Precise communication

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, I think about the method to practice precise communication skills by playing computer games.

The European Space Agency (ESA) pushlished a debriefing video of last year’s underground training course „CAVES“. In this video participants of this course explained the connections between the exploration of a cave and doing a spacewalk.

One of the training outcomes was to get used to precise communication methods. The cavers had a connection to the „mission control“ outside the cave to ask for additional advice during their exploration. In order to get the most useful answers, the explorers were required to ask questions as precise as possible to prevent any misunderstandings.

Normally, communicating as precise as possible is not very important in our daily life. Even in the case of a misunderstanding, it is mostly not a problem to solve the issue before bad things will happen. However, in critical situations, being able to communicate in a precise way can be essential to prevent an accident or other bad outcomes.

Unfortunately, only a few people get the chance to gain access to special training courses like ESA CAVES and our daily life does not really provide good chances to practice a precise communication unless we are in a situation where this skill is needed.

This is mostly true except for computer game players of cooperative multiplayer games: they do have the chance to practice their communication skills every time they are playing together. This is especially the case in games with a high group dynamic like the MMORPG World of Warcraft (WoW) [1]. Participating in raids, a special form of Player vs. Environment (PvE), can be a great source of learning to communicate in a precise way.

In a raiding environment, a group of players is trying to defeat a computer controlled „boss“ who is striking back with unique abilities. Apart from understanding the general boss mechanics, communication is a key factor during a „boss fight“. Certain situations require a quick decision. However, a good decision only can be made, if all the important information about the situation are available. In this case, the players need to call out only important information in a short and precise way in order to prevent any misunderstanding. The decision itself (mostly made by the leader of the group) needs to be also as precise as possible or the other players could get confused and do a wrong thing. This in return could result in a victory of the boss over the group.
Moreover, it is not only important to communicate in a precise way during the boss fight itself. It is also important to explain the tactics in an exact way or players might get confused and finally do a mistake because they have misunderstood a certain mechanic. This in return could result again in a bad outcome for the group.

As a conclusion of this article, multiplayer games can help players to develop their communication skills. This is not only achieved by the requirement of a good communication. Often the reason for a lost boss fight can be traced back to a certain issue with the communication before or during the boss fight. This feedback mechanism allows the players to learn from their mistakes and to improve their communication skills in a save training environment where only virtual avatars can get harmed. Additionally, the immersion of a computer game gives the requirement of a precise communication a certain dimension of importance so that it feels right to the players to improve their communication skills.

References
[1] Prax, Patrick (2010): Leadership Style in World of Warcraft Raid Guilds, in: Proceedings of DiGRA Nordic 2010.

The joy of exploration

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, I think about a certain game mechanic used in a recently released game: muddy and difficult terrain. Finally, exploring has really become a challenge and requires the players to interact directly with the game world in order to discover new regions.

This article is mostly based on my very own observations and experiences. However, it still can be seen as some kind of guideline to implement the feature of exploration in a virtual game world.

Hiking through forests and mountainous regions is one of my hobbies. Reaching the top of a mountain and enjoying a beautiful view over the landscape after making my way through the timbered slopes is a great experience. Moreover, it can also become a little adventure under certain circumstances. A tree could have fallen down after a storm and is blocking the way or the way itself could be quite muddy after a rainy period. These and other obstacles can increase the joy of hiking, because they can wake the inner explorer up, who wants to find a new path.

The desire to explore does not only affect the way how I do enjoy hiking: it is also affected my computer game playstyle. In this case, I am mostly enjoying open-world games, where I am allowed to explore a huge virtual world on my own. It is interesting to find my own way through different regions and to climb up on tall mountains.

One of those games is the role-playing game Skyrim[1]. It is completely up to the players, where they want to go and which regions they want to explore. Additionally, the virtual landscape of Skyrim is rewarding an explorative playstyle with beautiful views, sceneries and sometimes hidden dungeons. The only disadvantage is, that it is rarely really challenging to explore the game world. In contrast to hiking in the real world, the player can ignore the underground and does not need to circumvent deep mud or find a way to climb over a tree. Those obstacles do have only decorative purposes.

