Game spectatorship: Let’s play videos

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the fifth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on „Let’s play“ videos (LP). I’ll mostly explain my own obervations of watching LPs and thus try to define what „Let’s play“ videos are.

A LP is a full video coverage of the playthrough of a computer game, which is, in most cases, commentated by the player. A playthrough of a game in case of a LP has not necessary to end with the beating of the game [1]. Players can even stick to some contraints like playing until a particular character dies or playing until the player gets defeated by the game without reloading older save games [2][3]. In this case, a LP ends before the player beats the game.

LPs belong the user generated content [4]: In most cases, LPs are uploaded to video platforms like youtube and aren’t created by professionals.

A playthrough of a regular video game takes several hours (in most cases between 10 to 30 hours). Therefore, a LP is split into several videos and thus creating a movie series [5]. Recipients of a LP series are following the story of the computer game not by playing the game itself. Instead, they’re watching every part of a series and thus are experiencing the same story as the player. However, they do not have the experience of the importance of their own decisions in critical situations. This removes one of the key aspects of experiencing a computer game: the oppurtunity to be in control of the situation. Watching a LP is like watching a movie or reading a book: The recipient can’t influence the actions.

One very interesting fact about LPs is the additional narrative part: A LP is recorded while the player is progressing through the game. During this process, the player is interacting with the game and reacting to events. In this case, the player becomes an additional actor of the full gameplay coverage [5].

On the one hand, the player is interacting with the game itself. A certain part of the entertaining aspect of watching LPs derives from the uncertainty of the player’s actions. As the recipients are watching a LP episode, they’re thinking about the situations the player is in. They start making up own solutions how to deal with a particular situation. However, they’re not in control of it. Thus they’re entertained by watching how the player’s actions unfold.

On the other hand, the player is creating another story arc to the gameplay by commentating the own actions or by speaking as if the player is the own avatar or a person directly involved in the current gameplay situation.

Commentating the gameplay let the viewers experience how the player’s feeling about the situation. By doing so, the LP are loaded with an additional narrative part: the experiences of the progressing player. This might be the most entertaining, when the game caught the player off guard [5].

Acting as if the player is a part of the game can be quite entertaining as well. The player can respond to communications of the game:
Game character: „Hello!“
Player: „Hello!“
The viewer of the LP gets the impression, as if the player is directly responding to the game and thus interacting with it.

Finally, players can act as if they’re the own avatar. This mostly happens while a role-playing game is being played. The player starts talking to non-player characters and is reacting to new situations as if they are really in that particular situation [6].

As a conclusion, LPs are special form of experiencing the gameplay of computer games. The gameplay can be enhanced with an additional story arc through the interaction of the player with the game. Even if the recipient of a LP can’t take actions in the game, they can experience the whole gameplay of it. Finally, the accompanying commentary creates an important aspect of the entertainment of watching LPs.

[4] Daugherty, Terry.; Eastin, Matthew, S.; Bright, Laura (2008): Exploring consumer motivations for creating user-generated content, in: Journal of Interactive Advertising, 8 (2), pp. 16 – 25.

Game spectatorship: Spectatorship methods in detail

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the fourth part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on two of the spectatorship methods: Watching over the player’s shoulder and watching recorded videos.

Watching over the player’s shoulder (wotps) can be separated into two different methods: Sitting physically next to the performing player and watching video game live streams like Twitch. For the rest of this article, these two methods will be defined as real wotps and virtual wotps.

As already discussed last week, real wotps has some disadvantages due to the requirement of physical presence. However, real wotps can be very useful for the Interested. The Interested likes to get additional information about the gameplay. Sitting next to the performing player allows the Interested to directly ask questions and to experience the gameplay live.
The use of real wotps for the Pupil is depending on the skill level of the Pupil and the performing player. If the player and the spectator are at the same skill level or the player is even better than the Pupil, then real wotps can be useful for the Pupil. However the Pupil won’t be able to get new knowledge, if the Pupil has a higher skill level than the player.
The Pupil can observe how the player is reacting to critical situations and the player can explain the own actions. The explanations can compensate the lack of the possibility to replay important situations.

