Game Design Experience Research Articles

Study on the influence factors of college students’ loyalty in PUBG game

In view of the consumption potential of students to the game, the survey collected 119 validated questionnaires by questionnaires method to explore the influences of game loyalty. The results show that the consumer’s social experience and the operator’s game design are both promoting their loyalty. Among them, trust has some intermediary effect on the influence of game design and social experience on game loyalty. In addition, gender plays a significant role in the relationship between trust and loyalty, that is, the more the trust of women in teammates and game operators, the more their loyalty on the game. Furthermore, women have a stronger influence on this aspect than men.

EngageMon

Understanding the engagement levels players have with a game is a useful proxy for evaluating the game design and user experience. This is particularly important for mobile games as an alternative game is always just an easy download away. However, engagement is a subjective concept and usually requires fine-grained highly disruptive interviews or surveys to determine accurately. In this paper, we present EngageMon, a first-of-its-kind system that uses a combination of sensors from the smartphone (touch events), a wristband (photoplethysmography and electrodermal activity sensor readings), and an external depth camera (skeletal motion information) to accurately determine the engagement level of a mobile game player. Our design was guided by feedback obtained from interviewing 22 mobile game developers, testers, and designers. We evaluated EngageMon using data collected from 64 participants (54 in a lab-setting study and another 10 in a more natural setting study) playing six games from three different categories including endless runner, 3D motorcycle racing, and casual puzzle. Using all three sets of sensors, EngageMon was able to achieve an average accuracy of 85% and 77% under cross-sample and cross-subject evaluations respectively. Overall, EngageMon can accurately determine the engagement level of mobiles users while they are actively playing a game.

Gamification, What Is It and How Can It Be Used In Health Outcomes Research?

Gamification is a novel approach which aims at applying elements from game design to other contexts. This method seeks to improve user experience and increase engagement, with medium to long-term benefits on behavior. So far gamification has been successfully applied to Business, e-Learning and Marketing, and starts attracting more and more attention in e-Health. The aim of this paper is to introduce theoretical aspects on gamification and its possible impact on wellness and health-related context. By providing real-world example of how it is currently applied in health, we will showcase the means and methods that can increase patients and health professionals’ fun, engagement, and communication. Motivation plays a key role when engaging into a brand new activity in autonomy for a recurring amount of time (intrinsic motivation vs extrinsic motivation). There is a wide variety of elements related to motivation affordances (e.g., points, leaderboards, feedback), however to be effective they must address the social situation of gameplay as well as the specificity of each health context. Platform of implementation for gamification is a non-negligible aspect as some of them may be more effective mediums for delivering health interventions. Limitations will be reviewed and we will provide suggestions so that future initiative may avoid known pitfalls. Gamification is growing on a fertile soil with the widespread of digital platform in the population (e.g., smartphones, tablets, and computers) and current technologies used in medical care for assessment and monitoring (e.g., ePRO, online questionnaires, wearable devices). Current applications in e-Health have been proved to provide short-term engagement through extrinsic rewards, but the long-term potential of gamification remains to be explored. Solutions must be sought from existing psychology theories and game design experience.

Gamedec. UKW in IGDA Curriculum Framework

Launched in October 2013, GAMEDEC: game studies & Design is a specialisation track within the 2nd Gen Humanities (aka Humanities 2.0) 3-year BA programme at Kazimierz Wielki University (UKW) in Bydgoszcz, Poland. The curriculum was created by UKW academic staff with game design experience, guided by the IGDA 2008 Framework and consulted with game dev professionals. It underwent slight modifications in 2014 and a significant transformation in 2015. This paper aims at a thorough analysis of the structure of the curriculum as seen through the lens of the IGDA Framework (2008), including the coverage of both Core Topics and Institutional Considerations. The analysis is conducted in the context of foreign (mostly U.S.- based) game degrees and supported with comments on its design, implementation and modifications.

Children's emotions and quality of products in participatory game design

The paper presents an empirical study centred on a participatory game design activity with 810 years old primary-school children, split in different sessions. The study assesses how children perform in game design and whether they are engaged in design tasks. To this end, the study gathers data concerning the quality of children's game design products, regarded as indicators of children's performance in game design. It collects data concerning children's emotions, which are taken as indicators of their engagement in game design. The paper statistically analyses and discusses how emotions and quality of products evolve across the game design experience, and how emotions are related to children's quality of products. Results of this work can help researchers, educators and practitioners manage a complex design experience with and for children, and identify key emotions for promoting quality of design work. The paper discusses children's performance and engagement in participatory game design.It presents a participatory game design study with 810 year olds.The study assesses children's emotions, for engagement, and product- quality, for performance.The study analyses their correlations, and interpret results with observation data.The paper concludes with implications of the study for participatory game design.

