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Advances in 5G and the Internet of Things (IoT) have to cater to the diverse and varying needs of different stakeholders, devices, sensors, applications, networks, and access technologies that come together for a dedicated IoT network for a synergistic purpose. Therefore, there is a need for a solution that can assimilate the various requirements and policies to dynamically and intelligently orchestrate them in the dedicated IoT network. Thus we identify and describe a representative industry-relevant use case for such a smart and adaptive environment through interviews with experts from a leading telecommunication vendor. We further propose and evaluate candidate architectures to achieve dynamic and intelligent orchestration in such a smart environment using a systematic approach for architecture design and by engaging six senior domain and IoT experts. The candidate architecture with an adaptive and intelligent element (“Smart AAA agent”) was found superior for modifiability, scalability, and performance in the assessments. This architecture also explores the enhanced role of authentication, authorization, and accounting (AAA) and makes the base for complete orchestration. The results indicate that the proposed architecture can meet the requirements for a dedicated IoT network, which may be used in further research or as a reference for industry solutions.

Despite the increased incidence of trolling within online gaming environments, very little psychological research has been conducted beyond the fact that it exists. The main aims of the study were to examine the: (i) frequency of trolling, (ii) type and reasons for trolling, and (iii) the effects trolling may have on self-esteem. Using an online survey, a self-selected sample of 125 gamers participated in the study. Results showed that trolls tended to play longer gaming sessions. Frequent trolls were significantly younger and male. Types of trolling included griefing, sexism/racism, and faking/intentional fallacy. Reasons for trolling included amusement, boredom, and revenge. Witnessing trolling was positively associated with self-esteem, whereas experiencing trolling was negatively associated. Experience of trolling was positively correlated with frequency of trolling. Although the study used a self-selecting sample, the results appear to provide a tentative benchmark into video game trolling and its potential effects on self-esteem.

Purpose - This paper aims to explore the factors affecting consumers' loyalty toward online games based on the uses and gratifications theory and the flow theory.Design methodology approach - The research employed two approaches to collect data: personal interview and online survey. Each data collection approach consists of two phases to overcome method bias. This study adopted structural equation modeling to analyze the data.Findings - The results focusing on popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games reveal that players' sense of control, perceived entertainment, and challenge affect their loyalty toward an online game. Conversely, sociality and interactivity produce negligible effects on loyalty.Practical implications - First, game designers may strengthen gamers' sense of control and challenge by adding more status information, gaming options, or through the designed system of goals and achievements. Second, the entertaining nature of online gaming suggests greater demand for content design, and points to the direction of mobile gaming. Third, considering the recent growth of online social network services, consumers regard online games as lower priority when prompted by socially related motives. Additionally, people mostly reckon online relationships as virtual and not gratifying real-world social needs.Originality value - In view of the prevalence of computer and Internet usage, online gaming research should shift more focus toward the non-technological aspects of gaming. This paper is one of the few studies that examine online game loyalty from the non-technological aspects while adopting a multi-disciplinary approach based on theoretical parsimony.

One key limitation with the contemporary online gaming research literature is that much of the published research has tended to examine only one genre of games (i.e., Massively Multi-player Online Role Playing Games). Three relatively little studied online games are First Person Shooter (FPS) Games, Role Play Games (RPG), and Real Time Strategy (RTS) Games. Therefore, the current study examines player behaviour and characteristics in these three relatively under-researched online gaming genres. The study examines the differences between the three different game genres in terms of: (i) the demographic profile of players, (ii) the social interactions of players including the number and quality of friends, and how gaming related to real life friendship, and (iii) motivations to play specific game genres. The sample comprised 353 self-selected players. The RPG genre had the highest percentage of female players. The number of hours played per week varied significantly between the genres. RPG players played significantly longer hours than FPS or RTS players. In relation to playing motivation, achievement levels were highest for the FPS genre with RPG genre having the lowest achievement levels. RPG players had the highest immersion levels. RTS players were significantly less likely to report having made friends than players of the other two genres.