Virtual wotps can provide the same information for the Interested as the real wotps. The Interested can experience the gameplay from the same pov as the player. Additionally, the player and the Interested can communicate using the implemented chat function. Finally, it’s up to the Interested to chose a stream, which suits them best. Compared to the real wotps, the virtual wotps allow the Interested to easily switch between different players. Thus the Interested is given the opportunity to gather as much oppinions as desired.
Virtual wotps has a great advantage over the real wotps for the Pupil. The Pupil can chose the appropriate video game live stream. In most cases, the Pupil likes to analyze the gameplay of expert players. World wide streaming platforms like Twitch allow the Pupil to watch the gameplay of expert players, even if they are physically far away.
Live streams in general do not have a replay function. This might be the only disadvantage for the Pupil, because they can’t analyze critical situations in detail. However, the implemented chat function and the possibility of commentating the own actions can compensate the lack of control.

Watching recorded videos is a very broad and even blurred aspect of spectatorship. Recorded videos can be classified into five categories: Review, tutorial, proof of success, commentated replays and let’s play.

Gameplay reviews [1] are mostly giving a general overview over the gameplay of a particular game. The performing player is demonstrating the most important facts of the gameplay and is concluding with a recommendation about the whole game. Considering this, gameplay reviews are very useful for the Interested.

Tutorial videos [2] are mostly focused on a particular part of the gameplay and how to master it. To understand a tutorial video, basic knowledge about the gameplay is required. These videos are created to improve the gameplay of others. Considering this, tutorial videos are very useful for the Pupil.

Proof of success videos [3] are mostly created to proof the own success. These videos demonstrate the way how an encounter is defeated by a player or, in the case of multiplayer games, a group of players. These videos can be useful for both spectator personas. The Interested can inform themselves about the endgame gameplay. The Pupil can analyze the gameplay in detail and rewatch situations if needed.

Commentated replays [4] can be defined as delayed live streams. Games like StarCraft2 do have a function to save replays of the own gameplay. These replays can be watched using the replay function of the game, which can be compared to the spectator mode. By doing so, the replay offers the same information as if the gameplay is watched live using the spectator mode.
In conclusion the replay function allows to watch the gameplay as if it’s live. In this case, commentators can create videos by commentating the action. These videos look like a live broadcast.
Watching these videos can be very useful for the Pupil because they can pause the video, rewatch critical situations and even gain additional knowledge by listening to the commentator.

Let’s play videos [5] are a special form of video based gameplay coverage. These videos show the playthrough of a video game from the pov of the player. In most cases these videos are additional commentated by the player. By watching a let’s play series, the Interested can experience the complete game and in the process, gain a complete impression of the game. The Pupil won’t benefit much from watching these videos, because they already know the gameplay and the focus of these videos isn’t on critical situations or high performance gameplay.

However, let’s play videos are a complex case which I’ll cover in the next part of the game spectorship series.

Game spectatorship: Ecosystem Twitch

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the third part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. Last week, two main ways of spectating were discovered for the Pupil and the Interested: Watching over the player’s shoulder and watching recorded videos. Before I can focus on these two methods, I have to present and analyze an important video gameplay streaming platform at first. In this episode, I’ll focus on Twitch, a video gameplay streaming platform, which can also be used for a world wide „watching over the player’s shoulder“.

Normally, watching over the player’s shoulder can be almost seen as a face-to-face interaction. The player and the spectator are physically in the same room and the spectator is watching the player’s gameplay. However, this concept is limited to only a few persons at the same time. On the one hand, only few persons can assemble around a player at the same time. On the other hand, the spectators are limited by the distance: Visiting a friend playing a particular game in the neighborhood works well. Visiting a player on the other side of the world might work as well, but the travel costs would be quite high. Considering this, watching over the player’s shoulder has a disadvantage for the Pupil, because this spectator persona likes to watch the gameplay of expert players, who are scattered over the whole world.

By now, there exists another method of watching over the player’s shoulder: personal live streams using the Twitch.tv platform. Watching these streams „is becoming a new entertainment on its own„[1]: There’s already a new web community evolving around the live streams of video games [1].

