J. Tuomas Harviainen

Ritualistic Games, Boundary Control, and Information Uncertainty

This article examines the information environment of ritual-like games. Using tools from library and information science and the cognitive study of religion, it shows that certain key phenomena in games can be modeled as patterns of information and thus examined to a deeper level than before. This is of particular use to game scholars wishing to understand the intricacies of the play experience and to educational simulation/game researchers wanting to develop more efficient role-play based learning. Of particular significance to these so-called liminal games is boundary control, a system of maintaining the necessary fictional reality within the magic circle. Its maintenance results from a shared need to preserve the game-reality intact, an understanding of what is relevant to play, and a heightened reliance on information sources within the game-space. Continual boundary control makes the play function as a self-referential system, where the activity becomes rewarding and meaningful to the players because of the very limitations it contains. This condition, along with the manipulation of uncertainty about information needs during play, is then used to explain processes that take place while being engrossed in/absorbed by playing a ritualistic game as well as in game-based learning in liminal environments.

Seek, share, or withhold: information trading in MMORPGs

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to discuss the ways in which information acts as a commodity in massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), and how players pay for items and services with information practices. Design/methodology/approach – Through meta-theoretical analysis of the game environment as a set of information systems, one of retrieval and one social, the paper shows how players’ information practices influence their access to game content, organizational status and relationship to real-money trade. Findings – By showing how information trading functions in MMORPGs, the paper displays the importance of information access for play, the efficiency of real money trade and the significance of information practice -based services as a relatively regular form of payment in virtual worlds. Players furthermore shown to contribute to the information economy of the game with the way in which they decide not to share some information, so as to prevent others from a loss of game conte...

Similarity of Social Information Processes in Games and Rituals: Magical Interfaces

During the last 5 years, the similarity between role-playing games and rituals has been mentioned in numerous articles and online discussions. This article examines that connection by using data gathered over several decades in library and information science, studies of religion, and the cognitive sciences. The authors place particular emphasis on the similarity between social information phenomena present in both ritual and pretence, and the way those affect cognition—the seemingly “magical” interface that makes shared experiences possible. The authors show the implications of that pattern to the design of games and discuss its uses and limitations in games and experiences created for educational purposes.

First dose is always freemium

In this paper we look at three different groups of games. The traditional payment methods for games, although they do have their problems, are typically less problematic from ethical perspective than their more modern counterparts. Payment methods such as lure-to-pay use psychological tricks to lock the player to the game. Whereas pay to pass boring parts or pay to win just use game-external mechanics to make the play easier, and thus intent to, and have consequences other than at least many of the players would want to. This paper is a first stab at the topic from a Moorean just-consequentialist perspective, and in future papers we intend to compare a wider range of philosophical methods, payment methods as well as look into empirical data on players views on the topic.

Group Sex as Play: Rules and Transgression in Shared Non-monogamy

Drawing on ethnographic and interview data collected from the United States and Finland on lifestyle (“swinging”) events, this article explores the implicit and explicit rules influencing negotiations for group sex as a type of play. Participants maintain a sense of freedom and spontaneity while acting within situational constraints—ethical expectations, preexplicated rules, implicit rules, and complex negotiations that occur during the play itself either openly or more subtly. Because it has implications for the participants’ everyday lives, lifestyle group sex is a phenomenon on the border between games and adult play. Through an analysis of the rules and social contracts arising in group sex, we demonstrate how participants learn to read interactions at group sex events in the way that players learn game systems and how they can and do become “good players” in such situations.

Three Waves of Awkwardness A Meta-Analysis of Sex in Game Studies

This article critically evaluates and questions the growth and maturity of game studies as a scholarly set of related approaches to the study of games, by providing an account of studies of sexuality in (mostly digital) games from 1978 to present. The main goal of this article is to highlight overarching themes and patterns in the literature, with a focus on theories and methodologies commonly used and the way game studies is still risk aware, even awkward in its discussions of sexuality. In addition to a review of 37 years of literature, the article employs a chronological and thematic metaphor analysis of past research texts to analyze whether game studies is growing up or in perpetual puberty and whether it really is exploring sexual maturity alongside the games we study. It finds that while different periods of time can be identified in research as far as approaches to sexuality in games go, game studies is still to a large extent engaged in the management of the stigma that discussing sexuality may cause. Rather than a maturation process, the waves are shown to be manifestations of different types of environmentally influenced risk awareness, consecutive risk avoidance, and a resulting awkwardness.

