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Chapter 1: What questions about gaming and VR are addressed in this episode?
This is a Triple J podcast. Hello, welcome back to another episode of Science with Dr. Carl in your podcast feed. My name is Lucy Smith, and if you've been hanging out here for a minute, you might remember back in March, we had an episode called Morning vs Motion Sickness, Sunburnt Eyes and Colourblind Dreams. And in it, we got this question from Nate on the Sunshine Coast.
I've played a lot of video games in my life. In the last three or four years, I've developed motion sickness to some of the video games that I play. I was wondering how to stop doing so.
This led to a whole conversation about video games, motion sickness, VR technology. And we got so many comments and questions off the back of it. We thought, you know what? Why don't we dedicate an entire episode just to this? That's right, this week we are getting into the world of gaming and we've got one of the best in the business.
To answer your questions, Professor Marcus Carter from the University of Sydney, he's a researcher in human-computer interaction focusing on gaming and VR.
Not only are we going to get into the nuts and bolts of some of these games, he's also going to tell you some of his favourites that he's playing for recreation, plus the way that gaming is making its way into other industries like physiotherapy, navigating dyslexia and heaps more. Let's get into it.
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Chapter 2: How does gaming technology relate to physical rehabilitation?
Across from me is Dr Karl and this week we have a very special guest. Because we are getting into the world of video game technology this week. Dr Karl, we've got Professor Marcus Carter with us.
Yes, and he knows all about these games. So what's your area? You're a professor at the University of Sydney and what's this incredibly cushy job that you've managed to land?
I'm a professor of human-computer interaction. So I study how people use computers and how they're designed and I've always focused on games and virtual reality.
Wow. Wow, so that means that if you stay up all night trying to get to the next highest level in the game, you can count that as academic time you've spent, even though it's between midnight and dawn. Yep, that's work and it's tax deductible. Yep. Wow. This is not tax advice. So the worst case I can remember of is something called Windows XP.
Chapter 3: What is 'gamer brain' and how does it affect gameplay?
which came out in 2001. And I was trying to learn how to use a Windows machine. And I tried to work out how to shut it down. And no matter where I looked on the screen, I could not find anything called shutdown. And somebody said, no, you go to the exact opposite of shutdown. Down the bottom left-hand corner, there's an instruction called start.
And so that for you would be suboptimal programming?
That would be. And that's what keeps me in a job, I think.
So, Marcus, let's talk about gaming. Do you remember your first memory of a video game that you played?
Ah, we have to be golden eye on the N64. But for me, I really got into games as a young teen with Halo video games on the Xbox. Wow. Because they were such an important part of my social life because all of my friends played it.
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Chapter 4: How do video games impact social interactions?
And so I moved to Australia when I was 12 and it was kind of through video games that I made my first friends and built some friendships that have lasted the rest of my life.
That's so cool. And so how do you go from playing video games that's a part of your social life to then making a career out of them?
Luck, I guess. Now, just for the audience who doesn't know, is it true that HALO stands for High Altitude Low Insertion? So you drop people out of an aeroplane at very high altitude so they can't be found and they come close to the ground and they come down and kill people.
Not quite. Halo in the Halo video games are ring worlds, like in Larry Niven's science fiction series. I love ring world. Lots of aliens, but still lots of flying down and killing people.
So where do I get the high altitude, low insertion from?
Just the same acronym, different game, and different worlds, I think.
Okay, right.
But yeah, I've just been fortunate enough to be able to do research on different topics around gaming, and that's led to my career at the University of Sydney.
Yeah, you were previously the president of the Digital Games Research Association of Australia.
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Chapter 5: What are the psychological effects of video games on time perception?
What a cushy job.
I know, you sounded, oh, but it's not cushy. Dr. Carl is a lot. I'm jealous. I'm insanely jealous. You founded the Sydney Games and Play Lab at the University of Sydney. What have you been working on in recent years?
So I was recently awarded an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship and I'm looking at the monetization of children in the digital games industry.
Wow.