Skyrim

The strange thing is, that I have not noticed the lack of those obstacles until I started playing Spintires[2], a recently released driving simulation game. In Spintires, the players can take control over several off-road vehicle. The game is not really an open-world game and has only one main goal to complete a map: deliver a certain amount of logs. However, this is not really a problem, because most of the joy comes from the fact that the terrain is really influencing the progress of the players. Rivers can be too deep and it is impossible to cross them. Additionally, the underground can be really muddy and the trucks can get stuck. Moreover, some parts of the levels are cloaked and are not shown on the map until the players reach a particular point in the world to reveal this region. This game mechanic challenges the players and encourages them to explore the virtual world to discover shortcuts and easier paths.

Spintires

As a real world hiker, this complex virtual terrain has really increased my entertainment in exploring game worlds. It is suddenly important to think about the right path in order to proceed on. Furthermore, the game provides me with tools to deal with the difficult terrain: I am able to activate all wheel drive, differential lock or to use a winch. All in all, exploring is finally requiring me to deal with the terrain and not just to look out for hidden places.

After playing Spintires, I really like to have more games like this. It adds an additional realistic feeling to the game and it allows me to interact directly with the game world. Finally, exploring the game world has not only to be finding hidden places–now, it is also about finding a good way to move through the terrain and to deal with the environment.

Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted

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, I just like to present you an inspiring speech I discovered just because I was listening to a music track: „The Last Lecture“ from Randy Pausch.

One day I was again looking for some nice music I can listen to while I am working. So I run some searches in YouTube for some chillstep mixes and was quite happy with the results I found. One of these mixes featured the track „To dream“ from Systremo. The really special thing about this track was a quotation from a speech I have never heard of until I was listening to this particular track.

Being inspired by these quotations, I was curious to find out who was the author of these words. After a short google search, I found out that the quotation being used was from the speech „Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams“ of Randy Pausch[1][2].

Randy Pausch was a professor of computer science, human-computer interaction and design. In this case, he was working in the same field of research as I am and a lot of his topics he addressed in „The Last Lecture“ offered some analogies to my very own research and/or ideas. Moreover, the speech was also about the required commitment to achieve certain goals in life.

„Experience is what you get when you didn’t get what you wanted“ is a good way see failures in a more positive way. Apart from the direct experiences after a failure, often a lot of time was spent on reaching this point. Even if the final result was a failure, the whole process itself has mostly caused a high experience gain which can be useful in other scenarios or for the next attempt.

„The brick walls are not there to keep us out; the brick walls are there to give us a chance to show how badly we want something.“ Sometimes it seems to be impossible to reach a certain goal. However, if enough effort is put into a thing, most obstacles can be cleared and the goal can be finally achieved. The secret is just to never give up and to stick to the very own goals.

Moreover, one of the other important messages of his speech was to never stop dreaming. On the one hand, it is all about having certain dreams in life for which it is worth working hard.
On the other hand, never stop dreaming in the field of human-computer interaction is also a great way to achieve impressive results. Virtual (game) environments allow us to expand our dreams and to realize things which would not be possible in the real world.

I do not want to write too much about the speech in this article. „Finding of the week“ can also be just about announcing and presenting a special idea I found. In this case, I like to conclude this week’s article with a video of the speech.

Midsummer

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 midsummer! But what is so special about this day?

Due to a fortunate coincident, this week’s „Finding of the Week“ is published on the longest day in the northern hemisphere of our Pale Blue Dot[1]. In this case, I like to step a little bit away from the usual computer game topics and celebrate this special day in a more analytical way.

June 21st is also known as „midsummer“ or „St. John’s Day“ and this day is especially celebrated in Northern Europe or to be more specific in Scandinavia and the Baltics[2]. But also other nations are celebrating this day with some special events like bonfires. However, June 21st is not only a special day to celebrate for most cultures, it is also the longest day for the northern hemisphere of our Earth, because it is the day of the summer solstice. On summer solstice the northern half of our Earth has the longest exposure to the sunlight during the whole year.

The reason behind this yearly event lies in the combination of two rotation axes. On the one hand, our Earth is completing an orbit around the Sun every 365,25 days. The 0,25 day is the reason why every 4th year is leap year: we need to synchronize our calendars with the orbital period of our home planet.
On the other hand, the Earth is also rotating around a rotation axis going through its poles. This rotation has a period of 24 hours relative to the Sun and is resulting in a „day“ on our Earth.

