Handbook of Digital Games and Entertainment Technologies

Games have simple, fixed rules as well as clear results such as win, draw, or loss. However, developing algorithms for solving games has been a difficult challenge in Artificial Intelligence, because of the combinatorial complexity that the algorithms must tackle.This chapter presents an overview of successful approaches and results accomplished thus far on game solving. Conducting tree search is a standard way to solve games and game positions. Remarkable progress has been made in developing efficient search algorithms over the last few decades. The chapter describes several standard techniques including αβ search, proof-number search, and endgame databases.

Game playing is one of the oldest areas of investigation in artificial intelligence (AI) and has been at the forefront of AI research ever since the birth of the first computers, over half a century ago. The research focus was initially on developing general approaches for game playing, but gradually shifted towards building high-performance game-playing systems capable of matching wits with the strongest humans in the world in individual games. To renew interest in more general approaches to computer game playing, the AI community established the International General Game Playing Competition (IGGPC) in 2005, which has run annually ever since. General game playing (GGP) has in the decade since established itself as a fascinating research area, posing numerous interesting research challenges to a wide range of artificial intelligence subdisciplines. In here, we review the progress made in the field so far and highlight mainstay techniques used in contemporary state-of-the-art GGP agents.

Monte-Carlo Tree Search (MCTS) is a best-first search method guided by the results of Monte-Carlo simulations. It is based on randomized exploration of the search space. Using the results of previous explorations, the method gradually builds up a game tree in memory and successively becomes better at accurately estimating the values of the most promising moves. MCTS has substantially advanced the state of the art in board games such as Go, Amazons, Hex, Chinese Checkers, Kriegspiel, and Lines of Action.This chapter gives an overview of popular and effective enhancements for board game playing MCTS agents. First, it starts by describing the structure of MCTS and giving pseudocode. It also addresses how to adjust MCTS to prove the game-theoretic value of a board position. Next, popular enhancements such as RAVE, progressive bias, progressive widening, and prior knowledge, which improve the simulation in the tree part of MCTS, are discussed in detail. Subsequently, enhancements such as MAST, N-Grams, and evaluation function-based strategies are explained for improving the simulation outside the tree. As modern computers have nowadays multiple cores, this chapter mentions techniques to parallelize MCTS in a straightforward but effective way. Finally, approaches to deal with imperfect information and stochasticity in an MCTS context are discussed as well.

Building Artificial Intelligence (AI) that can successfully interact with the physical world in a comprehensive and human-like way is a big challenge. Physics simulation games, i.e., video games where the game world simulates real-world physics, offer a simplified and controlled environment for developing and testing Artificial Intelligence. It allows AI researchers to integrate different areas of AI, such as computer vision, machine learning, knowledge representation and reasoning, or automated planning in a realistic setting and to solve various problems that occur in the real world without having to consider all of its complexity at once. This chapter first outlines the main categories of physics simulation games, some of which have become increasingly popular in recent years with the widespread availability of handheld touchscreen devices. It then discusses the motivation and rationale for conducting Artificial Intelligence research on these games and highlights the main research goals. Some of the underlying AI problems and recent advances are discussed and exemplified using a popular physics simulation game. Finally, an overview of current research in related areas is given.

Motor imagery is a skill that can be learned to maximize the accuracy of sensorimotor rhythm (SMR)-based brain-computer game interaction (BCGI). Strategies for learning to intentionally modulate sensorimotor cortex activity have been developed, using computer games as a training paradigm and gameplay characteristics to motivate and challenge players. These range from one-dimensional movement of a game object to single-button or multi-button BCGI controllers. This chapter overviews SMR-based BCGI focusing on a number of studies to illustrate the key concepts, principles, and methodologies. Examples drawn from the action genre, the most popular BCI game genre, with progressive difficulty and challenges, are presented, including a classic ball-basket game, a spaceship game involving asteroid avoidance, and a platform-based combat-fighter game. A focus is on elucidating the prospects and challenges for BCGI. Preliminary results from a proof-of-concept study of a BCGI multi-button controller referred to as the “CircleTime” controller are presented. The CircleTime controller offers the user the option of selecting between six separate buttons using just two motor imagery tasks. Results involving five able-bodied and seven physically impaired users are presented to provide evidence that the games are accessible even without motor control and the typical levels of control accuracy given the length of time played. The CircleTime controller is tested within combat-fighter game which requires higher cognitive processes to determine commands and select actions as well as completion of short-term and longer-term time-critical actions. The chapter covers basic SMR-based BCI signal processing and performance assessment, progressive learning across games, and camouflaging prolonged training.

The brain-computer interface (BCI) community has started to consider games as potential applications, while the game community has started to consider BCI as a game controller. However, there is a discrepancy between the BCI games developed by the two communities. This not only adds to the workload of developers but also damages the reputation of BCI games. As a response to this issue, in this chapter, a BCI game framework is presented that was constructed with respect to the research conducted in both the BCI and the game communities. Developers can situate their BCI games within this framework, benefit from the provided guidelines, and extend the framework further.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) and virtual reality (VR) are natural companions. BCI provides a new interaction technique for controlling VR, and VR provides a rich feedback environment for BCI while retaining a controlled and safe environment. The combination of VR and BCI allows for providing participants with novel experiences that are impossible otherwise. Both fields still pose many technological challenges to scientists and engineers, but both are making rapid progress.VR and BCI have been combined in multiple ways: BCI can be used for navigation in VR, for controlling a virtual body, and for controlling the virtual world directly. More recent directions explore the possibilities of using BCI for purposes other than control in VR, such as designing and implementing VR systems that adapt to the participant’s cognitive and emotional state.

