This thesis was developed as an assignment from Ludosity Interactive where the goal was to develop a copy of the Xbox Live Indie Games-marketplace from the Xbox 360. Ludosity Interactive had a necessity to easily test a game's attractiveness to potential customers using testing people from outside the company in a simulated Xbox Live Indie Games test environment; excluding this developed system there is no other way to do such an analysis without actually releasing the game on the Xbox Live Indie Games marketplace and then analyze the resulting sales from the product.The finished system had to be similar to the original system to the degree that a user could see past the interface itself and use the system just as he/she would have used the real marketplace. It also had to be easy to change and add games to the system so that Ludosity Interactive easily could show the games and the data that they deemed interesting for their tests. The final product was developed using C#, XNA and XML together with an Agileinspired development method in combination with Pivotal Tracker. This report describes how this product was developed..

Computer games is a growing market with over millions of players that are playing and/or enjoying the play of games on a daily basis. The nerdy gamers that once were, are now becoming professional athletes in the virtual world called eSport. We have identified a lack of studies in this area which implies that there is little data of what it is. In this paper we have focused on the phenomena that is eSport and more closely on the game series Starcraft made by Blizzard Entertainment. Our focus lies in the game series Starcraft and eSport organisations mainly outside South Korea.

The goal with this project was to achieve real-time synchronized video playback over the Internet, or in other words, that multiple clients play the same part of a video at the same time.The result shows how it is possible to build such a protocol, that gives a user experience that the video is synchronized between computers when playing a locally stored file, stream or video delivered using progressive download. This was achieved by designing, then role playing to find weaknesses, and at last implementing the protocols to see how they work in practice. By using such a protocol, it is possible to navigate and discuss around a video in for example a telephone conference, and be sure that everybody is looking on the same picture..

Social games have become a digital phenomenon over the last few years, affecting a lot of peoples everyday life. This paper focuses on how social games can affect workplace relationships. Through qualitative interviews I investigate how people who play with their colleagues experience the social games and their influence on the social interaction in the workplace. 10 interviews were carried out with people from four different organizations. The findings from these interviews were then put in relation to previous research and existing theories concerning workplace relationships and social games.

This paper aims to investigate how Helsingborg?s city library?s visi-tors feel about computer games being available for lending and in which way computer gamers see Helsingborg?s city library as a resource. This was examined first with a study of 100 of the library?s visitors and then with five interviews with computer gamers and an interview with the librarian responsible for purchasing games.The study showed that most visitors were neutral to having games at the library and of the ones that were not neutral many more were positive than negative. Of the five gamers who were inter-viewed, there were several who had borrowed games in the past.

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..

Warcraft är ett strategidataspel som massor av människor världen över ägnar sig åt. Sebastian Pesic (alias 4K FuRy) är en av världens bästa spelare och dataspelandet har blivit hans jobb. Dokumentärfilmen handlar om Sebastian Pesic och hans verklighet i Warcraftlaget 4Kings. Sebastian kommer att berätta om sina upplevelser och vi kommer att få se honom i action. Filmen kommer att ge en inblick i dataspelsvärlden som många inte ens vet om existerar.

Through qualitative interviews with five teachers from three schools, two public schools within the same school management and a Waldorf school, the purpose of this study is to find out teachers' views on the phenomenon of life skills in the lower classes in school. What is the subject, how do teachers work with life skills, and should it be seen as a separate subject or integrated in all school subjects?The results show that the definition of life skills is a term with many interpretations. Two concepts that can be seen as the common denominators in the educators' views on the subject, however is, social and emotional skills. This is something that educators believe develop self-awareness and empathy in children and sees that as important as learning other subjects.

The eighth of august the Olympic games in Beijing started. The chinese regime promised to improve the human rights situation in the country if awarded the Olympic games 2008. The decision to place the games in Beijing arouse severe critique and many questioned how the International Olympic Committe could place the games in a country that so obviously violate basic human rights.The main purpose of this essay has been to analyse what consequences the Olympic Games has given the human rights situation in China. In order to accomplish this I have studied some specific human rights, which I consider to be directly linked to the games. I found that the situation for these human rights has infact worsened since 2001 when China was awarded the games.

