Secure referee selection for fair and responsive peer-to-peer gaming

Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures for Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG) provide better scalability than Client/Server (C/S); however, they increase the possibility of cheating. Recently proposed P2P protocols use trusted referees that simulate/validate the game to provide security equivalent to C/S. When selecting referees from untrusted peers, selecting non-colluding referees becomes critical. Further, referees should be selected such that the range and length of delays to players is minimised (maximising game fairness and responsiveness). In this paper we formally define the referee selection problem and propose two secure referee selection algorithms, SRS-1 and SRS-2, to solve it. Both algorithms ensure the probability of corrupt referees controlling a zone/region is below a predefined limit, while attempting to maximise responsiveness and fairness. The trade-off between responsiveness and fairness is adjustable for both algorithms. Simulations of three different scenarios show the effectiveness of our algorithms

Factors determining player drop-out in Massive Multiplayer Online Games

A large number of people worldwide play free-to-play Massive Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) on a regular basis. Considering the significant amount of investment required in the early phases of game development, product managers aiming to quickly attract players deploy several in-game premium features which can be purchased by players willing to leverage their gaming experience. When the gap of advantage between premium and non-premium players is quite noticeable, it may lead to the lack of game fairness, resulting in players dropping out. This study aims at understanding the relevance of the drop-out factors that can be controlled by product managers, with an emphasis on game fairness when compared to other factors. A survey was sent to English-speaking communities of a MMOG. Results show that 53.9% of the variation in dropping-out is explained by the significant predictors analyzed: latency/performance issues, in-game features, community, service/support team and game fairness. Latency/performance issues and game fairness are the most relevant drop-out factors. By focusing on drop-out factors that can be controlled by product managers, this research contributes for decision making in the development of free-to-play MMOGs.info:eu-repo/semantics/acceptedVersio

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

The Impact of Motivational Factors on Daily Fantasy Sports Participation

Since the passing of the Unlawful Internet Gambling Act (UIGEA) in 2006, the fantasy sports world has had a tumultuous decade. Shortly after the passing of UIGEA, daily fantasy sports became marketable, and saw several years of tremendous growth. However, recent legal issues have clouded the industry, and lawmakers have questioned whether daily fantasy sports indeed fall under the exception granted by UIGEA as a “game of skill”, or whether the games are illegal gambling. This study is meant to look at what motivates fantasy sports participants, especially through this time of turmoil in the industry. It specifically looks at how players’ competitive, knowledge-seeking, or social tendencies affect their participation habits. Additionally, this thesis explores the effect that marketing messaging that portrays a daily fantasy sports website as a perfect place to satisfy these individual traits has on player participation. Finally, this study investigates the role that a sense of fairness plays in shaping players’ perceptions of these websites. To study these things, we began by looking at previous studies that focus on competition, knowledge, and social factors, both in the fantasy sports field and elsewhere, and creating a literature review. Following the literature review, an experiment was created, which tested these three scales as well as the perception of fairness, using a fictitious fantasy sports site, Fantasyland. The results obtained from this experiment indicate that those with competitive or social dispositions are the most likely to try fantasy sports. Additionally, it was found that those who are socially motivated are more likely to recommend a fantasy sports site to friends or strangers. Lastly, the perception of fairness did not have a direct effect of participants, although in one case, it did positively impact an individual’s willingness to try a daily sports website. These results and their implications as well as future research directions are outlined in the concluding discussion section

Modelling human fairness in cooperative games : a goal programming approach

The issues of rationality in human behavior and fairness in cooperation have gained interest in various economic studies. In many prescriptive models of games, rationality of human decision makers implicitly assumes exchange-ability. This means that real people are assumed to adopt the beliefs of a player as expressed in the game when placed in the shoes of that particular player. However, it is a well debated topic in the literature that this modeling assumption is not in accordance to what behavioral economists have observed in some games played with real human subjects. Even when assuming the role of the same player in the game, different people think differently about the fairness of a particular outcome. People also view fairness as an essential ingredient of their decision making processes in games on cooperation. The aim of this research is to develop a new modeling approach to decision making in games on cooperation in which fairness is an important consideration. The satisficing and egilitarian philosophies on which weighted and Chebyshev Goal Programming (GP) rely, seem to offer an adequate and natural way for modeling human decision processes in at least the single-shot games of coordination that are investigated in this work. The solutions returned by the proposed GP approach aim to strike the right balance on several dimensions of con icting goals that are set by players themselves and that arise in the mental models these players have of other relevant players.EThOS - Electronic Theses Online ServiceGBUnited Kingdo

Are people ethical? An experimental approach

Do ethical motivations and attitudes affect behaviour? We examine this issue in six Prisoner´s Dilemma and Prisoner´s Dilemma related games using an online experiment where individuals were asked to make choices and subsequently to express the motivations for their choices and their general attitudes. The experimental evidence of 1,701 students suggests that the motivations and attitudes of respondents regarding altruism, inequality aversion, reciprocity and aversion to lying are important for determining economic choices as well as self-interest. Econometric analysis of the choice to share indicates that ethical and self-interested motives are more important for determining choices than personal characteristics

An exploration of the motivational basis of take-some and give-some games

Surprisingly little research has investigated the particular motives that underlie choice behavior in social dilemma situations. The main aim of the present research was to ask whether behavior in take-some games (such as the multiple-person Commons Dilemma Game and the two-person Bandit Game) and give-some games (such as the multiple-person Public Goods Dilemma Game and the two-person Dictator Game) is differently affected by proself and prosocial motives. Two experimental studies were conducted. Our first experiment used a trait-based assessment of the motives, whereas in our second experiment the motives were measured as state variables. The results of both experiments revealed that proself and prosocial motives did not explain much difference between taking and giving when comparing the Commons Dilemma Game and the Public Goods Dilemma Game. Yet, our second experiment revealed that these motives did differentiate choices in the Bandit Game and the Dictator Game. More specifically, prosocial motives are more strongly related to giving behavior in the Dictator Game than to taking behavior in the Bandit Game. As such, it can be concluded that in dyadic games (but not in multiple-person games) prosocial motives (but not proself motives) predict choice behavior in a game-specific way