Here is a quick presentation on the culture and history of dice by Aaron Korver.
Aaron’s mains points are:
My impending unemployment, along with some recent provocation from a Board Game Breakfast video (#23) has got me thinking. Well, some might call it dreaming. Would a board game cafe be a feasible business in my home town? Could Wollongong support such a venture? I’l get it out on the table now, this would be so very could to have in Wollongong. Though every business has is risks. So I thought about this a little further…
Wollongong is a small town just an hours drive from Sydney with great ocean views. The population of Wollongong is just shy of 300,000 (according to Wikipedia). The demographics consist of a variety of cultures, with industry and the university being the largest causes of attraction residents.
So what is the gaming community of Wollongong like? Well, we do have a game store (Good Games Wollongong), which is more than some regional cities. Beyond that I know of a single Meetup group for board games (meets fortnightly), and a university club that plays host to an annual gaming convention (Gong-Con).
Board game cafes provide a place for people to come and play board games, obvious. It also is still a cafe and/or bar, which is an important part of the combo that shouldn’t be forgotten. Board game cafes are not a new concept. In fact we already have a few in Australia. Though the bigger name ones (within the board gaming community) can be found abroad. Korea seems to be the first recorded country with board game cafes.
Australian Board Game Cafes/Bars
International Board Game Cafes/Bars
There has been a lot of talk about board game cafes and what they can do for a community, and the board game community (see here, here, and here). In some cases it can serve to draw new players into the hobby. There again there are also susceptible to the same risk as local game stores (LGSs), most complaints come from the toxicity of the CCG groups. The board game community occasionally have talks about there dreams, and ”must haves” for board game cafes and bars.
To accommodate the additional maintenance and such of the games most cafes will have some sort of fee. The structure and amount of this fee differs wildly between cafes. Here are the common ones that I have seen:
Cover Entry/ Admission (per person) – One flat fee gets you “entry”, you can play as many games as you want that day all for one single cost. How each cafe deals with people coming and going during the day at this stage is unclear. This model is used by popular leader Snakes & Lattes, $5 (Canadian) gets you all day play.
Per Hour (per person) – This model charges per hour that you are playing a game. This is used by BootyBay (Sydney), and you pay before you leave the cafe. So essentially the patron pays $5 per hour, so for a 1.5 hours you will pay the rate for 2 hours.
Per Play (per person) – Each game fee per person, and the play is not time dependent. So the business still profits the same amount no matter how long it takes a game group to complete the game.
Per Play (per group)/ Rental – Each game essentially has a “rental fee”. The price doesn’t change for amount of player, or how long it takes the group to play the game. This is the model used by Board Room DC, with rental prices ranging from $1 – $5 (from a range of 30+). Interestingly Board Room DC also encourages its patrons to bring along their own games to play (that option is fee-free).
Free – There is no cost to playing the games, it comes as a free offering when enjoying time at the cafe. This model is offered by Board Game Island (Texas).
On challenge to the start of any new business venture is getting the capital. Popular crowd source funding platform Kickstarter has provided an ideal opportunity to raise the required capital to try a board game cafe. Some already have some capital, and just require a few more funds t finish the project, for example Gamehaus Cafe (who have just recently opened doors in LA). Other Kickstarter example include The Uncommons Board Game Cafe and Spielbound.
While this idea, is exciting and all is it feasible? Could a Board Game cafe survive in Wollongong. There has been some talk on the internet about the ability of these kinds of businesses to survive generally (here and here). Though not all dreams succeed, for example Auckland’s 360 Board Game Cafe is up for sale.
Wollongong has the generation that could serve as a sustainable user base. With university there are a variety of low income people who would enjoy the use of a wide board game library. The already is some competition within Wollongong there is one local game store which would present some competition, and a Games Workshop. However both of these businesses appeal to a slightly different audience. Wollongong has a nice cafe atmosphere, where a cafe “with a twist” could have a lot of potential. The bigger question is will any of the above funding models provide enough profit to keep the business sustainable, given the volume of patronage.
