Adaptive Technologies in Digital Games: The Influence of Perception of Adaptivity on Immersion

Digital games with adaptive technologies offer more tailored experiences to their players, as gameplay is based on the players' performances and behaviours in the game. This could potentially lead to better gaming experiences. Though it is also possible that just the mere expectation of clever AI could affect players' first impressions and subsequently their perceived experiences. At the present moment, there is little empirical evidence supporting this claim. This research aims to gather empirical evidence to test the hypothesis that players' expectations of an adaptive digital game have an effect on their immersion. For this, three studies were conducted. First, preferences were explored as a form of expectations that could influence immersion. The results show no effect of preferences with regards to the visual perspective on immersion. A more controlled manipulation in the form of game descriptions was then used in the subsequent experiments. Participants played a game without adaptive features while being told that the game was adapting to their performance. As a result, players who believed that the game had adaptive AI experienced higher levels of immersion than the players who were not aware of it. Similarly, when playing the game twice people felt more immersed in the session that was supposedly adapting to their behaviour, in spite of experiencing the same gameplay as in the other session. This effect was then explored in more detail in games with adaptive features. For this, two games were developed to adapt in two distinct ways to players' performance in the game. Immersion was affected differently depending on the precision of information about these adaptive features. More detailed information prompts players to change their tactics to incorporate the adaptation into their play and experience the benefits of this feature. Merely being aware of the adaptation leads to more immersion, regardless of its presence in the game. Similarly, the presence of an adaptive feature in the game leads to heightened sense of immersion, which is enhanced by the precision of information players receive about it. Evidence also suggests that this effect is durable. Overall, this research provides empirical evidence to support the hypothesis that players' expectations of adaptive features in single-player games have a positive effect on immersion. This is a valuable contribution to the theoretical understanding of immersion, while it also provides some insights into the potential precautions that should be considered when conducting experiments into player experience in the lab and `in the wild', both in academic studies and during player testing sessions run by game developers

Managing Business Corruption: Targeting Non-Compliant Practices in Systemically Corrupt Environments

This article focuses on strategies of ‘managing business corruption’ at the firm level and offers insights for practitioners in systemically corrupt environments. Our study of 110 CEOs and owners of companies operating in Russia tested a new, ethnographic approach to managing corruption at a firm level. We conceptualize ‘managing business corruption’ as devising and implementing strategies that mitigate corruption-related risks in an effective way. We argue that such strategies have to target specific non-compliant practices, identified bottom-up, yet also amount to a pragmatic, problem-solving framework at the firm level, implemented top-down. Leadership is a key factor which defines effectiveness of corruption management in systemically corrupt environments. While the latter are generally conducive to tolerance and passive attitudes to corruption among business leaders, we identify proactive modes (preventive and controlling) and possible channels (formal hierarchy and informal networks) for leadership action. The proposed approach can also be used for leadership training

Player experience and deceptive expectations of difficulty adaptation in digital games

Increasingly, digital games are including adaptive features that adjust the level of difficulty to match the skills of individual players. The intention is to improve and prolong the player experience by allowing the player to have the feeling of challenge without it being overwhelming and leading to repeated failure and frustration. Previous work has shown that player experience is indeed improved by such adaptations but also that the player experience can be improved by simply claiming such an adaptation is present even when it is not. It is therefore possible that claims about adaptations and the actual adaptations could interact and not lead to the intended outcomes for the players or worse disappoint players. This paper reports on two studies that were conducted to experimentally investigate the interaction between game adaptations and player information about adaptations on the player experience, specifically their sense of immersion in the game. For this, two games were developed using two different kinds of adaptations to adjust difficulty based on players’ performance in the game. Participants were provided with information about game adaptations independently of whether the adaptations were present. The results suggest that players felt more immersed in the game when told that the game adapts to them, regardless of whether the adaptation was present in the game or not. This effect was observed in both games despite their different adaptations and it remained prominent even during longer gaming sessions. These findings demonstrate that players’ knowledge of adaptations influences their experience independently of adaptations. In this particular context, the knowledge reinforced the experience of the adaptations. This suggests that, at least in some circumstances, developers do not need to be concerned about negative effects of telling players about in-game adaptations

The Effects of a Soundtrack on Board Game Player Experience

Board gaming is a popular hobby that increasingly features the inclusion of technology, yet little research has sought to under- stand how board game player experience is impacted by digital augmentation or to inform the design of new technology-enhanced games. We present a mixed-methods study exploring how the presence of music and sound effects impacts the player experience of a board game. We found that the soundtrack increased the enjoyment and tension experienced by players during game play. We also found that a soundtrack provided atmosphere surrounding the gaming experience, though players did not necessarily experience this as enhancing the world-building capabilities of the game. We discuss how our findings can inform the design of new games and soundtracks as well as future research into board game player experience

