In this work we?ve been focusing on how to adjust educational computer games in order to make them suited for the educational context of upper secondary school. Our opinion and entrance to the study is that the related developers of the subject, in some ways, have failed to successfully combine and find the balance between the entertaining and pedagogical aspects in the games. Our main questions is which aspects in the games game developers need to take in consideration to satisfy the pupils, but also what qualities that is needed for them to function in their educational context. In order to do that we had to investigate the people of the target groups own perspective on what technological and social aspects in the computer games they assess as important.

The purpose of this thesis was to examine if users of digital music games may acquire skills from the games that may be of use in learning to play a real instrument, that is a non-digitally simulated instrument like an acoustic piano. We have used Gee?s theory regarding a possible interconnection between different semiotic domains, and how this connection may enable a transfer of skills between related domains. In this thesis we examine possible skill transfer between the domains ?digital games? and ?non-digital instruments?. To examine our question formulation we chose to conduct a pilot study from which we collected both quantitative and qualitative data.

People play games now more than ever before. While the digital gaming industry dominates the market, boardgaming has been living in its shadow. Board games offer a physical tangibility and a social experience that can be found in few digital games. How do we create a tool that further builds upon those strengths? The purpose of this study is to examine the possibility of developing a service that consists of an mobile application and board game events to promote social face-to-face interaction. Focus has been on the social face-to-face interaction in the context of a board game session.

Positive action is measures that usually constitute discrimination but which are justified when achieving the purpose of an effective equality between people of the society. Positive action regarding gender is regulated in primary law, secondary law and case law of the EU whereas positive action regarding other discrimination groups is regulated in secondary law and negligible regulated in case law.There is a boundary between positive action and discrimination. Primary law gives little guidance on determine that boundary. Secondary law provides more advanced guidelines of how to determining were the boundary is.When determining were the boundaries lays between positive action and discrimination the guidelines given by the European court of justice in case law can be used. The majority of these guidelines are focused on positive action regarding gender.

The topic of this essay is the expected effects that can come during and after a mega event and how the local impact may affect the local community and the citizen. This essay concerns a forthcoming mega event, the Olympic Games that will be held in London 2012. The area that the Olympics will be held in is Stratford that is located about twenty minutes from the central of London by the underground. The Olympic Games is one of the largest mega events with its millions of visitors. The purpose of this essay is to study what is expected after the mega event has taken place in London.

It has been shown in various research contexts that action programs do not always work as they should, even though there are clear guidelines on how the action programs should be designed and used. The aim of this study is to illustrate which processes that occur before an action program as well as how these processes lead to action that will give the student the support he or she needs. Through qualitative interviews with eight teachers, I have tried to answer the questions that I created. I have tried to answer my research questions that I have made based on the purpose. The questions are; What type of inquiry will be done if a student risk to not reach the knowledge goals? How will the inquiry support the action program? In what way does the action program support pupils in special needs? The result of my survey show that the survey being done for an action program is very individual-focused and that the mapping rarely shows on the teachers role or school environment to students who fall into special needs.

This study aims to research how upper secondary pupils interact while playing online games, how the English language is used within each game and what attitudes these pupils have towards language in school and online gaming respectively. Online gaming sessions have been recorded to analyze the methods of interaction by which people communicate with each other while playing online games. Furthermore, the text-based communication occuring in online gaming is analyzed on a lexical level to find words not defined in legitimate English dictionaries. Interviews with students have been conducted to understand the attitudes held by students towards language in school and online games..

An alternate reality game, often abbreviated as ARG, is a mix between a game and a crossmedia interactive story using mainly the Internet as a platform. The game is built around the idea of teamwork among its participants. The players cooperate to solve puzzles allowing them to go forward in the story of the game. The marketing element is in different ways included in the story.A few Alternate Reality Games such as The Beast, The Art of the H3ist and The Lost Ring have previously been launched as marketing campaigns. This bachelor thesis aims to examine the possibilities of Alternate Reality Games as an alternative marketing tool for profit-driven companies.

