Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis <s> 18 <s> It is relatively stress-free to write about computer games as nothing too much has been said yet, and almost anything goes. The situation is pretty much the same when it comes to writing about games and gaming in general. The sad fact with alarming cumulative consequences is that they are under-theorized; there are Huizinga, Caillois and Ehrmann of course, and libraries full of board game studies,in addition to game theory and bits and pieces of philosophy – most notably those of Wittgenstein – but they won't get us very far with computer games. So if there already is or soon will be a legitimate field for computer game studies, this field is also very open to intrusions and colonisations from the already organized scholarly tribes. Resisting and beating them is the goal of our first survival game in this paper, as what these emerging studies need is independence, or at least relative independence. <s> BIB001 </s> Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis <s> 18 <s> This article discusses the viability of the open-ended game classification model described in “A Multi Dimensional Typology of Games.” The perspectives of such a model is discussed with emphasis on how a structural theory of games can contribute to game design and the development of formal and semiformal game design methods, such as Game Design Patterns. <s> BIB002 </s> Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis <s> 18 <s> The Game Ontology Project (GOP) is creating a framework for describing, analyzing and studying games, by defining a hierarchy of concepts abstracted from an analysis of many specific games. GOP borrows concepts and methods from prototype theory as well as grounded theory to achieve a framework that is always growing and changing as ne w games are analyzed or particular research questions are explored. The top level of the ontolo gy (interface, rules, goals, entities, and entity manipulation) is described as well as a part icular ontological entry. Finally, by engaging in three short discussions centered on relevant games studies research questions, the ontology’s utility is demonstrated. <s> BIB003 </s> Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis <s> 18 <s> Time in computer games is not singular. Time in the game world may progress at a different rate to the real world time of the player. Game time may be non-linear, as previous saved games or checkpoints are reloaded. This paper presents a model aimed at understanding time in relation to the play of computer games. Various ways of looking at time in computer games are presented, including from the point of view of the player, game progress and chronological game world time. Both linear and non-linear representations of time are included in the model, as is the mapping between the views. <s> BIB004 </s> Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis <s> 18 <s> On the surface, it seems like teaching about games should be easy. After all, students are highly motivated, enjoy engaging with course content, and have extensive personal experience with videogames. Games education in reality is surprisingly complex. In game classes, students are often asked to reflect, generalize, and articulate their understanding of games as they play and analyze them. Educational research suggests that these tasks are particularly challenging for students. We report on the use of GameLog, an online blogging environment for supporting reflection on gameplaying experiences. GameLog differs from traditional blogging environments because each user maintains multiple parallel blogs, with each blog devoted to a single game. GameLog was used in two university level games-related classes. Our results indicate students perceived writing GameLogs as a positive learning experience for three reasons. First, it improved their relationship with videogames as a medium. Second, it helped them broaden and deepen their understanding of videogames. Third, it provided a vehicle for expression, communication, and collaboration. Students found that by reflecting on their experiences playing games they began to understand how game design elements helped shape that experience. Most importantly, they stepped back from their traditional role of "gamers" or "fans" and engaged in reasoning critically and analytically about the games they were studying. Our analysis of the students' GameLog entries supports the students' perceptions. We identified six common styles of entry: overview, narrative, comparative analysis, plan/hypothesis, experiment, and insight/analysis. These styles align with practices necessary for supporting learning and understanding. We propose that blogging about gameplay experience, as a reflective writing activity, can help lay the foundations on which further learning and understanding of games can happen. <s> BIB005 </s> Time in Video Games: A Survey and Analysis <s> 18 <s> Temporal trajectories can represent the complex mappings between story time and clock time that are to be found in shared interactive narratives such as computer games and interactive performances. There are three kinds. Canonical trajectories express an author's intended mapping of story time onto clock time as part of the plot and schedule of an experience. Participant trajectories reflect a participant's actual journey through story time and clock time as they interact with the experience. Historic trajectories represent the subsequent selection and reuse of segments of recorded participant trajectories to create histories of past events. We show how temporal trajectories help us analyse the nature of time in existing experiences and can also generate new approaches to dealing with temporal issues such as: disengagement and reengagement, adapting to different paces of interaction, synchronising different participants, and enabling encounters and travel across time. <s> BIB006
