Romance in Games: What It Is, How It Is, and How Developers Can Improve It
This project extends my first “Romance in Games” survey, seeking to be of assistance to developers who produce romance content in their games, resulting in richer gaming experiences for a wider audience. I have sought information about market readiness for LGBT romance content in games, how the audience defines “romance games,” what people’s definition of “satisfying game romance” is and how well developers are living up to that definition, as well as what developers can do to make game romance more satisfying for players. This survey consisted of four sections: basic demographics, general gaming preferences, the nature of romance in games, and satisfaction with romance in games. The preliminary findings are that straight audiences are ready for—and queer audiences crave—more LGBT romance content in single-player role-playing games (RPGs); that BioWare warrants and deserves a prominent position in any critical discussion of romance in single-player RPGs; and that there are tangible reasons why customers might not find game romances satisfying, although these problems are reparable. The end suggestion, recognizing that there is much more to be gleaned from this data set, is that wider research be conducted about these matters with proper funding and staffing by researchers.
Attitudes vs. Actions
By definition, a social attitude is a behavior pattern, anticipatory set or tendency, predisposition to specific adjustment to designated social situations, or, more simply, a conditioned response to social stimuli. Terminological usage differs, but students who have concerned themselves with attitudes apparently agree that they are acquired out of social experience and provide the individual organism with some degree of preparation to adjust, in a well-defined way, to certain types of social situations if and when these situations arise. It would seem, therefore, that the totality of the social attitudes of a single individual would include all his socially acquired personality which is involved in the making of adjustments to other human beings. But by derivation social attitudes are seldom more than a verbal response to a symbolic situation. For the conventional method of measuring social attitudes is to ask questions (usually in writing) which demand a verbal adjustment to an entirely symbolic situation. Because it is easy, cheap, and mechanical, the attitudinal questionnaire is rapidly becoming a major method of sociological and socio-psychological investigation. The technique is simple. Thus from a hundred or a thousand responses to the question ‘‘Would you get up to give an Armenian woman your seat in a street car?’’ the investigator derives the ‘‘attitude’’ of non-Armenian males towards Armenian females. Now the question may be constructed with elaborate skill and hidden with consummate cunning in a maze of supplementary or even irrelevant questions yet all that has been obtained is a symbolic response to a symbolic situation. The words ‘‘Armenian woman’’ do not constitute an Armenian woman of flesh and blood, who might be tall or squat, fat or thin, old or young, well or poorly dressed – who might, in fact, be a goddess or just another old and dirty hag. And the questionnaire response, whether it be ‘‘yes’’ or ‘‘no’’, is but a verbal reaction and this does not involve rising from the seat or stolidly avoiding the hurt eyes of the hypothetical woman and the derogatory states of other street-car occupants. Yet, ignoring these limitations, the diligent investigator will jump briskly from his factual evidence to the unwarranted conclusion that he has measured the ‘‘anticipatory behavior patterns’’ of non-Armenian males towards Armenian females encountered on street cars. Usually he does not stop here, but proceeds to deduce certain general conclusions regarding the social relationships between Armenians and non-Armenians. Most of us have applied the questionnaire technique with greater caution, but not I fear with any greater certainty of success. Some years ago I endeavoured to obtain comparative data on the degree of French and English antipathy towards dark-skinned peoples. The informal questionnaire technique was used, but, although the responses so obtained were exceedingly consistent, I supplemented them with what I then considered an index to overt behavior. The hypothesis as then stated seemed entirely logical. ‘‘Whatever our attitude on the validity of ‘verbalization’ may be, it must be recognized that any study of attitudes through direct questioning is open to serious objection, both because of the limitations of the sampling method and because in classifying attitudes the inaccuracy of human judgment is an inevitable variable. In this study, however, there is corroborating evidence on these attitudes in the policies adopted by hotel proprietors. Nothing could be used as a more accurate index of color prejudice than the admission or non-admission of colored people to hotels. For the proprietor must reflect the group attitude in his policy regardless of his own feelings in the matter. Since he determines what the group attitude is towards Negroes through the expression of that attitude in overt behavior and over a long period of actual experience, the results will be exceptionally free from those disturbing factors which inevitably affect the effort to study attitudes by direct questioning.’’ But at that time I overlooked the fact that what I was obtaining from the hotel proprietors was still a ‘‘verbalized’’ reaction to a symbolic situation. The response to a Negro’s request for lodgings might have been an excellent index of the attitude of hotel patrons towards living in the same hotel as a Negro. Yet to ask the proprietor ‘‘Do you permit members of the Negro race to stay here?’’ does not, it appears, measure his potential response to an actual Negro. From SOCIAL FORCES, volume 13, No. 2. Copyright 1934 by the University of North Carolina Press. Used by permission of the publisher, www.uncpress.edu Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the International Epidemiological Association
Design of a Ceiling Glass Installation Robot
Building materials and components are much larger and heavier than many industrial materials. Ceiling glass is a type of building material for interior finishing. The demand for larger ceiling glass has increased along with the number of high-rise buildings and an increased interest in interior design. The objective of the study is to introduce robotic technology for installing ceiling glass on construction site. Robotically installed ceiling glass is receiving special attention because of the difficulties in moving to high installation positions and handling fragile building materials. Below, we describe the design of a ceiling glass installation robot. After analyzing a target project, we establish a design concept for a proposed robot. Finally, we describe the detailed design of the robot.