Twitch allows players to broadcast their own gameplay all over the world by providing a platform to create an unique player channel. This cannel is the connection between the performing player and their audience. On the one hand, players can comment the own gameplay using a microphone or use a webcam to show themselves playing. Spectators watching a player’s channel do have the opportunity to use the implemented chat function to communicate with the player [1]. Taking this into consideration, Twitch becomes the virtual way of watching over the player’s shoulder. Additionally, distance and space problems are solved.

Twitch has created a new business ecosystem [2] in this process. Twitch, as a provider of a broadcasting platform, can be defined as the keystone of the business ecosystem. Keystones are crucial for the development of an ecosystem. They try to improve the health and the productivity of their ecosystem by providing a common set of assets [2]. For that purpose, Twitch tries to improve and simplify the streaming of video games by providing a common video streaming platform. Broadcasters using Twitch can be defined as niche players [2]. Niche players try to differentiate from other niche players by offering unique content in the same ecosystem. In the case of video game broadcasting, they try to develop an unique gameplay to attract the attention of the the Twitch viewers.

The specific characteristic of a business ecosystem is the interdependency of all the players in a particular system. The keystone is winning, if it’s leveraging the niche creation. Niche players are winning, if the keystone is providing a healthy and well developed environment. In the case of Twitch as a keystone, Twitch is winning, if enough video game players are using Twitch to broadcast their gameplay. Video game players are winning, if they do have a platform to share their gameplay with others.

However, Twitch doesn’t provide this service for free. As a business, Twitch wants to generate revenue. By providing the broadcasting platform, Twitch benefits from the attention of viewers drawn by the performing video game players. Twitch uses this attention to allow another niche player to evolve: advertisers.

„Twitch offers a full suite of ad products including high impact frontpage takeovers and in-stream video advertising, as well as turnkey, custom solutions.“ [3] Through providing a streaming platform, Twitch allows every video game player to broadcast their gameplay for free. The easy way of sharing the own gameplay experience with the whole world attracts a lot of video game players, who start streaming their gameplay. The streamed gameplay attracts spectators. Just by providing the streaming platform, Twitch reaches, according to internal analytics, over 34 million unique visitors [3]. This attention is highly valuable for advertisers, who pay for the service of placing advertisement. Therefore, Twitch’s business strategy can be called „charge third parties“ [4].

Consequently, video game players who stream on a regular basis are crucial for Twitch’s business strategy. In order to keep these video game players active on Twitch, a partner program was created: „As a Twitch Partner, you earn a share of the revenue generated from the videos you broadcast. We take care of everything: you just collect a check.“ [5]

To wrap things up, the interest of the gaming video community in spectating other’s gameplay has created a healthy ecobusiness system. The friendly coexistence is beneficial for every player in this system.

Additionally, Twitch allows to rewatch broadcasted streams and is also used for broadcasting tournaments from all over the world. Twitch combines the different methods of spectatorship in one platform.

[1] Kaytoue, Mehdi; Silva, Arlei; Cerf, Loïc; Meira, Wagner Jr.; Raïssi, Chedy (2012): Watch me playing, i am a professional: a first study on video game live streaming, in: Proceedings of the 21st international conference companion on World Wide Web, pp. 1181 – 1188.

[2] Iansiti, Marco; Levien, Roy (2004): Strategy as Ecology, in: Harvard Business Review, 82 (3), pp. 68 – 78.

[3] Twich.tv (2013a), twitch.tv/p/advertise, retrieved on 2013/06/01.

[4] Bryce, David J.; Dyer, Jeffrey H.; Hatch, Nile W. (2011): Competing Against Free, in: Harvard Business Review, 89 (6), pp. 104 – 111.

[5] Twitch.tv (2013b), twitch.tv/p/partners, retrieved on 2013/06/01.

Game spectatorship: The Pupil and the Interested

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This is the second part of the video game / e-sport spectator series. This time, I’ll focus on the „pupil“ and „inspired“ spectator personas [1].

The Pupil has already deep knowledge about the game and is, in most cases, also a passionated player. The Pupil tries to improve its own gameplay by spectating the gameplay of others. For that purpose, the Pupil prefers spectating from the point-of-view (pov) of the performing player. Furthermore, the Pupil likes to analyze critical situations by watching them in detail.

As mentioned last week, there’re four different ways of spectating a game: Spectator mode, watching over the player’s shoulder, live broadcasts and watching recorded videos.

