Journal For Virtual Worlds Research (Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Flow in Virtual Worlds: The Interplay of Community and Site Features as Predictors of Involvement
No full textCultivating involvement within virtual worlds, where interactivity and community are salient, represents a key goal for virtual world leaders. This online survey of virtual world visitors conducted in 2013 (N = 244; 37% of whom use Second Life) assessed whether the interplay of community and site features facilitates a form of intense involvement known as flow. Flow is an affect-based response to types of pursuit that involve intense enjoyment and high psychological engagement. Prior research shows that flow often leads to positive outcomes for virtual world visitors, including learning, satisfaction and loyalty. Therefore, it is important to understand more about potential antecedents to the reported flow experience in virtual worlds. The study findings showed that site features such a level of interactivity mediate the relationship between sense of community and reported flow experience among virtual world visitors. This suggests that site designers can intensify involvement by encouraging community spirit via interactivity, feedback, content variety and ease of use
Editorial
No full textThis first Assembled issue of the 2016 Journal of Virtual Worlds Research relates to an eclectic group of six articles covering a variety of aspects of the use of virtual world
Playful Constructivism: Making Sense of Digital Games for Learning and Creativity Through Play, Design, and Participation
No full textThe goal of this article is to provide a conceptual framework to better understand digital games in learning and creative contexts through the dimensions of play, design, and participation. This framework can be used as a guiding tool for the selection, implementation, and evaluation of game-based approaches in formal and informal educational settings, as well as a blueprint for making sense of playful learning and creativity in virtual worlds and technology-mediated environments. In essence, this article seeks to answer the questio
A Brief History of Virtual Economy
No full textThe virtual world economy is a multibillion-dollar industry. There is significant evidence for the growth of virtual economies within a variety of virtual worlds. There is an increasing demand from users to buy, sell, and invest in virtual items and services, including virtual properties. However, there is also evidence suggesting that many companies struggle to succeed in the virtual economy platform. In order to facilitate and drive success in virtual business strategies, it is necessary to have a framework for classifying elements of virtual economies. This paper proposes a classification framework of virtual economy elements based upon the characteristics of products and services, the transaction and marketplace, as well as the currency and exchange systems present in these economic environments. In addition, this research highlights the opportunities and challenges presented to both users and companies within the virtual economy platform
Exploring Intrinsic Gender Identity Using Second Life
No full textVirtual worlds (VWs) provide an environment to understand and explore notions of gender and identity, particularly given the ability for users to experiment with gender in online worlds. Our study analyses gender identity using the virtual space of Second Life (SL) to explore experiences and responses to gender in an avatar. We introduced 46 novice users to the VW of SL in order to see if real life gender influenced their choices of avatar. Participants selected the gender of their original avatar and once they were used to SL, they were then asked to change the gender of that avatar. We used mixed methods research consisting of paper based questionnaires (n=34) and focus groups (n=46) conducted in SL. Nearly all participants chose an initial avatar that reflected their real-life gender with females (n=22) reporting higher levels of identification with this initial avatar. Females were significantly more concerned with the gender-specific appearance of their initial avatar. On swapping gender, females reported higher levels of discomfort and many changed back before 7 minutes. Males (n=24) did not report significant discomfort with their changed-gender avatar and did not revert back to their original avatar as quickly. Our findings suggest that female participants in this study tended to reinforce gender binaries through such things as clothing, hairstyles and behaviors of their avatars. Male participants were less likely to experience discomfort through changing the gender of their avatar (with the males noting they still perceived an avatar with a female appearance as male)
The Experience Machine: Existential Reflections on Virtual Worlds
No full textProblems and questions originally raised by Robert Nozick in his famous thought experimen
Put on Your Game Face: Designing the Researcher Presence In immersive Digital Environments
No full textResearcher
Gamecloud - A Platform for Connecting Video Games
No full textThe growing video game markets, especially the mobile market, have caused problems in terms of new game products being found by players. Cross-promotion and in-game advertising have been used to promote video games inside each other. However, the digital nature of video games as an interactive medium enables deeper collaboration between video games, and could be used in a more profound manner. We interviewed Finnish video game companies to understand if they were interested in creating deeper collaboration between their game products, and how such collaboration could take place. Based on the results, we built a platform called Gamecloud for connecting games together. We present the platform architecture and demonstrate it in use, with examples of connecting games with other games and connecting games with the real world, alongside an example of physical exercising
Restorative Virtual Environment Design for Augmenting Nursing Home Rehabilitation
No full textWith increasing age, muscle strength decreases excessively rapidly if physical activity is not maintained. However, physical activity is increasingly difficult with aging. This is due to balance, strength or coordination difficulties, arthritis, etc. Moreover, many nursing home residents become unable to experience natural surroundings. Augmenting a conventional biking exercise with a recreational virtual environment (RVE) has shown to serve as an intrinsic motivation contributor to exercise for nursing home residents. RVEs might be able to provide some of the health benefits that regular nature experiences do. More studies on content of proper custom designs for RVEs are necessary. This paper reviews the background for RVE design, describes four custom RVE designs for recreational VE exploration and presents user preferences among nursing home users concerning content and other pivotal design considerations