Towards a Tabletop Gaming Motivations Inventory (TGMI)

Prior research has highlighted opportunities for technology to better support the tabletop game experience in offline and online settings, but little work has focused on the social aspect of tabletop gaming. We investigated the social and collaborative aspects of tabletop gaming in the unique context of “social distancing” during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic to shed light on the experience of remote tabletop gaming. With a multi-method qualitative approach (including digital ethnography and in-depth interviews), we empirically studied how people appropriate existing technologies and adapt their offline practices to play tabletop games remotely. We identify three themes that describe people's game and social experience during remote play: creating a shared tabletop environment (shared space), enabling a collective understanding (shared information and awareness), and facilitating a communal temporal experience (shared time). We reflect on challenges and design opportunities for a better experience in the age of remote collaboration.

We write this on the eve of the publishing of the 2019 What's Hot in Literacy Report, which is the result of a biennial survey completed by the International Literacy Association (in press) that takes the temperature of the literacy dialogue and notes the changing trends from year to year. This year, topics such as identifying effective instructional strategies for struggling learners; building early literacy skills through a balanced approach; increasing equity and opportunities; providing access to highquality, diverse books and content; and increasing professional learning represented the topics that respondents felt were particularly trending this past year. (The 2019 report will be available online very soon at https ://liter acywo rldwi de.org/get-resou rces/whats-hot-report.) These topics raise important questions that link research, theory, and practice. In this issue, we ask questions similar to these: What kinds of activities, instructional approaches, or knowledge about language are useful for becoming literate? How do these different experiences and understandings contribute to language and literacy learning?

Evaluation of accessibility within a tabletop context is much more complicated than it is within a video game environment. There is a considerable amount of variation in game systems, game mechanisms, and interaction regimes. Games may be entirely verbal, or completely non-verbal. They might be real-time or turn based, or based on simultaneous actions. They can be competitive or co-operative, or shift from one to the other during a single game session. They might involve visual pattern recognition or force players to memorise game state without visual cues. They may involve touch, or smell. They might involve social deduction or betrayal. They can encompass all sensory faculties, in differing degrees. Almost all games have accessibility considerations that should be taken into account, but there is currently no comprehensive tool by which this can be done that encompasses the rich variety of tabletop gaming interaction metaphors. In this paper, the authors discuss the heuristic lens that is used by the Meeple Centred Design tabletop accessibility project. This is a tool that has been applied to one hundred and sixteen games to date, and the full results of these have been published for analysis and consideration within the wider tabletop gaming community.

Tilt, characterized by heightened frustration, is a prevalent issue in esports, significantly impacting team dynamics and player well-being. Traditional Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) solutions often focus on individual strategies, overlooking the team-based nature of esports. This study introduces 'TILTED', a tabletop game co-designed with youth esports players, aimed at fostering open communication and empathy to collectively manage tilt. Findings from four user testing sessions with collegiate esports teams reveal that team-based interventions like 'TILTED' can enhance team cohesion and provide effective strategies for emotional regulation. The game facilitates understanding and empathy among teammates for managing emotions and maintaining a positive team atmosphere. Our research underscores the importance of resetting strategies and shared mental models in helping to mitigate tilt and offers design implications for future team-based interventions to enhance team dynamics and tilt management strategies as a team.

Three school library staff members explore how they have used tabletop games in different school library settings. Teresa Copeland (Tesseract School, Paradise Valley, Arizona, USA) explores how tabletop and role-playing games have been integrated into the curriculum across a wide variety of grade levels. Brenda Henderson (Trinity High School Learning Resources Centre, Redditch, UK) discusses how a board game club has made a difference in a high school library in the United Kingdom. Brian Mayer (School Library System, Genesee Valley Educational Partnership, LeRoy, New York, USA) supports multiple school libraries in finding matches between the curriculum and authentic games and runs game design workshops.

In a student project, we combined table-top gaming skills with requirements gathering and testing. This paper is an experience report on this novel approach to requirements engineering. It describes the project and how project parameters were translated to a table-top role-playing game. The overall process that melded gaming with more standard requirements gathering activities is described, as well as what we learned from the experience.

This chapter describes an approach to evaluating user experience in video games and advanced interaction games (tabletop games) by using heuristics. We provide a short overview of computer games with a focus on advanced interaction games and explain the concept of user-centred design for games. Furthermore, we describe the history of heuristics for video games and the role of user experience of games in general. We propose a framework consisting of three sets of heuristics (game play/game story, virtual interface and tabletop specific) to detect the most critical issues in video games as well as advanced interaction games. To assess its applicability, we compare the results of expert evaluations of five current games with the user experience-based ratings of various game review sites. In the conclusion, we provide an outlook on possible extensions of our approach.

