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:

Senior raids

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 paper „If You Build It They Might Stay: Retention Mechanisms in World of Warcraft“ [1]. The authors investigated the retention mechanisms in WoW to keep players active. MMORPGs like WoW aren’t having a clear ending. These games are more simulating an active and living world with an always ongoing story. These open-ended games need to provide mechanisms to keep users playing and even paying: Most of these games are based on a pay-to-play or free-to-play business model to generate revenue over time. Pay-to-play requires mostly a monthly fee to be played. Free-to-play allows everyone to play without paying a fee. However players can buy fancy stuff or in-game goods for real money to enhance their gameplay experience.
This „finding of the week“ is all about the results connected with senior players.

The results of this paper [1] have shown that senior players have a lower stop rate of playing World of Warcraft (53% to 76%). Additionally they are even playing on a more regular basis than non-senior players.

Seniors have become an important target group: They have a lot of time, often live in financial comfort and want to spend their money [2]. Marketeers are already aware of this target group: A lot of advertisements are directly adressing elderly people. After all, they can become very loyal customers and therefore generate revenue on a regular basis.
Considering this, attracting seniors to MMORPGs can be an important business strategy.

Apart from the financial aspect, there are additional positive effects for elderly people playing MMORPGs: Elderly people may not be as mobile as they like to be and thus they can feel lonely and isolated from the world around them. By playing MMORPGs they have the opportunity to connect and to socialize with other people without the need of being mobile [3]. They can become a part of a social network and thus gain positive social experiences.
Furthermore playing computer games is an active task whereas other options like watching tv is just passive. Computer games even let people feel more productive and offer highly structured tasks to them [3].
Considering this, computer games can enhance the lives of elderly people and help them to feel more connected to the world around them.

In conclusion, if seniors feel accepted in the game, they can become very loyal customers. They even can enhance their lives by playing and thus socializing with others.

I think this system can be quite exciting in the near future. Maybe we can see some more of multi-generational guilds. These guilds can support a better understanding between generations by allowing every player of any age to play and to chat together.
At least, the anonymity will allow a coexistence of every generation: No one can estimate the age of a player by looking at his avatar. But being able to see other players will create a world of ambient sociability [3].

Or, what would be totaly awesome scenario: A senior guild is competing around world firsts. „Space Cowboys“ is becoming reality: „Raid Cowboys“!

[1] Debeauvais, Thomas; Nardi, Bonnie; Schiano, Diane J.; Ducheneaut, Nicolas; Yee, Nick (2011): If You Build It They Might Stay: Retention Mechanisms in World of Warcraft, in: FDG ’11 Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games, pp. 180 – 187.

[2] Boyer King, Emilie (2004): Engaging the Aging: Marketing to Europe’s Seniors, retrieved on 2013/4/6.

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

Guild size

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 paper „The life and death of online gaming communities: a look at guilds in world of warcraft“ [1]. The authors investigated the group dynamics and social networks in virtual worlds. During gameplay players are often experiencing the „necessity of grouping“ [2]: Most of the endgame content isn’t doable alone, therefore players need to form a group in order to achieve these difficult goals. If the players are like-minded they can also form a persistent group: a guild.
This „finding of the week“ is all about the guild size results found in this investigation and the recommendations the authors made.

The results of this paper have shown that 90% of the existing guilds are formed by a maximum of 35 members. In classic-WoW most of the end-game raid instances were designed for a group of 40 players. Considering these two facts, most of the guilds had to form alliances with other guilds to be able to tackle the 40-men raid instances.
I’ve experienced the same during my classic-WoW raiding time: I was in a guild that was in an alliance with several other guilds. But until I’ve read this paper [1] I was never considering this situation as a WoW-wide issue or even as an issue in general.
I had a lot of friends playing in guilds with more than 40 members and our way of forming an alliance was a good way to achieve raiding goals. It was even a more epic feeling: You need to form huge groups consisting of several guilds to fight the evil forces. Additionally there were enough other content like 5- oder 10-men intances which could be solved by players of a the same guild.

