Game Research Research Articles

PACMHCI V8, CHI PLAY, October 2024 Editorial

We are excited to present PACM HCI's 2024 issue on games and play research, which contains 63 original and highly relevant articles covering the entire spectrum of HCI games research. As in the previous year, we used three recommendations ' 'Accept with Minor Revisions', 'Revise and Resubmit', and 'Reject.' For papers that were accepted with minor revisions, the second round of reviews was a 'light-touch' process in which the editorial board members checked the revisions, whereas papers that received Revise and Resubmit received another full round of external reviews with the same reviewers in most cases, and were also subjected to a final selection process. This second revision was treated as a real resubmission, which meant that it was given full consideration, but no guarantee or preferential treatment towards acceptance; a share of the revised papers was ultimately rejected. We would like to acknowledge the efforts that our community has made in adapting to this new process, working together with the submitting authors to achieve high-quality scholarship. The track editorial board consisted of 32 members and a total of 230 external reviewers from around the world ensured a high-quality review process. After the first round of submissions, each paper was handled by a primary track editorial board member who received reviews from a second track editorial board member and two external reviewers so that each submission received at least three high-quality reviews. After reviews were completed and checked for quality, the primary initiated discussion amongst the reviewers and came up with a preliminary recommendation (accept, between accept and revise and resubmit, revise and resubmit, between revise and resubmit and reject, reject). Papers that were in the middle three categories were then discussed in two synchronous virtual track editorial board meetings that took place over two consecutive days. The inclusion of the board meeting at this stage was a new addition to the review process last year. We included it to better calibrate decision making across the committee at this critical point in the review process, ensure consistency in outcomes, promote reflection and consideration at this stage in the process, and mentor newer editorial board members in the review process. We strove for a diverse program approaching games research from a variety of perspectives, including design, engineering, psychology, computer and data science while at the same time only accepting high-quality pieces of work. In this issue, we observe the following distribution of primary contributions: 42.9% of papers self-classify as using qualitative methods, 11.1% use quantitative methods, and 20.6% use mixed methods. Additionally, 3.2% of papers present design artifacts and 6.3% present technical artifacts. Finally, 4.8% of papers employ meta-research methods, 6.3% of papers present a new methodological approach, and 4.8% of papers contribute to the development and validation of theory. All articles in this issue were invited to present at the ACM CHI PLAY 2024 conference. We thank our dedicated team of track editorial board members, external reviewers, and paper authors, who continue to support the new review process and timeline, contributing to the maturation and growth of the PACM HCI games and play research community, and resulting in this issue of 63 exciting and highly relevant articles. This issue's 63 papers reflect the importance of play in our everyday lives, comment on recent trends and technical developments relevant to games and play, and also represent a significant effort of our community in coming together to produce a collection of research that highlights the multifaceted value of play.

Disengagement From Games: Characterizing the Experience and Process of Exiting Play Sessions

The games research community has developed substantial knowledge on designing engaging experiences that draw players in. Surprisingly, less is known about player disengagement, with existing work predominantly addressing disengagement from the perspective of problematic play, and research exploring player disengagement from a constructive designer perspective is lacking. In this paper, we address this gap and argue that disengagement from games should be constructively designed, allowing players to exit play sessions in a self-determined way. Following a two-phase research approach that combines an interview study ( n =16) with a follow-up online survey ( n =111), we systematically analyze player perspectives on exiting play sessions. Our work expands the existing notion of disengagement through a characterization of exit experiences, a lens on disengagement as a process, and points for reflection for the design of games that seek to address player disengagement in a constructive way.

