A Visit to (Virtual) Ancient Rome

ScienceDaily reports on Rome Reborn 1.0, a project to create a virtual reproduction of Ancient Rome, ca. 320 AD. The 10 year project started at UCLA, is now housed at U. Virginia, and has involved researchers and institutions throughout Europe and the US.

Bernard Frischer, director of the project, has been widely quoted across the web: “’Rome Reborn 1.0′ is the continuation of five centuries of research by scholars, architects and artists since the Renaissance who have attempted to restore the ruins of the ancient city with words, maps and images.”

Visitors to Rome Reborn 1.0 will be reminded of a three dimensional gaming environment. They can navigate in all directions and enter buildings. Video clips and papers about the project are available at the home site, http://www.romereborn.virginia.edu/. Also check out the Digital Roman Forum over at UCLA.

 

Do Racecar Video Games Affect RL Driving?

Here’s an opportunity to download a free, full text PDF of a paper from one of the APA journals dealing with video games. In this instance, researchers looked at racecar-themed video games promoting a high level of risk taking, and researched whether playing them led to increased aggressiveness in real life driving.

The paper was by Peter Fischer over at Ludwig-Maximilians University, Jörg Kubitzki at the Allianz Center for Technology, Stephanie Guter and Dieter Frey, also at Ludwig-Maximilians University. All the institutions are in Germany. The paper is entitled “Virtual Driving and Risk Taking: Do Racing Games Increase Risk-Taking Cognitions, Affect, and Behaviors?” and appeared earlier this year in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied.

The paper reported on three related studies. The authors began by tying into the research on violence in video games, (“Several studies have revealed that the playing of aggressive games elicits aggressive cognitions, affect, and behavioral responses,”) and concluded their introduction by stating little research has been performed on racing games and other aggressive driving simulators.

The first study involved 198 participants who were queried regarding their video gaming and driving habits. These people, selected at random in public places, were asked to answer questions regarding their need to display competitive behavior while driving, their need to impress others while driving, reflect on their attitudes toward cautious driving, and quantify their number of tickets and accidents. The researchers subjected the answers to hierarchical regression analysis and concluded they had initial evidence of self reported aggressive driving linked to racecar video game play.

The second study involved subjects playing an aggressive racecar game. Eighty-six students at Ludwig-Maximilians University in Munich played one of six games on a Sony PlayStation 2. Three racing games were selected for the study: Burnout, Midnight Racer, and Need for Speed. Three non-racing games were selected for the control group: Crash Bandicoot, Tak, and Fifa 2005. (On a side note, I have to wonder how Crash Bandicoot always seems to wind up in so many of these studies.) Participants in the experimental and control groups were selected at random.

Basing their work on Anderson, Carnagey, and Eubanks (2003), the authors devised a system to measure aggressive cognition in participants. The participants were given ten words that could have dual meanings and asked to choose the definition that fit. Also, participants were asked to rate their feelings on a scale of 0 to 10 regarding certain adjectives such as “aroused,” “excited,” and “bored.” The researchers left the participants to play in seclusion. After playing the game they had been assigned to for 20 minutes, the researchers re-entered the room and administered the survey.

After performing ANOVA on their dataset, the researchers concluded subjects playing the racing games, “exhibited a higher accessibility of risk-promoting cognitions than did participants who played a neutral game.” They also indicated a stronger level of arousal/excitement through playing the racing games versus the neutral games.

Put simply, Study 2 showed that exciting video games generate more excitement than games that are less exciting. That’s not the way the researchers put it, but that about sums it up. They realized this, and sought to show a direct linkage from the racing games to RL situations. Thus their third study, in which participants again played a racing game or a neutral game. This time, after concluding play, participants took the Vienna Test System, which seeks to rate willingness to take risks while driving. It is a defensive driving simulator using video taped traffic situations. Participants respond to risky situations by pressing a button indicating when they would be willing to abandon a driving maneuver. It was sufficiently dissimilar to the video racing games that the researchers commented on it.

A total of 68 participants were in Study 3. The researchers swapped out Crash Bandicoot this time with Medal of Honor, in an attempt to see if an aggressive game that did not deal with simulated driving affected the results. They could find no statistical correlation to increase willingness to accept risk in driving with the participants who played Medal of Honor, although the sample size was small. However, again, those playing the three racing games were more willing to take on risks, this time directly related to driving, especially if they were male.

In conclusion, the researchers allow that a young male consistently playing racing video games in which risky driving is promoted through game play, could possibly extend their willingness to drive risky in real life situations. Of course, it’s not altogether as simple as that. A young man may drive in an irresponsible manner for any number of reasons, not just the video games he plays.

