Game Papers

Analyzing Player Behavior and Experience

Wednesday, 10 August 9:00 am - 10:30 am | West Building, Rooms 118-120
Session Chair: Drew Davidson, Carnegie Mellon University

Players and Game Worlds

Wednesday, 10 August 10:45 am - 12:15 pm | West Building, Rooms 118-120
Session Chair: Drew Davidson, Carnegie Mellon University

Evaluating Enjoyment Within Alternate-Reality Games

This paper on understanding enjoyment within alternate-reality games discusses the unique demands of the genre and why pre-existing enjoyment models are not applicable.

Andrew Macvean
Heriot-Watt University

Mark Riedl
Georgia Institute of Technology

Visualizing and Understanding Players’ Behavior in Video Games: Discovering Patterns and Supporting Aggregation and Comparison

There is a growing need for procedures that can support analysis and understanding of players’ behaviors within game environments. This paper proposes a system that allows analysts to build and compare visualizations of clusters of players to better understand the causes and effects of players’ actions.

Dinara Moura
Simon Fraser University

Magy Seif el-Nasr
Simon Fraser University

Christopher D. Shaw
Simon Fraser University

Evaluating Gesture-Based Games With Older Adults on a Large-Screen Display

This work reports on design and evaluation of three novel gesture-based games with healthy older adults. It describes key features in the physical and social engagement, and general usability of the games, to determine their applicability to the target audience.

Mark Rice
Institute for Infocomm Research

Marcus Wan
Institute for Infocomm Research

Min-Hui Foo
Institute for Infocomm Research

Jamie Ng
Institute for Infocomm Research

Zyndie Wai
Institute for Infocomm Research

Janell Kwok
Institute for Infocomm Research

Samuel Lee
Institute for Infocomm Research

Linda Teo
Institute for Infocomm Research

The Impact of Negative Game Reviews and User Comments on Player Experience

This study of how game reviews and user comments influence player experience found that players who read negative reviews rated the game lower than those who read either positive reviews or no reviews at all.

Ian Livingston
University of Saskatchewan

Lennart Nacke
University of Saskatchewan

Regan Mandryk
University of Saskatchewan

All in a Day's Work: A Study of World of Warcraft NPCs Comparing Gender to Professions

This study explores whether non-player characters within World of Warcraft reinforce stereotypical assumptions surrounding gender and work. Even though all professions are represented (albeit not equally) by male and female NPCs, there seem to be subtle hierarchies within the distribution of "work" in this gameworld.

Kelly Bergstrom
York University

Victoria McArthur
York University

Jennifer Jenson
York University

Tamara Peyton
York University

Designing Stories: Narrative Practices in 3D Computer Games

Drawing on theories from game, film, and theater studies, this paper explores two primary ways in which 3D computer games deal with stories.

Teun Dubbelman
Universiteit Utrecht

Beyond Player Types: Gaming Achievement Goals

Educational psychology studies use motivational constructs called achievement goals to predict learning success. This paper examines whether gaming achievement goals influence game play in similar ways. Gaming achievement goals could help determine whether people will play and which players are more likely to learn from educational games.

Carrie Heeter
Michigan State University

Yu-Hao Lee
Michigan State University

Ben Medler
Georgia Institute of Technology

Brian Magerko
Georgia Institute of Technology

Modeling Play: Re-Casting Expertise in MMOGs

Studies of expertise in massively multiplayer online games (MMOGs) involve either small-scale ethnographic accounts of elite players or large-scale accounts relying on one-dimensional measures of expert play. This paper presents a quantifiable model of expertise in MMOGs that is generated through qualitative analyses of both novices and experts.

Nicholas Taylor
York University

Suzanne de Castell
Simon Fraser University