Month: August 2023

Continuing from the previous post, with my researches (please see bibliography at the end), I am aiming to create an intervention that not only raises awareness about the potential negative impacts of freemium mobile gaming on children and teenagers, but also provides them with alternatives and strategies for healthier social interactions and gaming habits. Here’s a software implementation that could help achieve these goals:

Title: GameWise – Balancing Play and Life

Overview: GameWise is a comprehensive mobile application that combines educational content, virtual reality experiences, and social engagement to help children and teenagers develop a healthier approach to freemium gaming, fostering better social skills and spending habits.

Features:

1. Educational Modules:
   • Interactive educational modules that explain the psychology behind freemium gaming tactics and their potential negative effects.
   • Information about balanced gaming, time management, and recognizing manipulative game design.
   • Strategies for maintaining a healthy balance between gaming and real-life activities.
2. Virtual Reality Simulations:
   • Immersive VR experiences that simulate in-game scenarios with manipulative tactics.
   • Players experience firsthand how these tactics influence their decisions and emotions.
   • Visualize the impact of excessive spending and time commitment on their virtual avatars.
3. Social Interaction Hub:
   • A platform for players to engage with peers who are also using GameWise.
   • Group discussions, forums, and chat rooms for sharing experiences and strategies.
   • Periodic challenges or quests that encourage teamwork and cooperation among users.
4. Real-Life Activity Integration:
   • Integration with local events, clubs, and activities to encourage offline social interactions.
   • Provides suggestions for sports, arts, volunteering, and other activities to diversify interests.
5. Personalized Progress Tracking:
   • Users can set personal goals for gaming time and social interactions.
   • The app tracks progress and provides visual representations of achievements.
   • Rewards for achieving milestones, reinforcing positive behavior changes.
6. Parental Involvement:
   • Dedicated sections for parents to understand their child’s gaming habits and progress.
   • Parent-child challenges or cooperative tasks within the app to encourage joint engagement.
7. Gaming Insights and Reviews:
   • Provides unbiased reviews of popular freemium games, highlighting their monetization tactics.
   • Empowers users to make informed decisions about the games they play.

Implementation Considerations:

• Development Platform: GameWise could be developed for both iOS and Android platforms to reach a wide range of users.
• User Experience (UX): The app’s interface should be user-friendly, intuitive, and visually appealing, especially for the target age group.
• Privacy and Safety: The app should adhere to strict privacy guidelines, especially when dealing with underage users. It should include parental controls and ensure that interactions are safe and moderated.
• Gamification: Implement gamified elements within the app, such as rewards, badges, and challenges, to keep users engaged and motivated.
• Partnerships: Collaborate with schools, community centers, and educational institutions to promote the app and integrate it into educational programs.
• Feedback Mechanism: Regularly gather feedback from users to improve the app’s effectiveness and address any concerns.

By combining educational content, VR experiences, social engagement, and parental involvement, GameWise could effectively address the issues you’ve identified and promote healthier gaming habits and social interactions among children and teenagers.

*note: I have translated the above app concept into Chinese and is currently collecting consented feedbacks from my younger sister and her friends (age 14-16), as well as their parents on how I can implement it in real life.

Logo and Mobile App Mock-ups:

Bibliography:

1. Research on Freemium Games and Monetization Tactics:
   • De Grove, F., Cauberghe, V., & Van Looy, J. (2016). The effect of freemium in mobile gaming on social casino gamers. Computers in Human Behavior, 54, 490-498.
   • Ferguson, C. J., & Garza, A. (2011). Call of (civic) duty: Action games and civic behavior in a large sample of youth. Computers in Human Behavior, 27(2), 770-775.
2. Impact of Mobile Games on Children and Adolescents:
   • Gentile, D. A., & Anderson, C. A. (2003). Violent video games: The effects on youth, and public policy implications. In Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223-254). Sage Publications.
   • Griffiths, M. D., Kuss, D. J., & Ortiz de Gortari, A. B. (2013). Videogames as therapy: An updated selective review of the medical and psychological literature. International Journal of Privacy and Health Information Management (IJPHIM), 1(2), 71-96.
3. VR/AR for Behavior Change and Education:
   • Slater, M., & Sanchez-Vives, M. V. (2016). Enhancing our lives with immersive virtual reality. Frontiers in Robotics and AI, 3, 74.
   • Lee, J. J., & Hammer, J. (2011). Gamification in education: What, how, why bother?. Academic exchange quarterly, 15(2), 146.
4. Promoting Healthy Gaming and Social Interaction:
   • Przybylski, A. K., & Weinstein, N. (2017). A large-scale test of the goldilocks hypothesis: Quantifying the relations between digital-screen use and the mental well-being of adolescents. Psychological Science, 28(2), 204-215.
   • Coyne, S. M., Stockdale, L., Warburton, W., Gentile, D. A., & Yang, C. (2017). “Just one more level”: Identifying and characterizing video game playing patterns in children. Academic Pediatrics, 17(4), 403-409.
5. Parental Involvement in Children’s Gaming:
   • Ferguson, C. J., Rueda, S. M., Cruz, A. M., Ferguson, D. E., Fritz, S., & Smith, S. M. (2011). Violent video games and aggression: Causal relationship or byproduct of family violence and intrinsic violence motivation?. Criminal Justice and Behavior, 38(12), 1275-1298.