Customer preferences in mobile game pricing: a service design based case study

This article examines the service design of freemium game pricing. Freemium games are a type of game that is partially free to play, but its players are able to access various options by playing real money. The article increases knowledge of the usability of service design processes in the pricing of mobile games, as well as the understanding of central aspects of freemium pricing models from the perspective of user experience and customer value. Existing research shows that one major reason for failing freemium pricing models is the orientation for technology development, alongside poor content and too aggressive monetization, rather than customer experience. The article presents a process in which an alternative pricing model was developed for freemium games, through the use of service design workshops.

Service Design Games as Innovation Tools, Knowledge Creators, and Simulation/Games

What is it that makes games and play so powerful that many practitioners at the front end of innovation turn to it in order to become better innovators? Consider the risks and pressure usually connected to recommending or suggesting the use of certain innovations. As play will not likely earn a person bonus points if it is proposed in a board meeting, we wondered why people believe in play and why it works. So we thought that developing a deeper understanding of the issue would be relevant both for practice and research. Welcome to the Service Design Games symposium issue of Simulation & Gaming. Service and organizational design games (SDGs) present fascinating conundrums to the study of gaming. First of all, no clear viewpoint or definition of SDGs currently exists, so they are defined more by the activities in which they are used than by any innate trait or structures (Eriksen et al., 2015). In general, SDGs tend to be more shallow in content than their educational counterparts, while still holding the same goals of knowledge innovation and construction (Hannula & Harviainen, 2016). They are highly effective in facilitating collaboration (Brandt & Messeter, 2004), because they allow participants to share past experiences and envision future ones (Vaajakallio & Mattelmäki, 2014). Practitioners and scholars from role-playing game communities might not acknowledge certain types of service design role-play (e.g., Boess, 2007) as actual role-playing, yet the results of those role-plays cannot be denied (Hannula & Harviainen, 2016). Furthermore, the very shallowness of the design is what enables these games to be tailored so they 662953 SAGXXX10.1177/1046878116662953Simulation & GamingEditorial editorial2016

Increasing Impact of Simulation/Gaming and Simulation & Gaming

This issue concludes the first year with Timothy Clapper, Willy Kriz, and myself as the co-editors of Simulation & Gaming. It in many ways exemplifies the long history of our journal. Alongside three normal issues have been one double-issue on an affiliated conference and one symposium issue on a topic of special interest to the simulation and gaming community. Many classic veins of Simulation & Gaming continue to be present: business, management, and education, as well as engagement, debriefing, and simulation fidelity. At the same time, we have also implemented significant changes. First and foremost, by adopting the use of ScholarOne, our electronic manuscript submission system, we have been able to shorten the time most articles spend in review. Secondly, the concept of Games Ready To Use (GRTU) submissions has been altered: from this point forward, such game articles will also contain an academic part, which not only describes results from the use of that particular simulation/game, but also provides theoretical background for its design and application. We believe that this requirement will increase both the use and the usability of GRTU submissions, which have for a long time been a popular section of Simulation & Gaming, but only rarely enjoyed solid long-term impact beyond their creators’ immediate networks. Feedback from earlier contributions in a similar vein (e.g., Eckert & Luppino, 2016) strongly points toward this direction. Ours is a field of growing interest, also outside the study of simulations and games proper. Alongside the many high quality journals that focus on recreational gaming, such as Games and Culture and Game Studies, Simulation & Gaming is one of the few that focuses on educational and instrumental uses of simulations and games. This is especially reflected in the recent influx of new types of submissions to the journal, which have seen for example a significant rise in articles discussing medical and health-related simulation. Likewise, the journal’s roots in business and management simulation are re-surfacing, as those fields are gaining a fresh interest in games as both tools and as subjects of study, and thus enter into new, fruitful dialogue with simulation and game studies (e.g., Hamari et al., 2016; Kohler et al., 2011; Vesa, Hamari, Harviainen, & Warmelink, 2016). Therefore, it is important to make sure that

Designing for Service Experiences

In this chapter, we discuss the way service design processes are conducted through make-believe, and the contributions that service design and its modes of thinking can offer for HCI. Focusing on the experientiality of service, we through a review of design processes, business logics and sample techniques illustrate the presence of make-believe at all stages of fruitful design.