Modeling Paying Behavior in Game Social Networks

Online gaming is one of the largest industries on the Internet, generating tens of billions of dollars in revenues annually. One core problem in online game is to find and convert free users into paying customers, which is of great importance for the sustainable development of almost all online games. Although much research has been conducted, there are still several challenges that remain largely unsolved: What are the fundamental factors that trigger the users to pay? How does users? paying behavior influence each other in the game social network? How to design a prediction model to recognize those potential users who are likely to pay? In this paper, employing two large online games as the basis, we study how a user becomes a new paying user in the games. In particular, we examine how users' paying behavior influences each other in the game social network. We study this problem from various sociological perspectives including strong/weak ties, social structural diversity and social influence. Based on the discovered patterns, we propose a learning framework to predict potential new payers. The framework can learn a model using features associated with users and then use the social relationships between users to refine the learned model. We test the proposed framework using nearly 50 billion user activities from two real games. Our experiments show that the proposed framework significantly improves the prediction accuracy by up to 3-11% compared to several alternative methods. The study also unveils several intriguing social phenomena from the data. For example, influence indeed exists among users for the paying behavior. The likelihood of a user becoming a new paying user is 5 times higher than chance when he has 5 paying neighbors of strong tie. We have deployed the proposed algorithm into the game, and the Lift_Ratio has been improved up to 196% compared to the prior strategy

The relationship between game rules and team cohesion: an empirical study

Multiplayer games (both face-to-face and online) frequently feature teams. This study investigates whether it is possible to use the rules of a game to alter the team cohesion. Game rules from two face-to-face games were analyzed using Social Identity Theory to predict which will lead to more cohesive teams. Significant differences in team cohesion ratings given by the players after the games suggest that the game rules may indeed affect the team cohesion as predicted

Tribal metaphors in social game design: creating conflict and camaraderie through context

This paper briefly explores the emergence of tribal patterns in social play. The formation of community groups is not just a result of game design, but a fundamental part of the social nature of the species. Tribal effects, such as favouritism towards fellow group members, have been studied by social psychologists for decades (e.g. [22,15,7]). We highlight some specific existing mechanics that enable and encourage this kind of behaviour in social games, and identify the importance of social feedback in generating tribal feelings. An experiment is described, that explores the minimal conditions of tribal behaviour player groups in social games. Specifically, it identifies the importance of feedback on social context in supporting the emergence of in-group favouring tribal play

Ola de la Vida:a social play game

Ola de la Vida (ODLV) is a three-player cooperative game which was produced over the course of 48 hours within Global Game Jam in January 2017, at the Abertay University Jam Site.The Game is a playful intervention (an objects or events which seek to bring people together through play) that aims to invite players to form temporary relationships with their co-players through physical contact, collaboration and coaching during play in a co-located context (i.e. where all players are present in the same play space). The game also seeks to expand the play experience beyond the three players to the wider audience by inviting spectatorship through play as performance.The game was designed by Mona Bozdog, Lynn Parker, Danny Parker, and Alex Pass. Since its inception, it has undergone significant development to enhance its usability (through tutorials) and its features to enhance the development of a community of play, including the introduction of clear player scores and high scores for the game. Lynn Parker contributed to the design of physical interactions within the game, the enhancement of usability through tutorials and scores and the creation of digital art for the game in partnership with Alex Pass.Ola De La Vida as a practice as research work offers design insight into use of spectatorship to create a temporary community around a game and to enhance the facilitation of discussion between active players, previous players, spectators, and semi-spectators. The work builds on the varying levels of participation in play, proposing semi-spectatorship: where players are active in a game but have a critical distance afforded to them by the design of the game which offers them and their co-players (where appropriate) potential benefits in play