Simulation & Gaming XX(X) temporal structuring than cinema or live theater  . The player and his or her actions play a crucial role in realizing the temporality in a video game, and the sense of experienced time is determined by the actions carried by the player together with the events enacted by the controlling program  . Other authors have examined ways in which time playing a game relates to the events in a game BIB006  BIB001  . BIB002 identify two temporal metacategories, External Time and Internal Time, roughly corresponding to our real-world and gameworld temporal frames (some of their categories refer to the interaction between these frames). External Time has two categories, Teleology and Representation. Teleology is either finite (game ends at a specific time or after a specific duration) or infinite (game can go on forever). We handle this in our coordination frame, which explicitly deals with rule-based temporal subdivisions and limits. The Representation category can take on the value mimetic (time represented as flowing "the way time would pass in our physical world") or arbitrary (it is not). For us, time representation issues would primarily be addressed by the fictive frame (the various ontological categories in the fictive frame) and by analyzing interactions between gameworld, real-world, and fictive time. Elverdam and Aarseth's Internal Time identifies three categories: Haste, Synchronicity, and Interval Control. Haste corresponds to our category of Liveliness and Synchronicity to Turn taking. We have no single ontological category of Interval Control; however, these notions (do players determine when the next game cycle will commence?) are distributed over several ontological categories in coordination time. Our analysis of the "real-time" versus "turnbased" distinction (treated as the interaction between temporal frames) introduces the concepts of availability and immediacy, which are implicit in Elverdam and Aarseth's categories. Finally, two high-level differences in our approaches are our use of temporal frames as a unifying theoretical framework and our use of descriptive categories with central and peripheral members (strong and weak examples) rather than analytic dimensions that take on a small number of discrete values.  focus on understanding temporality in multiplayer RPGs (paper and pencil, live action, computer based, and online). Their analysis builds on earlier work BIB004 and is informed by empirical studies of groups playing paper and pencil RPGs and NEVERWINTER NIGHTS (2002) . Although we also develop our analytic categories in a bottom-up data-driven way, methodologically we differ in that, rather than developing categories to explain distinctions seen in a specific set of play sessions, we make use of our own play experiences, field notes of sessions of game-playing activity (e.g., BIB005 , and documents associated with games, such as manuals, reviews, and screenshots (see BIB003 . Each method has its own strengths and weaknesses. Our approach allows us to survey a larger range of games and temporal phenomena, while using detailed transcripts game playing situations can capture the fine details of player experience, particularly the perception of the passage of time. Tychsen and Hitchens (2009) define seven temporal categories (what we would call temporal frames): playing time, engine time, server time, progress time, world time, and perceived time. Playing time defines the boundaries of play sessions in terms of real-world clock time. Our real-world frame accounts for the duration of play sessions but is broader because it also considers relationships between labeled real-world events and durations and other temporal frames. Engine time is defined as the chronological real-world time in which the game engine executes and is primarily used to define game sessions. Engine time and playing time are typically identical, although subtle differences can be found. For example, when a player saves a game, a break occurs in playing time but engine time continues. In terms of our definition of temporal frames, engine time does not seem to form a well-defined frame, because a specific set of events whose relations define engine time is not described. We could define engine time in terms of computational events allowing us to characterize phenomena such as slowdown. Server time is defined as the chronological real-world time during which the server operates. It can be useful to define analytic categories to account for the client/server distinction. However, server time is defined purely in terms of clock-time durations and thus does not constitute a full-fledged temporal frame. It could be defined in terms of computational and networking events taking place on the server. This would then provide a basis for explaining player-perceivable phenomena such as server lag or temporary inconsistencies in game state across players. Temporal frames defined by sets of events taking place in the underlying technology are most useful for describing "breakdowns"-situations in which technical issues break through into the player's experience. The next three types of time, progress, story, and world time, are defined in terms of logical events related by temporal relationships (e.g., happens before, happens after), rather than chronological durations, and are thus most like our temporal frames. These times are nonlinear and can branch as a function of player action (e.g., loading a save point branches from a previous game state). We address such phenomena in our analysis of time as gameplay. Progress time defines progressions of the underlying mechanics and task progressions the player is trying to achieve. We include progressions of abstract gameplay actions as part of gameworld time. Gameworld time may also be broken out into multiple subframes, such as embedded or overlapping frames. Separating abstract gameplay events from events associated with a represented world is useful for certain kinds of analyses. In our framework, temporal frames can be defined as needed by isolating a subset of events and their relationships. The