Unfortunately, these two rotation axes are not completely explaining the occurrence of the summer solstice. The missing information lies in the tilt of the rotation axis of the Earth relative to the orbital plane around the Sun. The rotation axis is not perpendicular to the orbital plane and is instead tilted by about 23,5°. This axial tilt is the reason behind the summer solstice. It is also the reason for the seasons, the winter solstice, the midnight sun and the polar night. During one orbit around the Sun, the axial tilt is changing the sunlight exposure of certain parts of the planet. At the very special day of the summer solstice, the northern part of the planet is directly pointing towards the Sun. At the same time, the southern part of the planet is directly pointing away from the sun. During the days around the solstices, some parts of the planet experience sunlight exposure throughout the whole day (midnight sun) and other parts of the planets are not seeing the Sun for several days (polar night).[3]

The amount of sunlight per day is also affecting our climate and is creating the seasons. During summer time, the Sun has more time to shine on the „summer“ side of the globe thus heating it up. During winter time, the Sun has not enough time to heat up the environment of this part of the globe and the temperatures are decreasing again.

Interestingly, the great heat is mostly experienced after the summer solstice-when this part of the Earth is slowly drifting away from pointing directly to the Sun-and not around this event. The reason behind this comes from the fact, that it takes some time to heat up the environment. This is also why the coldest months of the year are mostly after the winter solstice: the environment needs some time to cool down.

With this special knowledge in mind, it is now even more impressive to watch the very late Sun set at this special day. It has become more than just a beautiful view, it is the result of something big.

Setting sun

Happy midsummer!

Play a game and get convinced

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, I think about the dangerous situation of doing a phone-call while driving a car. Many car drivers still believe that a conversation does not result in a strong impact on the own driving performance. A short test described in this article could convince these drivers that even small conversations can have a huge impact on their performance.

Doing other things while driving a car is always risky because it can distract the driver from the situation on the streets. One of the most common distractions is doing a phone-call while driving. During such an additional task, the driver needs to focus on the conversation and on the traffic at the same time. Moreover, the conversation has additional two main tasks: understanding and responding. In this case, the driver is trying to think about the conversation and the own contribution to it while he needs to pay attention to the traffic.

Although a lot of surveys have proven and demonstrated the negative influence of doing a phone-call while driving, a lot of drivers are still using their cell-phones[1]. The risk of doing a phone-call while driving is a bit reduced, if the driver uses a hands free device. Using this technology is in many countries the only legal way to do a phone-call while driving. However, a phone-call in this scenario still needs the attention of the driver to follow the conversation. Unfortunately, many drivers believe that they can handle these two tasks at the same time without reducing their ability to monitor the traffic. Additionally, they might be in the opinion that they are more skilled than the other drivers who have caused an accident due to the use of their cell-phones.

At this point, I like to suggest the gamer’s way to experience the influence of focussing on a different task while driving. The simulation computer game genre also features a lot of car racing simulations. Depending on the accuracy of the simulation, these games can simulate an realistic behavior of a car. If the driver is driving too fast or does not completely focus on the own car, it is very easy to lose control over the own car resulting in a spinning car or even a crash with an obstacle. One of these games is Assetto Corsa[2] (AC), a very realistic car and racing simulation due to an advanced physics engine. Even without doing another task while playing this game, it is really challenging to keep the own car under control. Furthermore, due to the realistic graphics engine and the demanding gameplay, AC creates a very immersive environment. This in return enhances the realistic and authentic feeling of driving a real car on a racetrack.

Such a realistic and immersive car driving simulation is the ideal test-bed for the own capabilities and limits while focussing on the driving task. The players can start driving around an empty racetrack and try to improve their lap times. After a first practice session in order to get used to the game controls and the behavior of the car, they can start testing their very own potential.
The first part of the self-test should be done without any distraction. The players should only focus on their cars and the goal of driving around the racetrack as fast as possible without losing control over the car. After completing several laps on the racetrack, the players can take advantage of the replay feature of AC and analyse their laps and lap times.
The second part of the self-test should begin after a short break to allow the players to regain focus after the demanding first part. During the second part of the test, players should just try to talk about a specific topic while trying to beat the lap times of the previous session. This can be done by explaining a certain fact or talking about an important day of their life. This step can be even combined with a voice recorder to allow a more thorough analysis of the own performance.
After completing the same amount of laps on the racetrack, the players can start to compare their lap times between the two sessions. Additionally, they can listen to their recorded explanations or stories.