A brain–computer interface (BCI) is a device that translates the users’ thoughts directly into action. Brain signal patterns used to encode messages are user specific. However, experimental paradigms used to collect neurophysiological trials from individuals are typically data-centered and not user-centered. This means that experimental paradigms are tuned to collect as many trials as possible – which is indeed important for reliable calibration of pattern recognition – and are generally rather demanding and not very motivating or engaging for individuals. Subject cooperation and their compliance with the task may decrease over time. This leads in turn to a high variability of the collected brain signals and thus results in unreliable pattern recognition. One solution to this issue might be the implementation of engaging games instead of the use of standard paradigms to gain and maintain BCI control. This chapter first reviews basic principles and standard experimental paradigms used in BCI training that detect messages expressed by spontaneous electroencephalogram (EEG) rhythms. Users can independently modulate oscillations by performing appropriate mental tasks. Then, requirements for successful connection of games and these BCI paradigms are outlined in order to provide users with engaging methods to acquire the BCI skill. Last, a novel training concept for BCI in the framework of games is proposed. A recently introduced communication board for users with cerebral palsy is described as example to illustrate game-inspired training paradigms.

Brain-computer interface (BCI) technologies, or technologies that use online brain signal processing, have a great promise to improve human interactions with computers, their environment, and even other humans. Despite this promise, there are no current serious BCI technologies in widespread use, due to the lack of robustness in BCI technologies. The key neural aspect of this lack of robustness is human variability, which has two main components: (1) individual differences in neural signals and (2) intraindividual variability over time. In order to develop widespread BCI technologies, it will be necessary to address this lack of robustness. However, it is currently unknown how neural variability affects BCI performance. To accomplish these goals, it is essential to obtain data from large numbers of individuals using BCI technologies over considerable lengths of time. One promising method for this is through the use of BCI technologies embedded into games with a purpose (GWAP). GWAP are a game-based form of crowdsourcing which players choose to play for enjoyment and during which the player performs key tasks which cannot be automated but that are required to solve research questions. By embedding BCI paradigms in GWAP and recording neural and behavioral data, it should be possible to much more clearly understand the differences in neural signals between individuals and across different time scales, enabling the development of novel and increasingly robust adaptive BCI algorithms.

This chapter aims to offer a user-centered methodological framework to guide the design and evaluation of Brain-Computer Interface videogames. This framework is based on the contributions of ergonomics to ensure these games are well suited for their users (i.e., players). It provides methods, criteria, and metrics to complete the different phases required by a human-centered design process. This aims to understand the context of use, specify the user needs, and evaluate the solutions in order to define design choices. Several ergonomic methods (e.g., interviews, longitudinal studies, user-based testing), objective metrics (e.g., task success, number of errors), and subjective metrics (e.g., mark assigned to an item) are suggested to define and measure the usefulness, usability, acceptability, hedonic qualities, appealingness, emotions related to user experience, immersion, and presence to be respected. The benefits and contributions of the user-centered framework for the ergonomic design of these Brain-Computer Interface videogames are discussed.

Artificial intelligence in digital games has developed in the last 40 years. It has a long and deep history with digital games. AI techniques in digital games evolved independently and differently from the academic AI research of science and engineering which require functionality in the real world. Digital games have complex and large-scale virtual 2D/3D worlds where game characters live in, recognize, make decisions, and design their motions to fitting their environment. The digital world of games is larger, more complex, and more detailed than any other virtual world. It is the most suitable experimental field to study and evaluate AI technologies in the virtual world. The AI for a game character is called “Character AI” and its function is for characters to make decisions. This is much different from functional AI in academic research, and making a character means to create one whole intelligence. The other unique AIs are “Navigation AI” which analyzes and recognizes the environment of game world and “Meta AI” which dynamically controls and changes the progress, situation, and drama of the game. These three AIs, namely, Character AI, Navigation AI, and Meta AI, cooperate with each other and develop one unified system to form a dynamic user experience. In addition, recently learning and evolution approaches have been introduced into AI for digital games. In this chapter such current status of AI in digital games is described.

The author proposes “games that can be played in a virtual world through the same movements in the real world without installation of sensors and a special controller.” In particular, this chapter introduces a virtual 3D block-building play system that can control the movements with human gestures. This system requires only two small inexpensive RGB high-speed cameras as the peripheral devices. It is not necessary to attach reflective markers on the body of the user. The core of this technology is a hand pose estimation that restores 3D postures from 2D hand images. The technology, which is a so-called data glove without glove, can determine the poses of human hands and fingers or joint angles seamlessly. It is not a pointing device where specific movements are assigned to specific functions of a game. A user therefore does not have to master the instruction operations by the hands in advance to use the functions of the game. He can operate a virtual game by behaving in a manner similar to the daily routine movements as in the physical world. In this chapter, the author also introduces the 3D modeling system based on hand gesture (hand gesture-based CAD system) using the depth sensor for recognizing hand poses.

