This paper presents a case study of the key decisions made in the design of Orbit, a child sexual abuse prevention computer game targeted at school students between 8 and 10 years of age. Key decisions include providing supported delivery for the target age group, featuring adults in the program, not over-sanitizing game content, having a focus on building healthy self-concept of players, making the game engaging and relatable for all players and evaluating the program. This case study has implications for the design of Serious Games more generally, including that research should underpin game design decisions, game designers should consider ways of bridging the game to real life, the learning that arises from the game should go beyond rote-learning, designers should consider how the player can make the game-world their own and comprehensive evaluations of Serious Games should be undertaken.
Being Safety Smart is an online, social issue game designed to mitigate increasing child abduction rates in Australia. By teaching young children skills and strategies to help protect themselves, the game empowers children with the ability and confidence to act appropriately and decisively. This paper reports on the collaborative research and development of Being Safety Smart, bringing together global best practice in child protection and computer game design to create an educational resource targeted to children aged 6 to 8. The anti-abduction messages and strategies were developed in partnerships with Australian government departments of the Queensland Police Service, the Crime and Misconduct Commission, the Department of Communities (Child Safety Services) and Education Queensland. The gaming environment is aligned to age and gender specific learning capabilities of children and is based on eight key features associated with children's acquisition and retention of protective behaviour concepts and skills. Results of a successful evaluation of the program with schools are presented. Being Safety Smart received the 2009 Queensland Police Service gold award for excellence in crime prevention.and is being used in over 200 schools across Australia.
Previous research in Australia has inferred that materialism and its possession-defined ‘Success’ subtheme described by Richins and Dawson (1992) has characteristics in common with specific Type A behaviour including competitiveness and aggression. Given that Australian materialists appear to have similar inclinations to their North American counterparts, assumptions by the latter that materialism and Type A behaviour fall under the same cultural value of work and wealth might also be applicable in Australia. Hence, the present study aims to explore the relationship between materialism and Type A behaviour, with psychometric measures of each administered to 193 Australian participants. Scores on Materialism were positively correlated with Type A behaviours, while the Success subscale was only significantly correlated with the second Type A item, assessing competitiveness. However, while materialistic pursuits might provide a culturally sanctioned outlet for competitive behaviours deriving from existing Type A personalities, it could also be argued that contemporary consumer society encourages such behaviours.
Introduction Player experience is the interaction between individual qualities and game attributes. It is becoming a popular topic to understand why individuals are interested in different video games. The current literature offers a range of different scales that measure similar player experience factors but often lack published validity analysis. The Player Experience Index is an empirically validated measure based on the means-end theory. The current study used this measure to analyse player experience factors and enjoyment among single-player shooter, single-player role-playing, massively multiplayer online shooter, and massively multiplayer online role-playing video games. Methods Analyses were based on a sample of 145 participants who completed an online survey. Results Results indicated that player experience factors were related to enjoyment, with differing results based on video game genre. It was also found that greater levels of enjoyment were reported by participants who preferred single-player mode of play compared to massively multiplayer online play mode, and participants who preferred single-player role-playing games indicated greater levels of enjoyment than the other three groups. Discussion While there was an uneven and small sample size for each video game category, the findings of this exploratory study highlight that further research is warranted. Future research should consider analysing the player experience for currently available and marketed video games to better understand how player experience influences enjoyment in the rapidly evolving gaming industry and its role in gaming design.
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