gameful DESIGN for learning Deterding, Sebastian
T + D,
07/2013, Letnik:
67, Številka:
7
Trade Publication Article
The central enjoyment of games, Raph Koster, author of A Theory of Fun for Game Design, explains, is the experience of mastery you get from overcoming challenges -- that good feeling that leads to a ...fist pump when you get a strike in bowling. Games are essentially machines for producing fist-pump-worthy challenges such as chasms to jump, puzzles to solve, and monsters to kill. Educators have tried to use games to motivate learning. However, few engaged with the deeper question of how games structure learning in a motivating way. Teasing out some common design features can help educators grasp what learning from the structure of games might mean, and how they could apply them in their own practice. The core of any good design lies less with broad theoretical strokes than how the thousand little details add up, ever adjusting to changing circumstances. What the author sought to provide in this article is not a finished recipe, but an invitation to start playing.
‘Juicy’ or immediate abundant action feedback is widely held to make video games enjoyable and intrinsically motivating. Yet we do not know why it works: Which motives are mediating it? Which ...features afford it? In a pre-registered (n=1,699) online experiment, we tested three motives mapping prior practitioner discourse—effectance, competence, and curiosity—and connected design features. Using a dedicated action RPG and a 2x2+control design, we varied feedback amplification, success-dependence, and variability and recorded self-reported effectance, competence, curiosity, and enjoyment as well as free-choice playtime. Structural equation models show curiosity as the strongest enjoyment and only playtime predictor and support theorised competence pathways. Success dependence enhanced all motives, while amplification unexpectedly reduced them, possibly because the tested condition unintentionally impeded players’ sense of agency. Our study evidences uncertain success affording curiosity as an underappreciated moment-to-moment engagement driver, directly supports competence-related theory, and suggests that prior juicy game feel guidance ties to legible action-outcome bindings and graded success as preconditions of positive ‘low-level’ user experience.
Uncertainty is widely acknowledged as an engaging characteristic of games. Practice and research have proposed various types and factors of game uncertainty, yet there is little work explaining when ...and why different kinds of uncertainty motivate, especially with respect to 'micro-level', moment-to-moment gameplay. We therefore conducted a qualitative interview study of players tracing links between uncertainty experiences, specific game features, and player motives. Data supports that uncertainty is indeed a key element in keeping players motivated moment-to-moment. We present a grounded theory of seven types of engaging gameplay uncertainty emerging from three sources - game, player, and outcome - and document links to likely underlying motives, chief among them curiosity and competence. Comparing our empirically grounded taxonomy with existing ones shows partial fits as well as identifies novel uncertainty types insufficiently captured in previous models.
Intrinsic elicitation Gundry, David; Deterding, Sebastian
Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games,
08/2018
Conference Proceeding
Applied games are increasingly used to collect human subject data such as people's performance or attitudes. Games afford a motive for data provision that poses a validity threat at the same time: as ...players enjoy winning the game, they are motivated to provide dishonest data if this holds a strategic in-game advantage. Current work on data collection game design doesn't address this issue. We therefore propose a theoretical model of why people provide certain data in games, the Rational Game User Model. We derive a design approach for human subject data collection games that we call Intrinsic Elicitation: data collection should be integrated into the game's mechanics such that honest responding is the necessary, strategically optimal, and least effortful way to pursue the game's goal. We illustrate the value of our approach with a sample analysis of the data collection game Urbanology.
Do people use games to cope with adverse life events and crises? Research informed by self-determination theory proposes that people might compensate for thwarted basic psychological needs in daily ...life by seeking out games that satisfy those lacking needs. To test this, we conducted a preregistered mixed-method survey study (n = 285) on people’s gaming behaviours and need states during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020). We found qualitative evidence that gaming was an often actively sought out and successful means of replenishing particular needs, but one that could ‘backfire’ for some through an appraisal process discounting gaming as ‘unreal’. Meanwhile, contrary to our predictions, the quantitative data showed a “rich get richer, poor get poorer” pattern: need satisfaction in daily life positively correlated with need satisfaction in games. We derive methodological considerations and propose three potential explanations for this contradictory data pattern to pursue in future research.
Within the wider open science reform movement, HCI researchers are actively debating how to foster transparency in their own field. Publication venues play a crucial role in instituting open science ...practices, especially journals, whose procedures arguably lend themselves better to them than conferences. Yet we know little about how much HCI journals presently support open science practices. We identified the 51 most frequently published-in journals by recent CHI first authors and coded them according to the Transparency and Openness Promotion guidelines, a high-profile standard of evaluating editorial practices. Results indicate that journals in our sample currently do not set or specify clear openness and transparency standards. Out of a maximum of 29, the modal score was 0 (mean = 2.5, SD = 3.6, max = 15). We discuss potential reasons, the aptness of natural science-based guidelines for HCI, and next steps for the HCI community in furthering openness and transparency.
How to Play Video Games Payne, Matthew Thomas; Huntemann, Nina B
2019, 2019-03-26, Letnik:
1
eBook
Forty original contributions on games and gaming culture
What does Pokémon Go tell us about globalization? What does Tetris teach us about rules? Is feminism boosted or bashed by Kim Kardashian: ...Hollywood ? How does BioShock Infinite help us navigate world-building?
From arcades to Atari, and phone apps to virtual reality headsets, video games have been at the epicenter of our ever-evolving technological reality. Unlike other media technologies, video games demand engagement like no other, which begs the question—what is the role that video games play in our lives, from our homes, to our phones, and on global culture writ large?
How to Play Video Games brings together forty original essays from today’s leading scholars on video game culture, writing about the games they know best and what they mean in broader social and cultural contexts. Read about avatars in Grand Theft Auto V , or music in The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time . See how Age of Empires taught a generation about postcolonialism, and how Borderlands exposes the seedy underbelly of capitalism. These essays suggest that understanding video games in a critical context provides a new way to engage in contemporary culture. They are a must read for fans and students of the medium.
PDF
