Meaningful Play 2016 Conference Proceedings

Overview

Meaningful Play 2016 took place October 20 - 22, 2016 in East Lansing, MI, USA. It was hosted by the Michigan State University.

Peer Review Process

All paper submissions were peer-reviewed by at least three members of the program committee (see below) specializing in the area of the paper topic.

Top Paper Awards

Paper submissions were considered for Top Paper awards by the program committee. Top Paper awardees were invited to submit a modified manuscript to the Meaningful Play 2016 Special Issue of the International Journal of Gaming and Computer-Mediated Simulations (IJGCMS).

Papers

Below are the papers included in the electronic proceedings. Follow the links to view the abstracts or complete papers when available.

Avatars and Community

Meaningful Mediated Selves: Examining how game-based mechanisms influence avatar identification and embodiment and thus potentially moderate the Proteus effect
By: Rabindra Ratan, Chih An Wan, Christopher Kmiec, Celina Wanek, Jiat Chow Tan, Malinda Robedeau, Adam Cockman, Maxwell Miller, Elan Gleiber and Scott Holzknecht
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Tracking Learning Resources in a Competitive Gaming Community
By: Sean Duncan
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Veneer: A Digital Visual Novel Game Exploring Player Empathy
By: Felicia Tucker
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Design and Play Together

Finding Design Influence within Roguelike Games
By: Xavier Ho, Martin Tomitsch and Tomasz Bednarz
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Player Skill Decomposition in Multiplayer Online Battle Arenas
By: Zhengxing Chen, Yizhou Sun, Magy Seif El-Nasr and Truong-Huy D. Nguyen
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This game is not for me: Non-participation in EVE Online
By: Kelly Bergstrom
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Emotion and Therapy

Living in the Moment: Exploring Aesthetic and Movement Quality Attributes to Create Successful Immersive Gameplay in Therapy
By: Kimberly Hobby and Kristin Carlson
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The Short-Term Emotional Effects of a Brief Play Intervention
By: Doug Maynard, Leah Mancini, Allison Vaughn and Vania Rolon
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Understanding Learning and Memory: Re-conceptualizing the Dynamic Systems Theory to Design a More Effective Game For Down Syndrome
By: Kelsey Prena
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Exercise and Physical Engagement

Attitudes Toward Software-Generated Exercise Partners During High-Intensity Training
By: Stephen Samendinger, Christopher Hill, Brian Winn, Alison Ede, Norbert Kerr, James Pivarnik, Lori Ploutz-Snyder and Deborah Feltz
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Exerwalls - an Exercise Alternative to Paywalls in Mobile Games
By: Anthony Gallo, Philipp Baumann, Emmanuel Agu and Mark Claypool
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Physical Engagement Increases Rapport in Multimodal Interactions
By: Ivan Gris, David Novick, and Adriana Camacho
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Experience and Consequence in Games

Ask Why: Creating a Better Player Experience through Environmental Storytelling and Consistency in Escape Room Design
By: Scott Nicholson
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Between the Familiar and the Strange: Exploring the Cognitive-Affective Model of Historical Empathy through Multiple-perspective Videogame Play (Top Paper Award)
By: Liz Owens Boltz
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This Action Will Have Consequences: Interactivity and Player Agency
By: Sarah Stang
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Failure, Death, and Game Over

A Meditation on Loss Within Games
By: Justin Tokarski
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The Changing Value of Permadeath in Rogue-likes
By: Justin Tokarski
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Game and Gameplay Analysis

A Social Nightmare: Player 2 as the Ghost in the Machine (Top Paper Award)
By: Andrew Kemp
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Antagonists' Physical Characteristics in Video Games: Comparing Villains from 2006 and 2015
By: Hannah Evers and Joshua Estill
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The State of Escape: Escape Room Design and Facilities
By: Scott Nicholson
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Game Characters and Avatars