In this thesis, the four types of math problems that occur in the digital educational math game Zcooly Affären 2 have been analyzed. Focus has been aimed at how the problems mediate instructions and mathematical concepts to players, and how the mathematical content is supported by the context within the game. The result shows both positive and negative aspects of the math problems, based on the theories for math education used in this thesis. Apart from the analysis of the game, this thesis also presents earlier research regarding what possibilities digital games possess as tools for learning. Researchers have partly different views on how digital games should be designed to enhance learning, and whether or not games are efficient to use for learning purposes..

Genreblandning har de senaste fem åren blivit en allt större del i hur datorspel designas. Den här uppsatsen är en studie i hur genreblandning kan appliceras i en spelproduktion och hur denna produktion och dess genreblandning uppfattas av en grupp utomstående som sedan spelar spelet. Den blandning som studeras är den mellan genrerna role-playing game, dual-joystick shooter och minigolf. Resultaten från den enkät denna grupp sedan svarar på visar att genreblandning mellan de valda genrerna fungerar trots deras olikheter sinsemellan, men att det är mycket viktigt att spelets övriga element inte försummas till förmån för genreblandningen. Det framgår även att den grad till vilken de tre genrerna blandas i spelet respondenterna testar inte är den maximala..

Warcraft är ett strategidataspel som massor av människor världen över ägnar sig åt. Sebastian Pesic (alias 4K FuRy) är en av världens bästa spelare och dataspelandet har blivit hans jobb. Dokumentärfilmen handlar om Sebastian Pesic och hans verklighet i Warcraftlaget 4Kings. Sebastian kommer att berätta om sina upplevelser och vi kommer att få se honom i action. Filmen kommer att ge en inblick i dataspelsvärlden som många inte ens vet om existerar. Ännu mindre att man kan tjäna stora pengar på att spela. Utomlands är uppmärksamheten för Warcraft större.

For this essay we used pattern theory from interface design and applied it in an analysis of touch games. In order to make full use of the patterns, we selected five of them and adapted these slightly with the help of game related patterns to be useful for the framework of this essay. The selection of games were the top eight games on the App Store?s ?What?s Hot?. The results showed, among other things, that the games had a clear focus on getting a pleasant apperance, and they did it relatively well.

ABSTRACTTitle: Violence and women representation in video games (Vålds? och kvinnoskildringar i TV?spel)Number of pages: 42Author: Karolin BodlingTutor: Göran SvenssonCourse: Media and Communication Studies DPeriod: Autumn 2005University: Division of Media and Communication, Department of Information Science, Uppsala University.Purpose/Aim: The aim is to investigate how violence and women are presented in video games and in game reviews.Material/Method: The study includes theories that consider violence and gender in media and video games. The material of the essay exists of two games and five reviews. The method that is being used is a content analysis. The games that are being analysed are Jade Empire and Grand Theft Auto ? San Andreas.Main results: The video games are often connected to brutal violence but the analysis of the game Jade Empire shows that it is possible to hve control of the violence in the games and that the player has a possibility to choose the outcome of violence.

AbstractPurpose/Aim: The aim of this essay is to examine the democratic potential of Forum Games.The main focus of the essay is if working with forum games can help the participators to better communicate their thoughts and ideas and through this take better part in a democratic society.Material/Method: The material to the study has been gathered through three interviews with persons using forum games in their work and one enquiry with 21 students in Teacher education at Uppsala University, who had recently tried the method for the first time.Main results: The conclusion of the study is that forum game has a democratic potential. Ability to communicate is important for a democratic society and participating in forum games can improve the participators communication abilities. Furthermore forum games seem to have other positive effects on a democratic society, apart from helping the participators to improve their communication skills.Keywords: Forum Games, Forum Theatre, Communication, Democracy, Drama.