Purpose - As a popular entertainment form, online gaming is a significant global industry with millions of customers. However gaming misbehaviours (gamer behaviours that violate generally accepted norms) and their impact on other gamers have received little attention. This study thus aims to examine five online gaming misbehaviours (i.e. account theft, cheating, bullying, profanity, and hoarding of advantageous locations) and how they influence other gamers in terms of anger and continuance intention (intention to repetitively play a specific game).Design methodology approach - The study sample comprises 767 online gamers who provided valid responses to an online survey. The hypotheses are tested using structural equation modelling.Findings - Analytical results indicate that profanity and hoarding of advantageous locations anger other gamers, reducing continuance intention.Practical implications - The analytical results suggest that game providers should focus on reducing gaming misbehaviours such as profanity and hoarding of advantageous locations.Originality value - This study contributes to the literature by investigating the misbehaviours in online games and their impact.

This paper, published in large part in Ciaramitaro’s (2011) Virtual Worlds and E-Commerce, reflects how gaming and virtual worlds have impacted on ecommerce in recent years. A dynamic commercial environment with massive growth in user numbers and an overspill into real worlds through gamification, virtual worlds have contributed new language, new ways of engaging customers in branded virtual experiences and new business models. Co-creation and co-production remain central themes within this environment. Convergence between online and offline proceeds apace, facilitated by ever more accessible technological interfaces such as mobile and tablets but also now micro-projection technologies that enable new ways of sharing and engaging. The paper reviews the convergence context and concludes with a discussion of how relationships between customers and businesses have changed, economies have emerged and boundaries between virtual and real have become blurred to form gamified commercial experiences.

This is a study of interaction in massively multiplayer online games. The general interest concerns how action is coordinated in practices that neither rely on the use of talk-in-interaction nor on a socially present living body. For the participants studied, the use of text typed chat and the largely underexplored domain of virtual actions remain as materials on which to build consecutive action. How, then, members of these games can and do collaborate , in spite of such apparent interactional deprivation, are the topics of the study. More specifically, it addresses the situated practices that participants rely on in order to monitor other players’ conduct, and through which online actions become recognizable as specific actions with implications for the further achievement of the collaborative events. The analysis shows that these practices share the common phenomenon of projections. As an interactional phenomenon, projection of the next action has been extensively studied. In relation to previous research, this study shows that the projection of a next action can be construed with resources that do not build on turns-at-talk or on actions immediately stemming from the physical body—in the domain of online games, players project activity shifts by means of completely different resources. This observation further suggests that projection should be possible through the reconfiguration of any material, on condition that those reconfigurations and materials are recurrent aspects of some established practice.

Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Games (MMORPGs) create large virtual communities. Online gaming shows potential not just for entertaining, but also in education. This research investigates the use of commercial MMORPGs to support second language teaching. MMORPGs offer virtual safe spaces in which students can communicate by using their target second language with global players. Using a mix of ethnography and action research, this study explores the students’ experiences of language learning and performing while playing MMORPGs. The results show that the use of MMORPGs can facilitate language development by offering fun, informal, individualised and secure virtual spaces for students to practise their language with native and other second language speakers.

In this study, the authors show that online multiplayer gaming via local Wi-Fi can be used as a “social lubricant” to increase social connections between co-located strangers at a café. In a field experiment in real world cafés, they recruited people who were sitting alone at the same café to play an online game together using iPads, from wherever each happened to be sitting. Some pairs could see each other; some were facing in opposite directions, some were in separate rooms. Visibility influenced how and how much players communicated outside of the game, but had no impact on enjoyment or self-reported experience of social connection. The authors measured “friendship drive” and found that social yearners were more interested in gaming with a stranger and more likely to hope to see their gaming partner again than were socially satiated players. Friendship drive did not impact communication between players or feeling social connection.

Most extant research focused on the attractiveness of online games, but paid scant attention to the sources of customer dissatisfaction with online games. Thus, this study investigates the sources of customer dissatisfaction (dissatisfiers) with online games. From an online survey, this study identified five factors as the sources of customer dissatisfaction: (1) the deceptive behavior of other online gamers, (2) the discourteous behavior of other online gamers, (3) the unattractive design of online games, (4) the ineffective customer support of online game service providers, and (5) the undesirable restrictions or regulations imposed by online game service providers. Findings in this study highlighted the fact that the anonymous and intensive interactions among online customers themselves can result in customer-originated dissatisfiers such as deceptive behavior and discourteous behavior. This study also reminded online service providers of company-originated dissatisfiers such as ineffective customer support and improper constraints.