The spectator mode can be useful for the Pupil, if an option for displaying the actions of the performing player is available. Using the spectator mode allows the Pupil to follow the gameplay of a player in real-time. While spectating the game, the Pupil has the opportunity of observing the timing of actions and how the player is reacting to unknown situations. Additionally, the Pupil is in control of the camera and can watch the action from the perspective which suits them best.
On the other hand, the real-time aspect doesn’t allow the spectator to watch the gameplay again. In order to gain new knowledge about the game, the Pupil likes to pause the gameplay or to watch critical situations again in order to analyze them.

Watching over the player’s shoulder might be one of the best options to learn. During this process, the Pupil can take advantage of directly asking questions about the player’s gameplay, actions and choices. Additionally, the Pupil has the same pov as the player does.
The Pupil can’t pause the action but the opportunity of asking questions can easily compensate the missing replay function.

Live broadcasts are quite similar to the spectator mode. The spectator can watch the gameplay in real-time. In contrast to the spectator mode, the spectator has no option to control the camera. Instead the spectator has to accept the influence of the commentator. The real-time broadcast of the gameplay has the same disadvantage for the Pupil as the spectator mode: The Pupil has no direct option to pause or replay critical situations. However, the commentator might also give useful insights into the player’s strategy.

Watching recorded videos has, apart from watching over the player’s shoulder, the best opportunities for the Pupil to improve the own gameplay. Due to the fact that the gameplay is recorded, the spectator is able to pause and replay every situation as often as desired. Thus the Pupil can analyze every situation in detail. However it’s still important that the gameplay is recorded from the pov of the player and the player’s interface is shown.

The inspired can be separated into two different forms: The first form, the inspired spectator, is playing the game as well. While spectating other’s gameplay, inspired spectators develop the desire to play the game themselves.
The other form of the inspired spectator is not yet playing the game, but is interested in playing it in the near future. In this case, the inspired spectator is watching other’s gameplay to decide if the game is worth buying. I define this type of spectator as the interested spectator.
In this article, I’ll mainly focus on the interested spectator.

Due to the fact that the spectator mode is implemented in the game itself, the spectator mode isn’t available for the Interested.

Watching over the player’s shoulder is, as already mentioned, a great way to get new information about the game. The spectator has the same pov as the player and can directly ask questions. In this case, the Interested can get all the information to decide whether to buy the game or not.
Additionally, the player can inform the Interested about issues with the game and thus give a recommendation.

Live broadcasts can be helpful for the Interested as well. The real-time aspect allows the Interested to observe the pace and the flow of the gameplay.
However, live broadcasts focus in most cases on tournaments. The tournament players are experts of the game and do perfom at a very high skill level. The commentator mostly focusses on the strategies of the players and uses the camera control to show the biggest actions of the gameplay. Thus the impressions of the gameplay might be blurred for the Interested.

Watching recorded videos has the best opportunities for the Interested to inform about the game. Video portals like youtube offer a broad variety of videos. Using such a video portal allows the Interested to easily skip between different videos in order to gain as much insights into the gameplay as possible.

Next week, it’ll be all about the ways of spectating a game. Mostly, I’ll focus on recorded videos and watching over the player’s shoulder.

[1] Cheung, Gifford; Huang, Jeff (2011): Starcraft from the stands: understanding the game spectator, in: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 763 – 772.

Game spectatorship

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This week is the beginning of a video game / e-sport spectator series. Over the next weeks, I’ll focus on video game spectatorship.
I read the article „Starcraft from the Stands: Understanding the Game Spectator“ [1]. The authors analyze and define the spectatorship of video games. At first they define the game spectator by analyzing different approaches of spectating. Additionally, they analyze the other stakeholders like commentators and the players itself. They also figure out what makes a computer game fun to watch. For that purpose, they’ve focussed on the spectatorship of StarCraft and StarCraft2.
This „finding of the week“ offers some basic definitions of video game spectatorship and gives a general overview about different approaches of spectating a video game.

