Understanding Player Experience Through the Use of Similarity Matrix

---

Marczak Raphaël Schott Gareth Hanna Pierre
2015 DiGRA '15 - Proceedings of the 2015 DiGRA International Conference

Analytical accounts chronicling engagement with digital games can always benefit from empirical data outlining the patterns of behavior produced by different players as they engage with the same game, or similar sequence within a game. This paper presents an extension to the novel method previously introduced in Marczak et al. (2013; 2015) and Schott et al. (2014), termed feedback-based game metrics, which exploits the audio and visual output of an activated game to produce accounts of player performance. This paper offers an account of an affiliated method, based on similarity matrix, which is derived from the same measurement process and that has yet been applied to the interests of game studies (over design oriented research) to determine the similarity or diversity within encounters with particular games. This paper introduces the method and illustrates its potential applications in the analysis of performance.

 

Exploring the Cause of Game (Derived) Arousal: What biometric accounts of player experience revealed

---

Schott Gareth Marczak Raphaël Neshausen Leanne
2014 DiGRA '14 - Proceedings of the 2014 DiGRA International Conference

In the context of a three-year research study into game violence, designed to query the strong association between policy-oriented effects research and responsive regulation measures, a mixed methodology was employed to examine player experience with ‘violent’ texts (as introduced in Schott et al., 2013a). Guided by the supposition that ‘explor[ing] the extent to which the public’s perception of causal links between game playing and various social ills’ might be ‘moderated or even undermined by [knowledge of] how players actually respond to and negotiate their way through the content and characteristics of the medium’ (OFLC, 2009, p. 24), our study contains a number of data or ‘entry’ points. The aim is to characterize the multi-dimensional nature of players’ experiences. This paper addresses the outcome of utilizing one measure in particular, biometric measures (GSR), as a guide for determining what aspects of Battlefield 3 (Electronic Arts) should be examined in accounts of player experiences. Our method of applying biometric data is outlined and what it was able to reveal in terms of the occurrence and cause of arousal for players is discussed. The paper reflects on what a broader and textually neutral method of accessing game-play experiences in the context of a ‘violent’ game reveals about play. A key outcome of taking this approach to detecting what aspects of a game had the most impact on players, is how GSR led us away from content that is more commonly highlighted and prioritized in the classification of games like Battlefield 3 - as an engagement with ‘violence’.

 

DeFragging Regulation: From putative effects to ‘researched’ accounts of player experience

---

Schott Gareth Marczak Raphaël Mäyrä Frans van Vught Jasper
2014 DiGRA '13 - Proceedings of the 2013 DiGRA International Conference: DeFragging Game Studies

In line with the conference theme for 2013, this paper introduces a research project that is seeking to ‘defragment’ research dealing with player experiences. Located at an intersection between humanities, social sciences and computer sciences, our research aims to achieve greater receptiveness for accounts of games that emphasise “the relationship between the structure of a game and the way people engage with that system” (Waern, 2012, p.1) in the context of game regulation. Working specifically within the context of the New Zealand classification system, which possesses a legally enforceable age-restriction system, the project seeks to strengthen regulators capacity to utilize Section 3(4) of the current Classification Act and support the employment of concepts such as ‘dominant effect’, ‘merit’ and ‘purpose’ when classifying games (OFLC, 2012). Extending an established appreciation within game studies for the way games produce polysemic performances and readings, this paper draws on our mixed methods approach in an exploration of the nature of a players’ experience with Max Payne 3 (Rockstar Vancouver). In doing so, we illustrate the different dynamics at play in its expression and use of violence - dynamics that fail to achieve expression when games are considered more generally within political and social realms.

 

Age-Restriction: Re-examining the interactive experience of ‘harmful’ game content

---

van Vught Jasper Schott Gareth Marczak Raphaël
2012 DiGRA Nordic '12: Proceedings of 2012 International DiGRA Nordic Conference

Similar to the classification rating of films, screen depictions of violence within digital games are issued with an age restriction rating. Such approaches still fail to adequately incorporate players’ experience of the screen, confounded by the medium’s interactive nature, in their assessments. The current failure to account for, or describe subsequent interactions between player and game text leaves the classification process largely inferential. This paper presents a framework that forms the basis for an empirical assessment of the interactive experience of games. In it, we aim to account for the processes and outcomes of play and the extent to which play relates to the design of the game text. By operationalizing game studies’ extensive theorization of the distinct quality of games, a new model of media ‘usage’ is sought to enhance regulation processes and better inform the public’s perception of games (specifically within New Zealand). In this paper we draw specifically on data produced from one part of a mixed methodology research design (Schott & Van Vught 2011). A structured diary method was employed to allow game players to chronicle different elements of their gameplay experience with a single text as they progressed through it. By demonstrating the applied value of game studies’ contribution to knowledge, the research project aims to contribute to a new paradigm that is capable of accounting for the ‘actual’ experience of play and the ways game texts are activated under the agency of players once they enter everyday life and culture.