After this test, most of the players will probably discover that their lap times were slower compared to the lap times without a distraction. They might even discover, that they did more often a mistake or even lost control over their cars. Additionally, they might discover that due to the demanding gameplay of the racing simulation, their explanations or stories are negatively influenced and not as clear as they would be without driving a virtual car.
Finally, the players then should start to think about two important facts: they were alone on the racetrack and they just needed to talk about a topic without being required to follow a conversation. In contrast to their normal driving environment, they had not to pay attention to the traffic on the streets and unpredictable actions from other car drivers. The players were completely alone on the racetrack and they were not faced with any random situation. On the other hand, they just needed to contribute to a conversation without the requirement of understanding what the dialog partner was talking about.
At this point, the players should recognize that this short test had less variables than a phone-call during a drive on a street with other cars. This particular insight should make the experience of the negatively influenced driving performance due to a simple task much more impressive.

As a conclusion, computer games can help us to test our very own limits and also to put them into perspective. It can be really surprising to discover, that other small tasks have already a huge impact on the own driving performance. Gaming can help us to prevent dangerous situations, because it helps us to recognize our very own limits. Once we have experienced that our performance in playing a game is negatively influenced by doing other tasks at the same time, it becomes even more obvious how dangerous it is to do things like a phone-call while driving in the unpredictable real world.

The research game – Part 2

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 „The research game“ article. This time, I start to offer first thoughts on how the game could look like and how the gameplay challenges could be realized.

„Research as a creative work“ and „progress through successful experiments“ were the two main research game parts mentioned in the first part of „The research game“. These two elements might sound a bit complex and thus not very entertaining. However, the Mars exploration simulation Take On Mars[1] (TOM) has already demonstrated that explorative research can be quite entertaining. Players of TOM take control over Mars landers and Mars rovers. The first part of each mission is to bring the own vessel to the right area. Once arrived at the right spot, the players can use different scientific tools to analyse the environment. Furthermore, players can even assemble their own spacecrafts and equip them with the tools needed to perform all the experiments of a mission. Unfortunately, this does not really challenge the creativity of the players, because every objective has only one appropriate tool. In this case, the players are not required to think about the way how they can achieve a certain data set. Moreover, the gathered data does not play a significant role. It is more about bringing the vessel to the right spot and using the right tool to complete a mission.

Another interesting example for combining creativity and research is Kerbal Space Program[2]. KSP is all about spaceflight and designing own spacecrafts in order to explore distant worlds. In this process, the players are challenged in a creative way to think about every phase of the upcoming mission. Unfortunately, the available experiments in KSP are also only generic ones. The players just need to bring the right science tool to the right area in order to perform an experiment. Moreover, the gathered data is directly converted into science points without any additional analysis being required.

In the end, the resulting game could be some kind of an advanced KSP or an advanced TOM. Aside from assembling the launch vessel, it should be also important to construct the right scientific tools.
The challenge for this process should be given by the environment and the type of data needed to be collected. From this point on, the players should be challenged to think about a good combination of different tools to be able to collect the right data. Depending on the quality of the construction, the players would receive a certain amount of useful data in the specific branch of their measurement tools.

Aside from the tools and the potential issues caused by the environment, the virtual world itself needs to host a ton of different data that can be accessed during the virtual experiments. Additionally, the world needs to be separated into different biomes to increase the variety of the possible research that can be done. Moreover, If each biome would require different tools in order to gain access to the data, it would also increase the challenge in constructing good measurement tools.

A small lake could result in 4 different biomes: The soil around the lake, the air above the lake, the water and the surface of the lake. Each biome can host different life forms and also allow different analysis. Taking a sample of the air would require different tools than taking a sample of the lake’s surface. Catching a living sample of a life form would be even more challenging, because the players would be required to build a habitable cage in order to observe the behavior of the creature, too.

Finally, the experiment was performed and the data was gathered. At this point, the game should offer an engaging way to explore the data sets. It should be rewarding to look through the data and/or to discover an important correlation with other data sets collected in a previous mission. A good option would be to reward the discovery of noticeable correlations or eye-catching peaks in the data. However, the analysis should also reflect possible influences caused by the environment or problems during the experiment. The vessel could freeze if it is operating without a heat source in a very cold environment. In this case, the stream of data should suddenly stop and give some feedback about the problem. Aside from these negative influences, the collected data should also reflect a good outcome and allow the player to understand what was found during the experiment.