Cheung and Huang define a spectator as a person who follows the in-game experience, but does not actively play the game. Instead the spectator’s intensions range from watching the game casually to being highly interested in competitive gameplay.[1]

Ways of spectating the game

Spectating a game can happen in four different ways:

• Using a spectator mode
• Watching over the player’s shoulder
• Watching live broadcasts
• Watching recorded player videos

Spectator mode is a directly implemented tool in the game itself. It allows the player to join a game without having any influence on it. The spectator mode allows the spectator to watch over the actions of the players.

Spectator personas

During their research, Cheung and Huang identified nine different spectator personas[1], which are mostly distinguished by their knowledge about the particular game.
The first one is the bystander, who has no specific knowledge about the game. For the bystander, most of the gameplay is incomprehensible due to the lack of specific knowledge.
The curious has already some basic knowledge about the game. A curious spectator is very excited about the gameplay and tries to close knowledge-gaps by watching the game.
The inspired has deep knowledge about the game and gets excited by watching it. After spectating, inspired spectators desire to play the game themselves.
The pupil is an active player of the game and tries to gain some additional knowledge and new tactics by spectating others.
The unsatisfied would rather play the game than watching over the player’s shoulder.
The entertained likes just to watch the gameplay instead to actively play the game. In this case, spectating is nothing else than entertainment.
The assistant is mostly sitting next to the player and tries to support the player during gameplay.
The commentator is spectating and commentating the gameplay. This happens mostly during live broadcasts of tournaments.
The crowd describes the entertaining aspects of watching games in a group.

Spectating is fun

The enjoyment of spectating derives on the one side from the „information asymmetry“[1]. Information asymmetry evolves if the player or the spectator has an information advantage over the other one. At the beginning of a new game, the spectator is unaware of the player’s strategy. Over time the spectator will catch up and has the same knowledge as the player. Although the player and the spectator do have the same information, the information asymmetry will still remain active because it’s uncertain how the game will end: It depends on luck and skill of the players.
Sometimes the spectator even has an information advantage over the player. This can happen if the spectator is able to watch the game developing from the point of view of both players. In this case, the spectator has information about the situation that the players don’t.
As the game progresses, the information asymmetry will be cleared.

On the other side, the entertainment of spectating derives from suspense. Suspense is created by the uncertainty of the strategies and other skill-based events of the game. A player can have a comeback or survive a heavy ambush without too many losses.

Both, information asymmetry and suspense, lead to the entertainment of spectating video games. Therefore, games which can create situations that result in information asymmetry or suspense are fun to spectate.

Next week, I’ll focus on some of the spectator personas. Additionally, I’ll give an overview about other possible reasons why spectating games attracts gaming interested people.

[1] Cheung, Gifford; Huang, Jeff (2011): Starcraft from the stands: understanding the game spectator, in: CHI 2011 Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 763 – 772.

Social gameplay in WoW?

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This „finding of the week“ offers some thoughts and own experiences about the social gameplay in World of Warcraft (WoW).

Playing World of Warcraft is a great way of experiencing cooperative gameplay with lots of other players the same time. But is this still true?

The gameplay begins with the level-phase. After the creation of the own avatar, the player begins to discover Azeroth. Just after the arrival, non-playing characters (NPC) start to offer some quests to the player. Completing quests is one major source of experience points, which are needed to reach higher character levels. After the player has solved the first quests, the npcs offer new quests and the adventure continues – or better the long journey to level 90 (the current maximum level).

Almost every quest can be completed alone. The player has no need to form groups to be able to complete the level-phase content. Of course they might see other players around major quest-hubs, but due to the fact of easy content, they mostly won’t play together.

Another way of gaining experience is joining random instance groups. The „dungeon finder“ tool forms groups of random players and sends them into a random dungeon. This is the first time when playing in a cooperative way with other players can occur. On the other side, this is just a rush through the dungeon to gain as much experience points as possible in a short amount of time. There isn’t much time to experience the social aspect of WoW. As soon as the final boss is defeated, the group disbands and the players won’t meet again in most cases.

After the journey is over and the player has reached level 90, most of the social and cooperative experience remains the same. Now, the player can choose in the dungeon finder between the already known dungeon finder, the raid finder and scenarios. Each method has mostly the same result: The player is placed in a group with strangers who won’t meet again after the dungeon is completed.

