Videogames today enjoy unprecedented popularity , and the influence of videogames is enormous: websites, blogs, apparel, toys, and stores are dedicated to them (Kietzmann, 2007). Games are available in nearly every facet of everyday life from cell phones to computers to portable gaming units (Zackheim, 2005), commercials for videogames can be seen on every major network (Grant, 2009), and some ...

At this point in history, videogames have reached a point in its maturity where huge industries rule the market and mainstream tastes dictate the design of videogames. As the videogame market has developed, the industry has transformed the innovative electronic laboratories that created original games such as Adventure and Space Invaders into factories of concept reiteration. The economics of t...

We have performed a quantitative study in order to find out the emotional spectrum of Virtual Storytelling in comparison with movies, taking into consideration the Russell’s emotional circumplex model. Via internet forums we gathered videogames that people considered to be capable of eliciting each of the seven basic emotions, distributed around the circumplex. From the 200 videogames collected...

This paper explores some of the areas of intersection between videogames and both digital and non-digital art practice. By looking at examples of art practice drawn from videogames, it outlines some categories and so provides an overview of this area, placing it within the wider context of contemporary and historical art practice. The paper explores the tendency for much of this work to have el...

Nowadays, videogames, computer simulations and training are very complex applications because users require higher and higher levels of quality. Artificial Intelligence plays nowadays a fundamental role in videogames and virtual reality applications. Agents interacting with humans must have a credible visual appearance and must maintain user immersion. The most important issues of user’s intere...

This article explores the use of mobile phones for educational purposes through the design, development and evaluation of Role Playing Games (RPG). To accomplish this, we differentiated between the functionality and design of the videogame, developing a videogame engine and videogames prototypes. Thus the engine was responsible for controlling the videogame’s functionalities regarding the proto...

This paper explores the foundations and implications of interpreting videogames as representational procedural artifacts. Where our previous work established a method of proceduralist readings, close readings of videogames that emphasize the representational power of a game’s rules, to interpret videogames intentionally authored to represent, this study attempts to apply the method to a game wa...

This paper will examine the role of videogames in global participatory culture. In particular it will explore the role of software piracy in enabling participation from groups that would otherwise be excluded from accessing videogames due to economic factors. This suggests that piracy in the context of videogames – especially vis-à-vis their role as proselytizers of participatory culture – can ...

hands on MIT’s new PDP-1, one of the first computers that used a screen and keyboard instead of paper punch cards. Spurred by what Atari founder Nolan Bushnell calls a natural desire to “make computers do fun things,” the grad students created Spacewar, the first recognizable videogame (1, 2). Spacewar allowed two players to pilot spaceships (i.e. white dots) across a starry background (white d...

In these days the percentage of older people in the population is growing worldwide. It is therefore urgent to decrease the morbidity resulting from biopsychosocial losses associated with old age. The preservation and recovery of cognitive functions and of physical, psychological and social autonomy are provided through new mental and physical activities. As have other activities, the use of vi...