Understanding Player Experience using Sequential Analysis

---

Soppitt Michael Mcallister Graham
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

Video game user researchers use many methods to help understand the player experience. Most of these methods involve asking the player to describe how they felt either during gameplay (causing interruption), or after the session (biased by self-report). Such methods are not ideal as they required the player to (1) have been aware of the experience, (2) recall it accurately, and (3) communicate these feelings to the moderator. This paper presents a new method which aims to better understand the player experience by using Sequential Analysis. The advantages of using this technique are that it uses unconscious natural behaviour (player’s facial state) as an indicator of internal player experience, and importantly, it shows how the player’s state changes over time.