De Gloria, Bellotti, Berta and Lavagnino open with a coverage of the state of serious game within the field of education and training. Noting its flexibility and benefits for cost efficiency. They also note some concerns including;
De Glorria et al. note the origin of the term “serious game” and and its use around training (eg army pilots etc). Then moves onto classification of serious games, citing a variety of models before presenting the following psycho-pedagogical dimensions (by Kickmeier-Rust, 2009), developed on the foundation of Kickmeier-Rust et al.’s 2007 taxonomy. Which includes;
Serious.gamesclassification.com gets a mention for it’s collaborative approach to classification, built on Saywer & Smith’s Serious Games Taxonomy. Using the dimensions; gameplay, purpose, market, and audience. Also noted is a number of other databases who have structured similar information into description/classification, analysis of game components, pedagogy, deployment, and technology used for development.
Three Kernals of Serious Game Design (De Gloria et al., 2014)
De Gloria et al. argues for a multi-disciplinary approach to the design and production of
serious games suggesting a model “the three kernals of Serious Game design”. This figure illustrates the complexity of development and considerations a designer must make.
A few pedagogical theories are covered by Gloria et al.
Commercial Off the Shelf games (eg SimCity, Civilization) as a solution gets a s very stern warning and caution around selection. Suggesting that games are already victim of over-user, especially by “youngsters”. The authors suggest a table for judging the fitness of games for education purpose.
Examples of Serious Games that the authors explore include CancerSpace (training clinical
The Barn’s Team Up. Click for image source.
practitioners), Remission2 (assisting cancer patients with improved care), Living Worlds (for cultural training in Afghanistan), Real Lives 2010, SimVenture, GoVentureCEO, MarketPlace, The Barn’s TeamUp (fostering collaboration and leadership), and Wilson Island. Additionally, Sandbox style games are considered here, noting the benefits, such as “game forces the player to focus more strongly on problems, which favors knowledge acquisition and retention”.
Assessment, feedback and learning analytics are a key part of Serious games, requiring “appropriate metrics, analytics, tools and techniques for in-game user assessment”. “Proper assessment requires continuously tracking the user in all its game activities, allowing appropriate feedback and also supporting adaptivity and personalization”, done in real-time.
Authors note that there is little literature into the descriptions of and relationships between learning mechanics (techniques included) and game mechanics. Except for the Learning Mechanics-Game Mechanics model (Arnab et al., in press).
Further Reading
Prensky M., “Digital game-based learning”, ACM Computers in Entertainment, vol. 1, 2003.
Gee J. P., What Video Game Have to Teach Us about Learning and Literacy, New York: Palgrave Macmillian, 2003.
Bellotti F., Berta R. and De Gloria A., “Designing Effictive Serious Games: Opportunities and Challanges for Research”, Special Issue: Creative Learning with Serious Games Vol. 5, 2010, pp. 22-35.
Klopfer E., Oterwiel S., and Salen K., Moving Learning Games Forward, Obstacles Opportunities & Openness, The Education Arcade, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 2009. http://education.mit.edu/papers/MovingLearningGamesForward_EdArcade.pdf.
Connolly, T.M., Boyle, E.A., Stansfield, M.H. and Hainey, T., “The potential of Online Games as a Collaborative Learning Environment”, Journal of Advanced Technology for Learning, 2007
Parsons, D., Petrova, K., Hokyoung Ryu, “Mobile Gaming – A Serious Business!” Wireless, Mobile and Ubiquitous Technology in Education (WMUTE), 2012 IEEE Seventh International Conference, pp.27-10, 2012.