Designing Game Based Learning – a Participatory Approach

Game Based Learning seems to be an interesting new possibility of teaching and learning, but the effort spent on designing games and the possible positive outcomes have to be weighed carefully. The following paper describes the development process and the conceptual design of a simulation game on sustainability for teenagers. The design process is participatory in nature. Members of the future group of learners are involved in the design process at every stage. This involvement is especially important to overcome the contradiction between the goal of the game as such and the pedagogical goal of the designers

Passion, craving, and affect in online gaming: Predicting how gamers feel when playing and when prevented from playing

According to the Dualistic Model of Passion, two forms of passion can motivate a behavior: harmonious passion and obsessive passion. Across various life activities, studies have found that the two forms of passion show different relationships with affect, linking harmonious passion to positive affect and obsessive passion to negative affect. To investigate if this pattern also holds for online gaming, the present study investigated 160 gamers involved in playing massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMOs) and examined positive and negative affect (a) when playing and (b) when prevented from playing. In addition, the effects of general affect and craving for playing MMOs were controlled for. Results were as expected from the Dualistic Model of Passion: Harmonious passion for online gaming predicted positive affect when playing whereas obsessive passion predicted negative affect when playing and when prevented from playing. Moreover, these effects remained unchanged when general affect and craving were controlled for. With this, the present research shows that individual differences in passion for online gaming explain unique variance in gaming-related emotions. Moreover, the present findings suggests that craving is a variable that future research on positive and negative affect in online gaming should pay closer attention to

A study of team cohesion and player satisfaction in two face-to-face games

In this paper we investigate the link between game rules, team cohesion and players’ satisfaction with their teams within face-to-face team-based games. To measure team cohesion, rules from two games were analysed from the perspective of Social Identity Theory in order to form a hypothesis as to which game would be more likely to lead to more cohesive teams, where team cohesion is measured by the extent to which each player identifies with their team. Player satisfaction was measured by looking at three factors: communication within the team, player outcome versus team outcome, and fairness. Significant differences were found in the team cohesion measure suggesting that, as predicted by Social Identity Theory, team cohesion can be fostered by game rules. Team cohesion also correlated positively with player satisfaction. Taken together, this suggests that for games in which team cohesion is an important part, game designers can incorporate game rules in such as a way as to increase the likelihood of both team cohesion and player satisfaction

Look at me playing? – The eSports importance on consumers emotions

The world of video games is not only gaining a growing number of fans but is also getting more and more attention from the media and social networks. The eSports are electronic sports known as competitive video gaming and have already a large following all over the world, over the past few years, being a phenomenon of audiences. Alongside this growth, scientific interest in studying this topic has also been growing, as shown by the significant number of scientific papers that have been published on this subject. The research about the effects that eSports have on its players has different perspectives, such as positive or negative impacts. Thus, supported by what has been studied and documented in previous studies – according to the available research papers (indexed in journals or international conferences) –, it is important to understand what the importance of the eSports for its players and spectators is. This study enhances what has already been investigated about this topic. Starting with our research question ‘How do esports affect their consumers emotionally?’, a systematic review was conducted to resume and analyze the impacts that competitive video gaming has emotionally on eSports’ consumers. According to the defined inclusion criteria, 20 relevant published papers were selected through the electronic databases Google Scholar and Scopus, published between 2016 and 2022, and a deep analysis of the literature – a meta-analysis – was conducted. Iramuteq and MonkeyLearn software were used to determine and shape the main themes and concepts of emotional impacts, through textual analyses. This review draws insight into the effects that competitive video gaming has on the mental health of the players and suggests that future studies may focus on some interventions to deal with the negative impact that eSports has emotionally.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

Usando um Jogo Digital na Sala de Aula do Ensino Fundamental: Visão dos Professores

A digital game was created as a resource for cognitive learning and afterwards it was used in primary schools in order to survey its active users. The methods used to recollect data were observation, in-depth interviews and focus groups. The main target of this study is to collect points of view of different primary school teachers. Conclusions show us how the group of study members perceive the use of digital games in the classroom