Exploration and Skill Acquisition in a Major Online Game

Using data from a major commercial online game, Destiny, we track the development of player skill across time. From over 20,000 player record we identify 3475 players who have played on 50 or more days. Our focus is on how variability in elements of play affect subsequent skill development. After validating the persistent influence of differences in initial performance between players, we test how practice spacing, social play, play mode variability and a direct measure of game-world exploration affect learning rate. These latter two factors do not affect learning rate. Players who space their practice more learn faster, in line with our expectations, whereas players who coordinate more with other players learn slower, which contradicts our initial hypothesis. We conclude that not all forms of practice variety expedite skill acquisition. Online game telemetry is a rich domain for exploring theories of optimal skill acquisition

Do Influencers Influence? -- Analyzing Players' Activity in an Online Multiplayer Game

In social and online media, influencers have traditionally been understood as highly visible individuals. Recent outcomes suggest that people are likely to mimic influencers' behavior, which can be exploited, for instance, in marketing strategies. Also in the Games User Research field, the interest in studying player social networks has emerged due to the heavy reliance on online influencers in marketing campaigns for games, as well as in keeping players engaged. Despite the inherent value of those individuals, it is still difficult to identify influencers, as the definition of influencers is a debated topic. Thus, how can we identify influencers, and are they indeed the individuals impacting others' behavior? In this work, we focus on influence in retention to verify whether central players impacted others' permanence in the game. We identified the central players in the social network built from the competitive player-vs-player (PvP) multiplayer (Crucible) matches in the online shooter Destiny. Then, we computed influence scores for each player evaluating the increase in similarity over time between two connected individuals. In this paper, we were able to show the first indications that the traditional metrics for influencers do not necessarily apply for games. On the contrary, we found that the group of central players was distinct from the group of influential players, defined as the individuals with the highest influence scores. Then, we provide an analysis of the two groups.Comment: accepted for publication in IEEE Conference on Games (CoG) 202

Online-only friends, real-life friends or strangers? Differential associations with passion and social capital in video game play

The present study tests a recently proposed model in which social video game play supports wellbeing by contributing to a harmonious type of engagement with the game. Players (N = 2030) of the online-only multiplayer first-person shooter game, Destiny, reported the frequency they played with real-life friends, online-only friends and strangers, their type of engagement with the game – measured as harmonious and obsessive passion, and completed a wellbeing measure of social capital. \ud \ud Telemetry data also recorded their total time playing over the duration of the study. A structural equation model supported the prediction that harmonious – but not obsessive – passion would mediate the positive association between playing with others and social capital. \ud \ud The findings also supported a supplementary hypothesis that the three types of social relationships would be differentially associated with two forms of social capital – bridging versus bonding – as a function of the closeness of social ties. Real-life friends was positively associated with bonding, strangers with bridging, and online-only friends with both. \ud \ud Overall, these results emphasise that social interactions in (and around) online multiplayer video games are effective for building social capital, and do so by ensuring game play is in harmony with other goals and values

Influencers in Multiplayer Online Shooters Evidence of Social Contagion in Playtime and Social Play

In a wide range of social networks, people’s behavior is influenced by social contagion: we do what our network does. Networks often feature particularly influential individuals, commonly called influencers. Existing work suggests that in-game social networks in online games are similar to real life social networks in many respects. However, we do not know whether there are in-game equivalents to influencers. We therefore applied standard social network features used to identify influencers to the online multiplayer shooter Tom Clancy’s The Division. Results show that network features defined influencers had indeed an outsized impact on playtime and social play of players joining their in-game network

A methodology for approximating motivation-related latent states in large scale scenarios: and its role in engagement prediction within a video game setting

Motivation is a fundamental psychological process guiding our everyday behaviour. For doing so, it heavily relies on the ability to attribute relevance to potentially rewarding objects and actions (i.e., incentives). However, despite its importance, quantifying the saliency that an individual might attribute to an object or an action is not an easy task, especially if done in naturalistic contexts. In this view, this thesis aims to outline a methodology for approximating the amount of attributed incentive salience in situations where large volumes of behavioural data are available but no experimental control is possible. Leveraging knowledge derived from theoretical and computational accounts of incentive salience attribution, we designed an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) tasked to infer a latent representation able to predict duration and intensity of future interactions between individuals and a series of video games. We found video games to be the ideal context for developing such methodology due to their reliance on reward mechanics and their ability to provide ecologically robust behavioural measures at scale. We developed and tested our methodology on a series of large-scale ($N> 10^6$) longitudinal datasets evaluating the ability of the generated latent representation to approximate some functional properties of attributed incentive salience. The present work opens with an overview of the concept of motivation and its interconnection with engagement in a video-game setting. It proceeds by formulating the theoretical and computation foundations on which our methodology is built upon. It then describes the iterative process of model building, evaluation and expansion underlying the implementation of our methodology. It continues by analysing the latent representation generated by the ANN and comparing its functional characteristics with those of attributed incentive salience. The manuscript ends with a general overview of the potential applications of our methodology with a particular focus on the area of automated engagement prediction and quantification in videogames settings

Undergraduate and Graduate Course Descriptions, 2021 Summer

Wright State University undergraduate and graduate course descriptions from Summer 2021

Transgressive Positivity in Four Online Multiplayer Games

Online games have a reputation for toxicity. Forms of play that have been theorized as transgressive from the perspective of idealized play have become highly normalized within the toxic space of online gaming. In this context, positivity in online gaming takes on a transgressive quality that challenges the common behaviours, the norms of communication, and their underlying ideologies found within online gaming communities. Through an ethnography of four massively multiplayer online game spaces - DOTA 2, Lost Ark, Destiny 2, and World of Warcraft - this project examines the effects of positivity in play on others who share these game worlds to consider ways that positivity might be leveraged to impact gaming’s toxic culture. Positivity is approached through different scales, from smaller individual actions like friendly greetings and helpful gestures not often seen in these particular games, to larger community formations that promote positivity and inclusivity within these gaming communities. This study finds that positivity across these scales produces substantial and proportional resistance to positive deviations from the toxic norms within these games and their linked community sites. Players actively trying to resist toxicity through positivity add varying levels of labor to their leisure and are frequent targets for harassment, leading to burnout or self-exclusion from these online games. Transgressive positivity in online play can produce alternatives to self-exclusion from gaming by producing ephemeral connections and networks of support between players. Enclaves built on positivity can form, but they are always under threat when they intersect with the mainstream culture across each of these four games. Ultimately, there are severe systemic issues within these communities - reinforced by trends within the games industry and in online game design - that undercut player-led positivity initiatives. While positivity can be a useful strategy for some to connect with others and to persist in spite of these toxic environments, positivity’s transgressive quality in online play produces substantial vulnerability for those who actively pursue it as a strategy of resistance or cultural intervention