The Effects of Game Design Experience on Teachers’ Attitudes and Perceptions regarding the Use of Digital Games in the Classroom

Researchers have investigated how gameplay and other related activities influence teachers’ attitudes toward and perceptions of games or game-based learning. Taking one step further, this study was conducted to investigate how game design experience influences teachers’ attitudes toward and perceptions of the use of digital games in the classroom and teacher involvement in educational game design. Fifty teachers participated in the study. Both quantitative and qualitative data were collected from pre- and post-surveys. The results revealed that the game design experience had a positive influence on the participants’ attitudes, self-efficacy, and perceptions regarding the use of digital games in the classroom. They realized that digital games could help students develop higher-order thinking skills and 21st century skills beyond making learning fun and engaging. After the game design experience, all participants believed that teachers should be involved in the process of educational game design.

A case study of educational computer game design by middle school students

Only a limited number of research studies have investigated how students design educational computer games and its impact on student learning. In addition, most studies on educational game design by students were conducted in the areas of mathematics and science. Using the qualitative case study approach, this study explored how seventh graders created their own computer games on the topic of the containment of communism and what they learned from the game design and playtesting processes. This study also examined the impact of the game design experience on the students’ interest and motivation. Twelve students, eight boys and four girls, participated in the study. Qualitative data were collected from multiple data sources, including classroom observations, participants’ games, playtest feedback forms, reflection sheets, and interviews. The results showed that most students were highly engaged in the game design task. They used their sprites creatively to create objects or environments related to the historical events. The game design project enabled the students to experience what it is like to be a game designer. The students learned the value of diverse perspectives from the playtesting and feedback process. They also learned to consider the player’s perspective when designing a game. The game design experience motivated several students to learn more about game design or programming.

A Model of Leadership Behavior in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games

Based on self-monitoring theory, this study integrates the constructs of group climate, game design, leadership self-efficacy, and leadership experiences to investigate leadership behavior in MMORPGs. The authors adopted questionnaires (138 samples) as a means to observe leadership behaviors in MMORPGs. The research results show that group climate, game design and leadership self-efficacy have a positive influence on leadership. From a theoretical viewpoint, the authors' studies confirm that leaders adjust and control their behavior according to what kind of group climate they perceive, how confidently they act as leaders and what functions are provided by the online game system. A practical implication of this study is that MMORPGs provide an opportunity for players to effectively and quickly learn leadership skills. The authors suggest that leaders who are lacking in social skills initiate social interactions with others on MMORPGs; this can help them develop leadership self-efficacy or manage their team through effective game designs.

The expressive power of the Possible Worlds Theory in video games: when narratives become interactive and fictional spaces

The philosophical concept of possible worlds (Lenzen, 2004; Lewis, 1986) has been used in literary studies and narratology (Dolezel, 1998; Eco, 1979) to define the way in which we conceive different narrative possibilities inside the fictional world. In Game Studies, some authors have used this concept to explore the relationship between game design and game experience (Kücklich, 2003; Maietti, 2004; Ryan, 2006), while Jesper Juul (2005) has studied the fictional world evoked by the connection between rules and fiction. In this paper we propose a new approach to video games as ludofictional worlds - a set of possible worlds which generates a game space based on the relationship between fiction and game rules. In accordance with the concepts of minimal departure (Ryan, 1991) and indexical term (Lewis, 1986), the position of the player character determines his/her actual world and the next possible or necessary world. Lastly, we use this model to analyse the video game The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and show that the possible worlds perspective provides a useful, flexible and modular framework for describing the internal connections between ludofictional worlds and the interactive nature of playable game spaces.

Achievement Emotions and Peer Acceptance Get Together in Game Design at School

This paper presents a game design experience in primary schools, with children creating game design ideas and prototypes. Children were organized in cooperative groups. Game design tasks were organized following gamification principles, with ad-hoc gamified material. Cooperative learning and gamification served to elicit emotions and social inclusion. This paper measures them as follows. It operationalizes social inclusion with peer acceptance in three different social contexts, measured before and after the game design activity. It tracks achievement emotions experienced during game design at school. Then the paper examines the relationships between achievement emotions and peer acceptance. In this manner, it tackles an open problem in the literature concerning the links between emotions and social well-being in a game design experience. Path analyses indicate that, respectively for received choices and mutual friendships, positive emotions played a significant role in improving children’s social relations, and negative emotions were associated with a significant deterioration of social relations, but only for the extra-school leisure context. The paper concludes assessing the study limits and results in relation to game design with and for children.

