Finding of the week #289

Advanced story-based computer games

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 requirement to play through an advanced story-based computer game without taking a longer break to keep immersed in the narrative.

Depending on the player type, playing advanced story-based computer games are a great and exciting activity. Similar to novels, series and movies, these games often tell an atmospheric story featuring complex characters. In contrast to other media, players actively take part in the story and can even change the series of events as their choices matter.  For instance, Life is Strange allows players to revert time directly after a decision was made to change it and its consequences. However, when the player continues with the story, they also are commited to their decision. As a result, the experience of these stories often is more immersive as it is up to the players how the narrative progresses.

Life is Strange

In contrast to other less story-based games, one has to continue following the story without taking too long breaks to keep with it and avoid forgetting important events. If too much time elapsed between two playing sessions, players might feel disconnected from the story thus experiencing difficulties to immerse themselves again. Once such a point is reached, players often can only start over with a new playthrough to refresh their memories.

Personally, I experienced such a problem several times when trying to play Life is Strange. Currently, I am just a very casual computer game player. Aside from creating between two and three 30-minute long Let’s Play episodes per week, I rarely play other games. However, from time to time, I try to immerse myself in more complex games as they are just fun to play. Thus, I start playing a game on one weekend and then have to take a break for several weeks, again. This also happened to Life is Strange. Every time I started playing it, I had to abandone it for a longer period of time and start over as I lost connection to the story. In the end, I decided to wait with the next attempt to my next vacation.

While this might sound a bit frustrating (it actually is!), it also shows the great potential of computer games to tell stories with a dense atmosphere that can even touch us emotionally. However, to really appreciate these games, one has to take the time as otherwise important facts might get forgotten.

Finding of the week #288

Interdisciplinary Science

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 importance of interdisciplinary research and the resulting need for interdisciplinary scientists who already combine several research areas at once.

Achieving interdisciplinarity is one of the most important research goals these days. By combining efforts to tackle complex problems, all involved disciplines can benefit from each other. Additionally, research questions are analyzed using different approaches which results in a more thorough evaluation and a higher novelty.

For instance, combining computer sciences with media sciences and pedagogy to research game-based training results in a very in-depth analysis of the topic. Also, the individual disciplines learn from each other about the structure of computer games, the positive and negative effects of using certain game mechanics as well as the overall effects of playing computer games.

Results of those interdisciplinary projects are often highly appreciated by the community as they not only yield innovative solutions but also expand the knowledge of all involved research fields. The interdisciplinary work, however, is very challenging. Each discipline has its own approaches and own language. As a result of this, before being able to work together, the involved parties need to find a common language and also be open minded for the concerns and suggestions being discussed by their partners. Only when overcoming these obstacles, scientists belonging to different disciplines can effectively work together.

However, despite seeing the benefits of interdisciplinarity, the importance of interdisciplinary scientists often is overlooked. Each discipline aims at the training of mono-disciplinary experts who then have a hard time to collaboratively work together with other scientists belonging to other research fields. I believe that, similar to corporates that combine different areas of expertise under one roof, research groups also need to invest more in scientists who can create bridges between various disciplines. Instead of being highly trained experts, these scientists have an interdisciplinary education and hence can easily jump between various disciplines.

The importance of such an approach becomes more and more obvious these days as interdisciplinary scientific conferences are very successful. Here, experts appreciate the novel and promising results and even give awards to projects that were created by an interdisciplinary collaboration.

Finding of the week #287

Scientific Let’s Plays

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 Let’s Plays as a potential platform to discuss and to present scientific results. At least, as long as they are related to virtual environments and game research.

Communicating scientific results to an audience that goes beyond the scientific community often is a challenging process. Commonly, scientific results address a very specific and complex aspect of a research field that in itself already is difficult to comprehend. To understand and appreciate outcomes of a study, one has to be an expert with an advanced preexisting knowledge of the discussed topic.

As a result, when communicating these results to a different audience, they have to be embedded in a larger context and to be provided in a way that uses common terms. Also, the presentation and discussion is facilitated when examples are provided that visualize the contexts. These visualizations then help to understand and to connect the underlying principles with the newly gained information.

