Competitive video game playing, an activity called esports, is increasingly popular to the point that there are now many professional competitions held for a variety of games. These competitions are ...broadcast in a professional manner similar to traditional sports broadcasting. Esports games are generally fast paced, and due to the virtual nature of these games, camera positioning can be limited. Therefore, knowing ahead of time where to position cameras, and what to focus a broadcast and associated commentary on, is a key challenge in esports reporting. This gives rise to moment-to-moment prediction within esports matches which can empower broadcasters to better observe and process esports matches. In this work we focus on this moment-to-moment prediction and in particular present techniques for predicting if a player will die within a set number of seconds for the esports title Dota 2. A player death is one of the most consequential events in Dota 2. We train our model on ‘telemetry’ data gathered directly from the game itself, and position this work as a novel extension of our previous work on the challenge. We use an enhanced dataset covering 9,822 Dota 2 matches. Since the publication of our previous work, new dataset parsing techniques developed by the WEAVR project enable the model to track more features, namely player status effects, and more importantly, to operate in real time. Additionally, we explore two new enhancements to the original model: one data-based extension and one architectural. Firstly we employ learnt embeddings for categorical features, e.g. which in game character a player has selected, and secondly we explicitly model the temporal element of our telemetry data using recurrent neural networks. We find that these extensions and additional features all aid the predictive power of the model achieving an F1 score of 0.54 compared to 0.17 for our previous model (on the new data). We improve this further by experimenting with the length of the time-series in the input data and find using 15 time steps further improves the F1 score to 0.62. This compares to F1 of 0.1 for a standard RNN on the same task. Additionally a deeper analysis of the Time to Die model is carried out to assess its suitability as a broadcast aid.
•Moment-to-moment prediction in esports is important for informing the audience.•We use neural networks to predict if a player will die in Dota 2 matches.•Our prediction uses ‘telemetry’ data gathered directly from the game itself.•We enhance our previous work using new data and a new neural architecture.•The new model works in real-time with an F1 score of 0.62 compared to 0.17 previously.
Pervasive technologies are already transforming “The Future of Work.” Mobile technologies, IoT, and data promise efficient and convenient work “on-demand.” They are convenient too for platform ...providers whose clean and efficient interfaces for consumers disrupt marketplaces, offering digitally mediated access to services at a click. These same technologies provide access to work and labor markets whilst undermining promising flexible work and access to sufficient work. The global gig economy is expanding. Increasing numbers of workers see gig economy work as their main form of employment, yet have little voice in the construction of systems on which they depend. We argue that technologists must work with gig workers, policy makers, and other stakeholders to address the adverse effects of technologies on gig workers. To better understand relationships between workers and the technologies they use, we describe insights from research carried out with U.K. cycle couriers. We reflect on technology’s role in giving these workers’ agency, rights, and equity by design.
There has recently been a great deal of interest in the potential of computer games to function as innovative educational tools. However, there is very little evidence of games fulfilling that ...potential. Indeed, the process of merging the disparate goals of education and games design appears problematic, and there are currently no practical guidelines for how to do so in a coherent manner. In this paper, we describe the successful, empirically validated teaching methods developed by behavioural psychologists and point out how they are uniquely suited to take advantage of the benefits that games offer to education. We conclude by proposing some practical steps for designing educational games, based on the techniques of Applied Behaviour Analysis. It is intended that this paper can both focus educational games designers on the features of games that are genuinely useful for education, and also introduce a successful form of teaching that this audience may not yet be familiar with.
Although participatory design (PD) is currently the most acceptable and respectful process we have for designing technology, recent discussions suggest that there may be two barriers to the ...successful application of PD to the design of digital games: First, the involvement of audiences with special needs can introduce new practical and ethical challenges to the design process. Second, the use of non-experts in game design roles has been criticised in that participants lack skills necessary to create games of appropriate quality. To explore how domain knowledge and user involvement influence game design, we present results from two projects that addressed the creation of movement-based wheelchair-controlled video games from different perspectives. The first project was carried out together with a local school that provides education for young people with special needs, where we invited students who use wheelchairs to take part in design sessions. The second project involved university students on a game development course, who do not use wheelchairs, taking on the role of expert designers. They were asked to design concepts for wheelchair-controlled games as part of a final-year course on game design. Our results show that concepts developed by both groups were generally suitable examples of wheelchair-controlled motion-based video games, but we observed differences regarding level of detail of game concepts, and ideas of disability. Additionally, our results show that the design exercise exposed vulnerabilities in both groups, outlining that the risk of practical and emotional vulnerability needs to be considered when working with the target audience as well as expert designers.