The resulting game can be on the one hand very useful to increase the creativity in solving problems. The players will train to analyze a certain situation and to think about how they can combine different parts to assemble a functional experiment. On the other hand, this game can also inspire the players to learn more about real-world science and even inspire them to perform own experiments. When the players get interested in finding new things and thinking about how to approach an experiment, it might be even more fascinating to discover how complex but also colorful real science can be.

The research game – Part 1

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, I think a bit about the presentation of science and research in computer games. Currently, science is mostly only a small part of a complete computer game. What about using research as the core feature of a game?

Natural sciences are cool! [citation needed] Generally speaking, natural sciences are about collecting data and deriving principles from the collected data. Of course, this is anything but simple and a lot of work and preparation is needed to achieve valuable results. Depending on the field of research this can be even quite frustrating and failures need to be expected. Additionally, it is also often about finding a way to perform good measurements: tools and rules need to be developed to ensure the measurement of good and comparable data sets.
From this point of view, natural sciences also require some creative thinking skills. Scientists need to be clever to come up with ways to collect their desired data in order to prove their hypotheses.
Finally, after the right tools were developed and precise measurements are conducted the scientist sits in front of a database and needs to analyze the data gathered in the experiment. This can be the most boring and frustrating but also the most rewarding part of the research process. On the one hand, it’s all about using different methods of proving the data’s significance. On the other hand, it’s also all about proving the hypothesis and deriving a principle from the collected data. It is really rewarding when the collected data proves the hypothesis of a principle to be true and the world’s knowledge was expanded by a tiny bit.

In comparison to real world science, research in computer games is mostly quite simplified and the rewarding part of discovering something new is often neglected. In most cases, research in computer games means spending a certain resource in a tech-tree to unlock new gameplay features. The resource itself is often gathered during regular gameplay and doesn’t require so much of a creativity.

I personally think, implementing research in a more creative way could be really beneficial and even entertaining. Furthermore, it could even encourage players with a non-scientific background to learn more about the particular science presented in the game and maybe to become a scientist themselves. The above mentioned description of the research work provides two main ideas how research could be implemented in computer games.

1) Research is a very creative work. Already several (sandbox) computer games provide the feature of assembling own vessels and constructions in order to explore or expand the game world.
The same approach could be used to challenge the creativity of computer game players to perform virtual research. Depending on the game, the player could be able to construct a research vessel from a broad variety of different measurement tools.

The next step would be to think about the way the vessel can be installed or launched to get the best data as possible. Does the measurement needs some time and the experiment has to stay at the right spot or would it be just enough to bring this experiment for a brief moment to the right spot? How difficult is the environment? Does the vessel need to climb up a rocky slope of a volcano or would just a weather balloon do the job?

On the other hand, it could be also about creating the right environment to observe the behavior of a plant or an animal. In this case, the players would be challenged to construct their own laboratory. Afterwards, they need to collect enough samples for their experiment – a challenge on its own. Where does this species live? How can it be captured?

Finally, the players could be challenged with some environmental influences they need to take into account when constructing the vessel. If the player is not protecting the vessel against a certain influence, then the results might be not as useful as they could be. This could be caused by too high or too low temperatures, corrosive atmosphere or radiation.

2) Progress in the game can be based on successful experiments. Only if the players have proven a certain fact, they will be able to construct more advanced technologies. This would make research vital for the progression through the game.

The challenge to achieve good results would also render the analysis of the data more interesting. It could be a very exciting part of the game when an experiment gets recovered and the player can have the very first glance at the data. Was it a successful experiment?

Finally the analysis of the data should also allow the players to get more insights about what kind of data they have collected. It could be quite interesting to discover some principles after using some analysis techniques. This would give the data an increased importance and it would be more exciting to see the results of an experiment than just to receive a short message about the success of an experiment.

[this article will continue in „Finding of the week #64“]

Computer game research – cool science, but hard to advertise

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, I’m talking a bit about the reality of being a computer game researcher. It is a really great and rewarding work, but it is at the same time still very hard to convince the general public about the good use of computer games. It is often like being an ambassador of computer games instead of being a researcher.