Introduction:

My research topic will be focusing on freemium mobile gaming and its impacts on children and teenagers (specifically on how the game developers/ studios design these games to ‘lure’ players to pay a premium in a freemium game, e.g. buy virtual goods & additional functionalities; as well as most mobile multi-player game matching mechanism tend to covertly manipulate player win rates to extend player play time). My focus now is to design an intervention that could reduce negative impacts on the above mentioned minor users or prevent this phenomena from happening.

During my researches in the past month, I have also found that many multiplayer games would promote in-game social features (e.g. multi-player, in game voice chat, rewards for teaming up, etc.) to take advantage of the immaturity of the underage mind with social comparison, and exacerbates the negative drawbacks mentioned above. Which brings deep concern to me as why most gaming companies design games in such ways and how to prevent children from age 8-16 to fall into the unhealthy gaming habit.

Intervention Aspects:

After consideration, I realized that I will need to create valid intervention methods that actualize the following points in order to achieve my goals:

* Emphasize balanced and healthy gaming: through education and promotion, emphasize balanced gaming time and social activities. Remind players to use gaming as a form of entertainment and not as an over-reliance and replacement for real-life social interactions. Encourage them to maintain a balance between gaming time and social time to ensure a healthy lifestyle.

* Encourage real-life social interactions: Encourage players to actively participate in social interactions in real life through education and guidance. Provide them with opportunities to participate in sports, art activities, volunteer work or other social gatherings to enrich their social circles and develop healthy social skills.

* Emphasize teamwork and mutual support: game developers can design game mechanics that emphasize teamwork and mutual support rather than relying solely on individual competition and rewards. Encourage players to achieve game objectives through teamwork and mutual assistance, and provide fair and meaningful team reward mechanisms to encourage social interaction and teamwork.

* Promote parent-child interaction and family time: Encourage parents to participate in games and social interactions with their children to promote parent-child relationships and family unity. This can include family playtime, joint participation in multi-player games, family activities and parent-child conversations. Through active participation and supervision, parents can guide their children in the proper use of play and social functions.

Intervention Concepts:

As for the form of my intervention, I plan to utilize virtual reality and augmented technology in order to show the potential risks of freemium games. With VR/AR technology, I will be able to demonstrate the potential risks and negative impacts of freemium gaming, while at the same time creating a sense of novelty and a sense of crisis in the participants, in order to change their bad gaming habits. Below are two of my intervention concepts.

-Immersive Simulation Experiences: Use virtual reality technology to create an immersive simulated environment that allows participants to personally experience the potential risks and manipulative tactics used in freemium gaming. For example, design a virtual gaming scenario that showcases typical manipulative tactics like reward encouragement, time pressure, and frequent purchase prompts. Through this immersive experience, participants can have a more intuitive understanding of the potential risks and manipulative tactics used in freemium gaming. Through this immersive experience, participants can have a more intuitive understanding of the impact of these manipulative tactics on them.

-Social Interaction and Shared Experiences: Incorporate social interaction and shared experiences into your demonstrations or events to enhance Social Interaction and Shared Experiences: Incorporate social interaction and shared experiences into your demonstrations or events to enhance participant engagement and resonance. For example, set up an experiential area where participants can try out freemium games and engage in conversations and knowledge sharing with other participants. For example, set up an experiential area where participants can try out freemium games and engage in conversations and knowledge sharing with other participants. For example, set up an experiential area where participants can try out freemium games and engage in conversations and knowledge sharing with other participants.