Social performance situations, often crucial and expected in today’s work contexts, can be perceived as highly challenging and stressful. Therefore, experiencing anxiety in public speaking situations can have a negative impact on individuals’ working lives and career prospects. Virtual reality environments offer novel means to practise public speaking anywhere, safely and privately, and to replace simulations with more dynamic and innovative training environments unavailable in real-life scenarios. Additionally, these innovative tools and methods could also be used during virtually implemented real-life interactions as working conditions are increasingly shifting towards more technology-mediated forms. This research investigates the potential for a virtual reality height manipulation (i.e. raised or lowered point-of-view) to influence individuals’ self-statements during a stressful speech task and, subsequently, their personal performance evaluation. Results of a strictly controlled, between-subject experiment indicate that participants perceiving themselves taller evaluated their speech performance more positively and experienced fewer negative self-statements during the speech task. Furthermore, perceived tallness was associated with lower levels of public speaking anxiety. These results suggest that even a simple, visual first-person perspective manipulation of virtual reality environment influences individuals’ personal evaluation of their own performance and potentially helps them improve their task-related cognitive processes.

The convergence of gaming and gambling, known as "gamblification", has been a topic of increasing interest in recent years. Loot boxes, i.e., rewards offering randomized content in exchange for money or time, have been a particular focal point. Research has shown links between excessive loot box consumption and problematic consumption behaviors, leading to several attempts to regulate loot boxes. Arguments against regulation have been that loot boxes are conceptually and structurally akin to other unregulated game formats, such as collectible card games. However, this discourse is often without deeper analysis of the mechanics of different products at the center of convergence. Therefore, to add to this knowledge, this article examines the similarities and differences between booster packs in Magic Arena, their physical counterparts in Magic: The Gathering, and loot boxes included in digital games. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which these booster packs compare to loot boxes in terms of consumption patterns, visual appearance, contextual factors, and regulation. Analysis reveals that digital booster packs in Magic Arena differ from both loot boxes and physical card packs, both due to their direct impact on gameplay, and their unique features afforded by the digital environment in which they exist.

Forests are, both culturally and ecologically, one of the most important environments on our planet. As such, there are countless representations of them - with Digital Games being no exception. In this paper we adopt the perspective of ecocriticism, which regards the analysis of the textual portrayal of physical environments of the natural world. In particular, we propose here a framework for the analysis of forest representations in digital games, mindful of the many different layers that coexist together: cultural, discursive, representational and ludic. In order to test our framework and to showcase its potential, in the last section we present a brief analysis of the slicing game Jack Lumber and of the ideological tensions that emerge from the game.

Contemporary digital technologies have facilitated practices related to games whereby users often produce and consume content for free. To date, research into consumer interactions has largely focused on in-game factors, however, the intention to both play the game and to make in-game purchases are influenced by outside factors, including game streams and game-centred communities. In particular, the growth of competitive gaming, known as esports, offers a new channel for consumer engagement. This research explores the potential for esports to be a significant factor in understanding both intentions to play and spend money on games. Our study draws from Motivations Scale of Sports Consumption to empirically investigate the relationship between esports spectating motivations and game consumption: Watching Intention, Gaming Intention, and Purchasing Intention. This survey uses structural equation modelling (SEM) to analyse data collected from a sample of video game players (n = 194). This research contributes empirical evidence of the relationship between esports spectating and game consumption, with the relationship between Watching Intention and Gaming Intention found to be particularly strong. Finally, while the MSSC is an adequate measure for esports spectating, additional aspects specific to esports require further investigation, consequently, there may be more optimal measures which can be developed.