Researching computer games or better researching the educational use of computer games is a really cool science. It is very interesting to discover similarities between the challenges created by computer games and the challenges offered in the real-world.
One of the most obvious relations between computer game challenges and real-world challenges might be the general reaction time. Reaction time is needed in almost every part of our daily life. It extends from the quick grab of a glass dropping to its death to the reaction time needed while operating a car on the streets.
A fast paced computer game often challenges the reaction time of the player. In order to proceed through the game, the player needs to become fast enough to fulfill the challenges. This reaction time of analyzing the in-game situation can be directly applied to the reaction time needed to analyze a real-world situation. The decision making reaction time in computer games can be applied the same way to a real-world situation.

This was just an example how computer games can help to improve ourselves in order to perform better in our daily life. Unfortunately, this relation is not so obvious to non-gamers or the general public. Furthermore, most of the benefits of today’s scientific research are not really obvious to the general public, because they are very abstract and often focussed on a very specific area most people even have not heard about. On the other hand, the research is still accepted and seen as a serious work.

Although this seriousness is mostly applied to every part of the sciences, computer game research still has a very problematic time. This is mostly due to the fact that computer games still have the general connotation of being „just a game“. Computer games are often seen as entertainment without having any good use then the waste of time. Moreover, even when the some „seriousness“ about computer games is accepted and that games can train some specific skills, then it is still a very long way to go until the application of these skills to the real-world is accepted.

The scientific community is more and more open minded to this serious application of computer games and the recent trend of gamification is really helping to make the good use of computer games more popular. However, it is still a very long way to go until the general public really starts to recognize the connection between computer game and real-world skills.

In this case, the reality of being a computer game researcher is not so cool anymore. The work itself is really rewarding and makes a lot of fun, but often it is more about being an ambassador of computer games in order to make the good use of them more popular. Most of the time, before I can start talking to a non-gamer about the recent findings I’ve made, I need to convince him at first that computer games really can have a positive impact on our real-world performance.

However, if I manage to convince somebody that computer games can really have a good impact on our real-world then I’m really satisfied, because I changed someone’s mind about my research. From this point on, I can finally start to present recent findings about optimizing educational processes and in this case our lives with computer games.

Early Access – A marketing challenge

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, I’m inspired by the „Question Time“ session during an annual press event of a computer game publisher. Is the marketing of early access games really a hard challenge?

Computer game publisher Slitherine[1] hosted their annual press conference „Home of Wargamers“[2] this week in Milan. Aside from game presentations and meetings with the developers, Slitherine organized also a question time over twitch.tv, where the audience at the event as well as the stream viewers were able to ask the panel questions. The panel consisted of JD McNeil (Chairman), Iain McNeil (Development Director) and Marco Minoli (Marketing Director).

Being interested in the opportunities resulting from Early Access Releases (EA)[3], I sent a question in as well: „How would you rate the importance of early access releases concerning marketing and development opportunities?“

Slitherine is currently experimenting with two EAs[5][6] to figure out how far they can benefit from this approach compared to a normal approach with a closed beta phase and a clear release date. According to the panel, one of the two running EAs has received a great change due to the feedback of the community[3]. However, it is hard to estimate whether the EA was providing more feedback compared to a normal beta phase or not. In this case, it is still unclear if the game publisher really benefits from providing EAs.

On the other hand, providing an EA could be still very beneficial for a game publisher, because this approach allows interested players to experience the game already at a very early stage of the development process compared to a normal beta test. At this early stage, changes can be done relatively easy and the game can be adjusted right away to make it fitting to most of the interests of the target group.
If these assumptions could be proven as true, then EAs can also become quite important to well established game publishers, because normally EAs are used by small developers, who are not funded by a publisher and who need the revenue of the EA to finance their development processes[4].

However, according to marketing director Marco Minoli[8], an EA is quite challenging from the marketing perspective. Compared to the normal approach of a game release, it is difficult to pinpoint important dates of a game development process. Furthermore, it is very complicated to plan marketing activities on a constantly evolving game which is already open to the public. On the other hand, an EA does not need so much of PR to be introduced to the public: a community will establish around the game over time and start to make it more popular by sharing their experiences.

The insight that EAs are getting popular over time on their own can result in a shift of the marketing activities. Traditionally, the marketing of a game release was often connected with press events and marketing campaigns. Today, this is still true, but EAs have opened up an additional communication channel to get in contact with the target group. Marketing becomes more and more connected with the community management, because engaging with the community can become a very effective tool of marketing a game these days.

