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Dangerous games
The 1980s saw the peak of a moral panic over fantasy role-playing games such asDungeons and Dragons.A coalition of moral entrepreneurs that included representatives from the Christian Right, the field of psychology, and law enforcement claimed that these games were not only psychologically dangerous but an occult religion masquerading as a game.Dangerous Gamesexplores both the history and the sociological significance of this panic.Fantasy role-playing games do share several functions in common with religion. However, religion-as a socially constructed world of shared meaning-can also be compared to a fantasy role-playing game. In fact, the claims of the moral entrepreneurs, in which they presented themselves as heroes battling a dark conspiracy, often resembled the very games of imagination they condemned as evil. By attacking the imagination, they preserved the taken-for-granted status of their own socially constructed reality. Interpreted in this way, the panic over fantasy-role playing games yields new insights about how humans play and together construct and maintain meaningful worlds.Laycock's clear and accessible writing ensures thatDangerous Gameswill be required reading for those with an interest in religion, popular culture, and social behavior, both in the classroom and beyond.
eBook
Cosplay
Cosplay, a blend of costume and play, has taken off in popularity around the world. This volume introduces the history of this creative outlet and discusses how some people have taken the colorful and whimsical hobby and made it into a lucrative business.
Book
Communities of play : emergent cultures in multiplayer games and virtual worlds
The odyssey of a group of \"refugees\" from a closed-down online game and an exploration of emergent fan cultures in virtual worlds.Play communities existed long before massively multiplayer online games; they have ranged from bridge clubs to sports leagues, from tabletop role-playing games to Civil War reenactments. With the emergence of digital networks, however, new varieties of adult play communities have appeared, most notably within online games and virtual worlds. Players in these networked worlds sometimes develop a sense of community that transcends the game itself. In Communities of Play, game researcher and designer Celia Pearce explores emergent fan cultures in networked digital worlds-actions by players that do not coincide with the intentions of the game's designers. Pearce looks in particular at the Uru Diaspora-a group of players whose game, Uru: Ages Beyond Myst, closed. These players (primarily baby boomers) immigrated into other worlds, self-identifying as \"refugees\"; relocated in There.com, they created a hybrid culture integrating aspects of their old world. Ostracized at first, they became community leaders. Pearce analyzes the properties of virtual worlds and looks at the ways design affects emergent behavior. She discusses the methodologies for studying online games, including a personal account of the sometimes messy process of ethnography. Pearce considers the \"play turn\" in culture and the advent of a participatory global playground enabled by networked digital games every bit as communal as the global village Marshall McLuhan saw united by television. Countering the ludological definition of play as unproductive and pointing to the long history of pre-digital play practices, Pearce argues that play can be a prelude to creativity.
eBook
Theme parks
\"Costumed characters transform ordinary amusement parks into magical settings where princesses, superheroes, and more come to life. This lively guide helps creative teens looking to mix fun and work become a part of this essential theme park experience. Teens will learn how to land a role-playing job, performing in character with guests or onstage. Also covered are the many areas in which teens can exercise their interests away from the spotlight. Readers will learn how to leverage such skills as acting, dancing, and sewing to nail an interview, audition, or future career in or out of the theme park environment.\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
THE VIGNETTE IN A SCENARIO-BASED ROLE-PLAYING EXPERIMENT
A scenario‐based role‐playing experiment is well suited for research seeking to understand how and why operations and supply chain managers, when dealing with complex issues, form their judgments and preferences or make the decisions that they do. As a method for data collection, a scenario‐based role‐playing experiment deploys varying versions of a descriptive vignette to convey scripted information about specific levels of factors of interest that are hypothesized, upfront, to influence judgments, preferences or decisions. Human subjects are recruited to assume an a priori defined role and, in this role, to then form their judgments and preferences or make their decisions in response to the scripted information conveyed in at least one version of the vignette. For these judgments, preferences or decisions to be useful for subsequent statistical analyses, the vignette and its varying versions to be deployed in a scenario‐based role‐playing experiment must be appropriately designed (i.e., written and presented) and validated. This commentary speaks to this “vignette design and validation” issue and prescribes a three‐stage process to create a vignette with its derivative versions that is clear, realistic, complete (in that it contains all information necessary for human subjects to assume their role and to consequently provide their reactions and responses), and is effective (in that it cues human subjects to perceive the desired levels of the factors of interest).
Journal Article
Zombie runs
Zombie lovers and fitness enthusiasts will delight in this book that explains what zombie runs are, how to get involved in this new fitness phenomenon, and how it might help them in a later career.
Book
The effects of serious gaming on risk perceptions of climate tipping points
A growing body of research indicates that effective science-policy interactions demand novel approaches, especially in policy domains with long time horizons like climate change. Serious games offer promising opportunities in this regard, but empirical research on game effects and games’ effectiveness in supporting science-policy engagement remains limited. We investigated the effects of a role-playing simulation game on risk perceptions associated with climate tipping points among a knowledgeable and engaged audience of non-governmental observers of the international climate negotiations and scientists. We analysed its effects on concern, perceived seriousness, perceived likelihood and psychological distance of tipping points, using pre- and post-game surveys, debriefing questions and game observations. Our findings suggest that the game reduced the psychological distance of tipping points, rendering them more ‘real’, proximate and tangible for participants. More generally, our findings indicate that role-playing simulation games, depending on their design and future orientation, can provide effective science-policy engagement tools that allow players to engage in future thinking and corresponding meaning making.
Journal Article
Renaissance fairs
This title introduces the history of Renaissance fairs, looking back at the first festivals from the 1960s and exploring how they've changed and adapted over time. The text also addresses research skills such as safely finding information online and using in-school resources (including teachers and librarians) to investigate the Renaissance.
CHILDBOOK
Conceptualizing Serious Games as a Learning-Based Intervention in the Context of Natural Resources and Environmental Governance
The use of serious games in the governance of natural resources and the environment is progressively increasing and includes games used for research and data collection, teaching and training, and fostering a change of practices. However, this diversity remains underexplored and underreported. In view of a growing interest in the use of serious games in natural resource and environmental governance, the absence of discussions about how differences in intended use and delivery influence the performance, assessment, and outcomes of games is problematic. Here we present an inventory, and a description, of such different uses then, by focusing on serious games used as interventions, we discuss when, and how, games could be used to generate learning and social learning. To that end we use a narrative review of selected literature, and insight from research on social learning, to develop an inventory of game use, and within that inventory we conceptualize the use of serious games as a social learning intervention. Also, by means of an illustrative case of a serious game (developed as part of the Assessing the Learning Effects of Games on Attitude of Stakeholders toward Sustainable Shrimp Farming – ALEGAMS research project) we reflect on a few key aspects of game use. We suggest that developing a serious game needs several iterations and, although the learning outcomes can be assessed, the impact of games aiming at changes in current practice and policy will likely fall beyond the timespan of usual project periods. This is something future research should consider as it has implications for the research design and methodology.
Journal Article