research-article

Feedback-based gameplay metrics: measuring player experience via automatic visual analysis

Authors:

Raphaël Marczak,

Jasper van Vught,

Lennart E. NackeAuthors Info & Claims

IE '12: Proceedings of The 8th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Playing the System

Article No.: 6, Pages 1 - 10

https://doi.org/10.1145/2336727.2336733

Published: 21 July 2012 Publication History

Abstract

Using gameplay metrics to articulate player interaction within game systems has received increased interest in game studies. The value of gameplay metrics comes from a desire to empirically validate over a decade of theorization of player experience and knowledge of games as ludic systems. Taking gameplay metrics beyond formalized user testing (i.e. with the aim of improving a product) allows researchers the freedom of examining any commercially available game without the need to have access to the game's source code. This paper offers a new methodology to obtain data on player behavior, achieved through analyzing video and audio streams. Game interface features are being analyzed automatically, which are indicative of player behavior and gameplay events. This paper outlines the development of this methodology and its application to research that seeks to understand the nature of engagement and player motivations.

References

[1]

Aarseth, E. (1997) Cybertext: Perspectives on Ergodic Literature. Baltimore and London: Johns Hopkins University Press.

Digital Library

[2]

Aarseth, E. (2001) Computer Game Studies, Year One. In Game Studies, Volume 1, issue 1.

[3]

Aarseth, E. (2006). Mapping the Madness: A Games Analysis Framework. Paper presented at the From Games to Gaming Research Seminar, Gothenburg University.

[4]

Anderson, C. A. (2004). An update on the effects of playing violent video games. Journal of Adolescence, 27 (2004), pp. 113--122.

[5]

Araújo, M., Roque, L. (2009) Modeling Games with Petri Nets. In Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory, Proceedings of DiGRA 2009 (London, UK)

[6]

Bartle, R. (1996) Hearts, Clubs, Diamonds, Spades: Players Who Suit MUDs. The Journal of Virtual Environments, Vol. 1, No. 1.

[7]

Bay, H., Ess, A., Tuytelaars, T., Gool, L. V. (2008) SURF: Speeded Up Robust Features, Computer Vision and Image Understanding (CVIU), Vol. 110, No. 3, pp. 346--359, 2008

Digital Library

[8]

Bracken, C. C., Skalski, P. (2009) Telepresence and Video Games: The Impact of Image Quality. PsychNology Journal, 7(1), 101--112.

[9]

Canossa, A., Drachen, A., Sørensen, J. R. M.( 2001). Arrrgghh!!! -- Blending Quantitative and Qualitative Methods to Detect Player Frustration. In Proceedings of FDG 2011, ACM. (Bordeaux, France)

Digital Library

[10]

Chen, D., Shearer, K., Bourlard, H. (2001) Video OCR for Sport Video Annotation and Retrieval. In Proceedings of the 8th IEEE International Conference on Mechatronics and Machine Vision in Practice, p. 57--62

[11]

Copier, M. (2003) The Other Game Researcher: Participating in and watching the construction of boundaries in Game Studies, in M. Copier & J. Raessens (Eds.) Level Up: Digital games research conference, Utrecht: University of Utrecht Press.

[12]

Drachen, A., Canossa, A. (2009) Towards Gameplay Analysis via Gameplay Metrics. In Proceedings of the 13th MindTrek 2009 (Tampere, Finland), ACM, 202--209.

Digital Library

[13]

Drachen, A., Canossa, A.(2009) Analyzing Spatial user Behavior in Computer Games using Geographic Information Systems. In Proceedings of the 13th MindTrek 2009 (Tampere, Finland), ACM, 182--189.

Digital Library

[14]

Drachen, A.; Canossa, A., Yannakakis, G. (2009) Player Modeling using Self-Organization in Tomb Raider: Underworld. In Proceedings of IEEE Computational Intelligence in Games (CIG) 2009 (Milan, Italy), IEEE Publishers, pp. 1--8

Digital Library

[15]

Epp, C., Lippold, M., Mandryk, R. L. 2011. Identifying Emotional States Using Keystroke Dynamics. In Proceedings of the 2011 Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2011), Vancouver, BC, Canada. 715--724. DOI=10.1145/1978942.1979046.

Digital Library

[16]

Fagerholt, E., Lorentzon, M. (2009) Beyond the HUD. Master of Science Thesis, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology, (Göteborg, Sweden).

[17]

Ferguson, C. J. (2007). The good, the bad and the ugly: A meta-analytical review of positive and negative effects of violent video games. Psychiatric Quarterly, 78, 309--316.

[18]

Gee, J. P. (2003) What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy. Comput. Entertain. 1, 1 (October 2003), 20--20.