Towards Democratisation of Games User Research: Exploring Playtesting Challenges of Indie Video Game Developers

Playtesting is a games user research (GUR) method used to evaluate design decisions based on feedback gathered from players with the goal to improve player experience. HCI games research has been actively working on and promoting best practices in GUR. However, these practices often require resources, knowledge and expertise, which are not readily available for indie video games developers. Thus, to better understand how GUR can support these developers, we conducted an interview study with 13 indie games professionals to learn about their practices and the challenges they face when doing playtesting. We report on the key findings from this study, including challenges with finding appropriate participants and handling the data from playtests. We provide a discussion of how existing GUR practices can be adapted and what HCI games research can do to help mitigate these challenges to make playtesting more accessible and impactful to indie video games developers.

GAFEE: 5 Steps to Teach Effectively

This paper presents GAFEE instructional design: a new proposed model that integrates the principles of gamification with the 5E instructional model to increase the levels of motivation of the students. The GAFEE model blends the five phases of 5E learning model Engage, Explore, Explain, Elaborate, and Evaluate with a game-based approach that increases the level of interactivity. This model comprises seven constructs: According to the nature of the problem and the design principles, we have Goal-Oriented Engagement, Autonomous Access and Exploration, Feedback-Enhanced Explanation, Challenge-Driven Elaboration, Collaborative Evaluation, Iterative Design and Technological Synergy. Each of the identified constructs is backed up by a literature review proving the efficiency of the given construct. An example of the implementation of the GAFEE model is best described in a fourth-grade English course where the students’ vocabulary, grammar, and speaking skills are enhanced. These points stress the positive outcome of the application of the game environment to the educational process, motivation, individual learning, and feedback systems. Lastly, the paper highlights on the effectiveness of the proposed GAFEE instructional design to alter the instructional practices and point out the areas of future research in gamification of education.

The Role of Relevance in Shaping Perceptions of Sleep Hygiene Games Among University Students: Mixed Methods Study.

Sleep games are an emerging topic in the realm of serious health game research. However, designing features that are both enjoyable and effective at engaging users, particularly university students, to develop healthy sleep habits remains a challenge. This study aims to investigate user preferences for 3 sleep game prototypes, that is, Hero's Sleep Journey, Sleep Tamagotchi, and Sleepland, and to explore their popularity and perceived utility in promoting sleep health. A mixed methods approach was used in this study. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected through a co-design workshop involving 47 university students. Participants were presented with storyboard cards of game features and were asked to provide an overall rating on each game, as well as ratings for individual features. They were also encouraged to provide free-form comments on the features and suggest improvements. In addition, participants were asked to express their preferences among the 3 games regarding which game they would most like to play and which one they found most useful for promoting sleep health. Surprisingly, while Hero's Sleep Journey was the most popular choice among participants, Sleep Tamagotchi was perceived as the most beneficial for improving sleep health. Relevance emerged as an overarching theme in the qualitative data analysis, with 3 interconnected dimensions: psychological relevance to users' personal lives, logical relevance to sleep health, and situational relevance to users' circumstantial context. We discussed how the 3 dimensions of relevance address the autonomy and relatedness constructs outlined in the self-determination theory and proposed 3 design recommendations. Our serious sleep game prototypes demonstrated the potential to engage university students to develop healthy sleep hygiene. Future sleep game designs should aim to create a sense of relevance to users' personal lives, sleep health goals, and situational contexts. Rather than a one-size-fits-all approach, it is essential to develop a wide range of game genres and features to cater to diverse users. Aligning game features with sleep health goals and educating users on the design rationale through sleep knowledge are also important aspects. Furthermore, allowing users to customize their game experience and manage technology boundaries is necessary to nurture a sense of control and autonomy in the process of forming good sleep hygiene.

