Category: Research

[Chinese DiGRA 2015] He Siheng on the Potential Usage of Signal Processing Theories into Game Studies and Gamification Practices—A Case Study on Khan Institute

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.

[Chinese DiGRA 2015] Fu, Wenhui and Nam, Youngho on the Internationalization Strategies of Chinese Online Game Industry

Fu, Wenhui; Nam, Youngho, Center of Innovation in Supply Chain and Service

For more than a decade, Chinese online game industry has developed and at present they attempt to catch bigger markets abroad, and to copy Chinese success experiences in other countries. In this context Chinese online game companies enter overseas markets with various purposes and in various entry modes. However, the internationalization strategies of online game industry are more diverse than those of traditional manufacturing or service industries due to the close interaction between its sub-industries: hard-service (game title development) and soft-service (game publishing) industries (Erramilli and Rao, 1990). This paper analyzes the relationship between motivation of internationalization and entry mode choice by investigating ten Chinese game firms’ overseas activities during 2001-2013.

Through internationalization, game firms want to exploit their superior abilities or to improve their weak points. According to the dynamic capability approach (Teece, 2007), the internationalization process of Chinese game firms can be divided into three stages: the overseas orientation stage, the value chain optimization stage and the global integration stage. At the overseas orientation stage when the sensing capability is a major driver of the internationalization, the least resource-committed modes such as licensing are preferred. At the value chain optimization stage when seizing opportunities are the main purpose, entry modes depend on the motivation of either exploiting core competence or augmenting weak assets, in either hard-service sector or soft-service sector. Control is the main entry evaluation criterion for exploitation and exploration of soft-service capability because soft-service is hard to be transferred to the third party. Knowledge sharing is the main entry evaluation criterion for exploration of hard-service capability while dissemination risk is the main determinant for exploitation of hard-service capability, because of transfer ability of hard-service. At the global integration stage, a variety of modes may coexist for the purposes of global value maximization, and thus the optimal entry mode choice may become a moot point.

This longitudinal multiple-case study tries to open a black box of game firms’ international strategy, which is not easily discerned by empirical cross-sectional study using overall industry samples. Findings of this study can be applied to other culture and creative industries especially where the integration between hard-service and soft-service factors constitute core competence of the industry value chain.

Author Info

Wenhui Fu is PhD, Research Fellow at the Center of Innovation in Supply Chain and Service, China Europe International Business School

Youngho Nam is PhD, professor at the School fo Business Administration at KOOKMIN University in South Korea

[Chinese DiGRA 2015] Bjarke Liboriussen and Paul Martin on The Disruptive Potential of Regional Game Studies

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.

[Chinese DiGRA 2015] Deng Jian on the The Decline of Mainland Chinese Singe-Player Game（early 1980s-2000）

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.
[email protected]

[Chinese DiGRA 2015] Felania Liu on the Trends and Tendencies of Researches on Games and Gamification Practices in Mainland China from 1980-2014

Felania Liu, Tsinghua University

Game Studies, as a booming research area of interest, attracted a growing number of scholarly attentions for the past 20 years. However, researches and practices of video game and game related issues in China, especially in mainland China, seems to stay out of the trends and sights of the international academia as well as the flourishing industry. This is, nonetheless, an illusion, as this paper will manifest. A synopsis to show the trends and tendencies of researches on games and Gamification practices for the past 40 years, this study is based on papers, articles and memoirs of people with first-hand experience of videogames and videogame industry in China, with the purpose to seek answers to questions like “Is Game a bliss or a blight to the society?”, “what’s the relationship between the government, the industry , the player and the games in China?”, and “Is there anything distinctly ‘Chinese’ regarding videogames studies and practices in China?”.

Author Info

Felania Liu is a game researcher and gamification practitioner. She is now in the History Department of Tsinghua University, with her research interest focuses on the nature of games and social impact of games, especially the interaction between reality and virtual worlds. She published extensively, wrote a book on Gamification and is one of the founders of the Gamification community in mainland China. She is also the vice president of Chinese DiGRA and actively promotes game researches in China.
Email:[email protected]

[Chinese DiGRA 2015] Ming Zongfeng On the Attributive Analysis of Games

Ming Zongfeng, School of Journalism and Communication, SUCT

This paper mainly determines a clear definition from different perspectives, and then analyzes each attribute of games.Firstly, it will state the games’ value for amusement from the attribute of entertainment, explain the games’ feature of media-based from the attribute of transmission, and summarize the essential character of games – fairness – according to the analysis of games’ connotation; secondly, from the aspect of function and form, it will describe different behavior of games’ attribute of platform on social contact, education, and business organization, and offer the evidence of its value measure; lastly, based on the above theories, it will analyze all kinds of network games which are popular at home, and indicate the general problems and damage, especially the ownership of virtual good, the legal basis of issuing paper money, the damage to equivalent exchange principle and the influence on financial order from virtual monetary system, the value and ethics of network games, and the management codes and standard for network games. At the same time, it will propose some essential solutions to the problems.

游戏的属性分析

文章从不同的角度对游戏的定义进行明确，并由此对游戏的各种属性进行分析。首先从游戏娱乐的属性，提出游戏基于娱乐的价值，从传播的属性提出游戏基于媒体的特征，从对游戏内涵的分析，归纳出游戏最本质的特性，即规则的公平性；其次从功能和形式上对游戏在社交、教育、商业组织形式等平台属性的各种表现进行描述，并给出其价值测度依据；最后根据以上理论对当前国内普遍流行的各类网络游戏进行分析，指出其中普遍存在的问题及其危害，尤其是虚拟物品的权属、虚拟货币发行的法律依据、虚拟货币体系对等价交换原则的破坏及对金融秩序的影响、网络游戏的价值和伦理观以及网络游戏的管理规范和标准等，同时给出了从根源上治理这些问题的建议。

Author Info:

Dr. Ming Zongfeng is now in School of Journalism and Communication, SUCT. At the same time, he is the deputy secretary general of Youth League of Green Network Construction and Dissemination. He has set up several companies so far, such as Gaungzhou Goyor Network Technology Company, Zhongqing Goyor Technology (Beijing) Company, and Guangzhou Jishengyuan Vocational Training Company, and so on.

With the social responsibility of an educator, he establishes the first anti-bad network games website, in 2010 he plans and organizes the UGA; Since 2011, he held an international forum named Culture and Ethic of Games four times, attracting a wide attention.Besides, he has published dozens of papers connected with Internet and network games on news media, and wrote a book entitled:” Network Addiction Is Made in This Way – the Deepen Revelation of Bad Network Games’ Trap and Dark”.

[Chinese DiGRA 2014] Damien Charrieras on The relevance of a cultural study of the technology of game engines in video game studies

[This abstract is from the Chinese Game Studies Conference at Ningbo Nottingham University, Spring 2014.]

On the relevance of a cultural study of the technology of game engines in video game studies (…+the case of Japan)

Damien Charrieras, City University of Hong Kong

This research addresses the impact of technological mediations on the contemporary creative practices of production in video games and new media arts. More specifically, our research focuses on game engines, a creative toolkit that offers a set of functionalities to handle graphics, sound, artificial intelligence processes during the production of video games. Current researches on video game engines consist on the one hand of case studies of game engines used by non-market game developers to modify the mechanics of existing commercial video games – “modding” (Nieborg & Van der Graaf, 2008). On the other hand, some researchers are studying the internal design of game engines as a software (Anderson, Engel, Comninos, & McLoughlin, 2008; Evans, Hagiu, & Schmalensee, 2008).

The originality of our approach, anchored in the cultural studies of science and technologies and the materialist analysis of new technologies (Cubitt, 1998; Fuller, 2005; MacKenzie, 2006; Munster, 2006), is to address the question of the specificity of video games as a medium through the study of their technological conditions of possibility (game engines) rather than through the study of video game as an end product. Studying video games as finished products amounts to focus on the specific form of interactive narratives found in video games (Ryan, 2006) or on the ludic qualities of video games (Aarseth, 2001). The definition of the video game as a medium is not solely determined by video game publishers or the video game designers, but also by the specificities of the technologies used to produce them. As a digital and algorithmic object, video games are not only objects and representations but constitute more fundamentally a set of processes. The video game engines are the key technology handling the processes occurring inside video games and key to understand the specific techno cultural form of video games without resorting to ill fitted analogies with other forms of existing media.

Situated the crossing of interface criticism (Andersen, Pold, 2011), media ecology (Barker, 2012; Fuller, 2005) and critical theory of media (Galloway, Thacker, & Wark, 2013; Galloway, 2012), our research search to describe and assess the set of assumptions embedded in video game engines in relation to the notions of creation, art, professionalization, produsers, interactivity and generative art. Considered as more than a tool, we link the set of possibilities embedded in video game engines to certain discursive formations, situated practices and logic of experimentation in new media art (Barker, 2013).

After a general presentation of our ongoing project and a statement about the relevance of taking into account the medium of game engines in video game studies, this presentation focuses more specifically on a comparison of different conceptions of game engines in video game production practices, especially the peculiar use of in-house game engines in Japanese video games industries in relation with the practice of video game engines licensing and the circulation of game engines across diverse cultural contexts.

[Chinese DiGRA 2014] Felania Liu on The transmission history of DND to reflect on “Chinese” games

[This abstract is from the Chinese Game Studies Conference at Ningbo Nottingham University, Spring 2014.]

Does the Failure of DND Games and Success of Its Derivative Xianxia Games in China substantiate a  “Chinese” Game Taste?－－ A Reflection of whether there are distinctly “Chinese” games

龙与地下城游戏的失败与仙侠类游戏的成功是否说明存在一种“中国”游戏品味？－－从DND在中国的传播反思“’中国游戏‘是否存在”

Felania Liu, Tsinghua University(清华大学 刘梦霏 )

A representation of western gaming culture that has an influence on China even today, and representative in its failure that can help to understand the game industry of China, the transmission, localization and failure of DND and Fantasy Culture in China is an ideal object for observation for the quest of whether there are distinctly “Chinese” games. Through a historical analysis with the help of communication theories, this paper attempted to reveal the real cause for the failure: that because DND and Fantasy Culture approached and accepted by the Chinese people as majorly a form of Literature instead of as a Game, the whole idea of game in Chinese Industry is twisted, and this caused the “Triple Three Mode” of production, which eventually led to the absence of the unique “Chinese” games.

[Chinese DiGRA 2014] Yowei Kang on Hybrid interactive rhetorical engagements in MMORPGs

[This abstract is from the Chinese Game Studies Conference at Ningbo Nottingham University, Spring 2014.]

Applying Hybrid Interactive Rhetorical Engagements in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) to Analyze Multi-Modal Persuasive Interactions: Theoretical and Methodological Implications

Yowei Kang, Kainan University

Kenneth C. C. YANG, The University of Texas at El Paso

The emergence of MMORPGs as a popular game platform has attracted a lot of attention among scholars. However, digital game research has often been criticized for its theoretical and methodological limitations.  In this paper, we employed a newly-developed concept, Hybrid Interactive Rhetorical Engagements (H.I.R.E), to analyze a gaming session from The World of Warcraft. H.I.R.E. is a rhetorical concept to examine online persuasive interactions during gameplay as a rhetorical phenomenon. we argued that there are both theoretical and methodological benefits to conceptualize gamers’ gameplay experiences as a rhetorical phenomenon. H.I.R.E. offers a comprehensive analytical tool to examine the important aspect of MMORPGs; that is, gamers’ gameplay experience as a process of rhetorical manipulations and persuasive interactions by all game participants. Theoretical and methodological implications are discussed.

[Chinese DiGRA 2014] Yong Ming Kow on Grassroots cultures and participatory practices

[This abstract is from the Chinese Game Studies Conference at Ningbo Nottingham University, Spring 2014.]

Grassroots Cultures and Participatory Practices

Yong Ming Kow, City University of Hong Kong

Participatory practices are forms of “grassroots cultural production” (Jenkins, 2006). In this dissertation research work, we investigated the relationship between grassroots cultures and participatory practices (Kow & Nardi, 2009; Kow & Nardi, 2011; Kow & Nardi, 2014; Kow & Nardi, 2012). We define grassroots culture as the ways members of a social group cooperate and self-organized for mutual benefits outside governmental or corporate institutions. Local grassroots cultures may differ due to varying economic and social conditions.   

We examine participatory communities of the online video game World of Warcraft, which is available in nine different languages including English and Chinese. We conducted twenty-five in-person interviews in California and China. We participated in Chinese and U.S. online forums and chatrooms between April 2008 and January 2011. All in-person and phone interviews were transcribed. All forum and chatroom interviews were electronically logged. 

We found that the modders in the American and Chinese modding communities had similar goals, but cooperated differently. For example, the U.S. modding community gave each participant the same right to post and write messages in the forums and chatrooms. The Chinese modding community controlled participants’ ability to write and post in the forums and chatrooms. While U.S. modders benefitted economically when advertising companies bought out sites or employed sites’ administrators; Chinese modders had not seen such support from Chinese advertising companies. Thus, the Chinese modders thus had fewer incentives to participate in an open environment.   

In the global environment, participatory communities vary due to varying local histories and environment. We urge researchers to pay attention to grassroots cultures as gaming research scales to global level. 

References

Jenkins, H. (2006). Fans, Bloggers, and Gamers: Media Consumers in the Digital Age. NYU Press.

Kow, Y. M., & Nardi, B. (2009). Culture and Creativity: World of Warcraft Modding in China and the U.S. In W. S. Bainbridge, Online Worlds: Convergence of the Real and the Virtual. London: Springer-Verlag.

Kow, Y. M., & Nardi, B. (2011). Forget Online Communities? Revisit Cooperative Work! ACM Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work. Hangzhou, China: ACM Press.

Kow, Y. M., & Nardi, B. (2012). Mediating Contradictions of Digital Media. UC Irvine Law Review, 2 .

Kow, Y. M., & Nardi, B. (2014). Rethinking Participatory Culture: Lessons from Core Teams in China. In D. Wong, & W. Kelly, Videogames and Virtual Realities in East Asia. London, UK: Routledge.