Patches and Player Community Perceptions: Analysis of No Man’s Sky Steam Reviews

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Lu Chien Li Xiaozhou Nummenmaa Timo Zhang Zheying Peltonen Jaakko
2020 DiGRA ’20 – Proceedings of the 2020 DiGRA International Conference: Play Everywhere

Current game publishing typically involves an ongoing commitment to maintain and update games after initial release, and as a result the reception of games among players has the potential to evolve; it is then crucial to understand how players’ concerns and perception of the game are affected by ongoing updates and by passage of time in general. We carry out a data-driven analysis of a prominent game release, No Man’s Sky, using topic modeling based text mining of Steam reviews. Importantly, our approach treats player perception not as a single sentiment but identifies multiple topics of interest that evolve differently over time, and allows us to contrast patching of the game to evolution of the topics.

 

The Diversity of Attitudes towards Play at the Workplace – A Case of an Academic Community

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Nummenmaa Timo Kankainen Ville Savolainen Sampo Kultima Annakaisa Karvinen Juho Alha Kati Syvänen Antti Tyni Heikki
2016 DiGRA/FDG '16 - Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of DiGRA and FDG

In this article, the results from an experiment of playful videos are presented. In the experiment, leaders of an academic community participated in workshops where they playfully envisioned the future of the workplace. These workshops were videotaped and edited into short videos, which were made public within the community and used as a probe for exposing attitudes towards play within an academic environment. The study revealed diverse views towards play and its role at the workplace.

 

Modelling Experimental Game Design

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Holopainen Jussi Nummenmaa Timo Kuittinen Jussi
2010 DiGRA Nordic '10: Proceedings of the 2010 International DiGRA Nordic Conference: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players

This paper uses two models of design, Stolterman’s and Löwgren’s three abstraction levels and Lawson’s model of designing, from the general design research to describe the game design process of an experimental pervasive mobile phone game. The game was designed to be deployed at a big science fiction convention for two days and was part of a research through design project where the focus was to understand which core mechanics could work for pervasive mobile phone games. The design process was, as is usual for experimental designs, very iterative. Data were gathered during the design process as entries in a design diary, notes from playtesting and bodystorming sessions, user interface sketches, and a series of software prototypes. The two complementary models of design were used to analyse the design process and the result is that the models give a good overview to an experimental game design process and reveal activities, design situations, and design choices which could have otherwise been lost in the analysis.