Digital Library

[19]

Gieryn, T. F. (2002) Boundaries in Science, in S. Jasanoff (Ed.) Handbook of Science and Technology Studies, London: Sage.

[20]

Grimshaw, M., Schott, G. (2007) Situating Gaming as a Sonic Experience: The Acoustic Ecology of First-Person Shooters. In Situated Play, Proceedings of DiGRA 2007 Conference. (Tokyo, Japan).

[21]

Huang, C. L, Liao, B. Y. (2001) A robust scene-change detection method for video segmentation. Circuits and Systems for Video Technology, IEEE Transactions on, vol.11, no.12, pp.1281--1288, Dec 2001

Digital Library

[22]

Johansen, S. A., Noergaard M. and Rau J. (2008). Can eye tracking boost usability evaluation of computer games? Paper presented at: CHI 2008, Evaluating User Experiences in Games

[23]

Joosten, E., Lankveld, G. V, Spronck, P. (2010) Colors and Emotions in Video Games. 11th International Conference on Intelligent Games and Simulation GAME-ON 2010 (ed. Aladdin Ayesh), pp. 61--65. EUROSIS

[24]

Juul, J. (2009) Fear of Failing? The Many Meanings of Difficulty in Video Games. From Mark J. P. Wolf & Bernard Perron (eds.): The Video Game Theory Reader 2. New York: Routledge 2009. pp. 237--252.

[25]

Kafai, Y. B. (2006). Playing and making games for learning. Games and Culture, 1(1), 36--40. Sage Publications.

[26]

Kim, J. H., Gunn, D. V., Schuh, E., Phillips, B. C., Pagulayan, R. J, Wixon, D. (2008) Tracking Real-Time User Experience (TRUE): A comprehensive instrumentation solution for complex systems. In CHI 2008 Proceedings, Data Collection, ACM. (Florence, Italy)

Digital Library

[27]

Laurel, B. (1991). Computers as Theatre. Addison-Wesley Longman Publishing Co., Inc., Boston, MA, USA.

Digital Library

[28]

Mirza-Babaei, P., McAllister, G. (2011) Biometric Storyboards: visualizing meaningful gameplay events. BBI Workshop CHI 2011. ACM. (Vancouver, Canada)

[29]

Murray, J. H. (1997). Hamlet on the Holodeck: The Future of Narrative in Cyberspace. The Free Press, New York, NY, USA.

Digital Library

[30]

Nacke, L. E. 2009. Affective Ludology: Scientific Measurement of User Experience in Interactive Entertainment. Doctoral Dissertation Series No. 2009:04, Blekinge Institute of Technology. School of Computing.

[31]

Nacke, L., Drachen, A., Korhonen, H., Kuikkaniemi, K., Niesenhaus, J., van den Hoogen, W. Poels, K., IJsselsteijn, W., de Kort, Y. (2009) DiGRA Panel: Playability and Player Experience Research. September 1, 2009. DiGRA 2009: Breaking New Ground: Innovation in Games, Play, Practice and Theory, Brunel University, West London, UK.

[32]

Nacke, L. E., Drachen, A. and Goebel, S. (2010). Methods for Evaluating Gameplay Experience in a Serious Gaming Context. International Journal of Computer Science in Sport, vol. 9 (2) (International Association of Computer Science in Sports).

[33]

Nacke, L., Grimshaw, M. (2011) Player-game Interaction Through Affective Sound. In Game Sound Technology and Player Interaction: Concepts and Developments, ISBN 978--1616928285. Chapter 13. 264--285. Hershey, PA, USA: IGI Global Publishing.

[34]

Paleari, M., Chellali, R., and Huet, B. (2010). Bimodal Emotion Recognition. In proceedings ICSR'10, International Conference on Social Robotics, November 23--24, 2010, Singapore.

Digital Library

[35]

Plutchik, R. (2001). The nature of emotions. American Scientist, 89, 344--350.

[36]

Ruch, A. W. (2010) Videogame Interface: Artefacts and Tropes. In Videogame Cultures and the Future of Interactive Entertainment Global Conference (2nd: 2010) (7--9 July 2010: Oxford, UK)

[37]

Saraceno, C., Leonardi, R. (1997) Audio as a support to scene change detection and characterization of video sequences. Acoustics, Speech, and Signal Processing, 1997. ICASSP-97., 1997 IEEE International Conference on, vol.4, no., pp.2597--2600 vol.4, 21--24 Apr 1997

Digital Library

[38]

Skalski, P., Whitbred, R. (2010) Image versus Sound: A Comparison of Formal Feature Effects on Presence and Video Game Enjoyment. PsychNology Journal, 8(1), 67--84.

[39]

Tychsen, A., Canossa, A. (2008) Defining Personas in Games Using Metrics. In FuturePlay Proceedings, ACM. (Toronto, Canada).