Gaining in Giving: Unveiling Continuous Engagement Intentions with the Chinese Pro-Environmental Gamification Ant Forest

Gamification is increasingly recognized as a promising intervention to promote individual environmental contributions. However, the understanding of the motivations for users’ continuous engagement intentions with gamified environment protection remains insufficient. This study explores users’ continuous engagement intentions with Chinese pro-environmental gamification Ant Forest, using a research model that integrates the norm activation model, warm glow theory, and technology acceptance model. By analyzing quantitative survey data collected from 525 players of Ant Forest, the model is empirically examined through structural equation modelling. The research results show that Ant Forest users are motivated by a combination of altruistic, egoistic, and pragmatic factors. The identified positive impact factors include personal norms, ascription of responsibility, awareness of consequences, perceived warm glow, perceived ease of use, and perceived usefulness in improving users’ environmental contribution efficiency. Surprisingly, users find Ant Forest enjoyable as a game irrespective of its environmental benefits, but they are not primarily driven by the perceived pure fun from game playing. The findings of the study not only offer a comprehensive explanation for the antecedents of continuous engagement intentions with pro-environmental gamification but also provide theoretical and practical implications for gamification research and design in environment protection contexts.

OpenHoldem: A Benchmark for Large-Scale Imperfect-Information Game Research.

Owing to the unremitting efforts from a few institutes, researchers have recently made significant progress in designing superhuman artificial intelligence (AI) in no-limit Texas hold'em (NLTH), the primary testbed for large-scale imperfect-information game research. However, it remains challenging for new researchers to study this problem since there are no standard benchmarks for comparing with existing methods, which hinders further developments in this research area. This work presents OpenHoldem, an integrated benchmark for large-scale imperfect-information game research using NLTH. OpenHoldem makes three main contributions to this research direction: 1) a standardized evaluation protocol for thoroughly evaluating different NLTH AIs; 2) four publicly available strong baselines for NLTH AI; and 3) an online testing platform with easy-to-use APIs for public NLTH AI evaluation. We will publicly release OpenHoldem and hope it facilitates further studies on the unsolved theoretical and computational issues in this area and cultivates crucial research problems like opponent modeling and human-computer interactive learning.

Clinical and Cognitive Metacognition in Gaming and Gambling Disorder: A Narrative Review

Abstract Purpose of this review To review and reconcile the methodologies and understandings of metacognition from both cognitive science and psychopathology in Gaming Disorder and Gambling Disorder to enhance interdisciplinary communication and methodological exchange. Recent findings While clinical metacognition research in gaming and gambling disorders is established, exploration into specific metacognitive mechanisms within these domains is still nascent. Summary This review delineates various forms of metacognition and clinical measurements of metacognition in Gaming Disorder and Gambling Disorder. The discussion presents a new integrated model of metacognition in behavioural addictions that generates a research agenda to understand and target these addictions with more effective interventions.

Dynamic game research of food agricultural products supply chain based on blockchain traceability technology

PurposeFood quality and safety issues have always been imperative topics discussed by people. The anti-tampering of blockchain technology and the transparency of information make it possible to improve food traceability and safety quality. How to effectively apply blockchain traceability technology to food safety has great research significance for improving food safety and consumer quality trust.Design/methodology/approachThe paper aims to analyze the differences in product quality levels and market participants’ profits before and after the use of blockchain-driven traceability technology in the food agricultural product supply chain (SC) in the dynamic game frameworks of supplier-led and retailer-led modes, respectively, and explores the willingness, social welfare and consumer surplus of each member of the agricultural product SC to participate in the blockchain. Besides, We investigate the SC performance improvement with the mechanism of central centralized decision-making and revenue-sharing contract, compared to the SC performance in dynamic games.FindingsThe results are obtained as follow: The adoption of blockchain traceability technology can help improve the quality of food agricultural products, consumer surplus and social welfare, but the application and popularization of technology is hindered by traceability technology installment costs. Compared with the supplier leadership model, retailer-led food quality level, customer surplus and social welfare are higher.Research limitations/implicationsHow to effectively apply blockchain traceability technology to food safety has great research significance for improving food safety and consumer quality trust.Practical implicationsFood quality and safety issues have always been hot topics discussed by people. The anti-tampering of blockchain technology and the transparency of information make it possible to improve food traceability and safety quality.Social implicationsThe research results enrich the theories related to food safety and quality, and provide a valuable reference for food enterprises involved in the decision-making exploration of blockchain technology.Originality/valueBased on the characteristics of blockchain technology, the demand function is adjusted and the product loss risk of channel members is transferred through a Stackelberg game SC composed of agricultural products suppliers and retailers.Highlights:•We introduce two features of blockchain: quality trust and product information tracking.•The willingness of each member of the supply chain to use blockchain for product traceability was explored.•The overall traceability effect of the retailer-led blockchain is better than that of the manufacturer-led blockchain.•The cost of blockchain technology is a barrier to its adoption.•Blockchain brings higher consumer surplus and social welfare.