Human characters are essential to adding a sense of reality to virtual reality worlds in entertainment games. These characters require intelligence to give the virtual world a sense of reality or entertainment as a game. This chapter describes technologies for generating character behaviors and the application game system, using an immersive interactive game, the Versus Beat’em-up game, and an interactive storytelling game as examples.

In a flexible society where individual diversification and individualization are advancing, due to the change of roles in the society and job content, areas that require individual judgment are increasing in daily life. In this chapter, I would like to overview the real-world game platform that can conduct systematic selection supports of various learning services provided in the area, as well as development, provision, and evaluation of new services which use game technologies, in an integrated manner, for the lifelong learning society.

This chapter provides a survey of research on the analysis and generation of narrative discourse that deals with effective presentation of story content through the visual medium. It starts with a theoretical grounding in narratology and cognitive science where the distinction between story and discourse is established. Theories of visual discourse that expand the notions of textual discourse to fit the analysis of visual narratives will be described. Finally, a discussion of automatic generation of coherent visual discourse in terms of viewpoint selection in virtual environments will be carried out.

Interactive Storytelling is an interdisciplinary field in which the humanities meet artificial intelligence. Collaborations between scholars rooted in the humanities and the computer sciences like the one between Brenda Laurel and the OZ group at Carnegie Mellon University have had a major influence on the field. At the same time, there are indications that the relationship is often tenuous, for example, between models of narrative in the humanities and their application in computational research projects. This chapter investigates the relationship, notes challenges, and identifies opportunities for an enhanced collaboration. Additional scrutiny in understanding context and scope of narrative models in the humanities would improve access for AI researchers to the vast space of available models and allow for the codification and re-use of adaptation strategies. Simultaneously, the work of many AI researchers could be recast and recognized as contributions to narrative theory. In this regard, film theory can serve as a potential model for a narrative theory of Interactive Storytelling.

Interactive Storytelling is a new media endeavor, which aims at developing technology and content for a new kind of narrative experience, one in which a story’s unfolding can be influenced by its audience. The interdisciplinary nature of Interactive Storytelling (IS) has led it to revisit many issues such as narrative structure, visual discourse, role of characters, and emotion elicitation, from the perspective of its underlying techniques, artificial intelligence, 3D animation, and user interfaces. In this introductory chapter, we discuss core concepts around which the discipline has organized itself, which are both technical challenges as well as dividing lines between competing approaches. After introducing a framework characterizing user experience through a combination of immersion and involvement, we introduce the main concepts of IS that will be revisited throughout this section. Among these are longstanding discussions on the respective roles of characters and plot in narrative structure, as well as the relationship between story and discourse, both of which strongly determine the specific articulation of technology and content that constitutes an Interactive Narrative. Finally, we announce the various chapters composing this section and their objectives.

Since AI planning was first proposed for the task of narrative generation in interactive storytelling (IS), it has emerged as the dominant approach in this field. This chapter traces the use of planning technologies in this area, considers the core issues involved in the application of planning technologies in IS, and identifies some of the remaining challenges.

User interaction is a central component of Interactive Storytelling, yet it has often been neglected, as precedence is often granted to the pursuit of narrative generation techniques. This chapter presents several paradigms of interaction using examples drawn from fully implemented Interactive Storytelling systems and proposes an empirical classification of modes of interaction based on the nature of user involvement. First is provided a context for the need for multimodal interaction with the story world and the influence of the user’s intervention onto the dynamics of story generation. Then, the requirements of affective interaction within the context of Interactive Storytelling are covered and illustrated through traditional multimodal interaction, as well as physiological interfaces. Finally, the potential of Brain-Computer Interfaces (BCI) to support Interactive Storytelling is discussed, in particular through the unification of user experience, user input, and affective filmic theories.

Motion detection devices are readily available as part of domestic gaming system. Many rehabilitative regimes require a patient to repeat specific movements in order to exercise the affected limbs. Incorporating these movements into games is of interest as the exercises can take place in the domestic environment without continual medial oversight, and the use of a gaming context encourages engagement with the exercise regime, leading to increased dosage. This chapter discusses the motion capture devices available commercially, presenting a benchmark for comparison, and provides a case study of a game for rehabilitation of the upper limb after stroke. The work is resented in a manner which is intended to be applicable to the development of any game rehabilitation.

Mobile gaming has become very popular thanks to its entertainment nature and to the widespread popularity of high-end mobile devices. The game scenario is very challenging as the support of mobile games is not as easy as one may think. In particular, the traffic generated by mobile games has specific network requirements that need to be satisfied; otherwise, the playability of the game might be annoying instead of pleasant. With this vision, we overview the network support solutions for mobile games. In particular, we characterize the mobile game network requirements and present studies that propose a suitable network support for these games. Finally, we overview an interesting case study where mobile games can be played in an environment composed of fixed and mobile networks.

