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Background: Socialization during gaming is an important aspect of gaming for people with and without disabilities. However, we know little about how gamers with disabilities play with others. Aim: This study investigated the social gaming experiences of individuals with disabilities focusing on research questions 1) Who do people with disabilities play with?, and 2) How do people with disabilities communicate while gaming? Method: We conducted a survey study which focused on experiences of gaming with disabilities. In total 92 responses were analyzed. Results: The results suggest that gamers with disabilities play digital multiplayer games locally and online with friends, family, strangers, and people they know. The most used communication methods were speech, text, and built-in features. However, some were not communicating at all due to a lack of suitable communication methods. Furthermore, communication varied depending on if the gaming was happening online or locally, and depending on the gaming companions. Discussion: The results align with previous research indicating that people with disabilities engage in gaming with friends, family, and strangers similar to any other gamer. However, there is a lack of studies on how people generally communicate in games, nonetheless, as speech and text communication methods are most commonly seen in games, we can assume that they are the most used communication methods for all gamers. Limitations and Future Research: This study has limitations both related to the survey questions and the survey participants. We cannot be sure if all understood the questions in the same way, furthermore, most of the participants were experienced Finnish gamers with physical disabilities which could have skewed the results. Further research is necessary to address these limitations and broaden the scope of the study's findings. Conclusions: Based on the results, we argue that games should provide multiple means of communication to make social gaming more accessible. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Gamification research and practice have gained popularity, but there is a lack of experimental and field evidence regarding the effectiveness of specific design elements and their use contexts especially in developing countries. Aim: This research aimed to measure the effect of gamifying digital learning environments and compare the effects of badges and leaderboards on the development of cognitive and achievement motivation of elementary school students. Method: A gamified environment focused on the circulatory system and employing interactive storytelling was developed. It was tested through an in-field experiment at an elementary school in Egypt. The research sample was of 30 students in the 5th grade, divided into two equal experimental groups (badges - leaderboard). Results: The results indicated an increase in cognitive and achievement motivation among students in both experimental groups. However, there were no significant differences in the effects of badges and leaderboards on the cognitive and achievement motivations of the participants in the two experimental groups. Conclusions: These findings suggest that the effects of gamification are more likely due to the holistic design and novelty, rather than the specific use of a specific game element. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Games and books, understood in the broadest possible sense, interrelate in numerous different ways. Books and games can take each other's form; they inspire and augment, expand and specify, contextualize and transform one another. We can 'read' games, and we can 'play' books. This article is an editorial to a Special Issue that discusses game-book hybrids, gamebooks, as complex entities worthy of their own attention. The focus is specifically on the intersections of games and books (instead of, for instance, games and literature, or games and narratives) as these offer a site for a fruitful cross-disciplinary work. The editorial briefly surveys the field and lays out the basics of games and books as interdisciplinary sites of research. It then introduces a tentative typology for mapping out the interconnectedness of games and books. Finally, the editorial introduces and briefly contextualizes the articles in the Special Issue. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Digital game technologies, that is, games and emerging game-based applications, are pervasively spread in society as a means of entertainment, education and exercise, amongst other uses. With this popularity, attention has been directed towards the accessibility of these technologies to people with disabilities to ensure equity, equal access to opportunities and realize earnings from a significant customer group. This study investigates: How is the attention of academic game accessibility research divided across game technologies, disability categories and use domains? And where is attention needed? To answer these questions, I conducted a review of research (162 manuscripts) on game technologies' accessibility published between 2016 and 2020, inclusive. The reviewed literature appears to have a utility focus (e.g. on education and health management) that relatively de-emphasizes the importance of game accessibility for entertainment or fun purposes. Auditory, motor and mobility disabilities, and emerging gamification, exergames, virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR) are especially under researched in the academic domain. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The document is a list of reviewer acknowledgements, including the names of individuals who have contributed as reviewers, representing a diverse range of perspectives and expertise in the field of new media and society. [Extracted from the article]