Eight types of video game experience

The study of game experience is a well-established area within game research, supported by numerous models. These models, while valuable, often focus on analyzing game experiences within specific contexts rather than facilitating comparative analyses. Addressing this research gap, our study empirically identifies prevalent game experience types that are common across various games. By analyzing 5,372 game experience descriptions provided by 1,193 survey respondents, this research employs a survey design inspired by the flow of qualitative interviews, facilitating a comprehensive understanding of the diverse factors shaping these experiences. Through latent class analysis, we delineate eight distinct game experience types: Compelling Challenge, Immersive Exploring, Creative Caring, Energetic Rushing, Competitive Shooting, Cheerful Bouncing, Strategic Management, and Daily Dwelling. Each type is analyzed in terms of both the variables from the latent class analysis and additional survey variables, enhancing our understanding of their unique and comparative characteristics. This approach sheds light on the multifaceted nature of game experiences and broadens our insights into player engagement across different game genres, offering practical implications for game design, marketing, and future research.

The Game Within the Game: The Potential Influence of Demand Characteristics and Participant Beliefs in Violent Video Game Studies

In two experiments, we examined the potential impact of demand characteristics in violent video game (VVG) research. Study 1 (N = 788) measured behavioral aggression, while Study 2 (N = 1,182) measured trait aggression. Participants were informed either that researchers wanted to confirm that VVGs increase aggression (“Positive Hypothesis”) or that VVGs have no effect (“Null Hypothesis”). Study 2 included a third condition where participants were given no information. In both studies, the interaction between VVG exposure and experimental conditions was significant. Whereas VVG exposure was significantly positively associated with aggression in the “Null Hypothesis” condition, it was not in the “Positive Hypothesis” condition. These effects were driven by habitual players responding differently based on the presented hypothesis, appearing less aggressive in the “Positive Hypothesis” condition than in the other two conditions. These findings highlight the importance of addressing demand characteristics in VVG studies.

Continuance intention toward VR games of intangible cultural heritage: A stimulus-organism-response perspective

Virtual reality (VR) games have become a popular method to preserve and transmit intangible cultural heritage in recent years. However, empirical studies pertaining to motivations behind the continuance intention to play VR games featuring intangible cultural heritage have been limited. The objective of this study focuses on answering an essential question: what factors influence user’s continuance intention to play intangible cultural heritage VR games? Both Stimulus-Organism-Response Theory and Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) are considered to develop twelve hypotheses and build the research framework. A survey of 190 respondents was conducted, and the results were analyzed by using PLS-SEM. The results show that visual attractiveness, interactivity, and immersion are significant indicators in measuring users’ continuance intention to play. Additionally, perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and perceived enjoyment of VR games positively influence their continuance intention. This study enriches the research of intangible cultural heritage VR games. It also provides theoretical implications for scholars and design strategies for VR developers and designers.