Pew Research Center, The future of Gamification. http://pewinternet.org/Reports/2012/Future-of-Gamification.aspx
Garner, “Gartner Predicts Over 70 Percent of Global 2000 Organisations Will HAve at Least One Gamified Application by 2014″, press release, http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1844115
Clark D., Learning by playing: can computer games and simulations support teaching and learning for post-16 learners in formal, workplace and informal learning contexts? Computer games in education and training. Presentation at LSDA Seminar London, November 2003.
Sawyer B., Smith P., “Serious Games Taxonomy”, Paper presented at the meeting of Serious Game Summit 2008, Game Developer Conference, 2008.
Kickmeier-Rust, M. D., Peirce, N., Conlan, O., Schwarz, D., Verpoorten, D., Albert, D. Immersive Digital Games: The Interfaces for Next-Generation E-Learning? In C. Stephanidis (Ed.), Universal Access in Human-Computer Interaction. Application and Services (pp. 647-656). Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 45556/2007. Berlin: Springer, 2007.
Kickmeier-Rust, M. D. Talking digital educational games. In M. D. Kickmeier-Rust (ED.), Proceedings of the 1st International open workshop on intelligent personalization and adaptation in digital educational games (pp.55-66). October, 2009, Graz, Austria.
Pellegrino, J. W., Hilton, M. L., (2012) Education for Life and Work: Developing Transferable Knowledge and Skills in the 21st Century. Washinton, DC: The National Academies Press.
Chen, J., “Flow in games (and everything else)” Communications of the ACM 50, 4 (April 2007), 31-34.
Lopes R., Bidarra R., “Adaptivity Challenges in Games and Simulations: A Survey” Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, IEEE Transactions on vol.3, no.2, pp.85-99, June 2011.
Liu C., Agrawal P., Sarker N., Chen S., “Dynamic difficulty adjustment in computer games through real-time anxiety-based affective feedback,” Int. J. Human-Comput. Interact., vol. 25, no. 6, pp. 506-529, Aug. 2009.
Chiang Y. T., Cheng C. Y., and Lin S. S. J., “The Effects of Digital Games on Undergraduate Players’ Flow Experiences and Affect,” in proceedings of the Second IEEE International Conference on Digital Game and Intelligent Toy Enhanced Learning (DIGITEL ’08).
Baalsrud Hauge J., Bellotti F., Berta R., Carvalho M. B., De Gloria A., Lavagnino E., Nadolski R., Ott M., Field assessment of Serious Games for Entrepreneurship in Higher Education, Journal of Convergence Information Technology, pp. 1-12, volumes 8, number 13, August 2013.
Bellotti F., Berta R., De Gloria A., Lavagnino E., Antonaci A., Dagnino F., Ott M., (2013a) “A Gamified SHort Course for Promoting Entrepreneurship among ICT Engineering Students”, Proceedings of IEEE International Conference on Advanced Learning Technologies (ICALT) 2013, Beijing, China, July 2013.
Bachen, C. M., Hernandez-Ramos, P. F., & Raphael, C. (2012) Simulating REAL LIVES: Promoting global empathy and interest in learning through simulation games. Simulation and Gaming, 43(4).
Angehrn A., Maxwell K., Luccini M., Rajola F., Designing Effective Collaboration, Learning and Innovation Systems for Education Professionals, International Journal of Knowledge and Learning (IJKL), vol. 5, No. 2, 2009.
Bellotti F., Berta R., De Gloria A., D’Ursi A., and Fiore V., 2012. A serious game model for cultural heritage. ACM J. Comput. Cult. Herit. 5, 4, 2012.
Howell K., E. Glinert, L. Holding, C. Swain “How to build serious games” Communications of the ACM, v 50, issue 7, 2007, pp.44-49.
Arnab S., Lim T., Carvalho M. B., Bellotti F., de Freitas S., Louchart S., Suttie N., Berta R. and De Gloria A., “Mapping Learning and Game Mechanics for Serious Games Analysis”, British Journal of Educational Technology, in press.
