Striving for balance: A look at gameplay requirements of massively multiplayer online role-playing games

Abstract

Engineering gameplay requirements is the most important task for game development organizations. Game industry discourse is concerned with continuous redesign of gameplay to enhance players' experience and boost game's appeal. However, accounts of gameplay requirements practices are rare. In responding to calls for more research into gameplay requirements engineering, we performed an exploratory study in the context of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), from the perspective of practitioners involved in the field. Sixteen practitioners from three leading MMORPG-producing companies were interviewed and their gameplay requirements documents were reviewed. Interviewing and qualitative data analysis occurred in a cyclical process with results at each stage of the study informing decisions about data collection and analysis in the next. The analysis revealed a process of striving to reach a balance among three perspectives of gameplay requirements: a process perspective, an artifact perspective and a player-designer relationship perspective. This balance-driven process is co-created by game developers and players, is endless within the MMORPG, and is happening both in-game and off-game. It heavily relies on 'paper-prototyping' and play-testing for the purpose of gameplay requirements validation. The study concludes with discussion on validity threats and on implications for requirements engineering research, practice and education.