Zinecraft

Zines are small-circulation magazines that creators make themselves, often through simple means. Zines and zine creation are linked to marginalized voices, and have historically amplified the voices and perspectives of these communities. Their very design is personal, reflective and beginner friendly. Zines have also been used as, and alongside, research, including interdisciplinary research and games criticism. Though intersections between zines and games have been identified, zines remain largely underutilized in games studies. In this paper, we apply our individual creative practice methods to argue that zines can be created as companions to games research and conferences. We argue that zine creation, as a companion to research, makes for more personal and relatable outputs, and helps the creator visualize, reflect and make previously unmade connections. Conference zines can be used to capture trends, record proceedings, and communicate personal experience. Games studies can benefit from embracing zines and their interdisciplinary potential.

Cooperation dynamics in multi-issue repeated social dilemma games with correlated strategy.

In the real world, individuals are often involved in collaboration on multiple issues, and these issues may interact with each other. Given the complexity of the interaction, we establish a multi-issue repeated game model, in which individuals participate in multiple social dilemma games simultaneously and repeatedly, and strategies in different issue games are correlated and reactive. We explore the cooperation dynamics of strategies in the population from a multiobjective perspective, in which an individual's preference for each issue is described by a weight vector, and heterogeneous preferences of individuals in the population are also considered. Through simulations on two-issue games, we find that compared to the uncorrelated case, the correlated strategy can significantly promote cooperation in both games regardless of which issue players prefer. Under the condition of homogeneous preference, an increase in the payoff weight of a given issue decreases the level of cooperation in that issue, and the optimal condition to sustain cooperation to the maximum extent is when the payoff weights of all issues are equal. Moreover, under the condition of heterogeneous preference, there exists an optimal proportion of players with different preferences under which the cooperation rate can reach its highest level in the population. This work highlights individual trade-offs on different issues when engaging in multiple games simultaneously and further enriches the research of evolutionary games from a multiobjective and correlated strategy perspective.

Coaching research in Gaelic games: a scoping review

ABSTRACT Gaelic games are central to cultural life in Ireland. As a means of enhancing research-informed practice and future research directions, the aim of this scoping review was to provide a broad overview of the existing literature pertaining to coaching in Gaelic games. Adhering to the Joanna Briggs Institute’s framework, a search of six electronic databases was undertaken. A total of 38 studies met the eligibility criteria and were classified according to four knowledge domains: the player, the sport, pedagogy, and the coaching context. The findings indicated a relative paucity of research across the knowledge domains and the predominance of single-focus studies, highlighting the need for interdisciplinary research. Additionally, limited research methodology, participant samples, and clarity in describing participants were identified as limiting factors. These findings have implications for the broader sport coaching literature, suggesting the need for more comprehensive research across knowledge domains and a focus on practical coaching needs.

Performance Feedback, Target-Setting, and Data Manipulation in a Multi-Goal Situation: Evidence from Chinese Cities

While it is well recognized that performance management can induce gaming responses, the extant literature has mostly adopted a sole-goal perspective and neglected the influences of the interplay among multiple goals. This research attempts to fill this gap by bringing in the multi-goal perspective and investigating how performance feedback on the focal goal and targets set by higher-up authorities for the conflicting goal affect, independently and interactively, public organizations’ data manipulation in the focal goal. We posit that negative performance feedback on the focal goal makes public organizations more inclined to engage in data manipulation, and the target of a conflicting goal set by their higher-up authorities exerts influences by positively moderating this effect. Utilizing the context of China’s ‘environment-economy’ nexus, our empirical analyses using a novel approach to measuring cities’ manipulation of air quality data find robust evidence strongly supporting the theoretical arguments. This study represents an effort to open up a research agenda that engages the multi-goal perspective in gaming research.

