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Towards Suitable Free-to-Play Games for Children

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Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2021 (ICEC 2021)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNISA,volume 13056))

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Abstract

The Free-to-Play model has become popular in the gaming industry during the last decade. Games are offered for free, where additional content can be purchased. Different monetization features are used within Free-to-Play games to generate revenue. These features have been seen as problematic, especially when children are the players. A limited number of studies have highlighted the problem of these games, and little research has looked into the critical factors of Free-to-Play games and children. This research aims to identify the most critical factors towards creating suitable Free-to-Play games for children. We performed an exploratory study with 15 developers of Free-to-Play and/or children’s games and three domain experts. Data was gathered using semi-structured interviews. A thematic analysis was undertaken to analyze the transcribed interviews and discover themes and patterns across our data set to answer the research question adequately. We identified five crucial factors to consider when developing Free-to-Play games for children: 1) exploiting psychological behavior, 2) game play and user interface, 3) choosing features, 4) customize the development process to children, and 5) responsibility.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    www.linkedin.com.

  2. 2.

    www.work-work.no.

  3. 3.

    www.zoom.us.

  4. 4.

    www.qsrinternational.com/nvivo-qualitative-data-analysis-software/about/nvivo.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway

    Andreas Kristiansen Melzer, Anna Kristine Roarsen, Marte Hoff Hagen & Letizia Jaccheri

  2. Department of Computer Science, Trondheim, Norway

    Andreas Kristiansen Melzer, Anna Kristine Roarsen, Marte Hoff Hagen & Letizia Jaccheri

Authors
  1. Andreas Kristiansen Melzer
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  2. Anna Kristine Roarsen
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  3. Marte Hoff Hagen
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  4. Letizia Jaccheri
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Letizia Jaccheri .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Bremer Institut für Produktion und Logistik GmbH (BIBA), Bremen, Germany

    Jannicke Baalsrud Hauge

  2. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Jorge C. S. Cardoso

  3. University of Coimbra, Coimbra, Portugal

    Licínio Roque

  4. Complutense University of Madrid, Madrid, Spain

    Pedro A. Gonzalez-Calero

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Melzer, A.K., Roarsen, A.K., Hagen, M., Jaccheri, L. (2021). Towards Suitable Free-to-Play Games for Children. In: Baalsrud Hauge, J., C. S. Cardoso, J., Roque, L., Gonzalez-Calero, P.A. (eds) Entertainment Computing – ICEC 2021. ICEC 2021. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 13056. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89394-1_20

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-89394-1_20

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-030-89393-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-030-89394-1

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