Tag: Computerspil
Looking for help: Statistical question
UPDATE: This is no longer the problem – the real problem is outlined here.
No use trying to hide it: I need to look everything up when doing simple statistics.
Perhaps you can help me with a simple question?
Here goes:
Let’s say you are convinced that Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays differ as to the amount of rainfall. To test this, you measure the amount of rainfall (in millimeters) on these three days over a period of six weeks.
You get (averages):
Monday: 10mm
Tuesday: 30mm
Wednesday: 15mm
I suppose the null hypothesis must be that the rainfall did not differ.
How do you express the strength of the difference in these three cases? That is: How certain are you that the measured difference is non-coincidental?
Help would be appreciated!
Trusting those trusted by someone I trust
In my master’s thesis on The Architectures of Trust (2MB) I discussed techniques for establishing trust among strangers in online communities such as virtual worlds (around page 61). I said things like:
Another possibility is to give users access to the implicit verdicts of friends. Systems that employ buddy lists (see Figure 3) may let users see the verdicts of their ‘buddies’. For instance, Bob is wondering whether to trust Alice, but being on the buddy list of Eve, he is entitled to the information that Alice is also on the list. Since Bob trusts Eve and Eve trusts Alice, Bob can trust Alice. Such features provide internal verification.
Although the topic of reputation systems in game worlds has been discussed since the dawn of code, implementations have been rare. One reason is that gamers often have an interest in undermining the system (an incentive far more modest in systems like eBay). But recently MonkeyModulator announced the near-future arrival of an interesting WoW add-on enabling players to evaluate each other and to share these evaluations.
I’d be quite interested in news on how that works out for you WoW die-hards.
Via TerraNova
TL Taylor: Play Between Worlds
I’m late to the party, but let it be widely known among all readers of this blog that my supervisor, TL Taylor’s book Play Between Worlds is out in the wild. I’m sure it’s excellent and I’m looking forward to reading it.
From the description:
In Play Between Worlds, T. L. Taylor examines multiplayer gaming life as it is lived on the borders, in the gaps–as players slip in and out of complex social networks that cross online and offline space. Taylor questions the common assumption that playing computer games is an isolating and alienating activity indulged in by solitary teenage boys. Massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs), in which thousands of players participate in a virtual game world in real time, are in fact actively designed for sociability. Games like the popular Everquest, she argues, are fundamentally social spaces.
Taylor’s detailed look at Everquest offers a snapshot of multiplayer culture. Drawing on her own experience as an Everquest player (as a female Gnome Necromancer)–including her attendance at an Everquest Fan Faire, with its blurring of online-and offline life–and extensive research, Taylor not only shows us something about games but raises broader cultural issues. She considers “power gamers,” who play in ways that seem closer to work, and examines our underlying notions of what constitutes play–and why play sometimes feels like work and may even be painful, repetitive, and boring. She looks at the women who play Everquest and finds they don’t fit the narrow stereotype of women gamers, which may cast into doubt our standardized and preconceived ideas of femininity. And she explores the questions of who owns game space–what happens when emergent player culture confronts the major corporation behind the game.
Digra 2007 in Tokyo
Full papers, no abstracts this time. This is quite an interesting development as it will include fields in which only full papers count as worthy (the case for many computer scientists).
The announcement:
DiGRA 2007 First Circular
We, the DiGRA 2007 Local Organizing Committee, are happy to announce
that the third DiGRA (Digital Games Research Association)
international conference will be held in Tokyo, Japan in September
2007. Scholars of digital games from around the world are encouraged
to submit a paper and to participate in the conference. Held in the
world capital of videogames, this conference will be an event that no
game studies scholar can afford to miss. We are working hard for
DiGRA 2007 to be truly special.
The theme of this conference is “Situated Play.” Game play does not
take place in vacuum. For play to be possible, certain social,
cultural, economic, and technological conditions need to converge.
Digital games, therefore, require truly diverse approaches to
illuminate their extremely multi-faceted nature. The goal of this
conference is to shed more light on these various kinds of
situatedness of games. In particular, the conference aims to bridge
professionally and geographically diverse scholars and practitioners.
We therefore welcome panel proposals and papers that describe various
facets regarding the situatedness of digital games and attempt to
combine a range of approaches in innovative ways.
For our participants’ convenience, the dates of the conference will be
set close to the Tokyo Game Show so that participants can take
advantage of both events. The selection of papers will be based on
full papers instead of abstracts, and the deadline will be in February
2007. A second circular revealing more details about DiGRA 2007 will
be issued in late May or early July.
We hope to see you in Tokyo!
– DiGRA 2007 Local Organizing Committee
Akira Baba (Chair), Kiyoshi Shin, Akinori Nakamura, Kenji Ito