The gameplay experience is depending on the other random players: If the player is put into a group of like-minded people, the gameplay can be a lot of fun. However, if this isn’t the case, a short instance can become quite annoying and the social gameplay becomes one of the worst aspects of the whole game.
Additionally, the dungeon finder needs some time to gather enough players to form a group. Sometimes players wait more than half an hour in the raid finder. Waiting in the game for the actual cooperative gameplay can be very boring.

Of course, there’re great aspects of the social gameplay as well: Players can join guilds which are formed by like-minded players. The guild can be used as a platform to form groups of players who can play together on a regular basis. Over the time, they start knowing each other and can become friends. However to make this happen, all the players need to agree to some basic rules and have to be online the same time.

One solution that comes to my mind would be scaleable content. Why do I need 4 other random players for a dungeon, if the difficulty level can be adjusted. At the bottom line it is all about the rewards: Joining a random group just means to clear the dungeon as fast as possible to collect the rewards. There is no desire for social gameplay, it’s just about gathering reputation, experience or items. Additionally, the dungeon finder content, especially the raid finder content, is very easy in comparison to the „real“ raid instance content, which can’t be accessed using the dungeon finder. Players actively need to form a group and travel to the particular instance. In return, they will be rewarded with better and more valueable items. Why do I need to accept the burden of random players, if I could do the easy-mode content alone?
If I’m playing with my friends, I really like to play in a group and enjoy the cooperative aspect of the game. The feeling of an epic-win after defeating a hard boss is awesome. But if I’m on my own, I just like to get things done. Waiting for other unknown players is just boring – especially because I won’t see them again.

To wrap things up, the social gameplay of WoW can be one of the greatest aspects of the game as long as the group is formed by like-minded players who play together on a regular basis. On the other hand, if the social gameplay is a barrier to finish content, it can become the worst part of the game. Waiting long in the raid finder queue for a bad group isn’t fun at all.

I like the concept of „ambient sociability“ [1], but more in a way of sharing the same virtual world with others. Seeing other players walking around the major cities is Azeroth is giving me the feeling of being part of a living world. Social gameplay should be more about socializing and working together towards a shared goal, but not about farming content.

[1] McGonigal, Jane (2011): Reality Is Broken, New York.

Team training

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: I read the article „The complexity of team training: what we have learned from aviation and its applications to medicine“ [1]. The author compares the necessity for collaboration in aviation with the necessity for collaboration during a surgery. Additionally, this papers gives an overview about important elements of team training.
This „finding of the week“ offers some thoughts about the need of collaboration in critical and daily-life situations.

The paper [1] analyzes the necessity for collaboration in aviation by looking at accidents happened in commercial aviation. In most cases the accidents were primarly caused by the flight crew itself due to the lack of good collaboration. Therefore, team training became a major goal in today’s commercial aviation. Cockpit resource management (crm) is „dealing with the interpersonal, team aspects of flying in a multipersonal crew“ [1].

According to Hamman [1], teamwork in health care is as important as it is in commercial aviation. In both situations, worst case scenarios can lead to a loss of life. Therefore, it is critical that everyone in a team is trained in collaborating with each other: Each member of a team has to know what the tasks of the other members are and what the other members need to know to fulfill their tasks. Even if a new information doesn’t apply to the own duties, for another team member this information might be critical.

In short, each member of a team has to know the duties of the others and to make good collaboration happen and to reduce the chance of issues caused by human factors.

This concept of team training doesn’t just apply to teams working in critical situations. The idea of crm can be applied to almost every situation in which teamwork occurs. The efficiency of collaboration can be increased, if every member is aware of the duties of their teammates. Furthermore, the need for non mandatory communication can be decreased as well. This allows the team to react in a more efficient way to new tasks or situations.

Finally, team training can develop one key concept of teamwork: the shared mental modell [2].

[1] Hamman, W. R. (2004): The complexity of team training: what we have learned from aviation and its applications to medicine, in: Quality and Safety in Health Care, 13 (Suppl. 1), pp. i72 – i79.

[2] Salas, Eduardo; Sims, Dana E.; Burke, C Shawn (2005): Is there a „Big Five“ in Teamwork?, in: Small Group Research, 36 (5), pp. 555 – 599.