This paper is well worth a look. A final note of interest: the references include several German examples of research in this field that we in the English speaking world are not normally privy to, including such intriguing titles as this one …

Vorderer, P., & Klimmt, C. (2006). Zum Einfluss von Computerspielen mit Fahrzeugbezug auf das Fahrverhalten junger Fahrer: Abschlussbericht an die Bundesanstalt für Straßenwesen [The influence of vehicle-related computer games on the driving behavior of young drivers: Final report to the Federal Highway Research Institute (BASt)]. Hannover, Germany: Hochschule für Musik und Theater.

References

Anderson, C. A., Carnagey, N. L., & Eubanks, J. (2003). Exposure to violent media: The effects of songs with violent lyrics on aggressive thoughts and feelings. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 84, 960–971.

Fischer, P., Kubitzki, J., Guter, S., & Frey, D. (2007). Virtual driving and risk taking: Do racing games increase risk-taking cognitions, affect, and behaviors? Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied. 13(1). 22-31.

UT to Host Video Game Archive

Researchers will be glad to hear that University of Texas, Austin is setting up an archive for video games. The UT Video Game Archive will be a center for posterity and research. A UPI article indicates the university will hold a fundraiser for the new archive in UT’s Center for American History on September 4, the night before the Austin Game Developers Conference. Tickets will range in price from $75 to $5000. Keynoters will include Richard Garriott, Warren Spector, George Sanger and Bill Bottorff.

Gambling Banned in SL

I’ve long been interested in Second Life as an educational or serious games venue, and my discussion with Karl Kapp about the merits of SL versus World of Warcraft as appropriate venues for educational contexts still gets hits. But, there is a type of gaming in SL that, regardless of popularity, is now banned by corporate parent Linden Lab: gambling. Apparently folks could gamble using the in-game currency, which could then be converted to real dough. Or, probably more likely, folks could convert real money to Linden bucks then lose it all in virtual casinos.

Linden Lab is bringing SL into compliance with new US federal law that prohibits online gambling. Andrew, over at Gaming Today, suggests that SL folks will likely find loopholes such as virtual sports betting and office pools.

On the one hand, it’s a shame since SL gambling could have been used as a Petri dish for interested researchers. On the other hand, similar gaming (perhaps using fake virtual money) could probably be replicated without too much additional effort. Time will tell.

Nielsen is New Source for Video Game Statistics

For years, academics seeking to buttress introductions to gaming papers have trotted out facts and figures from the Entertainment Software Association. For instance, their latest document in this series, 2007 Essential Facts About the Computer and Video Game Industry, offers such factoids as 67% of all heads of household in the US play video games, and the average player’s age is 33 (a number that keeps rising as we get older).

Now, the Nielsen Company that for many years has kept track of television ratings, has started keeping track of video game playtime as well. Nielsen GamePlay Metrics will offer usage stats on both consoles and computer video games. The number one console last month, according to the folks at Nielsen, was Sony’s PlayStation 2, with a 42% share of gamers’ screen time.

The number one computer video game during that time period was World of Warcraft, which outranked its runner-up by 4 times as much game play. Rounding out the top 10 were: Halo: Combat Evolved; titles in The Sims series; Halo 2; RuneScape; Madden NFL 07; Warcraft III; Warcraft; Counter-Strike; and titles in the Grand Theft Auto series.

The company tracked console usage in much the same way they track television watching: through the use of a monitoring device in 12,000 volunteer households. This makes sense since the consoles are hooked up to television sets anyway. The PC games were tracked through surveys, which were administered to 1,200 gamers. As with television watching, survey and monitoring data were extrapolated statistically to come up with the numbers.

Additional data, such as which console titles are seeing popular usage, should be available as the Sony partnership flourishes. One caveat for researchers looking for the latest data: it likely will not be free. Instead, the press release gives the impression that current data will be offered for sale to targeted media interests such as game makers. Hopefully Nielsen will throw researchers a bone and offer older data for free.

I’ve also heard that MarketingCharts.com offers additional useful info, including game rankings.

Gaming Addictions in Indianapolis

Indianapolis Star reporter Christopher Lloyd is not addicted to video games. Honest. He wrote so in an article published in the Sunday edition of the newspaper about addictions to MMORPGs.

I’ve stated repeatedly in my various posts on the topic that “addiction” is the wrong word for video game overuse, or at least it should be labeled as a behavioral addiction to distinguish it from a chemical addiction.

Anyway, Lloyd focuses on World of Warcraft, and his article is filled with anecdotes from self-professed over-users. The article is chock full of interesting quotes. Here’s a sample:

The scarcity of hard data also provides ammunition to skeptics who question the readiness to label extensive gaming as addiction, whereas other time-consuming leisure activities are not.

Nongamers may be appalled by the idea of someone playing video games four or five hours a day, but consider that the average American spends nearly 32 hours a week watching television, according to Nielsen Media Research.

Clint Parker, a 25-year-old electrician’s assistant from Broad Ripple, played World of Warcraft for six to eight hours a day and doesn’t think he ever had a serious problem with it.

