The literature review. The main challenge presented by the literature review was in devising a methodology for efficiently gaining a bird’s eye view of social sciences research on video games and gamification since 2010. The literature review had to be at the same time rapid and systematic, comprehensive while still being manageable. This trade-off influenced all steps of the review. Academic contributions were collected from the Web of Science and Scopus databases using three separate queries targeting, respectively, the psychological, educational, and ethical perspective. Only published papers, papers in press, and books in English were included in the dataset. The large amount of records obtained (N=10290) was analysed using a two-way approach: first, we generated keyword networks for each perspective by considering the co- occurrence of keywords in the papers collected; secondly, the most highly-cited reviews and meta-analyses of the dataset (N=47) were selected for full reading and coding according to a codebook devised for the project. The keyword networks were analysed using clustering, in order to identify the main research lines and trends for each perspective and to ensure that all of them were properly represented in the papers selected for full reading. The reviews and meta-analyses read and coded informed us on the most influential social sciences findings regarding video games. Focusing on reviews and meta-analyses allowed us to obtain a bird’s eye view of the main themes tackled by researchers so far and their diachronic evolution, thus improving our understanding of up to date evidence of social phenomena regarding video games and gamification. Manual coding of the papers selected for full reading supported the analysis and allowed the construction of a dataset articulated in type of games considered, perspective adopted, scope of review, methodological soundness, and stakeholders addressed in recommendations for all contributions considered.
The literature review. The Causes of War Before discussing the literature on audience cost theory and nuclear weapons, it is important to first discuss why states go to war and why states get involved in crises but do not always go to war. The ex post inefficiency of war opens up an ex ante bargaining range where states would prefer to strike a bargain without fighting (Xxxxxx 1995). Yet, the theoretical puzzle is that states still wage war against each other even when they prefer to strike a bargain. The traditional explanation of this phenomenon posits that incomplete information about the other side's capabilities and resolve leads to war (Blainey 1973). Xxxxxx (1995) argues that incomplete information alone does not adequately explain the causes of war; if the asymmetric distribution of information about each side's capability and resolve was the sole cause of conflict, why don't states just exchange information about their willingness and capabilities and let these two factors dictate the bargaining outcome? Private methods of communication are ineffective because states have incentives to misrepresent their capabilities and willingness. Rationalist explanations explicated by Xxxxxx (1995) hold that wars occur due to the combination of private information about states' resolve and capability and their incentives to misrepresent them. Conflict would never occur if each side had complete information about the other’s resolve and capabilities, or if each side had no incentive to misrepresent its resolve and capabilities; settlement is always more efficient ex post under these conditions. Because neither condition is hardly met, establishing credibility of a threat is the central goal of the crisis actors who try to either deter the opponent from taking a certain course of action or compel the opponent to make concessions. Even when there is complete information, however, commitment problems—the fear of defection during implementation of agreement—can lead to war even when both states correctly anticipate each other’s capabilities and resolves.