These days we are witnessing a tremendous increase in the availability of personal communication devices that are able to provide ubiquitous connection. As a result, we can also see an increasing demand for mobile services where content is personalized based on user location and context. Mobile multiplayer gaming is today provided as a service and, of course, is not an exception. Unfortunately, differently from other legacy services, location- and context-based gaming strictly requires near-field communication to interact with nearby players in order to create teams and arenas. Since currently adopted technologies suffer from scalability (Bluetooth) or energy (WiFi) constraints, Opportunistic Networks (ONs) have already been addressed as a viable solution to involve potential players which are located in the surrounding area. Nevertheless, it is not yet clear how player experience will be affected by the increased delay and probabilistic message forwarding introduced by an ON. In this chapter the aforementioned phenomenon will be addressed in order to achieve a better understanding of the problem, and, thanks to a case study, guidelines for game designers will be provided to actually deliver a compelling and intriguing experience through an opportunistic game.

The rise of the Internet opened new possibilities for computer games, allowing real-time interaction between players in different parts of the world. Online games permit a number of people to compete in a shared virtual world. However, the synchronization and the maintaining of a coherent game state to be shared by the applications of all the players is not a trivial problem: different sources of latency appear and may cause inconsistencies between the game states observed by each of the players. Different genres of online games present specific latency requirements, depending on the game dynamics, its characteristics, and the level of interaction between the players. This chapter discusses the different mechanisms that companies use in order to overcome the problem of network latency when providing online games: the use of low-bandwidth traffic flows, the different protocols used at transport level, the architectures employed, the distribution of the hardware resources, the mechanisms for hiding the effect of the network to the players, etc. In addition, the different techniques used for estimating the user’s Quality of Experience from network parameters are surveyed. Although latency is the most important parameter, other ones such as packet loss, delay variation (jitter), or bandwidth are also considered. Different QoE-enhancing mechanisms, such as client-side prediction or server delay compensation, are summarized. Other scalability-related techniques are also explained.

This chapter is devoted to video game support over wireless ad hoc networks. The main issue is to understand the real correlation between network conditions and players expected performance. Thus, we started this chapter by presenting an objective assessment methodology. The experimental results show clearly that from the player perspective the most important metric is the delay fairness and from the network perspective, the most important metric is the energy consumption. Considering that, we focus on the improvement of the gameplay fairness and energy efficiency, and we present two approaches. One first approach at the application level according to a new packetization technique and the second approach according to a multi-metric routing protocol based on energy consumption and end-to-end delay. Finally, we concentrate on the problem of game disconnection due to nodes mobility. We present a multipath OLSR-based routing protocol that computes two paths to reach the destination. In addition, the traffic generated by each node is balanced between the two paths according the quality of each path.

The chapter’s idea stems from the observation that technology is difficult to learn in an abstract way (books, lectures, etc.) and practical activities are needed not only to apply concepts but also to help learning itself. This is particularly challenging in a younger age where this concern is often neglected frequently, leading to poor instruction, if any. However, science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) topics typically involve facts and concepts that could be effectively implemented and/or shown through smart objects according to the Internet-of-Things paradigm. Such objects, we called “iBlocks,” could be manipulated by young learners to study various types of phenomena/artifacts and compose new aggregations (reflecting – at a younger age – the experience of the “Makers” now successful in world-leading technological universities). The presented idea is to build an environment consisting of physical objects enhanced with sensing, computing, and communicating capabilities in order to support advanced and multimodal/multisensory interaction. An important aspect is that the environment supports the definition of game rules, so that users are stimulated and invited in educational paths involving guided exploration, competition, and collaboration.

The aim of this contribution is to investigate the role of serious games in creating corporate identity. The author focuses on showing how serious games determine the way in which organizations behave in the modern reality. To narrow the scope of the research, the author coins the concept of online ludic corporate identity to study the role of serious games in creating and maintaining organizational personae on the web and its image in the eyes of the broadly understood online users. The theoretical discussion is supported by a case study on the way in which selected organizations offer serious games at their websites to foster knowledge on monetary issues among different players.

This chapter presents a set of ethical concepts and related guidelines starting from a historical review perspective leading through to present day work on computer ethics, privacy, and trust. The review forms a basis for a discussion on ethics within serious games including related types such as persuasive games, gamification, and pervasive games. The objective being is to identify common issues and areas of interest where the boundaries between these types of game blur. The result is a set of concepts which specifically explore the gaps which have arisen, for example, in areas such competing values between stakeholders, the effect of serious pervasive games on non-participants, rules of play, transparency, consent, and autonomy. The guidelines contain sets of issues, questions, and examples that aim to alert researchers and practitioners to key concerns.

This chapter briefly overviews the history of computer music languages and related systems, mainly focusing on those developed in the research community (hence, less focus is put on those commercial computer music software such as digital audio workstation (DAW) software or sound editor software). As is often seen in other surveys of computer music history, the historical development of computer music languages and systems is divided into several overlapping eras in this chapter. The division between the eras of non-real-time computer music systems and real-time computer music systems is particularly emphasized, as it gave a significant impact on both creative practices by artists and musicians and the design of computer music languages and systems by researchers and engineers.While the evolution of computer music languages has been largely supported by the advance of computer technology and the achievement of the related research in computer science and audio engineering, it should be also noted that issues found in creative practices also have given significant influences to the development of computer music languages and systems throughout its history. Along with the technical advancement, the synergy between technology and creativity in computer music is also highlighted when appropriate in this chapter, as such a perspective can be beneficial to reconsider the relationship between computer technology and artistic creativity in our decades.

