17,015 research outputs found
Methodologies for evaluating the playability of mobile games:systematic literature review
Tiivistelmä. The gaming industry has been growing rapidly during the past years due to the interest of the new generations in mobile gaming. To deliver a great experience for the gamers, it is required for the gaming companies to produce games that are challenging but at the same time easy to play. To achieve this, it is required to understand the factors that affect the gaming experience. Playability is a term that is used to understand the usability of a game and its experience.
The purpose of this thesis was to understand what is known related to the playability of mobile games and to identify the methodologies that are used by the community to evaluate this phenomenon. To find the answers to these questions, it was performed a systematic literature review (SLR) using the databases Scopus, IEEE Xplore, and Web of Science. After conducting the SLR, 1,390 studies related to the playability of mobile games were found from which 27 were identified as primary studies of this research.
From the data collected from the primary studies, there were identified 12 different methodologies that are used for evaluating the playability of mobile games. The methodologies that are most suitable to assess the playability of mobile games are heuristic evaluation and playtesting. Other methodologies can be used for evaluating the playability of mobile games, but they must include a set of heuristics that allows evaluating the playability. The limitations of the research were mentioned, and it was proposed topics for future research of this field.
The contribution of this thesis is the summarizing of the current methodologies that are used to understand and evaluate the playability of mobile games. The results of this thesis are valuable for game developers, game designers, and game usability practitioners
An Experiential comparative analysis of two remote usability testing methods
Remote usability testing is a key tool for usability professionals. Several remote methods exist and it is often difficult to choose the appropriate method. Testing lower-fidelity prototypes often present unique problems because they provide minimally aesthetic and minimally interactive partial representations of a final product. This qualitative and experiential pilot study is an attempt to compare a remote synchronous (RS) usability testing method where the moderator and participant are displaced by space, and a remote asynchronous (RA) usability testing method where the moderator and participant are displaced by both time and space. An important byproduct of the comparison is the creation of a low-cost, online asynchronous testing mechanism. The results show that the usability issues and participant experience vary between remote synchronous and asynchronous usability testing. While the remote asynchronous method does not require a test moderator and participants find it more convenient to complete the test whenever he or she chooses, participants may require clarification on tasks and usability issues discovered during the test. Participants are also critical of the remote asynchronous method and sometimes find it difficult to complete an entire session on his or her own time without anyone to guide them. Further research is needed to validate the results using a more controlled methodology
PLAYABILITY HEURISTIC EVALUATION SYSTEM FOR MOBILE GAMES
Playability is an element that measures the ease of use by which a game can be played.
To evaluate playability of a game, two methods are widely being used; Playtesting and
Heuristic Evaluation. Playability Heuristics are required to perform heuristic evaluation
on games
Motivating children to learn effectively: exploring the value of intrinsic integration in educational games
The concept of intrinsic motivation lies at the heart of the user engagement created by digital games. Yet despite this, educational software has traditionally attempted to harness games as extrinsic motivation by using them as a sugar coating for learning content. This article tests the concept of intrinsic integration as a way of creating a more productive relationship between educational games and their learning content. Two studies assessed this approach by designing and evaluating an educational game called Zombie Division to teach mathematics to 7- to 11-year-olds. Study 1 examined the learning gains of 58 children who played either the intrinsic, extrinsic, or control variants of Zombie Division for 2 hr, supported by their classroom teacher. Study 2 compared time on task for the intrinsic and extrinsic variants of the game when 16 children had free choice of which game to play. The results showed that children learned more from the intrinsic version of the game under fixed time limits and spent 7 times longer playing it in free-time situations. Together, these studies offer evidence for the genuine value of an intrinsic approach for creating effective educational games. The theoretical and commercial implications of these findings are discussed
Behavior in a dynamic decision problem: An analysis of experimental evidence using a bayesian type classification algorithm
It has been long recognized that different people may use different strategies, or decision rules, when playing games or dealing with other complex decision problems. We provide a new Bayesian procedure for drawing inferences about the nature and number of decision rules that are present in a population of agents. We show that the algorithm performs well in both a Monte Carlo study and in an empirical application. We apply our procedure to analyze the actual behavior of subjects who are confronted with a difficult dynamic stochastic decision problem in a laboratory setting. The procedure does an excellent job of grouping the subjects into easily interpretable types. Given the difficultly of the decision problem, we were surprised to find that nearly a third of subjects were a “Near Rational” type that played a good approximation to the optimal decision rule. More than 40% of subjects followed a rule that we describe as “fatalistic,” since they play as if they don’t appreciate the extent to which payoffs are a controlled stochastic process. And about a quarter of the subjects are classified as “Confused,” since they play the game quite poorly. Interestingly, we find that those subjects who practiced most before playing the game for money were the most likely to play poorly. Thus, lack of effort does not seem to account for poor performance. It is our hope that, in future work, our type classification algorithm will facilitate the positive analysis of peoples’ behavior in many types of complex decision problems.behavioral experiments type-classification bayesian
Detecting Failures of Backward Induction: Monitoring Information Search in Sequential Bargaining
We ran three-round sequential bargaining experiments in which the perfect equilibrium offer was 2.50. Subjects offered 1.84 to “robot” players (who are known to play subgame perfectly), and $1.22 to robots after instruction in backward induction. Measures of information search showed that subjects did not look at the amounts being divided in different rounds in the correct order, and for the length of time, necessary for backward induction, unless they were specifically instructed. The results suggest that most of the departure from perfect equilibrium is due to limited computation and some is due to fairness
How Do Behavioral Assumptions Affect Structural Inference? Evidence From A Laboratory Experiment
We use a laboratory experiment to investigate the effect that assuming rational expectations has on structural inference in a dynamic discrete choice decision problem. Our experimental design induces preferences up to each subject’s subjective rates of time preference, leaving unrestricted only this parameter and the decision rule that the subject uses in solving the problem. We analyze the data under the assumption that all subjects use the rational expectations decision rule, and also under weaker behavioral assumptions that allow for heterogeneity in the way people form decisions. We find no evidence that assuming rational expectations distorts inferences about the cross-sectional distribution of discount rates.
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