•First participatory study designing games for young people using wheelchairs.•Reflection on relative contribution of game design expertise and experience.•Explores representation of mobility disability by participants in design process.•Reflection on how vulnerability of participants exposed through design process.
Alternate endings Linehan, Conor; Kirman, Ben J.; Reeves, Stuart ...
CHI '14 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems,
04/2014
Conference Proceeding
Design research and practice within HCI is inherently oriented toward the future. However, the vision of the future described by HCI researchers and practitioners is typically utility-driven and ...focuses on the short term. It rarely acknowledges the potentially complex social and psychological long-term consequences of the technology artefacts produced. Thus, it has the potential to unintentionally cause real harm. Drawing on scholarship that investigates the link between fiction and design, this workshop will explore "alternate endings" to contemporary HCI papers. Attendees will use fictional narratives to envision long-term consequences of contemporary HCI projects, as a means for engaging the CHI community in a consideration of the values and implications of interactive technology.
•This paper is a polyvocal discussion on wisdom that includes the fictional voices from researchers of 2068.•We use “fictional abstracts” to elicit ideas and discuss present-day researchers’ hopes ...and fears about future computing.•While the design of technology can be informed by wisdom, we cannot imagine futures where technology itself is wise.•Technological progress and wisdom change at different speeds which can create conflicts with our understanding of wisdom.•What might sound like open-ended conversations can be seen as a precursor by designers and engineers to build “wise systems”.
In this paper, we present a structured report on a dialogue on the Future of Computing and Wisdom. The dialogue consists of a recorded and transcribed discussion between researchers and practitioners in the field of Human–Computer Interaction that was held at workshop in conjunction with the 10th Nordic Conference on Human–Computer Interaction in September 2018. However, the dialogue also encompasses workshop participants’ preparatory work with writing “fictional abstracts” – abstracts of yet-to-be-written research papers that will be published in 2068. The polyvocal dialogue that is reported upon thus includes not just the voices of researchers and practitioners who attended the workshop, but also includes the voices of the future researchers of 2068 who wrote the abstracts in question as well as the voices of the organisms, individuals, intelligent agents and communities who are the subjects, victims, beneficiaries and bystanders of wise (or unwise) future computing systems.
In this paper, we describe a pervasive game, Blowtooth, in which players use their mobile phones to hide virtual drugs on nearby airline passengers in real airport check-in queues. After passing ...through airport security, the player must find and recover their drugs from the innocent bystanders, without them ever realising they were involved in the game. The game explores the nature of pervasive game playing in environments that are not, generally, regarded as playful or “fun”. This paper describes the game’s design and implementation as well as an evaluation conducted with participants in real airports. It explores the players’ reactions to the game through questionnaire responses and in-game activity. The technologies used in Blowtooth are, intentionally, simple in order for the enjoyment of the game to be reliant more on the physical environment rather than the enabling technologies. We conclude that situating pervasive games in unexpected and challenging environments, such as international airports, may provide interesting and unique gaming experiences for players. In addition, we argue that pervasive games benefit most from using the specific features and nature of interesting real-world environments rather than focusing on the enabling technologies.
In this paper we investigate how online counter-discourse is designed, deployed and orchestrated by activists to challenge dominant narratives around socio-political issues. We focus on activism ...related to the UK broadcast media’s negative portrayal of welfare benefit claimants; portrayals characterised as “poverty porn” by critics. Using critical discourse analysis, we explore two activist campaigns countering the TV programme
Benefits Street
. Through content analysis of social media, associated traditional media texts, and interviews with activists, our analysis highlights the way activists leverage the specific technological affordances of different social media and other online platforms in order to manage and configure counter-discourse activities. We reveal how activists use different platforms to carefully control and contest discursive spaces, and the ways in which they utilise both online and offline activities in combination with new and broadcast media to build an audience for their work. We discuss the challenges associated with measuring the success of counter-discourse, and how activists rely on combinations of social media analytics and anecdotal feedback in order to ascertain that their campaigns are successful. We also discuss the often hidden power-relationships in such campaigns, especially where there is ambiguity regarding the grassroots legitimacy of activism, and where effort is placed into controlling and owning the propagation of counter-discourse. We conclude by highlighting a number of areas for further work around the blurred distinctions between corporate advocacy, digilantism and grassroots activism.
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