Contests and community events which require the community to share their contributions over social networks can help to increase the popularity of a game by a significant degree. A single twitter message like „What was your greatest moment in our game?“ can result in a huge amount of incoming tweets, which can be retweeted to keep the momentum going. Additionally, these tweets are not just visible to the receiver – they can be seen by every follower of the sender. Apart from the fact that these events help to spread the word, the resulting advertisement has also a second dimension: it is written by someone who has the trust of the reader: the tweet is not comming from a company, instead it is coming from a friend or someone worth following on Twitter.

Naturally, traditionally marketing tools like release announcements are still very usefull. From my point of view, the marketing of an EA can be compared with the marketing of a running Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMO). Both games are already played and both games receive updates on a frequent schedule.
The MMO has a first launch date that could be compared with the EA release date – an event that can be celebrated. An MMO also receives new contents in form of content patches or expansion packs. The content patches can be compared with major game updates increasing the functionality of the EA and they can be announced in a similar way to a content patch of an MMO which is often done with a trailer and a feature list. The release of an expansion pack is often celebrated in a glamorous way and can be often compared to a release of a game.
In conclusion, an EA would allow to advertize major game updates in a conservative way. Moreover, an EA also features two main events: the EA release and the full game release. Events which can be announced and celebrated in a glamorous way. Additionally, this would result in two major events to advertize the game compared to a single release event of a traditional development process.

Finally, I like to end this week’s article with a very special example. The full release event of Minecraft, one of the most successful EA games, took place in Las Vegas after a 2 1/2 years development phase[7].

Let’s plays – fragmented gameplay?

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, I think about the correlation between creating Let’s play videos and the time span in which the particular game is played.

I already presented „Let’s play videos“ (LPs) as a special form of playing and enjoying a computer game[1]. The most interesting aspect lies in the fact that LPs do have two dimensions of enjoying a video game. On the one hand, the player is playing the game as a regular player would do. However, the player also comments on his own actions thus creating an additional story arc. On the other hand, viewers don’t need to play the game themselves: they can follow the gameplay just by watching the LPs. Furthermore, they’re experiencing at the same time the additional story arc created by the player.

The additional content created by the player is the main aspect to differentiate between different LPs about the same video game. Moreover, the player has the option to interact with the viewers by directly addressing to them. However, this is mostly depended on the type of game the player is playing. A computer game with a linear story offers less options to interact with the audience than an open world game in which the player can influence the outcome of the gameplay. The linear gameplay allows the player only to react to the story line whereas an open world game also provides the opportunity to control the action.

Interacting with the audience also requires the player to receive some feedback from the audience before a new LP episode can be created. In this case, the gameplay gets fragmented into small segments which are separated by the release dates of the LP series. Furthermore, a typical length of a LP is mostly between 20 to 30 minutes. Considering this, the length of an episode increases the fragmentation of the gameplay by an additional degree.

As a result of the gameplay fragmentation, the content of a computer game starts to last longer for the player. The gameplay-time needed to finish a certain task in a particular game will remain the same, but the gameplay-time is spread over a longer period of time.
Building a house in Minecraft could require the player to play the game for one hour. However, due to the fragmentation caused by creating LPs the gameplay-time will still remain one hour in total, but the player might be required to spread this gameplay-time over a play-time of three 20 minutes segments which are separated by the release date of the LP. Finally, this would result in a longer time a computer game is played compared to a normal approach of building the house in a single game session.

Naturally, the fragmentation can be also diminished, if the player isn’t aiming for a direct interaction with the audience. In this case, the player could build the Minecraft house in a single game session and just split the resulting footage into different LP episodes.

Furthermore, the fragmentation is also controlled by the gametype. The aforementioned types of linear story and open world games often influence the fragmentation. The play-time of a linear story game is often less likely to be fragmented, because the player mostly reacts to the story given by the game. Moreover, linear story games don’t offer so much room to interact with the audience during the gameplay. In the end, this will result in a non fragmented game session and a long gameplay footage which can be separated into several episodes.

An open world game on the other hand is open to outer influences and has more potential to be used as a basis to interact with the audience. Compared to linear story games, the player is on his own and isn’t required to follow the story arc. This results in enough room to interact with the audience. In this case, the gameplay of an open world game is more likely to be fragmented in order to create a LP.