Stories unfold across a varied landscape of mediums, including video games, tabletop games, interactive films, and traditional literary texts. As that landscape continues to diversify, educators and scholars face growing challenges conceptualizing reading in a way that captures the multifaceted, consequential ways that readers interact with and shape those stories. Building on New Literacy Studies, scholarship from games studies, and reader response theory, this theoretical article proposes a cross‐disciplinary model for understanding narrative interactivity in contemporary reading experiences: The Reader–Player Interactivity Framework. The authors analyze seven layers of narrative interactivity: embodied interaction, navigating and wayfinding, transactional meaning‐making, two forms of reader authorship, co‐constructing stories, and socially embedded meaning‐making. These categories provide a language for analyzing how readers, viewers, and players co‐construct stories in both fixed and variable narrative texts. The framework illuminates how meaning arises not only in explicitly interactive media, but across all forms of narrative, and provides literacy teachers and researchers with theoretical tools and explicit language for navigating varied types of texts and interactions. The article concludes by outlining implications for research and pedagogy in literacy education.

In this work, we formally build the construct of games as information systems. Starting from models and definitions that describe them, we present models that show game elements: components, players, environment, and their relations; as information systems elements. This paper also presents the analysis of five games and their elements based on that premise. As a ratification of our rationale, we present tools and visions shared by both fields. The presented premise and rationale could be easily linked to video games but, moreover, they are valid to all forms of games like tabletop games or sports.

Background and aimsThe popularity of video gaming has generated significant interest in research methods to examine motivations for gaming. Current measures of gaming motives are limited by lack of scope and/or their applicability to specific game genres only. We aimed to create a comprehensive motivation inventory applicable to any gaming genre and to evaluate its psychometric properties in a large sample of highly engaged video gamers.MethodsStage 1 of this project involved a systematic review that generated the items for the Gaming Motivation Inventory (GMI). Stages 2–4 involved an evaluation of the psychometric properties of the GMI. A sample of 14,740 video gamers (89.3% male; mean age 24.1 years) were recruited via an online survey promoted by a popular gaming magazine.ResultsIn Stage 2, twenty-six gaming motives were identified, which clustered into six higher-order dimensions (Mastery, Immersion/Escapism, Competition, Stimulation, Social, Habit/Boredom). In Stage 3, construct validity of the six higher-order motives was assessed by associations with gaming-related, personality, and psychological variables. In Stage 4, the relationships between motives and depression symptoms and gaming disorder symptoms were explored. Although gaming motives had weak associations with gaming genres, they were moderately related to variables such as competitiveness, sociability, and positive and negative affect. Gaming disorder symptoms were directly predicted by depression symptoms and indirectly via Immersion/Escapism, Habit/Boredom, and Competition motives.Discussion and conclusionsThese findings support the notion that motives are one of the primary causes of gaming behavior and play an important role in predicting its problematic nature. The GMI is a psychometrically valid tool that will be useful for gaining insights into factors underlying gaming behaviors.

The main purpose of this study was to explore if there were differences among the teachers’ playfulness, their perceptions of the students’ online gaming motivation, emotion, learning, and the teacher-student game-related relationship owing to teachers’ own experiences in online games. The participants were 723 teachers from the elementary schools, junior high schools, and senior (vocational) high schools in all areas of Taiwan. The surveys used in this study included the Inventory of Teacher Playfulness, the Inventory of Students’ Online Gaming Motivation, the Inventory of Students’ Online Gaming Positive and Negative Emotion, the Inventory of Students’ Online Gaming Learning, and the Inventory of Teacher-Student Game-related Relationship. The applied analysis methods were confirmatory factor analysis, t-test and one-way ANOVA. The main findings of this study were as follow: 1.In the dimension of “enjoyment of trying and satisfaction obtaining” among the teachers’ playfulness, teachers who have some online gaming experience were higher than those teachers who have little gaming experiences. 2.In the perceptions of students’ motivation in “role-playing” and “manipulation” among the students’ gaming motivation, non-player-teachers were higher than player-teachers 3.The teachers’ with different online gaming experiences showed no significant difference in the students’ gaming emotion, neither in a positive nor in a negative way. 4.In terms of students’ game-related learning, teachers with ordinary gaming experiences were higher in their perceptions of social relationship dimension than teachers without gaming experiences, teachers with little gaming experiences, and teachers with some gaming experiences 5.In terms of the online gaming relationship between teachers and students, player teachers was better than non-player teachers. Teachers with some gaming experiences, teachers with ordinary gaming experiences, and teachers with lots of gaming experiences were better than teachers without gaming experiences. Teachers with ordinary gaming experiences, and teachers with lots of gaming experiences were also better than teachers with some gaming experiences and teachers with little gaming experiences. 6.In terms of teachers’ demographic variables, there existed significant differences in the students’ negative gaming emotion, achievement and escapism of the students’ gaming motivation, satisfaction, social relationship, and organization management and creation of the students’ gaming learning, and the online gaming relationship between teachers and students. However, there’s no significant difference in teachers’ playfulness and the students’ positive gaming emotion. This study discussed the results based on above statistical findings, and proposed some suggestions for teachers and for future studies.