In this chapter, we present a case study of a mixed reality environment that leverages on concepts inherited from the application of deception as demonstrated by magicians, illusionists, and other practitioners that use deception to develop compelling narratives mapped multimodality. These concepts are demonstrated in the context of a spatial cinematic art installation. From analysis of this case study, we found that these techniques can be effective tools in the creation of convincing mediated experiences. This chapter begins with an overview of the work and development processes. It then examines approaches to illusion in terms of physical devices (mechanics) and misdirection (the underpinning psychological principles of conjuring). This is followed by a detailed investigation of the work’s two narrative scripts in order to offer insight into the spatial dynamics of the audience experience.

This chapter is dedicated to explore the relationship between entertainment, culture, and media art. Firstly, the positioning of entertainment will be described including the historical point of view and also focusing on recent digital entertainment technologies. It will be clarified that entertainment is closely related to the mental sustainability of human and therefore has a close relationship with culture and art. Then, based on this, further investigation will be carried out to explain how culture and technology could be combined together. Firstly, the relationship between culture and technology will be discussed proposing the concept of “cultural computing.” Then three typical research examples of cultural computing, “ALICE,” “ZENetic Computer,” and “Confucius Chat” will be described emphasizing how cultural issues could be treated using computer both in the Western culture and Eastern culture. As art is the core part of culture, as a next step the role of art, especially new art called media art where technology plays an important role, will be discussed. And, as an example, media art created by an Eastern media artist will be introduced as a good example of such media art treating cultural issues.

The authors come together from very different disciplines – (media) art and (neuro)science – in order to create an interactive work that engages the audience in a way that takes them out of the anthropocentric point of view. With this collaborative project, the authors wish to break this “human” barrier and allow an exploration and identification of the diverse world of the animals around us. The Hox Zodiac allows the human audience to experience the shared history and potential of genetic diversity among animals. Here, the idea of the Hox gene as a binding element is introduced, and the Chinese animal zodiac and dinner table as the structure/space for discussion is employed, allowing the format to build based on the audience interaction. In neuroscience this is a principle known as the emergent property of network connections, where a simple array of neurons can give rise to complex behaviors through interactions and adaptations.Responding to the emergent nature of the game-like environment of the ancient Book of Changes, the I Ching, and the related work of John Cage serves as base for the conceptual framework of the project. Similar to Cage’s ideas of chance and indeterminacy, this work looks to the ancient Eastern philosophies along with the scientific research, seeking the balance between rational and irrational, conscious and unconscious – in relation to our interconnectivity with the animal kingdom. This chapter describes the research process and variations that emerged with audience participation and interaction.

The design of game interfaces is a decisive factor for game perception and play experience; in many cases, interfaces are tightly interwoven with the gameplay. According to Jesper Juul “it is rare to find a clear-cut border between interface and gameplay and that the fluidity of this border characterizes games in general.” Currently, input devices are regarded as “the most neglected aspect of video games.”The central argument of this article is that alterations to the interface can affect both how the game is perceived and the play experienced; this is backed by some well-known examples from the field of game arts, for example, the Giant Joystick of Mary Flennigan and the PainStation of Tilman Reiff and Volker Morawe. In both of these, a transformation of the gameplay is realized solely by altering the interface.Specifically created user interfaces have several key advantages, as they are able to transform available games into more intimate and rewarding experiences, to improve game accessibility, to put players in a ludic state of mind, and to communicate both overall game goal and some of the relevant game rules even before the game commences. These attributes are demonstrated on the basis of relevant art game installations that have been created by students and graduates of the Interface Cultures department at the University of Art and Design in Linz, Austria.

The publication of the book Love and Sex with Robots, late in 2007 by David Levy, heralded a new era in this somewhat controversial field. Human-robot intimate relationships were no longer pure science fiction but had entered the hallowed halls of serious academic research. Since then, researchers have come up with many implementations of robot companions like sex robots, emotional robots, humanoid robots, and artificial intelligent systems that can simulate human emotions. This book chapter presents a summary of significant activity in this field during the seven years since that publication and predicts how the field is likely to develop.

This chapter surveys the dominant trends and significant turning points in the changing perception of how media, art, and society have been discussed academically, with an emphasis on the twentieth to twenty-first centuries. This incorporates an overview of salient developments in the philosophy of aesthetics during this period. It then proceeds to examine the more recent question of how digital technology has impacted on this nexus of interaction. While there is no commonly accepted consensus among academia with regard to the long-term implications of this impact, it is nonetheless possible to distinguish certain emergent changes in the spheres of narrative, persona, and spectacle within contemporary media and art, and it is possible to identify an emergent aesthetic regime which accounts for artistic experiences across a number of increasingly integrated media platforms and an expanded conception of the contiguity of aesthetic experience transcending individual perception and traversing the organic and the material. As a final section several symptomatic and suggestive case studies are raised to discuss how these play out in more concrete instances.