Blackwing Lair 40-men raid

The paper also gives an overview about the solutions and adaptations Blizzard has implemented allowing almost every guild to complete a raid instance: After the release of the first WoW addon „The Burning Crusade“ (2007) most of the end-game raid instances were designed for only 25 players – Karazhan and Zul’Aman were even 10-men instances. The second addon „Wrath of the Lich King“ (2008) implemented the option to choose between 10- and 25-men difficulty.

Firelands 10-men raid

It’s an interesting fact that players of a MMORGP are mostly enjoying small groups. Although the game is played by masses of players the same time, the majority of people only have few fellows. As already mentioned in the paper [1], this result might indicate a limit of group size – humans can only have a certain amount of stable relationships the same time [3] – in online spaces.

Finally the results gave me an additional point of view: It was not only the difficulty of getting 40 player online the same time or the hard work of finding 40 like-minded players which caused the development of the much smaller instances. This research has shown that Blizzard’s changes align with the limit of group size in online spaces. It’s also fascinating how games like WoW are offering a social environment which is allowing real group dynamics.

References

[1] Ducheneaut, Nicolas; Yee, Nick; Nickell, Eric; Moore, Robert J. (2007): The life and death of online gaming communities: a look at guilds in world of warcraft, in: CHI 2007 Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems, pp. 839 – 848.

[2] Yee, Nick (2009): Befriending Ogres and Wood-Elves: Relationship Formation and The Social Architecture of Norrath, in: Game Studies, 9 (1).

[3] Dunbar, R. I. M. (1993): Coevolution of neocortical size, group size and language in humans, in: Behavioral and brain sciences, 16 (4), pp. 681 – 735.

Avatar hair style

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 paper „Body and mind: a study of avatar personalization in three virtual worlds“ [1]. The authors investigated the customization of avatars in virtual worlds (Maple Story, Second Life and World of Warcraft) and the choices the users made during their process of creating an own avatar. Additionally the authors investigated the attachment of the users to their avatars.
This „finding of the week“ is all about the World of Warcraft results found in this investigation and the recommendations the authors made.

Creating a WoW avatar is quite simple: You can customize your character using only five design options: Hair style, hair color, facial characteristics, facial modifications (beards, piercings, etc) and skin color.

Creating an avatar

The results of the investigation have shown that there is a significant difference between the importance of these design options:

1. Hair style (most important)
2. Facial characteristics
3. Hair color
4. Skin color (least important)

During gameplay the avatars are mostly wearing some kind of armor like robes, plate armor, etc. Therefore most of the body is covered and the skin color isn’t visible anymore. Additionally most players are using a third person perspective with a great distance to their avatar to gain a better overview about the world. So the facial characteristics are becoming, in comparrison to the other characteristics, unimpressive. A fancy haircut instead, at least when the display of the helmet is turned off, is visible over a great distance and helps to distinguish the own virtual presence from the other avatars.

The recommendations of this paper follow two different ways: On the one hand, it’s mentioned to improve the visibility of facial characteristics. Users should be able to see easier the appearance of their avatars. On the other hand, the paper suggests to improve the customization features of the hair style.

Barber’s shop in Stormwind Citiy

As I read this option, suddenly the barber’s shops added in patch 3.0.1 reached a completely new dimension in the whole context of avatar customization in WoW. Until this point, I was considering the barber as a really cool thing but I’ve never recognized the hair style as a very important feature of improving my avatar. To me, the facial characteristics and skin color were more important than the hair style of my avatar.

Getting a new hair style

Science improved my knowledge – players like to customize their hair style! Maybe I should try a new hair cut as well … oh wait … I’m a worgen …

„Alright: I’ve got hairy palms. So what?“

[1] Ducheneaut, Nicolas; Wen, Ming-Gui; Yee, Nick; Wadley, Greg (2009): Body and mind: a study of avatar personalization in three virtual worlds, in: CHI 2009 Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems.