This paper is a cultural analysis of the business of videogame production, the industry's personalities, its development practices and market influences. It is a critique of the 'I' methodology of game design and its influence on game content, especially characterization. It provides insight into the impact of US publishers and markets on Australian game development 2004 - 2009. Results of related studies and literature are reviewed and supplemented with anecdotal reports to construct a picture of the current forces in play in videogame production. While it may be fun to play games, it is often far from fun to make them.
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This paper examines the selection criteria for design roles in the videogame industry and examines the profiles of students undertaking game design studies at NHTV in the expectation of working in the industry. A total of four analyses were conducted: job advertisements for design and production roles; an industry survey; MBTI profiling of a cross-section of IGAD students; and a survey of Design and Production students. In 2010 NHTV University of Applied Sciences initiated the Design and Production (D&P) specialization within its existing International Game Architecture Design (IGAD) bachelor degree. In preparing the specialization the authors analyzed a range of job advertisements for design and production staff in the videogame development industry and profiled its first intake of students according to gender, age, personality (Myers-Brigg (MBTI), Brainhex) and play preferences. Which students were successful in their first year of game studies? How did they compare to programmers and artists? In recent years, design positions in the game industry have increased in direct correlation with the focus on producing sequel titles/levels in established franchises. These titles require more design staff, namely game designers, level designers and narrative designers. The need to critically examine the role and personality of a designer in the game industry is vital to replicating them on a scale that surpasses previous production pipelines where one game designer envisioned the game on a macro level and a handful of level designers implemented gameplay on a micro level. NHTV initiated this first stage of research to gain insight into what the videogame industry needs in terms of design and production skills and personnel and what NHTV, in terms of students and curriculum, is providing. Ultimately the authors hope their research will innovate the game design production pipeline.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) strives to assist and inspire cities to become more “age-friendly”, and the fundamentals are included in the Global Age-Friendly Cities Guide. An age-friendly city enables residents to grow older actively within their families, neighbourhoods and civil society, and o ers extensive opportunities for the participation of older people in the community. Over the decades, technology has become essential for contemporary and future societies, and even more imperative as the decades move on, given we are nearly in our third decade of the twenty-first century. Yet, technology is not explicitly considered in the 8-domain model by the WHO, which describes an age-friendly city. This paper discusses the gaps in the WHO’s age-friendly cities model in the field of technology and provides insights and recommendations for expansion of the model for application in the context of countries with a high human development index that wish to be fully age-friendly. This work is distinctive because of the proposed new age-friendly framework, and the work presented in this paper contributes to the fields of gerontology, geography urban and development, computer science, and gerontechnology. Original article at MDPI; DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph16193525 (This article belongs to the Special Issue Quality of Life: The Interplay between Human Behaviour, Technology and the Environment)
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In recent years video game consoles, such as the Nintendo Wii™ and the Microsoft Kinect™, have been introduced into residential facilities. This paper presents a review of current studies documenting the benefits and detriments the Wii could have on adults aged 60 years and over in residential facilities, concentrating on the common uses of the Wii in care facilities: maintaining physical fitness, promoting mental well-being, encouraging social interaction and both physical and mental rehabilitation. Furthermore, this paper discusses the potential use of the Microsoft Kinect in care for older persons. The Wii can have a positive impact on the physical and mental health of older adults living in care facilities, but additional work should still be conducted, including assessing the use of games outside of Wii Sports and Wii Fit and possible non-gaming application of the Wii in care for older adults. Results for the Wii display potential for use of the Kinect in care facilities but further exploration is required to assess the potential physical impact and interaction viability.
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Aging diversity in organizations creates potential challenges, particularly for knowledge management, skills update and skills obsolescence. Intergenerational learning (IGL) involves knowledge building, innovation and knowledge transfer between generations within an organization (Ropes 2011). Serious games refer to the use of computer games in raising awareness about educational topics, acquiring new knowledge and skills by enabling learners to engage and participate in situations that would otherwise be impossible to experience (Corti 2006). Although learning with the use of serious games is similar to traditional learning in several cognitive respects, there are noted differences in the learning style and structure of learning using serious games. The success of learning using serious games lies in the actual involvement of a participant playing the game, which in turn, creates increased cognitive links with real-life situations allowing the individual to make relevant associations, to use mnemonic strategies with the facilitation of multi-dimensional educational aids (e.g., visual, auditory). Some of the beneficial aspects of learning with the use of serious games include the elevation of several cognitive skills, which are directly or indirectly implicated in the learning process. Among them are attention and visuo-spatial abilities, memory and motor skills. However, several barriers have been noted that fall into two general categories: a) health issues (e.g., cognitive strain, headaches) and b) psychological issues (e.g., social isolation, emotional disturbances). Since the training conditions are learner-centered and highly determined by the individual, there is increased need for evaluating the learning outcomes using specific success indicators. Examples of games that are designed to facilitate IGL are scarce, while there are no examples of IGL games in most EU countries. The purpose of this paper is to critically evaluate the current literature of theories on learning through serious games in adults and the elderly with reference to the cognitive mechanisms implicated, benefits and barriers in learning using new technologies in different generations. Secondly, this paper reviews the existence of serious games designed to facilitate IGL in Europe, as well as the characteristics of serious games in raising awareness that could be used to facilitate IGL. In doing so, specific focus is placed on the development of success indicators that determine the effectiveness of serious games on raising awareness on IGL.
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The “Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: States of the Art and Future Perspectives”publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities. CC BY-NC-ND Book CC BY Chapters © 2021 by the authors Original book at: https://doi.org/10.3390/books978-3-0365-1226-6 (This book is a printed edition of the Special Issue Feature Papers "Age-Friendly Cities & Communities: State of the Art and Future Perspectives" that was published in IJERPH)
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In dit boekje over crowdsourcing worden een aantal relevante aspecten van crowdsourcing behandeld. Allereerst beschrijven we een aantal historische voorbeelden om duidelijk te maken dat crowdsourcing niet ontstaan is als gevolg van de opkomst van internet maar als fenomeen al bestond voor het internettijdperk. Door internet is het echter zonder meer eenvoudiger geworden crowdsourcing te organiseren en een veel grotere groepen deelnemers te betrekken. In de sectie 'Wisdom of the Crowds' gaan we in op de onderliggende principes van crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing wordt vaak in één adem genoemd met de 'Wisdom of the Crowds', als onderliggend mechanisme hoe en waarom crowdsourcing werkt. We zullen echter concluderen dat de 'Wisdom of the Crowds' slechts één van de drie onderliggende principes van crowdsourcing is. Vervolgens gaan we in op de verschillende verschijningsvormen van crowdsourcing. Na een reflectie op bestaande voorstellen om tot een categorisering te komen van deze verschijningsvormen, presenteren we zeven categorieën op basis van het te onderscheiden doel. Bij de keuze om crowdsourcing in te zetten zal naar de kosten, risico's en baten ervan gekeken moeten worden. In de sectie 'Kosten en baten van crowdsourcing' bekijken we dit aspect voornamelijk vanuit het perspectief van de initiërende organisatie. Maar de kosten en baten voor de deelnemers zullen ook kort beschreven worden om te begrijpen wat hen drijft om aan een crowdsourcingproject mee te doen. In de laatste sectie beantwoorden we de vraag hoe crowdsourcing zo effectief en efficiënt mogelijk is in te zetten door naar een aantal implementatiemodellen te kijken en algemene adviezen te inventariseren. We sluiten af met een reflectie op de beschreven bevindingen.
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The World Health Organization (WHO) strives to assist and inspire cities to become more ‘age-friendly’ through the Global Age-Friendly Cities Guide. An age-friendly city offers a supportive environment that enables residents to grow older actively within their families, neighbourhoods and civil society, and offers extensive opportunities for their participation in the community. In the attempts to make cities age-friendly, ageism may interact with these developments. The goal of this study was to investigate the extent to which features of age-friendly cities, both facilitators and hindrances, are visible in the city scape of the Dutch municipalities of The Hague and Zoetermeer and whether or not ageism is manifested explicitly or implicitly. A qualitative photoproduction study based on the Checklist of Essential Features of Age-Friendly Cities was conducted in five neighbourhoods. Both municipalities have a large number of visual age-friendly features, which are manifested in five domains of the WHO model, namely Communication and information; Housing; Transportation; Community support and health services; and Outdoor spaces and buildings. Age-stereotypes, both positive and negative, can be observed in the domain of Communication and information, especially in the depiction of third agers as winners. At the same time, older people and age-friendly features are very visible in the cityscapes of both municipalities, and this is a positive expression of the changing demographics. Original article at Sage: https://doi.org/10.1177/1420326X19857216
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The “Creating Age-friendly Communities: Housing and Technology” publication presents contemporary, innovative, and insightful narratives, debates, and frameworks based on an international collection of papers from scholars spanning the fields of gerontology, social sciences, architecture, computer science, and gerontechnology. This extensive collection of papers aims to move the narrative and debates forward in this interdisciplinary field of age-friendly cities and communities. (This book is a reprint of the Special Issue Creating Age-friendly Communities: Housing and Technology that was published in Healthcare)
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The concept of immersion has been widely used for the design and evaluation of user experiences. Augmented, virtual and mixed-reality environments have further sparked the discussion of immersive user experiences and underlying requirements. However, a clear definition and agreement on design criteria of immersive experiences remains debated, creating challenges to advancing our understanding of immersive experiences and how these can be designed. Based on a multidisciplinary Delphi approach, this study provides a uniform definition of immersive experiences and identifies key criteria for the design and staging thereof. Thematic analysis revealed five key themes – transition into/out of the environment, in-experience user control, environment design, user context relatedness, and user openness and motivation, that emphasise the coherency in the user-environment interaction in the immersive experience. The study proposes an immersive experience framework as a guideline for industry practitioners, outlining key design criteria for four distinct facilitators of immersive experiences–systems, spatial, empathic/social, and narrative/sequential immersion. Further research is proposed using the immersive experience framework to investigate the hierarchy of user senses to optimise experiences that blend physical and digital environments and to study triggered, desired and undesired effects on user attitude and behaviour.
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