The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS) : A new tool for investigating positive and negative video game experiences

Players’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are among the most commonly used constructs used in research on what makes video games so engaging, and how they might support or undermine user wellbeing. However, existing measures of basic psychological needs in games have important limitations—they either do not measure need frustration, or measure it in a way that may not be appropriate for the video games domain, they struggle to capture feelings of relatedness in both single- and multiplayer contexts, and they often lack validity evidence for certain contexts (e.g., playtesting vs experience with games as a whole). In this paper, we report on the design and validation of a new measure, the Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS), whose 6 subscales cover satisfaction and frustration of each basic psychological need in gaming contexts. The scale was validated and evaluated over five studies with a total of 1246 unique participants. Results supported the theorized structure of the scale and provided evidence for discriminant, convergent and criterion validity. Results also show that the scale performs well over different contexts (including evaluating experiences in a single game session or across various sessions) and over time, supporting measurement invariance. Further improvements to the scale are warranted, as results indicated lower reliability in the autonomy frustration subscale, and a surprising non-significant correlation between relatedness satisfaction and frustration. Despite these minor limitations, BANGS is a reliable and theoretically sound tool for researchers to measure basic needs satisfaction and frustration with a degree of domain validity not previously available

Playing Through Tough Times:Exploring the Relationship between Game Aspects and Coping Strategies during Difficult Life Challenges

The potential benefits of playing video games during times of difficulty have been increasingly recognised by researchers yet little is known about how particular aspects of games may relate to different forms of coping. An exploratory survey of 130 participants and content analysis identified 31 game aspects, across 6 categories, that were beneficial or detrimental to players. Our findings illustrate that games can support a range of coping strategies, including emotion-focused, avoidance, and meaning-focused coping. We also identify how specific aspects of games relate to different coping strategies during times of personal difficulty. For instance, emotion-focused coping was most commonly linked to challenge game aspects, where overcoming difficulties allowed players to experience positive emotions such as competence. The findings of this study provide valuable insights into how games may be able to facilitate a range of coping strategies during tough times

2nd Eudaimonia in digital games workshop

The concept of eudaimonia in the study of video games has been of increasing interest in recent years, especially as juxtaposed to the idea of hedonia which is often assumed as lying at the heart of most video game play experiences. However, there is a lack of consensus on what eudaimonia exactly is, how it manifests in the player experience, and what effect it could have on the emotional experience of game play. Discussion of this topic is often focused within the areas of psychology, HCI and media and communication studies. This workshop brings researchers from across a broader range of fields, such as those represented at FDG, to discuss this emerging and important concept and create a cross-field research agenda that can further investigate this concept within the field of digital games. This proposal builds upon a similar workshop successfully run for the first time at FDG 2023

Eudaimonia in digital games workshop

The concept of eudaimonia in the study of video games has been the subject of increasing interest in recent years, especially as juxtaposed to the idea of hedonia which is often assumed as lying at the heart of most video game play experiences. However, there is a lack of consensus on what eudaimonia exactly is, how it manifests in the player experience, and what effect it could have on the emotional experience of game play. Additionally, discussion of this topic is often focused within the areas of psychology, HCI and media and communication studies. This workshop, therefore, brings researchers from across a broader range of fields, such as those represented at FDG, to discuss this emerging and important concept and create a cross-field research agenda that can further investigate this foundational concept of wellbeing within the field of digital games

Evaluating Interactive AI: Understanding and Controlling Placebo Effects in Human-AI Interaction

In the medical field, patients often experience tangible benefits from treatments they expect will improve their condition, even if the treatment has no mechanism of effect. This phenomenon often obscuring scientific evaluation of human treatment is termed the "placebo effect." Latest research in human-computer interaction has shown that using cutting-edge technologies similarly raises expectations of improvement, culminating in placebo effects that undermine evaluation efforts for user studies. This workshop delves into the role of placebo effects in human-computer interaction for cutting-edge technologies such as artificial intelligence, its influence as a confounding factor in user studies, and identifies methods that researchers can adopt to reduce its impact on study findings. By the end of this workshop, attendees will be equipped to incorporate placebo control measures in their experimental designs

The Effects of a Soundtrack on Board Game Player Experience

Board gaming is a popular hobby that increasingly features the inclusion of technology, yet little research has sought to under- stand how board game player experience is impacted by digital augmentation or to inform the design of new technology-enhanced games. We present a mixed-methods study exploring how the presence of music and sound effects impacts the player experience of a board game. We found that the soundtrack increased the enjoyment and tension experienced by players during game play. We also found that a soundtrack provided atmosphere surrounding the gaming experience, though players did not necessarily experience this as enhancing the world-building capabilities of the game. We discuss how our findings can inform the design of new games and soundtracks as well as future research into board game player experience