Leveraging gamification for tourism marketing activities: Toward a comprehensive conceptual model

Gamification has become one of the most effective ways to generate customer engagement. However, there needs to be more structured research on the drivers of the adoption and sustained use of gamification in travel and tourism research. Drawing upon the uses and gratifications theory and the technology acceptance model, this research examines the individual motivational drivers for adopting gamification in the context of tourism services. We employed a combination of partial least squares—structural equation modeling and fuzzy set qualitative comparative analysis on the data gathered from 680 users of various online travel agencies. Our findings show that individual motivational dimensions of uses and gratifications significantly influence perceived usefulness and ease of use in gamified marketing activities. Our analysis demonstrates five configurations leading to a high level of adoption of gamified marketing activities. This study extends the use of gamification in the tourism industry, offering insights into enhancing customer motivations for adopting and effectively utilizing game mechanics and dynamics in marketing activities. Furthermore, through a novel framework, this study advances the uses and gratification theory at the intersection of gamification research and tourism literature.

PERSPECTIVES ON VIDEO GAME RESEARCH THROUGH THE CONCEPT OF MEDIA ARCHAEOLOGY

This article delves into various approaches to the cultural and philosophical study of video games. It primarily examines the potential of employing methodological foundations of media archaeology to enhance the understanding of the history of video game technical media. Additionally, it offers a brief review of existing publications on the proposed topic.To justify the applicability of the media-archaeological approach, the article provides a concise analysis of key research directions in game studies, highlighting their advantages and main shortcomings. The paper includes a succinct history of video game research, elucidates the philosophical concepts underpinning early works on the essence of video games, and explores the principal directions within game studies. Special attention is given to several approaches: Espen Aarseth’s narratological perspective, which interprets the cyberspace of games as a text that can be decoded and read; Gonzalo Frasca’s ludological approach, where the primary characteristic of a game is its interactivity; and Ian Bogost’s multi-level theory of video game study, which integrates the use of media anthropology.Subsequently, the article outlines the core principles of media anthropology as an interdisciplinary field that not only investigates the past of media and attempts to forecast the future of technologies by identifying patterns in their development but also addresses the relationship between humans and technologies. The primary representatives of this field, such as Friedrich Kittler, Jussi Parikka, and Erkki Huhtamo, are also mentioned.In the final section of the article, the necessity of employing media anthropology for understanding video games is discussed, particularly emphasizing the hegemony of technical media over the content of video games. Furthermore, examples of the application of the archaeological approach in game studies are provided, illustrating the potential of this direction.This comprehensive exploration aims to advance the discourse on video game studies by integrating insights from media archaeology and media anthropology, thereby fostering a deeper and more nuanced understanding of video games as cultural and technological artifacts.

Evolutionary game research on the decision-making of shared bike placement volume based on dynamic and static punishment mechanisms

ABSTRACT Currently, oversupply in the bike-sharing market has become a globalized problem. The oversupply of bike-sharing in China is severe, so this paper takes the current situation of bike-sharing operations in China as an example, and adopts the evolutionary game method to study the dynamic evolutionary process of government and enterprises in deciding the number of placements. Then the effects of core parameters on participants’ behaviors are discussed to explore ways to solve the global oversupply of shared bicycles. The results show that the government needs to be involved and play a leading role in solving the problem of mass placement of shared bikes. When the revenue of strict supervision by the government is less than the cost, a dynamic punishment mechanism should be adopted. When the income is higher than the cost, a static punishment mechanism should be adopted.

Set Players to Stun: Inducing Basic Psychological Need Frustration in a Casual Video Game

Abstract This study investigates the concept of psychological need frustration within the context of video games. We explore the potential of discrete in-game events, specifically the usage of widely popular ‘stun’ mechanics, to induce feelings of need frustration in players. We designed, developed and experimentally tested a bespoke video game with four conditions: No Stuns, Avoidable Stuns, Unavoidable Stuns and Layered Stuns (a combination of avoidable and unavoidable stuns). Our findings show that Unavoidable Stuns lead to statistically significantly greater autonomy need frustration. This finding has important implications for games research, as psychological need frustration is linked to negative effects on player engagement and wellbeing. Our results also highlight that a variety of stun mechanics can undermine psychological need satisfaction. Taken together, this work makes a meaningful contribution to HCI and games literature, showcasing that game mechanics can be designed in a way that undermines psychological needs.