So, you know, this is a big topic and I know why it's gotten funded as research but, you know, you might not be surprised but very few people actually sit down and ask children why they like to play video games, what they get out of it, why they might want to spend money playing a video game and so that's what my research is doing, trying to uncover children's experiences, give them a voice.
Yeah, Professor Marcus Carter is with us on Triple J. Science with Dr. Carl is what you're listening to, and he is an expert in video game technology, but particularly around VR, about how video games are made. What kind of questions can you answer for us today, Marcus?
Oh, look, I can give anything about video games a go, but I can't promise the answers will be as good as what Dr. Carl normally gives you.
Come on, Marcus.
You know this field backwards.
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Chapter 6: How are video games used in educational settings?
And by the way, when you casually mentioned you got an ARC, Australian Research Council Future Fellowship, that is very difficult to get. So you must be really good at what you do. It's 50% luck. Congratulations. Oh, come on, you're too humble.
If you've got a question about anything we've even just touched on there, 0439757555. Now, this whole segment was inspired by a question we got back in March from Nate on the Sunshine Coast, who, Dr Karl, you might remember, he had a question about feeling nauseous while playing video games and why that happens. We've got Nate joining us now.
Nate, thank you so much for inspiring a whole episode of Science with Dr Karl just by asking one question on the text line. You've got a follow-up question. What do you want to know this morning?
Well, hello. I must say, if I have a very small segment of time, Marcus sounds awesome. I'm going to have to get into this more systematically systems. It's going to be fantastic.
Chapter 7: What are the ethical concerns surrounding gacha mechanics in games?
So realistically, my question, of course, is while I do think that video games are the greatest medium to tell a story and to do all these things that exist in our world, the applications for the future in things like medicine and other technologies and all of these other things are
potentially endless. I was wondering if Marcus had anything to comment on that.
Personally, I can remember a panel, I think it was at PAX a few years ago, and it was about a virtual reality simulation that they had made that simulated dementia.
Wow.
So it was giving it to the nurses and putting them through this process.
Apparently it had like a 90% failure rate, as in the nurses couldn't finish the actual game itself.
Wow. So that's just a real world application that we've seen that technology. Marcus, you know, have you seen any alternate uses for video gaming in science, research?
I mean, there are so many, right? That example is really good because it speaks to the power of video games to put us in someone else's perspective. So whether that's someone who's got dementia, I've seen ones that use games to teach people about different vision impairments and help you understand those. Because when we play a game, what we're doing is we're learning how the game world works.
And so if that game is simulating or depicting something, the act of playing is an act of learning.
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Chapter 8: How can gaming influence children's learning and development?
And then games are then really good at modeling really complicated systems or something like dementia that's kind of really difficult to understand if you don't have that firsthand knowledge. So, yeah, a game I recently got into with the Artemis 2 mission, or I suppose Reid got into, is called Kerbal Space Program. Have you ever heard of this one?
No, nothing. So good.
So Kerbal Space Program is just a rocket simulator. And so you have to build rockets to get them into orbit. And then you unlock new technologies to get the rocket maybe around the moon. And then if you do that, then you've got to try and get to Mars. And so I'm finding myself up at 11pm learning about
Hoffman transfers and not realizing that this game is giving me this like tacit and intuitive understanding of something so complicated to understand that I never would have thought I could start learning just casually.
Yeah, the home and transfer, I think it is, is the minimum energy pathway to get from here to there.
And what am I doing on that Wikipedia page at 11 o'clock at night? I've got two young kids. This is a ridiculous use of my time. But that's the power of video games because they're kind of an engine for motivation to get us to engage with topics that are like maybe more complicated than just really complicated topics.
And such a good thing that's, sorry to interrupt, pardon me, it's the tangential learning, you know, that idea of, oh, I learnt about this thing from this game. Oh, hey, that person's actually a real person or, you know, something of that nature and then learning stuff like that. It's just great with games. Absolutely.
And, you know, I had a lot of experiences going into history class and realising, oh, I know who all of these Greek gods are. I've killed them in a video game. Like it just kind of gives you that baseline comfort and understanding that makes learning really easy.
Hey, Nate, thanks so much for your question.
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