Past research indicates strong monetary motives for gambling often elevate an individual's risk of experiencing symptoms of gambling disorder, with personal relative deprivation (PRD) and upward mobility (UM) identified as key factors in this relationship. Nevertheless, few studies have examined how financial motives, PRD, and UM might interact for people playing modern video games-many of which offer financial incentives to encourage participation. Due to the overlap between gambling and (video) gaming, evidence suggests disordered gambling and disordered gaming might also share similarities. Therefore, the present study explored whether PRD influences associations between playing video games for financial motives, symptoms of Internet gaming disorder (IGD), and UM in two samples: 797 college students (Study 1) and 179 adult gamers over 25 years old (Study 2). Results from Study 1 revealed more PRD predicted more IGD symptoms, with higher financial gaming motives mediating the relationship. In Study 2, PRD also predicted IGD severity, but only coping motives appeared to mediate the positive association between PRD and IGD severity. In both samples, perceived UM inversely moderated the effect of PRD on one's financial or coping gaming motives. These findings suggest financial motives for video games might lead to more problematic forms of participation for younger adults and negative perceptions of PRD and UM might interact, similar to gambling, to elevate a gamer's vulnerability for IGD.

BackgroundThe rapid expansion of online video gaming as a leisure time activity has led to the appearance of problematic online gaming (POG). According to the literature, POG is associated with different psychiatric symptoms (eg, depression, anxiety) and with specific gaming motives (ie, escape, achievement). Based on studies of alcohol use that suggest a mediator role of drinking motives between distal influences (eg, trauma symptoms) and drinking problems, this study examined the assumption that there is an indirect link between psychiatric distress and POG via the mediation of gaming motives. Furthermore, it was also assumed that there was a moderator effect of gender and game type preference based on the important role gender plays in POG and the structural differences between different game types.ObjectiveThis study had two aims. The first aim was to test the mediating role of online gaming motives between psychiatric symptoms and problematic use of online games. The second aim was to test the moderator effect of gender and game type preference in this mediation model.MethodsAn online survey was conducted on a sample of online gamers (N=3186; age: mean 21.1, SD 5.9 years; male: 2859/3186, 89.74%). The Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), the Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ), and the Problematic Online Gaming Questionnaire (POGQ) were administered to assess general psychiatric distress, online gaming motives, and problematic online game use, respectively. Structural regression analyses within structural equation modeling were used to test the proposed mediation models and multigroup analyses were used to test gender and game type differences to determine possible moderating effects.ResultsThe mediation models fitted the data adequately. The Global Severity Index (GSI) of the BSI indicated that the level of psychiatric distress had a significant positive direct effect (standardized effect=.35, P<.001) and a significant indirect (mediating) effect on POG (standardized effect=.194, P<.001) via 2 gaming motives: escape (standardized effect=.139, P<.001) and competition (standardized effect=.046, P<.001). The comparison of the 2 main gamer types showed no significant differences in the model. However, when comparing male and female players it was found that women had (1) slightly higher escape scores (on a 5-point Likert scale: mean 2.28, SD 1.14) than men (mean 1.87, SD 0.97) and (2) a stronger association between the escape motive and problematic online gaming (standardized effect size=.64, P<.001) than men (standardized effect size=.20, P=.001).ConclusionsThe results suggest that psychiatric distress is both directly and indirectly (via escape and competition motives) negatively associated with POG. Therefore, the exploration of psychiatric symptoms and gaming motives of POG can be helpful in the preparation of prevention and treatment programs.

Objective Gaming motivations are crucial aspects of healthy and problematic video gaming behavior. The aim of this study was to assess the psychometric properties of the widely used Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ). Methods Test-retest reliability was evaluated in a sample of 66 university students. Data from 791 participants in an online survey of Iranian online gamers were examined to assess convergent validity and construct validity using confirmatory factor analysis. Internal consistency of MOGQ factors was assessed in both samples. Results The item content validity index (I-CVI) and the scale content validity index (S-CVI) were between 0.8 and 1.0 for clarity and relevancy. The test-retest reliability of the 27-item questionnaire was 0.85 and internal consistency was 0.94. After incorporating additional error paths, model fit improved to an acceptable level. The MOGQ factors had acceptable correlations with relevant motivational scales such as Gaming Motivation Scale and Player Experience of Need Satisfaction. Recreation motives had the highest average score in the sample and social ones had the lowest, and males scored higher than females across all motivation domains except escape. Conclusion The MOGQ is a suitable instrument for the assessment of online gaming motivations in the Iranian population.

The mediation effects of gaming motives between game involvement and problematic Internet use: Escapism, advancement and socializing