Video Games'

Interessado nos vieses materiais e cognitivos do entretenimento, este artigo pretende tratar dessas implicações tendo como referencial a cultura. Suscitando uma discussão baseada em autores como Latour (2005), Norman (1993), Pereira e Polivanov (2012), entre outros, busca-se propor uma abordagem que trate dos processos de capacitação cognitiva e produção de subjetividade que supostamente seriam promovidos pelas práticas de entretenimento contemporâneas, principalmente no âmbito da cultura digital.

The objective of this paper is to propose research methods for studying the cognitive skills that are required to play online games, and also the skills required for the alternative consumption of games (mostly pirate initiatives); the first subject is part of a master's degree research, and the latter is part of a PhD research. These cognitive skills shall be studied through five categories of analysis which were created by the CiberCog/Uerj research group. The issue of cognitive skills for online games will be studied with a qualitative method (e.g. netnography; interviews using the Underlying Discourse Unveiling Method–UDUM;participant observation - watching and interacting) and also with a quantitative method (closed questionnaire available via Google Docs). Meanwhile, to study alternative consumption of games a participant observation on virtual communities shall be used.

Starting from the perception that the customization of games has a direct relationship with the idea of Distributed Cognition (Hutchins, 2000) and Ergodic Activity (Aarseth, 1997), this paper int
ends to examine the sharing communities of the games "Pro Evolution Soccer", "Guitar Hero" and "World of Warcraft" in order to see how piracy could be understood beyond the mere appropriation of someone else’s content for one’s own profit, being often an attempt to connect a product with the local culture of the gamer.

In the perspective of the so called “cognitive capitalism”, this paper intends to analyze the sharing and customization strategies developed in Brazilian online game communities. Under Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory (ANT), this work describes these socio-
technical networks electing the human and non human relevant
actants for their role on what could also be depicted as an distributed cognitive process (HUTCHINS, 2000). This alternative way of participative consumption deals with the social and creative production of tutorials; in-game and out-game editing and all sorts of gathering, organization and distribution of virtual data. The communities studied are related to the game Pro Evolution Soccer (PES) in their multiple platforms.

Hvordan kan vi betragte computerspillets lyd-design når udgangspunktet er 'hvordan vi lytter´? I denne opgave forsøger jeg at anlægge en perceptuel tilgang til computerspillets lyd og herved pointere hvordan eksisterende teori, i dette unge felt, har negligeret en sådan tilgang til fordel for mere formalistiske forsøg på at opfinde dækkende terminologier.   

Video arcades are dying everywhere, incompatible with contemporary
regimes of commercial space. There was a time when video arcades
were considered a threat to the fabric of urban space, and entrepreneurial operators were accused of luring youth into truancy and addiction. Today, it would appear that these moral objections have been eclipsed by simple economic facts. And yet, arcade spaces have not disappeared completely. This paper examines historical sources related to both arcades themselves and the cybernetic theories popular in postwar America, arguing that dominant 20th-century economic systems incorporated and modulated arcade gaming to fit within prevailing circuits of exchange, treating the arcades' controversial qualities like negative feedback in a cybernetic loop.

Background: Over the last decade, there has been growing concern about ‘gaming addiction’ and its widely documented detrimental impacts on a minority of individuals that play excessively. The latest (fifth) edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) included nine criteria
for the potential diagnosis of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and noted that it was a condition that warranted further empirical study. Aim: The main aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable standardised psychometrically robust tool in addition to providing empirically supported cut-off points. Methods: A sample of 1003 gamers (85.2% males; mean age 26 years) from 57 different countries were recruited via online gaming forums. Validity was assessed by
confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), criterion-related validity, and concurrent validity. Latent profile analysis was also carried to distinguish disordered gamers from non-disordered gamers. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed to determine an
empirical cut-off for the test. Results: The CFA confirmed the viability of IGD-20 Test with a six-factor structure (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict, and relapse) for the
assessment of IGD according to the nine criteria from DSM-5. The IGD-20 Test proved to be valid and reliable. According to the
latent profile analysis, 5.3% of the total participants were classed as disordered gamers. Additionally, an optimal empirical cut-off of 71 points (out of 100) seemed to be adequate according to the sensitivity and specificity analyses carried. Conclusions: The present findings support the viability of the IGD-20 Test as an adequate standardised psychometrically robust tool for assessing internet gaming disorder. Consequently, the new instrument represents the first step towards unification and consensus in the field of gaming studies.

Internet Gaming Disorder [IGD] has recently received nomenclatural recognition from official medical bodies as a potential mental health disorder, despite evident variability and inconsistencies in its core conceptualization and psychometric assessment. In the present review, the authors argue how the adoption of inconsistent criteria and psychometric tools to assess IGD negatively influenced the field. Additionally, this review provides an overview of how the field evolved in terms of its historical developments, current definitions and frameworks, developments in the neurobiological research, psychometric assessment, and emerging trends in the assessment of gaming addiction. Following a critical review of the literature, it was concluded that research on gaming addiction dates back to the 1970s and important changes in the field have occurred, especially in terms of definition and conceptualization of the phenomenon, which resulted in a multiplicity of strategies in the assessment of IGD via inconsistent criteria or psychometric tools. The paper also provides alternative emerging methods for assessing IGD via sound psychometric tools based on updated and officially recognized conceptualization of the phenomenon of IGD.

Background: Over the last decade, there has been growing concern about ‘gaming addiction’ and its widely documented detrimental impacts on a minority of individuals that play excessively. The latest (fifth) edition of the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5) included nine criteria for the potential diagnosis of Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) and noted that it was a condition that warranted further empirical study. Aim: The main aim of this study was to develop a valid and reliable standardised psychometrically robust tool in addition to providing empirically supported cut-off points.
Methods: A sample of 1003 gamers (85.2% males; mean age 26 years) from 57 different countries were recruited via online gaming forums. Validity was assessed by confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), criterion-related validity, and concurrent validity. Latent profile analysis was also carried to distinguish disordered gamers from non-disordered gamers. Sensitivity and specificity analyses were performed to determine an empirical cut-off for the test.
Results: The CFA confirmed the viability of IGD-20 Test with a six-factor structure (salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal, conflict and relapse) for the assessment of IGD according to the nine criteria from DSM-5. The IGD-20 Test proved to be valid and reliable. According to the latent profile analysis, 5.3% of the total participants were classed as disordered gamers. Additionally, an optimal empirical cut-off of 71 points (out of 100) seemed to be adequate according to the sensitivity and specificity analyses carried.
Conclusions:  The present findings support the viability of the IGD-20 Test as an adequate standardised psychometrically robust tool for assessing internet gaming disorder. Consequently, the new instrument represents the first step towards unification and consensus in the field of gaming studies.

Anachrony (non-linear chronology) is an interesting narrative device. However, in games, the use of anachrony can lead to coherence problems in the story, as the player may change the course of the future, which can differ considerably from the future already presented to the player. If such issue is not tended to by the design at any point in the game, it means that an unexplained agency-related incoherence (UARI) is introduced into the game's storyline. The interesting questions evoked by this for game design are: What does UARI mean for players? How important game story coherence is for the play experience? Which emotions does UARI evoke? Would players prefer UARI to be removed? To answer these questions, games were developed that feature possibilities for the occurrence of UARI in both anachronic and linear game story scenarios. User studies were carried out with 20 participants, and the data was analyzed using grounded theory principles. In the resulting theory, three main player perspectives to UARI were identified: With anachronic game stories, an acceptive-ludic perspective views the UARI as an inevitable and natural result of the game mechanics of changing the future. With both anachronic and linear game stories, an acceptive-
diegetic perspective views the UARI as part of the story, belonging to the intended experience. With both anachronic and linear game stories, a rejective-logical perspective views the UARI as an unacceptable error in the logic of the game's causal story world.