granularity of subset formation is a function of the kind of analysis desired, particularly in terms of relationships between frames. Story time is a subset of our fictive time, specifically the subset concerned with narrative progression. World time includes some elements of fictive time (such as turns in a game corresponding to the number of real-world days) and some elements of gameworld time (such as day-night cycles). We chose to separate these as fictive time explicitly leverages out-of-game temporal schema to establish a fictional world, while gameworld time is characterized by progressions and cycles that are self-sufficient within the gameworld. Tyschen and Hitchens's (2009) final category, perceived time, is defined to stand in for the player's subjective perception of the passage of time. They found variations in player perceptions of gameworld events despite fairly concrete descriptions by the game master. Within their framework, all players have different event sequences, durations and relationships in their heads. We do not currently have a temporal frame that accounts for player perceptions across multiplayer games. We could interview players to find out their model of the event structure and then define player-specific frames in terms of these events. However, a predictive model of perceived time would be more satisfying.  argues that a divide exists between structuralist accounts of game time that analyze relationships between temporal frames and experiential accounts of time that describe the affective relationship to changing game state. Nitsche suggests that the relationship between perceived space and time may provide a useful framework for bridging this gap. Spatial design in games may be key for influencing the perception of time. In fact, architectural space is already understood as time dependent: A viewer cannot experience a building as a whole but, rather, builds a model based on a temporal progression of smaller spatial situations. This architectural dualism between time and space can be exploited for understanding player's perception of time. Finally, Lainema (2008) examines time in business simulation games. Lainema is concerned that the majority of business games employ a batch-processing (turn-based) model in which participants make cyclic decisions in the context of a static game state. He worries that theories about the role of time in management and organization theory are underdeveloped, providing little leverage for moving beyond the batch-processing model. Lainema provides a theoretical framework for solving this. He identifies three temporal categories: mapping activities to time, analyzing the functional role of time, and analyzing dimensions of temporality. Activity mapping places activities on a timeline and focuses on single activity mapping (scheduling), repeated activity mapping (rhythm, cycles), single activity transformational mapping (qualitative transforms to the temporal process, such as increasing pace of events as a deadline looms), and multiple activity mapping (sequencing and overlap of heterogeneous activities). In terms of the temporal frames described in this article, activity mapping focuses on within-frame phenomena rather than phenomena across multiple temporal frames (other than simple durational relationships to the real-world frame). Of the within-frame phenomena described, single activity transformational mapping is not explicitly identified and can be usefully added to our framework. Similarly, the dimensions of temporality-sequencing, deadline, cycle, rhythm, duration, and temporal location-are primarily within-frame phenomena we account for in our framework. The functional role of time refers to whether time is seen as an independent or dependent variable, that is, whether it is viewed as something that affects organizational processes (e.g., time pressure effecting processes) or whether organizational processes influence the perception of time (such as variations in time horizon as a function of organizational location). This functional view of time cannot be fully accounted for in the current temporal frames model without fleshing out a cognitive frame. Lainema (2008) argues that batch-based business games fail to account for the richness and variation described by these three organizational temporal classifications and that a move toward real-time business games is crucial for training that approximates the complexity of real-world decision situations. The temporal frames theory we present can provide guidance for business gaming in a number of ways. First, a temporal frames analysis shows the richness of phenomena that can be accounted for through complex relationships between frames. Although within-frame categories are necessary in providing the atomic relationships of temporal theories, it is the cross-frame analyses that provide theoretical richness. This could be harnessed through a temporal frames analysis of organizations, without reference to business games, and could provide a useful theoretical lens for analyzing time in organizations. All that is needed for defining a temporal frame is identifying a set of events and defining the relationships between those events. Thus, one could define a "sales" temporal frame in terms of events relevant to the sales department, a "research" frame associated with events in the R&D department, an "accounting" frame, and so on (frames do not necessarily have to line up with organizational departments). Analyzing relationships and temporal anomalies between these frames could shed light on organizational processes that within-frame analyses cannot capture. Second, by providing a more nuanced model of the turn-based versus real-time distinction in games, our model opens the design space for moving away from batch-based business simulation. Third, by accounting for a wide range of temporal phenomena in contemporary video games, we provide future business game designers with many design options for representing business processes in game form.