References
De Gloria, A., Bellotti, F., & Berta, R. (2014). Serious Games for education and training. International Journal of Serious Games, 1(1).
Hunicke, LeBlanc and Zubek (2004) present a framework for developing games and thinking about games research. They start from the perspective of the player and the designer as a one way communication into a product, the game.
They formalize the consumption of games to into their components, rules, system and fun. Which they extrapolate their design components.
MECHANICS > DYNAMICS > AESTHETICS
Mechanics describes the particular components of the game, at the level of data representation and algorithms.
Dynamics describes the run-time behavior of the mechanics acting on player inputs and each others outputs over time.
Aesthetics describes the desirable emotional responses evoked in the player, when she interacts with the game system.
The authors then talk about language around fun, and how the vocabulary for “fun” is very limited. Then launch briefly into a “fun” taxonomy.
1. Sensation - Game as sense-pleasure
2. Fantasy - Game as make-believe
3. Narrative - Game as drama
4. Challenge - Game as obstacle course
5. Fellowship - Game as social framework
6. Discovery - Game as uncharted territory
7. Expression - Game as self-discovery
8. Submission - Game as pastime
This is interesting, and possibly useful. However how does this fit with other taxomonies? Does this cover everything one considers fun. What about other interpretations of fun? This taxonomy is Marc LeBlanc’s (author) eight kinds of fun (http://8kindsoffun.com/). Other ways of defining of categorizing fun is Nicole Lazzaro’s Four ways of fun (link). No doubt there are also some commentary from the fields of psychology.
The authors then move onto explaining the model. They feel it best to start from the user perspective, with aesthetics. This idea of starting the game design process from the user experience point of view is not new and shared by many designers (including Kevin Werbach, Gamification Design Framework). The model is very simple and the about definitions of the steps give most of it away. However, here are some choice quotes for each step that may be of use.
Aesthetics
“They succeed when the various teams or players in these games are emotionally invested in defeating each other.” Touching on emotional investment for engaged play.
Dynamics
[Between winners and losers] “As the gap widens, only a few (and sometimes only one) of the players is really invested. Dramatic tension and agency are lost.”
Mechanics
“By applying … changes to the fundamental rules of play, we might be able to keep lagging players competitive and interested for longer periods of time.”
They conclude that simple changes to games can result in a better user experience. “In addition, by understanding how formal decisions about gameplay impact the end user experience, we are able to better decompose that experience, and use it to fuel new designs, research and criticism respectively.”
References
Hunicke, R., M. LeBlanc, et al. (2004). MDA: A formal approach to game design and game research. Proceedings of the AAAI Workshop on Challenges in Game AI.
Yee (2013) conducted a study to investigation players motivation for MMORPGs. Early he critics the lack of empirical data behind Bartle’s Player types. Noting that the player types were not mutually exclusive and in fact have a significant degree of crossover. Yee opted for a factor analytic approach, “Players used a five-point fully labelled construct-specific scale to respond” to a 40 question survey.
The Results
Yee (2013) exposed the following factors and sub components in motivation. Noting the the data identified that a high score in one factor did not suppress a high score in another factor.
| Achievement | Social | Immersion |
|---|---|---|
| Advancement – Progress, Power, Accumulation, Status Mechanics – Numbers, Optimization, Templating, Analysis Competition – Challenging Others, Provocation, Domination |
Socializing – Casual Chat, Helping Others, Making Friends Relationship – Self-Disclosure, Find and Give Support Teamwork – Collaboration, Groups, Group Achievements |
Discovery – Exploration, Lore, Finding Hidden Things Role-Playing – Story Line, Character History, Roles, Fantasy Customization – Appearances, Accessories, Style, Colour Schemes Escapism – Relax, Escape from Real Life, Avoid Real-Life Problems |
References
Yee, N (2006) Motivation for Play in Online Games, Cyber Psychology and Behavior. Volume 9, issue 6. pp 772-775.