“It’s certainly nothing like a drug addiction,” he said. “If you don’t play . . . you’re not going to get the shakes or the sweats or start vomiting.”

In the same July 29 edition of the newspaper, Lloyd offers another article entitled, “Tales from the Gaming World,” where he confesses his own upbringing in the world of video games and his daily doses of WoW. “I am a gamer … Yes, I am a WoW player.” But he’s not addicted. Really.

Big Corporations Aim at Kid-Friendly MMOs

Forget MySpace. That is like, so 2006. Today’s tweens want to socialize in virtual worlds that are specially tailored for them. Such is the appeal of sites like Club Penguin and Webkinz.

Now comes word from Graham Charlton at e-Consultancy.com over in Britain that Nickelodeon is looking to tap into the trend with a $100 million investment in virtual worlds and multiplayer games.

New offerings will include myNoggin, a subscription educational service for pre-school kids; Nick Gaming Club, a multiplayer subscription service; while the existing Neopets site will be relaunched as Neostudios, with the focus on online virtual worlds.

Charlton states that Webkinz has grown by 13 times its size from a year ago while Club Penguin has tripled in the same period. In the UK, Club Penguin is the third most popular children’s site, and the third most popular gaming site behind RuneScape and Miniclip.

The idea behind Club Penguin is very clever - it provides a safe way for children to get into social networking, as messages between users are carefully monitored by the site.

Finally, Charlton notes that Sony has been talking with Club Penguin about buying it out, for around half a billion dollars.

So, now that Nick and Sony are looking to jump into the kid MMO fray with multi-million dollar efforts, will there be additional educational efforts any time soon? The myNoggin effort sounds very interesting, and I’ll be looking forward to checking it out. I hope that additional educational efforts expand beyond preschool. Surely Scholastic or one of the other major publishers would like to get in on this.

Teens Exercise, Learn PE at Video Game Gym

Here’s an AP article by Rachel Konrad about a gym called Overtime in Mountain View, California that focuses on teen-aged clientele. To get them in the door, the gym offers a video arcade with the latest in kinesthetic video games. The key quote:

 

Investors and employees - including founder Patrick Ferrell, who launched GamePro Magazine and helped establish the video game conference E3 - say high-tech toys lure some teens. But they say the gym also offers nutritional counseling and academic tutoring that encourage lifelong health.

 

Ximena Urrutia-Rojas over at UNT also gets a nice quote, emphasizing that good health needs a whole family approach.

 

Sarah Barlow over at Saint Louis University gets the final quote:

 

“Even for adults, the treadmill and stationary bike don’t sustain interest over time,” Barlow said. “I like the idea of taking video games, which are so successful at engaging kids, and modifying them to get kids engaged in physical activity - now that’s fun.”

Libraries Turn to Video Games to Increase Patronage

Here’s an interesting article from the Chicago Tribune about area libraries holding video game tournaments to bring in that most elusive, typically non-book reading audience: young boys. A Halo 2 tournament is aimed at 6 – 8th graders. Next week, a Guitar Hero tournament is expected to draw up to 40 participants.

 

“Gaming is one way to make the library more attractive to teenage boys. This is what [they] do.” said Marilyn Genther, the library’s executive director.

 

Games are also seen as a way for librarians to reach boys who think reading is decidedly un-cool. There were no worries expressed by the librarians over violence in Halo 2 (rated M), as parental permission slips are required. Local libraries are jumping on this bandwagon by buying up Wii and Xbox units.

 

“Times are changing,” said Catherine Mau, the library’s assistant director. “We think it’s great that kids are here using computers.”

References
Schroedter, A. (2007, July 28). Video games used to draw readers. Chicago Tribune. [Online]. Available: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/northwest/
chi-halo_28jul28,1,7432325.story

Update:
GamePolitics.com has an entry on libraries in Iowa using Guitar Hero to pull in teens, then encouraging them to read. Michael Neary at the Ft. Dodge Messenger writes how local librarians hope the lure of video games will lead to teens transitioning over to books.

Warcraft Comic Book Helps SAT Scores

… At least, that’s the idea. Elizabeth Woyke over at BusinessWeek reports that the Washington Post’s test prep company Kaplan has released a series of comic books designed to help buttress the vocabulary of young test-takers. The manga, or Japanese-style comic books so popular these days, are chock full of key words found on the SAT, PSAT, and ACT tests. Each word is used in context within the comic books, highlighted, and defined. Thus, future test takers can read a thrilling comic book and hopefully increase their vocabulary for the test.

Woyke reports that popular themes among youngsters provided the story and settings for the comic books:

Los Angeles publisher TOKYOPOP provided all the manga: a sci-fi fantasy, a medieval epic based on the hit video game Warcraft, and a swords-and-sorcery tale. To beef up the books’ SAT quotient, the companies upgraded some of the dialogue. But all the original art and story lines are preserved, says TOKYOPOP CEO Stu Levy.

The comic books may also appeal to English language learners.