2014-2015 Video Game Character Census
By: James Klock and Caleb Sams
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Autism in Video Games: With an Analysis of Characters
By: Jake Hilligoss and Luke Grebe
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The Emancipated Avatar: The Virtual Theatre of The Witness
By: Sierra Ortega
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Games and Cognition

Examining Specific Features of Video Games Which May Improve Task Switching
By: Nigel Robb and Kate A. Woodcock
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Gaming the SySTEM: The Relationship Between Video Games and the Digital and STEM Divides
By: Christopher Ball, Kuo-Ting Huang, Shelia Cotten and R.V. Rikard
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Games and Learning

An Empirical Comparison of a Video Game and a Digital Video as a Pre Reading Activity for Comprehension and Problem Solving
By: Brock Dubbels
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Design and evaluation of a cybersecurity education game
By: Paul Gestwicki and Kaleb Stumbaugh
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Embedding Gestures into Narrative Tutor-games to learn Fractions?!
By: Michael Swart, Jonathan M. Vitale and John B. Black
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Games and Learning

Board games as a platform for Collaborative Learning
By: Andrew J Hunsucker
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Learn to Play: Leveraging the Freemium Model in the Religious Educational Game Kerem B'Yavneh (The Vineyards of Yavneh)
By: Casey O'Donnell, Brian Winn and Reuven Margrett
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Power up learning: Designing practice into video games
By: Elizabeth Veinott
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Identity in Games

Ageism in Video Games: The Relationship Between Age and Character Roles
By: Alexander Hambly and Matthew Heerdegen
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Character Creation Systems, and Their Portrayal of Race, Gender, Body Types, Disabilities, and Age
By: Zachary Abbott and Trent Cornwell
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Through a Pensieve Darkly: Women & Games, Patterns & Links
By: Jennifer Jenson, Suzanne de Castell, Kelly Bergstrom and Emily Flynn-Jones
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You Are Creepy, but I Will Accept You: A Study of the Effect of Time, Non Player Character Gender and Its Hostility on the Uncanniness Perception
By: Michael Lee
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Indigenous and Participatory Games

An Evaluation of Games for Advocacy in Health and Human Rights (Top Paper Award)
By: Soroya Julian McFarlane and Lien Tran
view abstract- view paper
Digitizing Indigenous Storytelling in Never Alone: Games, Ritual, and Understanding (Top Paper Award)
By: Tanya Zuk
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Participatory Game Design for Life Skills in Rural India: A Multi-Site Case Study
By: Sreeram Kongeseri, Srividya Sheshadri, Alexander Muir, Christopher Coley and Rao R Bhavani
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Process and Production Studies

A Web-based Scrum Process Management Game
By: Bruce Maxim, David Edwards, Ethan Evans, Christopher Apzynski, Margaret Kellow and Raspinder Kaur
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Engineering a Collaborative Framework for Applied Game Development
By: Carrie Crossley, Alexia Mandeville, Kelsey Binninger, Angelica Garcia and Samantha F. Warta
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Picture the Impossible: Designing, Deploying, and Evaluating a Community-Based Game
By: Elizabeth Lawley
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Relationships and Sexual Exploitation in Games

A Matched Set: Romantic Couples Play in MMOGs
By: Kelly Bergstrom, Jennifer Jenson, Nicholas Taylor and Suzanne De Castell
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Participatory research and design across disciplines: Collaborative team processes and the development of a game-based commercial sexual exploitation of children prevention tool
By: Jessica Wendorf Muhamad, Lien Tran and Maria Elena Villar
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Reconocer: Creating safe spaces for the recognition of sexual abuse (Top Paper Award)
By: Jessica Wendorf Muhamad
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Transformational Games