Edutainment technologies offer new and fascinating options in sport and health. In this chapter, the impact of edutainment in the fields of sport and health is reviewed. Two edutainment technologies are focused on: educational TV as a more or less receptive technology and serious games as a more activating and interactive approach, i.e., digital games serving a double mission to establish a “serious” goal (like learning and training) without compromising fun and motivation.In the field of sport edutainment, predominantly off-the-shelf games are used for improving skills, abilities, and knowledge. Educational TV plays a minor role. Research shows evidence that games can improve sport-related skills, abilities, and knowledge on a low and elementary level. Currently, no evidence is available that sport edutainment can improve high- or top-level outcomes.In the field of health, educational TV and serious games are both used. Existing evidence confirms weak to strong effects on health-related knowledge, attitude, and behavior.In general, the review shows the great potential of TV and serious games in the fields of sport and health. On the other hand, there are still numerous open questions concerning sustainability of the results, appropriate settings, personalization, individualization, and social context. Future system developments and interventions should be more based on sound theory. Furthermore, the quality of research methods and designs needs to be improved favoring randomized controlled trials. Future directions like integration of social media and cross-platform edutainment are discussed.

This article looks at the concepts, the historical roots, and the scope of gamification. The term Gamification has its roots in terms like game and game-based learning. Moreover, there exists a strong relation to the psychological background of playing, of using game elements and game mechanics. Also, the term game thinking is part of interpreting the term gamification. But what is gamification? Is it old wine in new skins? Or is it a brand new and bright idea? This plethora of things and interpretations related to the term gamification led to a broad set of application domains and pseudoknowledge. The term and the related fields are analyzed, and similarities and differences to games, edutainment, game-based learning, and serious games are shown in this chapter. Additionally, an overview of elements typically applied in gamification approaches is given. The intersection of gamification with edutainment and learning is focused, and empirical and other results on the effectiveness of gamification are analyzed and discussed. Finally, a summary and brief discussion of open questions and challenges in this field are presented.

In this chapter, we describe issues and challenges in deploying robots on stage, specifically in the context of theatrical plays. We are interested in understanding how an audience may perceive the robots. To this aim, we first survey available literature about cognitive human–robot interaction, with an emphasis on direct perception of robots and the observation of other humans interacting with robots. Then we discuss state-of-the-art approaches to select and sequence robot behaviors for human–robot interaction. Finally, we report about long-term interaction experiences involving robots and human actors on stage.

This chapter describes our exploratory studies toward design and development of playful robotic interfaces for intimate telepresence. Our goal has been to create playful experience for couples in long-distance relationships (LDRs) through telepresence robots. Playfulness is becoming an increasingly important theme in human-computer interaction (HCI) and human-robot interaction (HRI). Playfulness refers to enhancing the quality of the experience by adding joy, pleasure, and fun and in a more general description adding hedonic attributes to the experience. Within the context of this study, playfulness is reflected as enhancing the affective dimension of the interaction through iterative prototyping. Intimate telepresence refers to a group of telepresence technologies, which convey the message of being copresence with the intimate partner or loved ones. In this chapter, we present a new generation of telepresence technology that increases the possibility of ongoing connectedness, self-disclosure, and empathy through stochastic detection of the user’s mood state and regenerating it in the remote location. Intimate telepresence has been also explored from the design point of view. In this respect a pair of personalizable telepresence robots are designed, developed, and evaluated. These robots can transmit the body languages in the remote location and are designed based on the concept of enclothed cognition and the influences of appearance and likeness on affectivity. And finally, the possibility of teleporting kisses was explored and the first longitudinal field study within the field of intimate telepresence was performed.

Based on the internalized “object” and using cognitive, clinical, neuro-functional, and engineering arguments, this chapter analyzes the concept of enrobotment. Playing with objects/toys (including the imperceptible part, i.e., the shadow) implies that the objects/toys are part of the external environment, i.e., the “other.” The enrobotment signifies that the object’s internalization not only reflects the impact of the environment on child’s development but it also reverberates the echo of the child’s representations. An intermediate object (including shadow) is conceived in mind by the child him/herself. Having a high emotional value and forming an implicit/explicit autobiographical continuum in memory, it ensures the cohesion between the “self” and “other,” and it authorizes subjectification. The correlated representations allow the invention of ideas and concepts; motor and verbal actions including their intention prosper. Intention attribution to objects/toys constitutes a precursor of self-consciousness, as this intention, a specific anticipation, helps children to understand what it signifies to have a perspective. Recognizing what it implies to be a “self” is a parcel of envisioning mental states of the “other.” At the antipode, autism can be considered as an antithesis of self-consciousness. Children with autism cannot mirror the triadic relationship of “object-self-other.” Enrobotment allows them to improve their capability to be “self,” i.e., to emerge “self”-complexity.