Luckily, I am in a very good position of being a computer game researcher and a Let’s Play (LP) video creator at the same time. This combination allows me to easily discuss my scientific results with a broader audience and to immediately provide audiovisual examples of the context. By creating LPs, I am already using the environment I research. In this way, my scientific presentations are automatically embedded in an audiovisual simulation I can manipulate and control. For instance, when talking about the different types of game mechanics, I can directly showcase the underlying principles by executing some game mechanics and providing an oral explanation.

Recently, I tried this approach to not only communicate my recent scientific results to a broader audience, but also to create video-based presentations one can access on demand. For this purpose, I played the open-world computer game Minecraft which represents an ideal stage for those advanced discussions. It provides players with a more or less freedom within the boundaries of the gameplay thus acting as an empty canvas.

While presenting the scientific results was not so much of a problem, dealing with actual statistics is a bit more difficult as I cannot simply display them during the gameplay. Also, the gameplay itself causes here and there a bit of a distraction, but it is possible that these distractions result in a higher entertainment level when watching these scientific LPs. Instead of purely receiving information, viewers can enjoy some actual gameplay thus achieving some kind of edutainment.

I strongly believe that this format can be very interesting for a broader audience. It automatically includes audiovisual examples, provides an empty canvas to discuss difficult topics, and achieves a high motivation to continue watching.

Finding of the week #286

Are peer-reviews really a good way?

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 problematic peer-review process. It is intended to ensure a high scientific quality but often also causes the rejection of innovative work as reviewers are coming from a different field or simply do not take the time to really read a paper.

Currently, the common way of publishing scientific results is to write them up in a paper, submit it to a journal or conference, and let peer-reviewers decide whether the approach is correct or not. While this ensures a certain degree of scientific quality, it also creates some unneccessary obstacles.

Depending of the scope of the journal or the conference, authors might have to deal with reviewers coming from different scientific directions. As a result, there is a chance of being mainly reviewed by researchers who have no in-depth experience in the paper’s topic. This leads to the problem that these reviewers then potentially cannot correctly value the contributions of a paper as the presented approach might seem wrong to them. There is also the chance that they accept a paper that has no real novelty as they cannot discover wrong approaches.

Thus, it is possible that good and important research gets critized and rejected because it seems incorrect from a certain perspective. This especially is problematic when a new technology is being used that is not well discussed in literature due to its novelty. Then, scientists have a hard time finding a good theoretical basis that goes beyond the scientific curiosity.

Last year, I experienced such a rejection. The reviewers did not understand why I compared the effects of immersive virtual reality with the effects of desktop 3D in respect to the training outcome of a serious game. This week, I was asked a similar question during a conference. Interestingly, the question was not being asked because there was no understanding for my approach, but because the scientist was criticized for similar reasons. He just wanted to see if I was able to come up with a better explanation.

In the end, this question made me thinking again about the entire peer-review process. Is it really ensuring a good scientific quality when it results in the rejections of interesting projects due to a lack of previous work? How can this be a good approach when it effectively blocks innovation? I hope the scientific community will reconsider this approach one day and come up with a better solution to ensure a high quality without blocking innovative research.

Finding of the week #285

A natural and plausible world

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 what characteristics are needed to render a virtual environment to a vivid and exciting place.

Computer games create exciting and unique virtual worlds. Depending of the game, the worlds are either linear levels, limited open world maps or infinite procedurally generated worlds. The naturalness and plausibility of these virtual worlds depends on the degree to which the virtual world autonomously reacts to a player or generates random events.

For the player to feel accepted and being a part of a virtual environment, it is important to design it in a way that reacts to a player’s actions. Also, a player has to be able to initiate and control events inside of these environments. For achieving a world that feels natural and not static, the environment has to provide events that are not a result of a player’s actions. However, to be effective, these events have to be plausible and logical based on a player’s previous experiences or real world knowledge. Then, the virtual environments start to become vivid as players can observe events everywhere around like in reality.

The Universim

This is a thing I just observed as I started to play The Universim. This game puts the player in control of an entire little planet that is inhabitated by a small civilization. The goal of the player, who is a god to the little virtual people, is to control and to help them thrive by interacting with them. However, the little virtual creatures also live their lifes on their own and start building little houses and gathering resources. As a result of this, the virtual planet is perceived as a vivid environment that would also continue to exist and to grow without the player. It has a bit the fascination of watching an aquarium that also represents a bounded little world.

I’m already excited to continue observing my little planet and discovering even more little secrets … !