Gamification has become increasingly popular among businesses, institutions and consumers, especially since the emergence of Covid-19 pandemic. It has been widely used to promote positive changes in user behaviour, improve companies' digital presence and provide immersive and engaging brand experiences. Though bibliometric studies on gamification have been conducted previously, information on citations and networking analysis emphasises marketing and consumer behaviour remains scarce. Thus, the purpose of this bibliometric study is to describe how gamification is structured and how it has evolved over time. To achieve this, we utilise citation analysis and co-word analysis to visually uncover the intellectual, conceptual and social network structures in gamification research. A total of 558 articles published between 2011 and 2021 were extracted from the Dimension.ai database through the PRISMA review process. The results reveal positive growth in gamification research between 2011 and 2021. The United States was the most productive and most cited country and the most productive and influential institution was Tampere University in Finland, which houses Juho Hamari, the most influential and most cited author. Additionally, the results reveal recent trends in gamification research including those related to value, brand and attitude as well as emerging trends including artificial intelligence. The results also reveal collaborations through co-authorship among authors, institutions and countries. Together, they depict the intellectual landscape of gamification as related to marketing and consumer behaviour. This is beneficial for both inexperienced and experienced scholars, practitioners, funding agencies and policymakers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The unique characteristics of games have led scientific research to increasingly focus on their potential role in learning processes. Currently, their effectiveness in fostering experiential learning and skill acquisition in several areas is already supported by the existing evidence, mainly about the potential of digital games. Paradoxically, the current post-digital era seems to have led to a growing popularity of analog games. The present Systematic Literature Review aimed to map the existing literature on the potential of board, tabletop, or other analog games in learning processes. It intended to systematize the contemporary state of the art (2012-2022) around the pedagogical role of these games, their effectiveness, the promoted learning outcomes, the methodological aspects of the interventions, the used games--including mechanics and other characteristics--and the current discussions around inclusion and accessibility in analog game-based learning. Adopting the PRISMA methodology, we searched ACM Digital Library, EBSCO, ERIC, Scopus--Elsevier, and Web of Science databases, as well as other peerreviewed "grey literature" sources. The search resulted in an initial sample of 2,741 articles that was then screened by inclusion and exclusion criteria previously defined according to the research objectives. We obtained a final sample of 45 articles. To formulate the mapping of existing research, these studies were analyzed using a combination of statistical, content, and critical analysis procedures. The obtained results support the role of board, tabletop, and other analog games in educational contexts--based on their educational potential--with a broad range of knowledge, cognitive, and psychological outcomes. The study also emphasized the relevance of these games in the promotion of soft skills and other aspects typically associated with meaningful learning, such as engagement, satisfaction, flexibility, and freedom of experimentation. However, important limitations were found in a fair amount of the pedagogical approaches studied, which can be mostly attributed to the low prevalence of modern board games that relate what is intended to be learned to aspects of game design and have little to no consideration of accessibility and inclusion aspects in these studies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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This study examines the effects of a role-play-based pedagogical method in Finland on the twenty-first century skills propensity among 6th graders (12-year-olds). The approach entails a simulation of a society in a gamified learning environment as part of their formal education. Structural Equation Modeling was employed to analyze the students' (N = 253) self-reported effects of role-play experience on pre-and post-scores of twenty-first century skills propensity. The results show a statistically significant positive relation between holistic role-play experience and twenty-first century skills propensity, however, closer exploration reveals only few key associations, which perhaps illustrates the complex nature of both role-playing and the framework of twenty-first century learning. However, the broader positive view demonstrates the potential of one meaningful playful day for the skill and attitude development of young students as part of a formal curriculum. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The main purpose of this article is to provide an up-to-date understanding of the utilization and deployment of emerging technologies in the public sector, as this is reflected through 19 recently funded Horizon 2020 research projects. For the needs of this study, we have adopted a well-known literature review method that enables a concept-centric analysis of the accumulated knowledge in the field under consideration, and accordingly proposed a conceptual framework that facilitates such an analysis. Through a detailed consideration of these projects and their pilot case implementations, a series of insights about recent research development and applications in the public sector are extracted and discussed. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first attempt to gain such insights from a research projects perspective, which may reveal useful information about the utilization and deployment of these technologies in real-life pilots. The findings of this study are also justified or challenged by referring to recent review articles that investigate the use of emerging technologies in the public sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gamification can help to increase motivation for various activities. As a fundamental concept in HCI, gamification has connections with various fields involving mixed reality, health care, or education. This article presents the expertise of 106 gamification specialists who participated in four workshops called "Gam-R — Gamification Reloaded." The extraction of current and future trends in gamification is the result of this. Four general topics, four in-depth topics, and seven emerging fields of application for gamification are depicted and enriched with the current state of research to support interested academic scholars and practitioners. Technical and less technical areas, which are the fields of work and research in gamification, are demonstrated. Some areas are already trending, while others are just beginning to show a future trend. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In addition to the reviews performed by the members of the Editorial Advisory Board, the Editors greatly appreciate and thank the following 509 reviewers from 56 countries for their significant contributions to the IJHCI journal. [Extracted from the article]

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to examine the motivations behind online video content creation on services such as YouTube and Twitch. These activities, performed by private individuals online, have become increasingly monetized and professionalised through the accessible tools provided by video sharing services, which has presented a noteworthy manifestation of the increasing merger of the work and leisure within digital environments and the emergence of a hybrid form of work and play, playbour. Design/methodology/approach: The data for the study were collected using an online survey of 377 video content creators and it was analysed via structural equation modelling. Findings: The findings of the study indicate that although the practice of video content creation is becoming more commercialised and professionalised, the extrinsic motivations, often associated with work (e.g. income, prestige), remain less significant drivers for content creation than intrinsic motivations (e.g. enjoyment, socialisation), which are associated with leisure activities. Originality/value: This study offers insight into how the authors have begun to reorganise the position in the new digital labour culture, where monotonous tasks are increasingly automated, allowing room for intrinsically driven playful labour to develop within the leisure activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Systems and services we employ in our daily life have increasingly been augmented with motivational designs which fall under the classes of (1) gamification, (2) quantified-self and (3) social networking features that aim to help users reach their goals via motivational enforcement. However, users differ in terms of their orientation and focus toward goals and in terms of the attributes of their goals. Therefore, different classes of motivational design may have a differential fit for users. Being able to distinguish the goal profiles of users, motivational design could be better tailored. Therefore, in this study we investigate how different goal foci (outcome and focus), goals orientation (mastery, proving, and avoiding), and goal attributes (specificity and difficulty) are associated with perceived importance of gamification, social networking and quantified-self features. We employ survey data (N=167) from users of HeiaHeia; a popular exercise encouragement app. Results indicate that goal-setting related factors of users and attributes of goals are connected with users’ preference over motivational design classes. In particular, the results reveal that being outcome-focused is associated with positive evaluations of gamification and quantified-self design classes. Users with higher proving-orientation perceived gamification and social networking design classes as more important, users with lower goal avoidance-orientation perceived social networking design as more important, whereas users with higher mastery-orientation perceived quantified-self design more important. Users with difficult goals were less likely to perceive gamification and social networking design important, whereas for users with high goal specificity quantified-self features were important. The findings provide insights for the automatic adaptation of motivational designs to users’ goals. However, more research is naturally needed to further investigate generalizability of the results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents a list of the members of the advisory board and associate editors who helped in the publication of the periodical "Simulation & Gaming," including Guillaume Alinier, Tom Apperley, and Kevin Askew.

Background.Gamification is concerned with the utilization of motivational affordances that create value-adding experience in the design of services. It has many applications in different fields and has been shown to be a good design methodology to influence motivation and behavioral change. Civic engagement and its online platforms could benefit from gamification, as these areas suffer from low engagement levels, thus defeating the purpose for which they are created.Purpose. There is a lack of understanding of how civic engagement platforms should be gamified to sustain active engagement and assist in community building, while also fulfilling their operational objectives. This article aims to provide a theoretical framework and guidelines for the gamification of civic engagement platforms.Contribution. A theoretical framework for the gamification of civic engagement platforms is presented, drawing upon self-determination theory and democratic deliberation theory. Through this work, we also identify future research directions and highlight the need for research on related subjects. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]