Digital Library

[40]

Ye, Q., Huang, Q., Jiang, S., Liu, Y., Gao, W. (2005) Jersey number detection in sports video for athlete identification. In Visual Communications and Image Processing 2005. Edited by Li, Shipeng; Pereira, Fernando; Shum, Heung-Yeung; Tescher, Andrew G. Proceedings of the SPIE, Volume 5960, pp. 1599--1606

Cited By

Sales LCordeiro LAranha RNunes F(2022)”Every move you make in every game you play”: can game logs determine player’s engagement?Proceedings of the XVIII Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems10.1145/3535511.3535528(1-8)Online publication date: 16-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3535511.3535528
Intharah TBrostow GMueller FJohnson DSchouten BToups Dugas PWyeth P(2018)DeepLoggerProceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3242671.3242674(221-230)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3242671.3242674
van Vught JSchott G(2017)Chapter 8. Identifying with in-game charactersNarrative Absorption10.1075/lal.27.09van(157-175)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.27.09van
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

Feedback-based gameplay metrics: measuring player experience via automatic visual analysis

Recommendations

Extracting game-play metric data from audio/video processing: a practical solution for game studies research
CHINZ '12: Proceedings of the 13th International Conference of the NZ Chapter of the ACM's Special Interest Group on Human-Computer Interaction

Today videogame classification works to a set of guidelines initially designed for, and more conducive to linear mediums (film, television and literature). As a result, digital games receive an age restriction rating based on both their depiction of ...
Towards gameplay analysis via gameplay metrics
MindTrek '09: Proceedings of the 13th International MindTrek Conference: Everyday Life in the Ubiquitous Era

User-oriented research in the game industry is undergoing a change from relying on informal user-testing methods adapted directly from productivity software development to integrating modern approaches to usability- and user experience testing. Gameplay ...
Fable Reborn: Investigating Gameplay Experience between a Human Player and a Virtual Dungeon Master
CHI EA '23: Extended Abstracts of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is a role-playing game typically played face-to-face with participants seated around a tabletop. Online technologies have enabled the conduct of live sessions on virtual platforms, allowing players to continue enjoying the game ...

Comments

Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

IE '12: Proceedings of The 8th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment: Playing the System

July 2012

182 pages

ISBN:9781450314107

DOI:10.1145/2336727

Conference Chairs:
Daniel Cermak-Sassenrath
Auckland University of Technology
,
Charles Walker
Auckland University of Technology
,
Program Chair:
Chek Tien Tan
University of Technology, Sydney

Copyright © 2012 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

Auckland University of Technology
University of Technology, Sydney: University of Technology, Sydney

Publisher

Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 21 July 2012

Permissions

Request permissions for this article.

Request Permissions

Check for updates

Author Tags

Qualifiers

Research-article

Conference

IE '12

Sponsor:

University of Technology, Sydney

IE '12: The 8th Australasian Conference on Interactive Entertainment

July 21 - 22, 2012

Auckland, New Zealand

Acceptance Rates

Overall Acceptance Rate 64 of 148 submissions, 43%

Contributors

Other Metrics

View Article Metrics

Bibliometrics & Citations

Bibliometrics

Article Metrics

4
Total Citations
View Citations
469
Total Downloads

Downloads (Last 12 months)29
Downloads (Last 6 weeks)2

Reflects downloads up to 06 Nov 2024

Other Metrics

View Author Metrics

Citations

Cited By

Sales LCordeiro LAranha RNunes F(2022)”Every move you make in every game you play”: can game logs determine player’s engagement?Proceedings of the XVIII Brazilian Symposium on Information Systems10.1145/3535511.3535528(1-8)Online publication date: 16-May-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3535511.3535528
Intharah TBrostow GMueller FJohnson DSchouten BToups Dugas PWyeth P(2018)DeepLoggerProceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3242671.3242674(221-230)Online publication date: 23-Oct-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3242671.3242674
van Vught JSchott G(2017)Chapter 8. Identifying with in-game charactersNarrative Absorption10.1075/lal.27.09van(157-175)Online publication date: 17-Oct-2017
https://doi.org/10.1075/lal.27.09van
Marczak RSchott GHanna P(2015)Postprocessing Gameplay Metrics for Gameplay Performance Segmentation Based on Audiovisual AnalysisIEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games10.1109/TCIAIG.2014.23827187:3(279-291)Online publication date: Sep-2015
https://doi.org/10.1109/TCIAIG.2014.2382718

View Options

Get Access

Login options

Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

Full Access

Get this Publication

View options

PDF

View or Download as a PDF file.

eReader

View online with eReader.

Media

Figures

Other

Tables

View Table of Contents