Recent years have witnessed independent game production rise to a prominent position in the digital game industry. Be it by the fresh, innovative take it brought to the scene or by its rebellious attitude towards what is perceived as mainstream, the term “indie game” has become somewhat of a buzzword. The following study displays a series of findings of research fieldwork aiming to advance the study of indie game development by investigating organizational and managerial practices commonly adopted by these developers. Relying on semi-structured interviews conducted with lead developers of seven Brazilian indie game firms, the connections, similarities, and differences among these developers’ firm structure and project management practices and those of the larger game industry is explored, utilizing the lenses of scope, organization, time, cost, and quality management as a starting point. Given the growing and significant relevance of the game industry as a whole, this empirical study offers pragmatic data on the still-niche research topic of indie games.
Over the past few decades, game mods have slowly walked their way into mainstream popularity and although not being confined anymore to the dark corners of the internet, the reality is that we still do not know much about how mods are created and how modders manage to achieve their objectives. Seeking to better understand the activity of mod development, this article explores key influencing factors on mod projects coordination and development by taking a qualitative approach based on in-depth interviews with nine lead developers of total conversion mod projects. We identified three key factors ‐ tendency towards agility, co-creative nature and open source attitude ‐ that we believe are etched at the core of the activity of modding and that lead to, and are manifested, in the unique ways of how modders approach software development.
The emergency situations generated by the earthquakes in Chile have revealed the country’s lack of preparation to face these kinds of disasters. Many educational buildings were destroyed by these natural events. In response, a system of modular schools was implemented. Although these have been a temporary fast solution, they have not met the needs that a classroom demands. This article focuses on studying daylighting strategies to achieve the visual comfort of students, as many investigations indicate that this is one of the key environmental factors in their wellbeing and performance. The article also focuses on achieving a correct distribution of horizontal illuminance by implementing design strategies, looking to achieve uniformity inside classrooms, avoiding annoying glare points. The implementation of these strategies fosters the use of daylight in order to reduce the energy consumption of artificial lights and generate optimal conditions for students to perform their school activities. The studied classroom is a modular prototype located in Temuco, Chile, and the evaluated strategies were defined based on the “Guía de Eficiencia Energética para Establecimientos Educacionales (Energy Efficiency Guide for Educational Facilities or GEEEduc)”. These were evaluated independently in order to compare, starting from the results obtained from computer simulations, the compliance of the lighting comfort standards set out in said guide, focusing on the light uniformity and illuminance level indicators. The strategies with the best results were later evaluated in detail, ultimately reaching the case with the best performance. The study proved there are several ways to respond to the presented need, allowing concluding from a set of evaluated strategies, which one of them better serves the required standards. Likewise, implementing strategies of the “GEEEduc” as well as its indicators, results in a practical application of this guideline, allowing the identification of potential errors and good options for future applications.
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