Books in the Gaming Media and Social Effects series

This book addresses the topic of playable cities, which use the 'smartness' of digital cities to offer their citizens playful events and activities.

This book addresses the topic of playable cities, which use the 'smartness' of digital cities to offer their citizens playful events and activities.

This book introduces the latest visual effects (VFX) techniques that can be applied to game programming. Readers of this book can learn not only the theories about the latest VFX techniques, but also the methodology of game programming, step by step.

This book highlights the challenges and potential of educational learning or industry-based training using serious games and social media platforms. The major part of this book comprises of papers that have been presented at the Serious Games and Social Connect 2012 conference held in Singapore (October 4, 2012).

Games-To-Teach or Games-To-Learn

This book provides a detailed update on the applications of Serious Games in Healthcare and Education sector. Subconscious Learning via Games and Social Media will share expert opinions on the development and application of game technologies for health-related serious games.

This book covers the latest advances in playful user interfaces - interfaces that invite social and physical interaction. The topics discussed include: human-nature interaction, human-animal interaction and the interaction with tangibles that are naturally integrated in our smart environments.

This book introduces state-of-the-art research on simulation and serious games for education. The major part of this book is based on selected work presented at the 2014 Asia-Europe Symposium on Simulation and Serious Games held in Windesheim University of Applied Sciences, the Netherlands (Oct 1¿2, 2014).It covers three major domains of education applications that use simulation and serious games: Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) Education; Special Needs Education and Humanity and Social Science Education.Researchers and developers in simulation and serious games for education benefit from this book, and it also offers educators and professionals involved in training insights into the possible applications of simulation and serious games in various areas.

This book starts with the proposition that digital media invite play and indeed need to be played by their everyday users. Play is probably one of the most visible and powerful ways to appropriate the digital world. The diverse, emerging practices of digital media appear to be essentially playful: Users are involved and active, produce form and content, spread, exchange and consume it, take risks, are conscious of their own goals and the possibilities of achieving them, are skilled and know how to acquire more skills. They share a perspective of can-do, a curiosity of what happens next? Play can be observed in social, economic, political, artistic, educational and criminal contexts and endeavours. It is employed as a (counter) strategy, for tacit or open resistance, as a method and productive practice, and something people do for fun.The book aims to define a particular contemporary attitude, a playful approach to media. It identifies some common ground and key principles in this novel terrain. Instead of looking at play and how it branches into different disciplines like business and education, the phenomenon of play in digital media is approached unconstrained by disciplinary boundaries. The contributions in this book provide a glimpse of a playful technological revolution that is a joyful celebration of possibilities that new media afford. This book is not a practical guide on how to hack a system or to pirate music, but provides critical insights into the unintended, artistic, fun, subversive, and sometimes dodgy applications of digital media.Contributions from Chris Crawford, Mathias Fuchs, Rilla Khaled, Sybille Lammes, Eva and Franco Mattes, Florian 'Floyd' Mueller, Michael Nitsche, Julian Oliver, and others cover and address topics such as reflective game design, identity and people's engagement in online media, conflicts and challenging opportunities for play, playing with cartographical interfaces, player-emergent production practices, the re-purposing of data, game creation as an educational approach, the ludification of society, the creation of meaning within and without play, the internalisation and subversion of roles through play, and the boundaries of play.

This book introduces state-of-the-art research on simulation and serious games for education.

This book explores the ways in which the broad range of technologies that make up the smart city infrastructure can be harnessed to incorporate more playfulness into the day-to-day activities that take place within smart cities, making them not only more efficient but also more enjoyable for the people who live and work within their confines.