Introduction to this special issue on HCI and games

Games have been part of human–computer interaction (HCI) research since the first CHI conference in 1982. At that gathering, Tom Malone, then at Xerox PARC, presented insights from the study of computer games to motivate a set of design principles for “enjoyable” user interfaces (Malone, 1982). Over the ensuing years, games-related HCI research has steadily grown as a subarea of CHI (e.g. Keeker, Pagulayan, Sykes, & Lazzaro, 2004; Pausch, Gold, Skelly, & Thiel, 1994), with more rapid acceleration in the last 10 years. A recent metareview (Carter, Downs, Nansen, Harrop, & Gibbs, 2014) analyzed game- and play-related content at CHI between 2003 and 2013, finding that the overall percentage of the CHI proceedings related to play and games rose from 2.5% to a peak of 9.5% in 2012. In the last few years, venues for game-related HCI work have expanded as well. From 2011 to 2013, two of this special issue’s editors (Bernhaupt & Isbister, 2013) formed a Games and Entertainment Special Community devoted to game-related HCI research at CHI, leading to the permanent addition to CHI venues of a Student Game Design Competition. And in 2014, a new ACM-sponsored conference was created as a specialized peer-reviewed venue for the intersection of HCI and Games—CHI-Play. Game-related research is clearly a valued, integral, and growing segment of HCI research

Design of a videogame to explore morality

A number of video games involve moral narratives or require the player to make moral decisions and research from psychologists has helped to understand the effects video game content can have on how individuals behave. Recent research has started to examine the role of morality in video games: however, there are many inconsistencies in the findings. We propose that some of these inconsistencies could be due to using commercial video games for research purposes, which contain biases such as familiarity with the game and favourite characters. The process of playing video games requires consideration of Human Computer Interaction (HCI); i.e., how the game is designed and then how it is received by the player. The aim of this poster is to highlight the work being conducted to design a game in order to investigate how moral decisions are made in video games. The design of video games usually draws on an understanding of HCI to produce play that is entertaining and engaging for the player. The game development process in this research draws on a fusion of psychology and HCI, and by drawing on theories of morality the design of the game will be grounded in psychology, as well as entertainment. Through fusing video game design principles, HCI and psychology, this work is novel in terms of a methodological as well as theoretical contribution to the area

Human-Computer Interaction for BCI Games: Usability and User Experience

Brain-computer interfaces (BCI) come with a lot of issues, such as delays, bad recognition, long training times, and cumbersome hardware. Gamers are a large potential target group for this new interaction modality, but why would healthy subjects want to use it? BCI provides a combination of information and features that no other input modality can offer. But for general acceptance of this technology, usability and user experience will need to be taken into account when designing such systems. This paper discusses the consequences of applying knowledge from Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) to the design of BCI for games. The integration of HCI with BCI is illustrated by research examples and showcases, intended to take this promising technology out of the lab. Future research needs to move beyond feasibility tests, to prove that BCI is also applicable in realistic, real-world settings

Self-determination theory in HCI: shaping a research agenda

Self-determination theory (SDT) has become one of the most frequently used and well-validated theories used in HCI research, modelling the relation of basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, positive experience and wellbeing. This makes it a prime candidate for a ‘motor theme’ driving more integrated, systematic, theory-guided research. However, its use in HCI has remained superficial and disjointed across various application domains like games, health and wellbeing, or learning. This workshop therefore convenes researchers across HCI to co-create a research agenda on how SDT-informed HCI research can maximise its progress in the coming years

Challenge in Digital Games: Towards Developing a Measurement Tool

Challenge is arguably the most important experience that players seek in digital games. However, without a measure of how challenged players feel during the act of play, it is hard to design games that are neither too easy nor too hard and, therefore, truly enjoyable. Especially in industry, challenge is dominantly assessed by means of manual play testing in ad-hoc trials. The aim of this research is to create a more systematic, complete, and reliable instrument to evaluate the level of players' experienced challenge in games in the form of a questionnaire. This paper presents the key results from an extensive literature survey which will inform further development. We survey definitions of challenge, challenge types, and their relation to player experience based on the observations of game designers. We furthermore draw from empirical findings in a diverse range of fields such as game studies, human-computer interaction (HCI) and artificial intelligence (AI)

SenToy and FantasyA: evaluating affective gaming

Gaming is a highly relevant application area for Intelligent Agents and Human Computer Interaction (HCI). Computer games bring us a full set of new gaming experiences where synthetic characters take on the main role.Using affective input in the interaction with a game and in particular with a character is a recent and fairly unexplored dimension. This video presents a study of a tangible interaction device for affective input and its use in a role-playing game where emotions are part of the game logic

Games Design Research through Game Design Practice

Whilst many game design academics are also game designers, their research is often presented through the lens of other disciplines (philosophy, media theory, human computer interaction [HCI], etc.) and practice-based design research is arguably underrepresented in the games research community. Although game design research espouses to open an inclusive community, at present, research approaches and the presentation of results is dominated by those inherited from either the social sciences or HCI. This dominance of loaded and prescriptive academic frameworks is arguably why many of those creating games outside academia feel such research is unrepresentative of their own practices

Case studies: understanding players and the contexts in which they play. Workshop on Crossing Domains: Diverse Perspectives on Players

Over recent years, the study of games and players has become an established domain with HCI research. However, while a range of methods has been employed within this area, questions remain as to how to develop in-depth understandings of players and the contexts they play within. Drawing upon the social sciences, this paper proposes case studies as an additional methodology for player research. We discuss the approach by referring to an example of how case studies were used to investigate the relationship between gaming involvement and learning

Hipsters, trendies and rebels: if fun is cool, is game design cool design?

Recent discussions within the HCI community around designing software and devices for “coolness” have identified the importance of playfulness as an aspect of cool products. Game studies, as a field of inquiry, has long been occupied with understanding playfulness, so it stands to reason that findings from this field might also support playfulness and therefore coolness outside the context of games. In this paper, we briefly explore potential overlaps between the research into designing for coolness and that of designing for playfulness. An example of an overlap in terms of motivation is presented and potential future directions are discussed