This chapter introduces a manzai robot system, that is, an entertainment robot that is used as passive media based on manzai scenarios that are autocreated from web news articles. Manzai is a Japanese traditional standup comedy act that is usually performed by two comedians: a stooge and a straight man. Manzai robots automatically generate their manzai scripts from web news articles based on related keywords given by the audience and search results from the World Wide Web (WWW), and then perform the manzai scenarios. A manzai scenario comprises three parts: tsukami (the beginning of the manzai greeting), honneta (main body of the manzai script), and ochi (conclusion of the manzai performance). The style of manzai scenario is “shabekuri manzai,” which means talk constructed from only the manzai scenarios. The manzai scenario for the robots is served as a manzai script written in extended markup language (XML). The manzai robots are constructed to aim to facilitate the observation of the entertaining dialogue using manzai robots as a socially passive medium. The manzai robot system is focused on the content generator using the automatic script creation function. The chapter introduces the automatic creation of the manzai scripts from web news articles, management of the manzai robot systems. Then, the component-based manzai robot system is explained to make a scalability of the manzai robot system. The chapter verifies potential of the manzai robot system by implementing an automatic manzai scenario creation system and the management systems using real robots.

Digital interactive television offers an increasing wealth of possibilities in terms of the types of applications, services, and interactions available. At the same time, many older adults face significant barriers to access. Through conducting a literature review of related research areas, this chapter summarizes some of the practical challenges and opportunities of designing digital interactive television for older adults. This includes how age-related changes and generational differences can affect television experiences. In this work, application areas focusing on the needs of older adults are highlighted, in addition to further research directions. These range from the use of adaptive systems to modify interface parameters for improved accessibility, to the use of television as a platform for a range of health and lifestyle support applications. The representation and inclusion of the older population in the design process are also discussed.

InInteractive digital narrative (IDN) iTV and online video, narrative interaction has long been a Holy Grail for both audiences and creators of these digital audiovisual works. On the one hand, interactive digital narrative promises interactors some exciting opportunities: to enter the world of the story, to affect the story and perhaps even to control its outcome, and in the process to gain a transformative self-revelation. On the other hand, this new medium changes the role and craft of the author and entails a host of technological, conceptual, and institutional challenges. The authors describe these opportunities and challenges in detail, before examining various projects that have attempted to realize this vision and grapple with the challenges. Works discussed span several decades, from the late 1960s to 2015. They also span a variety of forms, including interactive cinema, online video, interactive television, and both video- and animation-based games. Particular emphasis is given to contemporary interactive documentaries (iDocs). The chapter further discusses current research directions, such as explorations of the increasing incorporation of the interactor’s body and affects as well as second-screen and cross-device integration, and concludes with a fresh look at the original vision in light of conceptual and design approaches, current technological developments, their implications on the changing landscape of audiovisual content creation and consumption, and the new creative space of opportunities that they open up.

Providing users with a sense of place – related to a specific geographic location in which one is situated, or linked to a faraway place, or even giving place-like qualities to virtual spaces such as massively multiplayer online role-playing games – has been deemed central for several forms of digital interactions. In the past decade, studies from human-computer interaction and computer-supported cooperative work have specifically addressed this theme, but the scarcity of works of place specificity focusing expressly on interactive TV suggests a gap in the current research, whereas the latest developments in mobile TV would seem highly coherent with such topic. To contribute to closing this gap, some initial directions are suggested here by pointing at compatible treatments of the notion of place in related fields, for example, the design of pervasive urban games. Game designers and game scholars might provide operational concepts that help understanding the role and the potentialities of places for interactive TV. Two general types of artifacts are selected here: works that are anchored to the experience of faraway places and works that leverage the physical location in which the user is. Their analysis yields three design strategies (experience anchoring, place permeability, and distributed storytelling), offered here as “objects to think with” and to spur further research and design. By pointing at them and at other similar strategies, similarities between digital games, ITV products, and other similar artifacts emerge and allow us to speculatively trace possible future convergences.

In recent years social networking and social interactions have challenged old conceptions in the media landscape. Web applications that offer video content, connected television sets and set-top boxes, tablets and smartphones as second screens, and online TV widgets have radically transformed how people watch and interact around television content. Since the wealth of existing solutions and approaches might be daunting to newcomers, this chapter surveys previous and current efforts in the area of social television and online video. In particular, this chapter provides a framework that categorizes the most salient features of social television services. The final objective is on the provision of a set of design guidelines for the development of novel applications and services that enable viewers to socialize around online video and television content.

Major events in the history of TV, especially in the USA, are reviewed from the perspective of the TV viewer’s experience. Interactivity with TV is considered among these events. General TV experience themes that emerge from these historical events are discussed in this chapter as to their relationship to people’s motivations for watching TV. The emergent themes include improvements in TV picture quality and increases in the amount of TV program choices available to the TV viewer. Additional emergent themes include increased ease and convenience of controlling the TV and increased information about the TV program. Finally, there is the theme of enabling the TV viewer to participate interactively in the TV experience. These themes are used as a basis to envision the future of TV experiences.

Technological forms of entertainment have become increasingly popular among both adults and adolescents. However, there have been a growing number of reports about excessive use of entertainment technology and potentially addictive use (e.g., to video games, mobile phones, the Internet, etc.). The present chapter briefly overviews addiction to these entertainment products (i.e., “technological addictions”) by defining addiction and arguing that technological addictions are a type of behavioral addiction. The chapter also reviews the empirical literature concerning online gaming addiction and social networking addiction, as well as examining the differences between Internet gaming addiction and Internet addiction. The chapter demonstrates that issues encountered by contemporary researchers and clinicians regarding the assessment of online addictions appear complex and include several factors. It is concluded that there is a clear need to distinguish between addictions to the Internet and addictions on the Internet. Gambling or gaming addicts who chooses to engage in online gambling and gaming are not Internet addicts – the Internet is just the place where they conduct their chosen (addictive) behavior. Based on empirical research, it is evident that excessive entertainment technology use appears to be at least potentially addictive. Further research is needed on whether activities such as video game addiction and Internet addictions such as social networking addiction are distinct clinical entities.

