A Paradigm Shift from Optimal Play to Mental Comfort: A Perspective from the Game Refinement Theory

The game refinement theory focuses on the game designer perspective, where its application in various types of games provides evidence of the occurring paradigm shift. Utilizing the logistical model of game outcome uncertainty, it provides a platform for incorporating gamified experience observed in games to be adopted in domains outside of game while retaining the context of the game. Making games as a testbed, the implications of the game refinement theory have been observed in the educational and business perspective, while further explored its utility in interpreting some states of the human mind. In addition, a holistic view of design in games and in the real-world environments was discussed, where the prospects of the game refinement theory were also highlighted

An Approach to Quantifying Pokemon's Entertainment Impact with focus on Battle

This paper explores the attractiveness of Pokemon which is a turn-based Role Playing Game (RPG) and has been very popular for the decades. In this study we focus on Pokemon battle which is the most important component in Pokemon. The game refinement theory is used as a tool to assess the degree of sophistication of Pokemon battle. For this purpose we apply two approaches of game progress modeling to derive game refinement measure, i.e., score limit sports approach and board game approach. We calculated game refinement values for Pokemon battle by collecting many data from Pokemon Showdown, an online Pokemon battle simulator. The results show that the values of game refinement for Pokemon are slightly lower than the comfortable zone that we supposed in the previous study. We are tempted to conclude that such a slightly lower value is important to attract children with appropriate degree of excitement in playing Pokemon