Study on Player Experience in the Game World Hua Qin1, Pei-Luen Patrick Rau2, Gavriel Salvendy3 1
Department of Industrial Engineering, Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing 100084, P. R. China (Email:
[email protected]) 2 Department of Industrial Engineering, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, P. R. China 3 School of Industrial!Engineering, Purdue University, West Lafayette, IN 47907, USA
Abstract - The aim of this study is to investigate impacts from a game on players through measuring and comparing player immersion to explore game design. In terms of an instrument of player immersion in the computer game narrative and factor scores from exploratory factor analysis of a survey, this study measures and compares player immersion impacted from 5 games. The first three games are Final fantasy, Sangokushi 11and Sword of Xuanyuan 3. And through comparing 7 dimension involved in the player immersion from the 5 games, this study proposes advices on some dimensions.
one dimension: empathy. The description of the seven dimensions is shown in Table 1. TABLE I DIMENSIONS OF AN INSTRUMENT ON MEASURING PLAYER IMMERSION
Keywords - Conformance Cost, Internal And External Failure Cost, Non Conformance Cost, Total Quality Cost
I. INTRODUCTION Over the last two decades, the importance of research on computer game has grown. Although many researchers focus on player subjective experience [1-3], few of studies note the relationship between the player subjective experience and game design. This study is aim to investigate impacts from a game through measuring and comparing player immersion to improve game design. In the game world, players can see, hear and manipulate the environment, just as they do in the real world. This provides the player with a strong visceral and cognitive belief in what is experienced in the virtual context as physical reality. To be immersed is to be involved in the context, not only physically but also mentally and emotionally[4]. Ermi and Mäyrä[5] believed that immersion more clearly refers to the mental processes involved in the game. While experiencing games, players actively participate in the construction of the experiences and they invest their desires and previous experiences and anticipate outcomes[6]. So, measuring player immersion indicates player experience in the game world. To measure player immersion in the game world, Qin et al. [1] proposed an instrument based on the process of players entering into the immersion experience. The study described three stages including seven dimensions. The primary antecedent conditions are made up of three dimensions: curiosity, familiarity, and challenge and skill. The second stage, experience, includes the players’ perception and cognition during immersion including three dimensions: concentration, control, and comprehension. The final stage, effect, represents the players’ inner experience after immersion, and consists of
The instrument measuring player immersion in the computer game narrative is subjective evaluation. Commonly, summation of the instrument or each dimension is computed for evaluation. In fact, the contribution of each item to the instrument or the dimensions is different. This study proposes that factor scores could be computed for comparing player immersion from different games. After exploratory factor analysis, factor score coefficients could account for how much contribution of each item to the each dimension and how much variance explained by each dimension to the instrument.
METHOD The aim of this study is to compare and measuring player immersion. So, there are two tasks for this study, which one is to measuring player immersion impacted from a game, the other one is to compare immersion impacted from different games. Measuring immersion is
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based on the instrument for measuring player immersion in the computer game narrative [1] and comparing the immersion is based on dimensions or factors of player immersion. Five video games are chosen for measured and compared. The factor score coefficients for the factors are used to calculate factor scores for 5 measured games. Then the average factor scores for each game are worked out. Through factor scores, the location of each game in the factors or dimensions could be compared. The 5 games for measured and compared are chosen from different culture or different genres and well-known in China, which are Diablo, Starcraft, Final fantasy, Romance of the three kingdoms 11 and Sword of xuanyuan 3. Diablo is a dark fantasy-themed action role-playing game in a hack and slash and dungeon roaming style. It was released by Blizzard Entertainment. Starcraft is also released by Blizzard Entertainment. It is a 2D real-time strategy space epic. Final Fantasy is a console role-playing game developed and published in Japan by Square in 1987. The story follows four youths called the Light Warriors. They quest to defeat evil forces and save their world. Romance of the three kingdoms 11 (Sangokushi) is a computer game originated by Koei. It is a turn-based wargame. The game is based on the events of the Romance of the Three Kingdoms in China during the 2nd and 3rd centuries. Sword of Xuanyuan 3 is a role playing game developed by DOMO group of Softstar in Taiwan. The game is based on pre-history Chinese mythology. The data for measuring player immersion in a game and factor score coefficients are from a survey [1]. The survey was performed in March 2007 on a website. The instrument was a 7-point Likert Scale, in which 7 represented ‘strongly agree’ and 1 described ‘strongly disagree’. In the survey, there were 309 effective respondents. The ages of 93.85% of the subjects were from 20 to 30. Only 36% of the participants had played games no more than 5 years and 30.10% participants had played games for more than 10 years. About 80% of the participants played games no more than 3 hours per day
