advt: the social e xperience of gaming

ADVT: The social experience of gaming

Paul Cairnspaul.cairns@york.ac.uk

Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns

Why study videogames?

Big business Dominant phenomenon Pure experience– Before, during, momentary, after

UX challenge

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What experiences do games offer?

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User Experience, Paul Cairns

Where is the Science?

UX Personal Unique Subjective

Science Generalisable Repeatable Objective

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Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns

Holistic

McCarthy and Wright– Technology as Experience

Can’t ignore the complexity Narrative: reflected and

anticipated Prosaic experience

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Exercise

Tell a story (in pairs) about a really good game you played: why was it good, how did the game make you feel, what you did next… How would you summarise the UX in the story you heard?

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Using stories

Where to focus? From holism to design? Need analysis– Holism lacks teeth

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Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns

Reductionist

Analytic approach to experience Partition up elements Measure Compare

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Measures of GX

Immersion GEQ CEGE All have questionnaires!

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Immersion

Commonly talked about Various formulations Jennett, five factors:– Emotional involvement, cognitive

involvement, real world dissociation– Challenge & control

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GEQ (unpublished)

An all encompassing measure During and after modules Seven factors:– Sensory & imaginative immersion,

tension, competence, flow, negative affect, positive affect, challenge

SPGQ

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Core Elements of the Gaming Experience What’s needed for a good

experience? Puppetry Five factors:– control, ownership, facilitators,

environment, game-play

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Is social play GX or something else?

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Immersion and social play

Reduces immersion (Sweetser & Wyeth, Ermi & Mäyrä)

Games as social setting (de Kort et al, 2008)

Social presence in games (SPGQ)

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What is the SPGQ measuring? 3 factors, can you come up with a

sensible name that summarising what each factor is about?

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Immersion and social context

3 experiments Using IEQ for immersion Manipulation:– playing computer– playing online– playing colocated

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Hayley Martin, UCL

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Results

SPGQ goes up from “computer” to online to colocated

Immersion goes up from computer to online

BUT: deception, Hawthorne effect and old game

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Matt Day, York

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Results

Immersion more online than against computer

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Tom Perryman, York

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Results

Still no difference Overall:

It matters that you (think you) play a person.

It doesn’t matter where that person is. Social play improves immersion

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Further work?

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Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns

Summary

GX is the purest form of UX Lots of approaches– Holistic, reductionistic

Social play is an intergal part of GX

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Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns

Reading Chen, Flow in games (and everything else) Jennett et al., Defining and measuring

immersion in videogames IJsselsteijn et al., Characterising and

Measuring User Experiences in Digital Games (GEQ)

Calvillo-Gamez et al., Assessing the core elements of the gaming experience (CEGE)

de Kort et al., Digital games as social presence technology. (SPGQ)

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