Gaming as a cutting-edge concept has recently been used by some innovative tourism sectors as a marketing tool and as a method of deeper engagement with visitors. This research aims to explore the gamification trend and its potential for experience development and tourism marketing. Using a focus group, this paper discusses gaming and tourism, and explores what drives tourists to play games. The results suggest tourists’ game playing motivation is multidimensional. Players tend to start with purposive information seeking, then move on to an intrinsic stimulation. Socialization is also an important dimension. The research demonstrates several implications for tourism marketing.

/pdf/tourists-as-mobile-gamers-gamification-for-tourism-marketing-24clkncvjz.pdf

Tourists as Mobile Gamers: Gamification for Tourism Marketing

Remember when computers just processed data and Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) just supported users in their work tasks? Now desktop office machines are outnumbered by broadband servers and mobile devices. With them comes joy, persuasion, outrage, delight,faith, campaigns, satire,fun, learning,identity, communities and passion. Now, increasingly, we interact to be, not just to do.Interaction no longer just changes things, it changes people.CHI 2003 recognizes this sea change in HCI and addresses all forms of interactive digital communication, with a focus on three special areas: mass communication and interaction, e-learning, and emotion. Mass communication is addressed in the opening plenary, the Development Consortium, a special area session on Tuesday afternoon, and in conference presentations on personal media and computer-mediated communication. Wednesday's special area session focuses on e-learning, as do many poster presentations (look out for them in The Commons) and a Special Interest Group.Emotion is the focus of the closing plenary, Thursday's special area session, a Short Talks session, and several poster presentation.CHI 2003 has not abandoned established HCI for New Horizons! Everything you'd expect to find in a CHI conference is still here. There are Design and Usability in Practice sessions for usability and design practitioners, with enough panels, special interest groups, posters, exhibitors, recruiters, workshops, and tutorials to make CHI the venue for professional updating. As the meeting place for an inclusive community, there is something for everyone. Students, researchers and educators are spoilt for choice with paper and short talk sessions, demonstrations and posters.Most of all, the CHI conference is the annual gathering of the world's HCI community. So,take the conference focus on interactive communication to heart. Interact and communicate! Make the most of the Commons and daily social events. Find time for interactive venues such as special interest groups, panels and poster presentations, special area sessions, Design and Usability in Practice and the CHI Fringe. Check out the exhibits, society booths, recruitment boards, message boards, and announcements in the Commons. Most of all, take time to check right through this program. There's a lot happening this week in Fort Lauderdale. Make sure that you don't miss anything important to you.

CHI '04 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul

A method, implemented as computer code being executed by one or more processors, in which computer game graphics for a casual, social game are shown on a display of a computing device, where the casual, social game is downloaded as an app to a smartphone and/or tablet computer and can be accessed or played using a social network application or environment; and in which one or more of the processors are programmed such that: a notification is automatically generated if a player is stuck at a level for more than a defined time or after more than a defined number of attempts to pass that level, the notification alerting friends of the player so that they can assist him or her.

Method for implementing a computer game

Engaging users is a priority for designers of products and services of every kind. The need to understand users’ experiences has motivated a focus on user engagement across computer science. However, to date, there has been limited review of how Human--Computer Interaction and computer science research interprets and employs the concept. Questions persist concerning its conception, abstraction, and measurement. This article presents a systematic review of engagement spanning a corpus of 351 articles and 102 definitions. We map the current state of engagement research, including the diverse interpretation, theory, and measurement of the concept. We describe the ecology of engagement and strategies for the design of engaging experiences, discuss the value of the concept and its relationship to other terms, and present a set of guidelines and opportunities for future research.

https://dl.acm.org/doi/pdf/10.1145/3234149

Engagement in HCI: Conception, Theory and Measurement

Engagement is an essential element of the player experience, and the concept is described in various ways in the literature. To gain a more detailed comprehension of this multifaceted concept, and in order to better understand what aspects can be used to evaluate engaging game play and to design engaging user experiences, this study investigates one dimension of player engagement by empirically identifying the components associated with the desire to continue playing. Based on a description of the characteristics of player engagement, a series of surveys were developed to discover the components, categories and triggers involved in this process. By applying grounded theory to the analysis of the responses, a process-oriented player engagement framework was developed and four main components consisting of objectives, activities, accomplishments and affects as well as the corresponding categories of engagement, disengagement and their triggers – were identified and rank-ordered.

/pdf/the-player-engagement-process-an-exploration-of-continuation-1r0i2oidw8.pdf

The Player Engagement Process: An Exploration of Continuation Desire in Digital Games

Engagement in interactive experiences is a complex, multi-dimensional concept that can be determined by a variety of factors which are dependent on user preferences and media content However, one fundamental requirement of any interactive experience is the desire to continue the experience, and this study is concerned with investigating engagement in interactive narratives by focusing on this aspect In the present approach, engagement is described as the user's desire to continue an activity in order to accomplish an objective while experiencing affect In order to investigate engagement during run time, this description is used as a foundation for formulating an intrusive method and the Engagement Sampling Questionnaire The application of the method and the questionnaire is exemplified by an investigation of continuation desire in the experiential learning scenario, "The First Person Victim", where participants experience a non-pleasant emergent narrative concerned with being a victim of war

Hooked! --- evaluating engagement as continuation desire in interactive narratives

Game jams have become a rapid growing phenomenon. Every year brings new and larger game jams. In this study, we closely followed the world’s largest single location game jam in order to explore the engagement among participants. The authors joined the organizing group of the Nordic Game Jam 2013, and gained a favorable opportunity to observe the 470 game developers efforts during the 48 hours of non-stop development. The paper presents the results of two surveys conducted just before and after the event as well as observations during the game jam. The main motivational factors among participants were to develop games and to meet new people. We believe that the community building as well as the motivation and engagement due to social aspects and the desire to learn more about game development among participants at such events might have beneficial ripple effects, which are valuable to investigate more closely.

The Motivational Power of Game Communities - Engaged through Game Jamming

Adaptive Storyworlds: Utilizing the Space-Time Continuum in Interactive Digital Storytelling

This paper will introduce and discuss a new model for understanding the relation between narrative and games, by looking at the narrative quality of game mechanics. First, a review of the terms “Narrative” and “Game Mechanics” is made, and defined in this context, before a literature review, based on both narratological and ludological sources. From this, a model is presented and described, which encompasses the previous research as well as defining a clear relation between mechanics, context, story, and narratives of games. This model is intended for both design and analysis of games, and has been developed to cover a lack of definition of how game mechanics create narrative through their own definitions and their relation to the context and storytelling of the game. This model, still in an infant stage, shows potential, but still requires rigorous testing in several areas.

Henrik Schoenau-Fog

Papers

The Player Engagement Process: An Exploration of Continuation Desire in Digital Games

Hooked! --- evaluating engagement as continuation desire in interactive narratives

The Motivational Power of Game Communities - Engaged through Game Jamming

Adaptive Storyworlds: Utilizing the Space-Time Continuum in Interactive Digital Storytelling

The Narrative Quality of Game Mechanics