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION The SPSS for Windows version 15.0 was used for data analyses, and the significance level was set at 0.05. After exploratory factor analysis, factor score coefficients are worked out. Table 2 shows the factor score coefficients matrix. Through the factor scores, each factor could be presented by the 27 items. From the table 2, we could find that not only the items included in one dimension (hatching in the table) influence the dimension, but the other items outside the dimension also impact it more or less. TABLE II FACTOR SCORE COEFFICIENTS
After normalized, the mean of factor scores is 0, and standard deviation is 1. Table 3 and Fig 1 present the results of measuring and comparing player immersion in the 5 video games. For the factor Curiosity, the first two games Sword of Xuanyuan 3 and Final fantasy are better than the other three games. For the factor Comprehension, the first two games Final fantasy and Diablo are better than the other three games. For the factor Challenge and skill, the first two games are Sangokushi 11 and Diablo. For the factor Empathy, the first two games are Sword of Xuanyuan 3 and Final fantasy. For the factor Concentration, the first two games Starcraft and Final fantasy are better than the other three games. For the factor Control, the first two games are Starcraft and Final fantasy. For the factor Familiarity, the first two games Sangokushi 11 and Final fantasy are better than the three games. For the player immersion, the first three games are Final fantasy, Sangokushi 11and Sword of Xuanyuan 3. For the game Diablo, Comprehension, and Challenge and skill of players’ are better than those impacted from the other four games. For the game Starcraft, Concentration, and Control of players’ are better than those impacted from the other four games. For the game Final fantasy, Curiosity, Comprehension, Empathy, Concentration, Control, and Familiarity of players’ are better than those impacted from the other four games. For the game Sangokushi 11, Challenge and skill, and
Familiarity of players’ are better than those impacted from the other four games. For the game Sword of Xuanyuan 3, Curiosity, Comprehension and Empathy of players’ are better than those impacted from the other four games.
empathy; F5: concentration; F6: control; F7: familiarity
TABLE III FACTOR SCORES OF THE 5 GAMES
Note: F1: curiosity; F2: comprehension; F3: challenge and skill; F4: empathy; F5: concentration; F6: control; F7: familiarity Fig. 1 Comparison of player immersion
In the 5 games, Final fantasy makes players feel immersed greatly. Players feel it curious and comprehend well the game story. They enter into the game world empathically. Also as a RPG, Sword of Xuanyuan 3 also satisfies players on the curiosity, comprehension and empathy. But on the Challenge and skill, it should be improve the difficulty design comparing with Final fantasy. As an action RPG released in China, culture difference should be considered for designers of Diablo. The culture difference may decrease players curious and familiar with the game. For action games, it is important for game designers to design challenging difficulty to match players’ skill. Compared with Sangokushi 11, Starcraft should improve on the difficulty design. But for Sanugokushi 11, it should perfect players control skill.
IV.SUMMARY The aim of this study is to investigate impacts from a game on players through measuring and comparing player immersion to find problems in the game design. Based on the instrument of player immersion in the computer game narrative and factor scores, well-known games in China are measured and compared. The results indicate that Final fantasy make players feel immersed most greatly and the next are Sangokushi 11 and Sword of Xuanyuan 3. After dimensions of the player immersion compared, some advices on dimensions of the 5 games are proposed.
REFERENCES
Note: F1: curiosity; F2: comprehension; F3: challenge and skill; F4:
[1] Qin, H., Rau, P. L. P. and Salvendy, G. Measuring player immersion in the computer narrative. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction, 25(2), p.107-133 (2009). [2] Brown, E. and Cairns, P. A grounded investigation of game immersion. CHI 2004, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing, ACM Press, p.1297-1300 (2004).
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Sweetser, P. and Wyeth, P. GameFlow: A model for evaluating player enjoyment in games. ACM Computers in Entertainment, 3(3), p.1-24 (2005). [4] Brooks, K. There is nothing virtual about immersion: Narrative immersion for VR and other interfaces. Retrieved May 25, 2007, from http://alumni.media.mit.edu/~brooks/storybiz/immersiveNot Virtual.pdf (2003). [5] Ermi, L. and Mäyrä, F. Fundamental components of the gameplay experience: analyzing immersion. In S. Castell, & J. Jenson (Eds.) Changing Views: Worlds in Play. p.15-27 (2005). [6] Blythe, M. and Hassenzahl, M. The semantics of fun: Differentiating enjoyable experiences. In M. A. Blythe, K. Overbeeke, A. F. Monk, & P. C. Wright (Eds.). Funology: From usability to enjoyment. Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, Boston, London, p.91-100 (2003).A1, A2 and A3, Journal name, 3, p.1210 (2000).