Real-world gaming flow

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: I read the book „What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy“ [1]. James Paul Gee compares the ways we’re learning while we’re playing video games with the ways school  teaching us math and science. Finally he points out 36 learning principles provided by video games.
This „finding of the week“ offers some critical thoughts about the use of gamification to create situations in which flow can happen.

In his book, Gee mentions flow [4] as one of the key concepts to keep computer game players engaged and challenged. McGonigal [2] transfers the video game approach of flow into the real-world and points out the advantage of it in making the real-world more engaging. This is what gamification [3] tries to achieve by adding game elements to non-gaming environments.
According to Csikszentmihalyi [4], a potential of flow can be added to daily-life tasks by restructuring them. This can be done by adding new (personal) goals to achieve while performing a particular task.

Adding new goals is a good way to keep focused on a task. Economic driving is a common aim – especially under the aspect of today’s gas prices. However focusing on economic driving – instead of just having fun – is often a hard task. By adding the goal of reaching new distance records without refueling, economic driving can become a challenge. The driver can focus on the new goal and after achieving a new record, she / he gets a positive feedback by looking at the distance record. The positive feedback and the fact that there’s always the chance of increasing the record can renew this challenge. The driver keeps engaged in economic driving and additionally experiences satisfaction through the positive feedback.

Computer games often provide some achievements as well. The player has to fulfill some additional requirements to earn an achievement. This can be a special constraint to the regular game play: Normally the player has to gather 10 points within a certain amount of time. But if the player likes to earn an achievement, he has to gather 15 points within the same amount of time. Thus the game challenges the player with an additional goal and the task of gathering points becomes more engaging.

However the achievement system is more popular in multiplayer games: Players can compare their earned achievements and compete against each other. The aspect of competition enhances the power of these additional goals in the regular game environment.
Solo games on the other hand can’t provide such a competition. Therefore achievements can become pointless in these games. It’s nice to gather them – they are still providing positive feedback – but without the chance of comparability the achievements might get lost in space because there’s no real measurement.

This is, I think, one of the biggest problems if we try to add new goals to the real-world. Economic driving and reaching new records is fun and as already mentioned it provides positive feedback, but it’s due to the lack of comparability often pointless as well.
As long as additional goals are added to a shared environment, they are engaging through competition – as the gamification concept has already shown.
But how to keep all the personal achievements engaging? Creating a world-wide personal achievement portal, where everyone can post their recently earned achievements? How to compare economic driving among different car types? How to get comparability without having a common platform?

On the other hand, the satisfaction of positive feedback after completing a challenge can still be an awe experience and keep the engagement high. May be the comparability is just overrated.
And finally gamification of my own life means that I’m always on top of the scoreboards!

[1] Gee, James Paul (2007): What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, New York.

[2] McGonigal, Jane (2011): Reality Is Broken, New York.

[3] Raymer, Rick (2011): Gamification: Using Game Mechanics to Enhance eLearning, retrieved on 2013/4/27.

[4] Csikszentmihalyi, Mihaly (2010): Flow : Das Geheimnis des Glücks, 15. edit., Stuttgart.

Gamers: No fear of failure

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: I read the book „Reality is broken“ [1]. Jane McGonigal gathered a lot of information about how computer games might change ourselves and improve our world. The author shows how computer games can solve real-world problems and suggests that computer gamers can become extraordinary problem solvers and collaboration experts.
This „finding of the week“ – due to lack of time – is a very short one and presents my special thoughts about solving a „certain problem“.

„Cool looking“ charts

During my ongoing literature review I often discover interesting facts about things I’ve never thought about. Sometimes I can connect these facts with my own observations: The result is mostly a completely new idea why things are as they are. Maybe these ideas are new to you, too. Therefore I’ll share my new science based knowledge with you!

This week: This time, it’s not about a paper I’ve read. Instead, I’ll share with you my charts which were created during some short training sessions with Adobe Illustrator.
The first one gives a short overview about different distribution channels of computer games. The second chart illustrates how the retention mechanism (mentioned in last weeks „finding of the week„) of buying reputation based items can keep players active.
This „finding of the week“ is all about (cool looking) charts.

Distribution channels:

Reputation / Item Grinding: