ABSTRACT. The immense proliferation of videogames over the course of recent decades has yielded a discoverability problem that has largely been unaddressed. Though this problem affects all videogame stakeholders, we limit our concerns herein to the particular context of game designers seeking prior work that could inform their own ideas or works in progress. Specifically, we present a tool suite that solicits text about a user's idea for a game to generate an explorable listing of the existing games most related to that abstract idea. From a study in which 182 novice game designers used these tools to find games related to their own, we observe a demonstrated utility exceeding that of the current state of the art, which is the coordinated usage of assorted web resources. More broadly, this paper provides the first articulation of videogame discovery as an emerging application area.

ABSTRACT. In this paper, we present a periodised history of voice interaction in digital games, drawing on a platform studies approach to highlight the ways voice interaction has been both enabled and constrained by game platforms, and how this has contributed to the design patterns for voice interface in games. We identify six distinct, overlapping phases in the development of voice interaction for games.

ABSTRACT. The talk presents the findings of a research concerning how players react to frustrating game segments in inherently enjoyable gameplay and what keeps players motivated in these scenarios. The study found its motivation in the fact that the prominent literature is lacking a deeper understanding of micro changes in motivation during video game play.

The research utilised semi-structured interviews with 9 young (age M=26) male participants and template analysis as its methodological framework.

The result of the study is a theoretical model of a process of orientational shifts in situational motivation. It shows how we can use the motivational system of Hierarchical Model of Motivation (based on Self-Determination Theory) to understand micro changes in motivation during gameplay, and how this could be understood in terms of the attentional and informational processing system, present in Flow Theory.

The model provides a clear vocabulary that can complement the fast paste and complex environment of video games while help comprehending the players’ subjective experience and intentions.

ABSTRACT. As an instance of the critical dystopia, The Last of Us lets the player enact a post-apocalyptic story in which human society has been severely decimated by the Cordyceps infection and where nature has made an astonishing return. This paper examines the ecological rhetoric of The Last of US by laying emphasis on the empirical player’s emancipated involvement in the gameworld (virtualized storyworld) and how s/he engages in a creative dialectic with the implied player. In suggesting the utopian enclave of a life in balance with nature, The Last of US scrutinises the ills of our empirical present and lays a negative image on the latter. As such, The Last of Us is a magnificent example of the video game dystopia and succeeds in triggering a powerful aesthetic response in the empirical player, which might result in a call to action in the real world.