动文化娱乐产品，原有的AVG、RPG、RTS等类型划分，在越来越多的混合玩法游戏面前已显捉襟见肘，而近两年随智能手机普及带来的新玩家人口大爆炸，”好玩”与”好卖”的诸多”预期违背”现象一再让业界——包括厂商、”传统”玩家、媒体及学者大跌眼镜，”游戏性””可玩性””上手度”以及”卡牌””IP””情怀”等词汇都有了新的含义。笔者作为一名游戏媒体从业者，在日常工作中需要一种能兼顾”古今”的工具、方法论。技巧、策略、养成、文化四维评估体系即为笔者从实践中分析、归纳、概括以及做减法后的产物，具有经得起推敲的普适性。其中，”文化”是一款游戏的灵魂，独立游戏制作者的”情怀”与游戏大厂的”IP”本质上都是一回事。

Author Info:

Chen Ziyun, a media practitioner,got a copycat-Nintendo FC in 1992 at 4-year-old, and played Arcade video game in the movie theater of home town.First contact with computer game “wolfenstein 3D” in school computer room at 1996. Entry Popsoft in the autumn of 2012.Currently pushing forward a video game-evaluation system with four dimensions : the techniques, strategies, cultivation, and culture.

Tony Shong（熊攀峰）, INNO Interactive Co.Ltd

Why is gaming experience so appealing and attracts people like no other media forms? As recalling our childhoods, we easily highlight the memories of playing games but take us some time to recall what TV drama, film or graphics we were watching at that time. There is one significant feature that divides games and other art forms such as painting, music ,cinema etc. – which is interaction. Is it the key element that sets gaming experience outstanding? Let’s take a deep look into the games we played in the childhood, start a discovering tour with detailed examples on how games deliver experience in a impressive way. Reveal what is generating attraction to players when they play games and how interactive experience can be designed to accomplish narrative goals even excels movies. What inspiration can we get on creating games when the advantage of interaction was perceived, just like what indie gamers are doing nowadays.

Author info

Tony Shong（熊攀峰） is Interactive Experience Director and Interactive (Gaming) Experience Researcher at INNO Interactive Co.Ltd

Hanna Wirman, Hong Kong Polytechic University, School of Design

‘Second screen’ entertainment model – the use of a mobile device while watching television – makes games ever more pervasive in our daily lives. Such use also steadily expands beyond TV+mobile model to other two or multiple screens use situations. Meanwhile, the typical mechanics of ‘freemium’ casual games encourage play of multiple games simultaneously because waiting for things to happen in one game frees us time to play another. Paradoxically, casual games which are considered as fillers of the silent moments between everyday routines now create idle moments of their own. Not only do we swap from screen to screen but also start to multitask between games. Accepting this fragmentation of mobile game play and dual-screen entertainment, this paper attempts to define what exactly is new and different in such a form of entertainment and to which extend fragmentation has taken place in play all along. I will explore how the traditionally understood second screen model changes when we consider two game screens instead. Ways in which games create ‘cliffhangers’, varying motivations for swapping as well as reward returning to the screen are discussed. I will argue that while play-multitasking is not new as such, today’s mobile games support fragmented use in a novel way.

Author info

Dr. Hanna Wirman is a Research Assistant Professor at the School of Design of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University where she leads the M.Sc. Game Development study stream. Her research focuses on games and play approaching these primarily from the point of view of players and shared creative practices in design. Hanna’s current research addresses non-human animals as players and she builds games for orangutans’ enrichment and for cross-species communication. Hanna leads educational and socially responsible game design and development projects working closely with the local community and NGOs in Hong Kong.

He Siheng, School of Information and Electronics, Beijing Institute of Technology

The term “Gamification” emerged since 2002 and was widely studied after 2010s. Though a popular area of researches and practices, Gamification problems like the overuse of gamer’s classification theory, non-standardized design of gamified systems, and lacking mature protocols to assess system effectiveness, remained untackled. This paper will introduce some of the ideas, methods and undergoing techniques in Signal Processing for optimization of current systems.  This paper will begin by revealing the potential usage of Signal Processing Theories in educational, commercial, self-development, and other settings. Then, a case study will be conducted in the field of education – signal processing techniques will be applied to establish a player’s journey with a rapid feedback mechanism based on the small-step theory, as well as to boost the evaluation and testifying process. Discussions on how to apply those techniques in more settings will be followed.

信号处理理论应用于游戏研究及游戏化实践的可行性研究 ——以对可汗学院学习路径的分析、生成、与评估为主要案例

贺司衡
北京理工大学信息与电子学院

游戏化（Gamification）自 2002 年被提出这一词，并在2010 年后被广泛研究后，已取得了多方面的进展。然而，在迄今为止的研究中，一些问题仍广泛存在：包括对玩家类型的标签化，游戏化实践过程更多依靠个人经验，以及对游戏化效果检验的方法不成熟等。为此，尝试引入信号处理（Signal Processing）领域内相关理论和思考方式。这篇文章首先表明在教育、商业、个人发展等方面，可以应用上述方法和技术；并以教育领域为例，体现其在利用小步策略、构建快速反馈（rapid feedback）的玩家过程、并进行分析与测评的优势与应用方法。随后，提出更多可能的应用场合以并介绍相关技术如何应用其中。相信这一对信号处理学科的引入，会对游戏研究与游戏化领域有所启示和帮助。

Author Info

He Siheng is a Full-time undergraduate junior year in Beijing Institude of Technology. Major in Signal Processing. Focused in Edu area. Trying to applying methods in Signal Processing to Gamification.