The aim of this thesis is to study how the recent introduction of video games in Swedish public libraries compares to past introductions of other medias, namely music records, sequential art, manga (Japanese comics), and films on video. In what ways does the introduction of video games differ from the other examples of introductions and in what ways are they alike? In what manner have the medias been introduced? How does the librarians views on video games differ from their views on other medias? The purpose of doing this is that by investigating how new medias have been evaluated in the past, we might gain an understanding of how the introduction of video games links into that tradition. Theoretically, this thesis is grounded in Sanna Talja?s theory of the interpretative repertoires of the music library.

The purpose of this essay is to examine the consequences following an adaptation from literature to video game formatby comparing Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass with American McGee's Alice and,primarily, Alice: Madness Returns. In order to answer this, aspects of both game theory and literary critique are takeninto consideration, regarding for example the narrative potential of the game medium and the gameplay's possibleresemblance with Wolfgang Iser's theory of the reading process.The analysis shows in what ways the original narrative has been altered in order to fit its new medium. Some of thebooks' main ingredients are simply retold in the games' so called information spaces, i.e. text and video sequenceswhere the otherwise playable character is not controlled. Others, instead, have undergone a ludolization or ergodizationwhere the story events are experienced as playable elements in the games' action spaces.

In this study we examine how much latency is required in an RTS-game (Real-Time Strategy) before the player quits the game. In the study latency is simulated in the games Age of Mythology and Starcraft: Brood War with the program WANem, and then the testplayers are asked ?Do you want to quit because of latency??. This data is then gathered and compiled into graphs to show the results. These results show that the limit for when players want to quit differs between the two games and that there are two factors that play into this.

This paper discusses how ten blogs written by librarians talk about using games in the library. What do they talk about and what are their arguments for using games as a learning tool, and what does this say about their views on the library?s role in society?It is examined by using argumentation analysis together with a model for identifying different roles within the library on the blog themselves. By identifying the most important arguments used and placing them within the model, the paper aims to see how the bloggers view the library as a whole and as a part of society.It showed that the reasoning among the librarians varies, but most emphasis was on seeing the library as a meeting space together as an inspirational space, and the use of games can greatly help with that. Especially when viewing the library as a meeting space with room for everyone regardless of their interests..

Det är uppenbart att narrativ används i spel, inte minst i offline-RPG:n (ORPG:n), där berättelserna är vad som står i centrum. Samtidigt som dessa är ett välkomnatfenomen har de också en tendens att passivisera spelaren och påverka känslan avfrihet. I hur hög grad de gör detta är till viss del subjektivt och därför är det av viktvad som motiverar ORPG-spelaren till spelandet. Denna studie har utvecklat tvåspelprototyper som baseras på motivationerna immersion respektive prestation föratt påvisa motivationsgruppernas preferenser. Studien har fokuserat på att ta reda påhur stor vikt de båda grupperna lägger på känslan av frihet, och haft som hypotes attkravet är högre hos prestationsmotiverade spelare.

The purpose of this essay is to investigate and discuss the current state of game research and its potential usage in didactic situations. The essay is divided in two parts. Part one consists of an attempt to comment preceding contemporary game research and address possible myths that have been established. Part two aims to discuss games narrative capacity and function in education using the theories and terms laid down by Wolfgang Iser and Gérard Genette.Contemporary game research tends to focus on classic retro games, trying to form theories for a general understanding of the media. This is a useful method as long as the purpose of the study is to define how game mechanics and layout are formed.

Episodic gaming is a relatively new phenomenon, that hasn?t been as extensively explored as other areas in game research. In this paper we research how episodic narratives and gameplay engage players compared to regular continuous storytelling. By exploring this we get a better understanding of how to design games that captivate players to the point of them wanting to play the next episode.  A user study is conducted where ten players play two episodes each of an episodic game. We apply observations and interviews to capture a large amount of empirical data.