This chapter considers the role of entertainment media in education, health, and quality of life. Because of its potential to affect our well-being, entertainment can be seen as a public health issue. When freely chosen, entertainment can produce desired states such as relaxation or arousal and can induce the range of human emotions that enrich daily life. The emotional and social satisfactions provided by entertainment are supplemented by their impact on executive functioning and health.Entertainment serves the range of “uses and gratifications” familiar to media students (cognitive, social, emotional/physiological).Among the cognitive benefits of entertainment media are the maintenance or improvement of problem solving and enhanced perceptual skills. Listening to music or watching television can produce positive cognitive effects. Music, in addition to its mood management function, also affects brain development, language, and cognitive development.One undeniable feature of play is fun. Positive emotions, including humor, contribute to a sense of well-being and health.Video gaming can be beneficial for brain development and functioning. The positive effects of video gaming may also prove relevant in therapeutic interventions targeting psychiatric disorders, particularly depression. Studies of the noninstitutionalized elderly suggest that digital games can speed reaction time and may positively influence executive function and have social and emotional benefits. Exergames are a substitute for physical exercise when outdoor play is not feasible.If entertainment is a public health issue, it is largely in the area of mental health that it has its greatest impact. Enjoying music, a film, a video game, or a You Tube video can improve mood, strengthen friendships, and increase competence.Digital entertainment media have been used in basic scientific research. Games can teach STEM subjects efficiently by reaching a large audience.

This chapter reconstructs the patterns of moral argumentation typical for debates between enthusiastic proponents and skeptic opponents about the (expected) impacts of technologies. These patterns frame how issues are viewed and constitute a tool kit on which discussants draw. Section “General Definitions” briefly explains key concepts like morality and different types of ethics and offers a reflection on the relation between morality, ethics, and technology. Section “Visions of Technological Development” discusses two perspectives on technological development that play an important role in the preliminary debate whether ethical assessment of technology makes any sense in the first place: technological determinism and voluntarism. Section “Meta-Ethics” introduces the reader to two meta-ethical arguments regarding the dynamic relation between ethics and technology. The first concerns the likelihood that the NEST will eventually confront us with problems. Here optimists and skeptics or pessimists oppose one another. The second meta-ethical issue is whether morality must adapt to technology or vice versa. Section “Normative Ethics” provides an overview of the normative ethical arguments in favor of a certain proposed technology and juxtaposes them to the arguments used by more skeptical opponents. The arguments are grouped according whether they regard consequences, principles, justice, or conceptions of the good life. In the concluding section ”To Conclude,” I point out some ways in which real-life deliberations and discussions about NEST benefit from knowing these arguments and argumentative patterns.

Video game play has become a ubiquitous form of entertainment in modern society. As a result, interest has accrued from parents, educators, policy makers, and scientists alike regarding the potential effects of this relatively new media. The current chapter has several goals. The first is to describe the research findings regarding the most heavily studied topic in video game research: the effects of violent video game content on aggressive affect, cognition, and behavior. The second goal is to describe the psychological processes that give rise to aggressive (and nonaggressive) negative outcomes of video game play. These psychological processes are described by the General Aggression Model (GAM) and the domain-specific theories which GAM incorporates. These “smaller” theories include (but are not limited to) script theory, attribution and decision-making, cognitive neoassociation theory, learning theories, and desensitization. Several other negative outcomes of video game play are also described which include risk taking, attention problems, impulsivity, reduced helping, stereotyping, and video game addiction. Some discussion focuses on specific types of game content (e.g., game mechanics and themes) to the outcomes observed among game players. Lastly, special attention is paid to explaining that the processes that give rise to negative effects are often the same processes that give rise to positive effects and that the notion that games should be considered either “good” or “bad” is much too simplistic. It is our hope that this chapter serves to provide a clear understanding of the negative effects of video game play but also underscores that games also have tremendous potential for positive outcomes.

Stories and human society are inseparable. Before human history, our ancestors created myths as the oldest form of narratives. Due to the advances of digital media, stories are nowadays communicated in various ways. Yet the structure and the key elements of modern stories still remain the same. This chapter starts with a discussion about the relationship between stories and human society. It is curious that human beings keep being intrigued by stories of similar structures and scenes. A reasonable speculation is that these identical components of stories might induce emotional experiences at an unconscious level. Can emotions be unconscious? While the answer to this question is still open to debate, more and more empirical evidence suggests that humans might have unconscious emotions in certain conditions. In order to provide a holistic theoretical overview focusing on unconscious emotions, a review of contemporary theories, models, and measures of emotion is provided. This review illustrates an integrated overview of research into unconscious emotions and also points out potential challenges and promising approaches that could inform future research on unconscious emotions in media content.