Bjarke Liboriussen, Paul Martin, University of Nottingham Ningbo China

Based on our participation in setting up the Chinese DIGRA network, this paper examines the concept of the regional and the potential of regional game studies to disrupt established ways of thinking and doing game studies.

We first identify contemporary game studies as an interdisciplinary—as opposed to a multidisciplinary or transdisciplinary—field. The constitution of the field is critically examined through attention to two kinds of work: the external “boundary work” (Gieryn 1983) that goes on to maintain the field and the internal meetings of concepts and objects within the field that result in cultural analysis (Bal 2002). Roughly since 2007, boundary work in the shape of conferences, publishing and networking initiatives within the interdisciplinary fields of game studies has constituted a shift in attention away from “international”—that is, American, European and Japanese—centres and towards “regions” such as East Asia. The move towards regionalization includes rejections of formalist aspects of early (circa 2000) game studies and a tendency to prioritize social and cultural aspects of gaming over the expressive potential of individual games.
Critical and close attention to individual games is, however, a crucial part of the work that continuously renews and challenges the field’s shared repertoire of concepts. Regional game studies has the disruptive potential not only to bring new and “exotic” objects to the attention of game studies but also to develop new concepts and alter existing ones. By doing so, regional game studies can remind “international” game studies that Western centres are regions too, although particularly influential regions.

References
Bal, M. (2002). Travelling Concepts in the Humanities: A Rough Guide. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.

Gieryn, T. F. (1983). Boundary-Work and the Demarcation of Science from Non- Science: Strains and Interests in Professional Ideologies of Scientists. American Sociological Review, 48(6), 781-795.

Author Info

Bjarke Liboriussen, PhD, is an Assistant Professor in Digital and Creative Media at the University of Nottingham Ningbo China. His research focuses on computer games and the creative industries in China.

Paul Martin is an Assistant Professor in Digital Media and Communications at University of Nottingham Ningbo China. His PhD was on space and place as means of expression in digital games and his current research focuses on textual analysis, expression in games, and the phenomenology of digital game play.

Deng Jian, Shanghai University

This paper will discuss the development of Chinese Single-Player game from early 1980s (in which, Chinese factory produced the first console) to 2000 (in which, the game ban was issued). As all we known, under the circumstance of Reform and Opening-up, early Chinese singe-player game was introduced from Japan, and its development was also greatly influenced by Japan. As for Chinese people who eager to open their window to see this new world, games as one magic thing had made Chinese people great interest and concern when it came to their daily lives.

With the development of game market, there are many huge impacts they had never expected happened in their daily lives. Such as the family relationship between parents and children，which faced to one new challenge cause parents did not know how to deal with this new thing; new culture consume space was opened in the public etc. Game gave them funs and also the confusion. This is one structural question. Many social and economical realistic conditions are responsible to it. We can clearly see that, the one-child policy、educational content and Chinese economy reform environment would give rise to this impact. And how to understand game was one complicated long process for Chinese people. With the development of understanding, Chinese game manufacturing was on sail. Of course, it is very difficult to Chinese game manufacturing because of the special new Chinese history and realistic condition. There were at least five factors restrain its early development: “low technical ability /creative ability、low purchasing power,lack of modern enterprise system、copyright law and social blame.

However, it also gave one special develop route to Chinese games’ development: Imitation game console(such as Nintendo)、Low degree of innovation（such as study-console, one machine which could play 8／16/32bit game and use keyboard to study type write）、pirate and so on. With Chinese game manufacturers’ efforts, Chinese players could play games in one low price environment and purchasing power.

Here the chance came. With the economy and computer technology development, people’s national consciousness waked up. Chinese players desire one Chinese national game. Here it is, the first national game which called “Eagle squadron ”was born in 1994. The new era started from that time. But the Chinese game manufacturer hadn’t understood the real eager of players. These players want national game is true. But what is more，they want these games connect to their daily life. However, these manufacturers still design their games with cold war mentality. The first national game’s attempt was fail cause of wrong strategy and low inferior technology. But Taiwan’s national games got one huge success cause they use Chinese traditional martial arts won Chinese people’s national game dream. Chinese game manufacturer hadn’t seized this first opportunity. Unfortunately, Chinese game ban was issued which is bad for Chinese Singe-Player Game’s development，the era of Chinese online games came.

Author Info:

Deng Jian, PhD student of Program in Cultural Studies, Shanghai University; Research area: Game studies/Urban Culture and daily life analysis.
danger8749@qq.com