Fostering participation through ubiquitous media in pervasive performance

Abstract This article reflects on Chain Reaction (2009 and 2011), a mixed performance combining ubiquitous media with performance conventions and experimental game design. It explores the ways in which ubiquitous media were used to foster participants’ creative expression and how these strategies impacted performance conventions of spectatorship and participation. By combining performance, game and ubiquitous media in public space, it is claimed that Chain Reaction enables spectators to cross conventional thresholds and experience different participatory roles during one and the same event, going from spectator, to (performative) player, to theatre actor and to documentalist. In this way, ubiquitous media are vital to developing a performance genre that seeks to empower the cultural participant.

Experiential documentation in pervasive performance: the democratization of the archive

The use of digital media has impacted both contemporary performance practices and performance documentation strategies. ‘Pervasive performance’ is an emergent genre born out of the convergence of the fields of ubiquitous computing, experimental game design and performance. This genre can be defined as mixed-media events that combine gameplay with performance and are used as a platform for potential collaborative art-making in public spaces. Pervasive performances engage audiences in massive participatory events that use the city as playground and its fabrics as material for play. This genre poses numerous challenges to performance documentation due to its participatory, mobile and distributed nature. First, it forces the creation of alternative strategies for performance capture (collection of material) outside the theatre house of multiple and mobile subjects. Second, it implies a change of paradigm from documenting objects to documenting experiences. My experience documenting the case study of Chain Reaction in 2011 to propose alternative solutions to these challenges is used to discuss the value of such collaborative archives. My hypothesis is that in a situation where participants are increasingly documenting their own actions across platforms in the mediasphere, practitioners can foster the transformation of the participant into documenter as part of the cultural event through game design strategies. This way, the inclusion of the ordinary person in the archive brings us closer to democratic culture and an empowerment of the cultural agent.

Creative thinking in digital game design and development: A case study

In a case study on middle-school student educational game creation course in south central US state, the students' creative thinking process is investigated in order to understand perceptions of the digital design and programming involved in the game creation learning approach. Interviewing 12 students at with three different levels of game design experience, students in grade 6, 7 and 8, with 1, 2, and 3 years of game design experience respectively, findings suggest that students enjoyed the learning approach as satisfying and engaging, yet technologically challenging. The students experienced positive opportunities for engaging the creative thinking process in synthesizing social issue information for constructing their understanding through the creation of interactive, educational digital games. Findings suggest that the creative thinking process in student-centered game creation learning approach may provide learners a rich and enjoyable learning experience with the authentic technology use as well as provide for deep, insightful learning.

Understanding enactivism: a study of affordances and constraints of engaging practicing teachers as digital game designers

This study is intended to deepen our understanding of enactivism, an emergent theoretical paradigm, through empirical exploration of teacher undertakings as digital game creators. Specifically, it explores the affordances and constraints, two important enactivism concepts, of practicing teachers’ experiences in designing and developing games for instructional purposes. This paper is guided by the following questions: what were the affordances perceived by the teachers in their design and building experience, and how did they enact to these affordances? What constraints presented challenges to teachers in the process? This is a case study focusing on capturing and interpreting teachers’ experiences and thinking resulting from game creation and sharing. Data are collected from practicing teachers who enrolled in a graduate course. A significant finding of this study is that the game design and building experience afforded opportunities for teachers to re-conceptualize pedagogy and teaching practice. Implications for design and limitations of the study are also discussed.

Effects of Playing a History-Simulation Game

Studies on game-based learning usually investigate at least one of three subjects: the effects of gaming on learning performance, the effects of gaming on cognitive skills and attitudes, and learners’ game-design experiences. Whether gaming relates positively to learning outcomes is still under investigation. This study examines the components contributing to the development of a literate game player and how players could cognitively grasp the design of a game scenario based on real history (namely, the game Romance of the Three Kingdoms). This study surveyed 497 participants in Taiwan on their knowledge of Chinese history (the Three Kingdoms period). The participants constituted two groups: participants who had years of gaming experience and participants who did not. The study examined test performance by using an independent sample t-test and one-way ANOVA and Pearson-correlation methods. The results revealed that the game players were more knowledgeable about the history of the Three Kingdoms period, had greater motivation to learn history, and were more motivated to learn history by playing the game than was the case with the non-game players.

Moving thoughts: Theoretical considerations for action-cognition couplings during infancy

In a case study on middle-school student educational game creation course in south central US state, the students' creative thinking process is investigated in order to understand perceptions of the digital design and programming involved in the game creation learning approach. Interviewing 12 students at with three different levels of game design experience, students in grade 6, 7 and 8, with 1, 2, and 3 years of game design experience respectively, findings suggest that students enjoyed the learning approach as satisfying and engaging, yet technologically challenging. The students experienced positive opportunities for engaging the creative thinking process in synthesizing social issue information for constructing their understanding through the creation of interactive, educational digital games. Findings suggest that the creative thinking process in student-centered game creation learning approach may provide learners a rich and enjoyable learning experience with the authentic technology use as well as provide for deep, insightful learning.