Papers by Andy Boyan
Journal of Gaming and Virtual Worlds, 2015
This research examines relationships regarding moral foundations and moral deci- sions in the Mas... more This research examines relationships regarding moral foundations and moral deci- sions in the Mass Effect video game series. The findings suggest that moral foundation predicts what type of moral decisions a player will make during play. This research reports an online survey (N=138) that asked participants the salience of their moral foundations, along with the moral path, either traditionally heroic (paragon) or traditionally antiheroic (renegade), they chose in their first time playing through the Mass Effect series. The results indicate that moral foundations predict the extent to which game path players choose, but only with regard to the harm/ care moral foundation. These findings are discussed in light of game design and the potential for game designers to use morality as a game mechanic beyond the harm foundation and into realms of more nuanced moral situations in game narratives.
Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in the use of video games for education because... more Recently, there has been a great deal of interest in the use of video games for education because of the high level of engagement of players. This article blends research on game engagement from the media flow perspective with current pedagogical theory to advance 2 core design principles for a model educational game design: model matching and layering.
To better understand the role of sports commentary in perceptions of sports media it is important... more To better understand the role of sports commentary in perceptions of sports media it is important to understand how sports situations are perceived at a baseline level prior to the addition of media content. Several bodies of literature suggest that sports have a special cognitive domain that leads to different perceptions of sports situations versus nonsports situations (e.g. Suits, 1978; Bredemeier, 1985). The present study examines this special domain from a social exchange approach to sports message contexts, where written contexts serve as an induction that elicit a cheating detection algorithm that produces a higher score on a logic task. This paper reports an original online experiment (N = 184) with an off-line post-hoc replication. The experiment varied the written social exchange message context and compared scores in a conditional logic task. The social exchange context in a sports media scenario produced a cheating detection response predicted by social exchange theory, but with a novel pattern of the effect compared to traditional social exchange findings. Results are discussed in light of future work in sports commentary and athlete deviance research.
Mass Effect as a case study to understand the influence of players' moral intuitions on adherence... more Mass Effect as a case study to understand the influence of players' moral intuitions on adherence to hero or antihero play styles ABstrAct This research examines relationships regarding moral foundations and moral decisions in the Mass Effect video game series. The findings suggest that moral foundation predicts what type of moral decisions a player will make during play. This research reports an online survey (N=138) that asked participants the salience of their moral foundations, along with the moral path, either traditionally heroic (paragon) or traditionally antiheroic (renegade), they chose in their first time playing through the Mass Effect series. The results indicate that moral foundations predict the extent to which game path players choose, but only with regard to the harm/ care moral foundation. These findings are discussed in light of game design and the potential for game designers to use morality as a game mechanic beyond the harm foundation and into realms of more nuanced moral situations in game narratives.
Journal Articles by Andy Boyan
Media and Communication, 2018
The primary aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive review and elaboration of model mat... more The primary aim of this article is to provide a comprehensive review and elaboration of model matching and its theoretical propositions. Model matching explains and predicts individuals' outcomes related to gameplay by focusing on the interrelationships among games' systems of mechanics, relevant situations external to the game, and players' mental models. Formalizing model matching theory in this way provides researchers a unified explanation for game-based learning, game performance, and related gameplay outcomes while also providing a theory-based direction for advancing the study of games more broadly. The propositions explicated in this article are intended to serve as the primary tenets of model matching theory. Considerations for how these propositions may be tested in future games studies research are discussed.
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Papers by Andy Boyan
Journal Articles by Andy Boyan