Creating Games to Combat Climate Change
By: Gili Freedman, Max Seidman, Ross Virginia and Mary Flanagan
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Greenie - Alternative Transportation Means for a More Sustainable Environment through a Serious Game
By: Lydia Sidhom, Slim Abdennadher and Fatema Gabr
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Tandem Transformational Game Design: A Game Design Process Case Study
By: Alexandra To, Elaine Fath, Eda Zhang, Safinah Ali, Catherine Kildunne, Anny Fan, Jessica Hammer and Geoff Kaufman
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Transformational Games

Solving the Feedback Problem in Crowdsourcing Games: Design Lessons from Smorball
By: Max Seidman, Mary Flanagan and Gili Freedman
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The Mattering Circle: How Social Gaming Can Promote Mattering among Golden Gamers
By: Jessica Francis, Christopher Ball, Tim Huang and Julie Brown
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Transformational Play: Game design as Meaningful Play for Foreign Language + Culture Learning
By: Cary Staples and Sebastien Dubreil
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Virtual and Augmented Reality

Augmented Personal Experience - Run Time Video Game Accessibility (Top Paper Award)
By: Taylor Ripke and Tony Morelli
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Game Transfer Phenomena in the Augmented Reality Game Ingress
By: Cynthia Sifonis
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Virtual to Functional Reality - Using Virtual Reality to Teach Individuals With Intellectual Disability Real World Skills
By: Tony Morelli, Jordan Shurr, Andrea Jasper, Meagan McCollow, Ethan Coggins and Molly Rossman
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Organizers

Conference Chairs

Brian Winn, Michigan State University
Casey O'Donnell, Michigan State University
Carrie Heeter, Michigan State University

Organizing Committee

Constantinos Coursaris, Michigan State University
Andrew Dennis, Michigan State University
William Jeffery, Michigan State University
Luke Kane, Michigan State University
Robby Ratan, Michigan State University
Valeta Wensloff, Michigan State University

Program Committee

Thomas Apperley, The University of New South Wales
Jaime Banks, West Virginia University
Kelly Bergstrom, York University
Elena Bertozzi, Quinnipiac University
Heidi Boisvert, futurePerfect lab
Jeremy Bond, Michigan State University
Nicholas Bowman, West Virginia University
Marisa Brandt, Michigan State University
Ashley Ml Brown, University of Utah
Mark Chen, Pepperdine University
Shira Chess, University of Georgia
Mia Consalvo, Concordia University
Constantinos Coursaris, Michigan State University
Drew Davidson, Carnegie Mellon
Thomas Day, Michigan State University
Bob De Schutter, Miami University
Brock Dubbels, McMaster University
Sean Duncan, Indiana University
Douglas Eyman, George Mason University
Allan Fowler, Kennesaw State University
Elisabeth Gee, Arizona State University
Jeremy Gibson, Michigan State University
Lindsay Grace, American University
Carrie Heeter, Michigan State University
Peter Jamieson, Miami University
William Jeffery, Michigan State University
Jennifer Jenson, York University
Elizabeth LaPensée, Michigan State University
Elizabeth Lawley, Rochester Institute of Technology
Michael Lee, Ball State University
Yu-Hao Lee, University of Florida
Andrew MacAfee, Michigan State University
Eric Maslowski, University of Michigan
Bruce Maxim, University of Michigan-Dearborn
Scott Nicholson, Syracuse University
David Nieborg, University of Amsterdam
Casey O'Donnell, Michigan State University
Taiwoo Park, Michigan State University
Christopher Paul, Seattle University
Wei Peng, Michigan State University
John Quick, Independent Consultant
Joe Reinsel, University of Michigan-Flint
Tobi Saulnier, 1st Playable Productions
Ian Schreiber, Rochester Institute of Technology
Bobby Schweizer, DePaul University
John Sharp, Parsons School of Design at The New School
Mei Si, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
Miguel Sicart, IT University of Copenhagen
Aaron Trammell, Rutgers University
Jessica Wendorf Muhamad, University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Jennifer R. Whitson, Concordia University
Brian Winn, Michigan State University
Peter Zackariasson, University of Gothenburg