“Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.” — Dr. Seuss
I am an Associate Professor and Research Director of the HCI Games Group at the University of Waterloo in Canada. Before that I worked as an Assistant Professor at UOIT and as a Postdoc in the interaction lab of the University of Saskatchewan. I have a Ph.D. in game development and love to work in human-computer interaction and game design. My Google Scholar profile shows my latest research.
Select publications
- Nacke, L.. (2013). An Introduction to Physiological Player Metrics for Evaluating Games. In Seif El-Nasr, M., Drachen, A., & Canossa, A. (Eds.), In Game Analytics (pp. 585-619). Springer London. DOI: 10.1007/978-1-4471-4769-5_26 [PDF]
- Mirza-Babaei, P., Nacke, L. E., Gregory, J., Collins, N., & Fitzpatrick, G.. (2013). How does it play better?: exploring user testing and biometric storyboards in games user research. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’13). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 1499-1508. DOI: 10.1145/2470654.2466200 [PDF]
- Nacke, L. E., Kalyn, M., Lough, C. and Mandryk, R. L. (2011) Biofeedback game design: using direct and indirect physiological control to enhance game interaction. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI ’11). ACM, New York, NY, USA, 103-112. DOI: 10.1145/1978942.1978958 [PDF]
- Engl, S., & Nacke, L. E.. (2012). Contextual Influences on Mobile Player Experience – A Game User Experience Model. Entertainment Computing 4(1). February 2013, Pages 83–91. DOI: 10.1016/j.entcom.2012.06.001 [PDF]
- Nacke, L.E. (2010). Wiimote vs. Controller: Electroencephalographic Measurement of Affective Gameplay Interaction. In Proceedings of Future Play 2010, Vancouver, BC. 159-166. DOI:10.1145/1920778.1920801 [PDF]
News featuring my research
- Losing it: Why bad players keep trying with good games (PC Gamer Magazine, Feb 19, 2014)
- Why Gamers Can’t Stop Playing First-Person Shooters (New Yorker, Nov 25, 2013)
- Why first-person violent video games are so addictive: Psychologists reveal shoot-em-ups make us feel like we’re ‘playing God’ (Daily Mail UK, Nov 28, 2013)
- Ontario Researcher Explains Why First-Person Shooting Games are Super Addictive (University Herald, Nov 30, 2013)
- Emotional video gaming makes the action real (New Scientist, Apr 18, 2011)
- Built to Play: Episode 23 (Podcast, Dec 26, 2013)
- Gamers grab a hold of future (Stratford Gazette, Oct 09, 2013)
- Sold-out inaugural Gamification 2013 highlights Canada’s leadership in the sector (GRAND NCE News, Oct 8, 2013)
- German Podcast: AKW047 Game Design und Gamification (Abends in der Kreativwirtschaft, Dec 9, 2013)
Videos (Virtual Speaker Series 2013)
Feedback from Twitter (course or conference related)
Greatest class ever. #i4400 #UOITGameDev
— Gary Ng (@Drayxs) January 27, 2014
😀 #uoitgamedev pic.twitter.com/qlvz8uuS
— Rina R. Wehbe (@RinaRene) January 31, 2013
So impressed by everyone's games today! #UOITGameDev #inf4320 #inf4350 Thanks so much to @acagamic for being awesome. Good job everyone!
— Ruthanne Wilson (@ninjaduck8) December 9, 2011
@acagamic @UOITGD #i2330 I love this course! Sooo intriguing! L.Nacke demonstrating rubberbanding. http://t.co/HMbKuA80
— Tyler Biback (@TBibes) January 31, 2012
@acagamic Thanks for having us on Friday, we were blown away by your students! Truly history in the making… #uoitgamedev
— Basim Mirza (@bazmirza) December 12, 2011
@acagamic Today's class was actually really fun. I wish every week had one lecture and one interactive thing like that! #UOITGameDev #i3330
— Christian Perera (@cPerera_) October 3, 2012
And with that, we bring our semester of #inf4320 to a close. Thanks @acagamic, I have to say this was my favourite class this semester.
— MukaLegurine (@MukaLegurine) December 10, 2011
https://twitter.com/ErikPaluka/status/410167874888556544
Enjoyable day visiting with @acagamic , @Pejman_MB and lab at UOIT #CHI2014
— Ben Kirman (@benki) April 25, 2014
Just read through great slides from Lennart Nacke on the Affective Measurement of User Experience in Games. http://bit.ly/b1BxNJ
— David Farrell (@unthank) April 2, 2010
Treat yourself to some serious academic goodness: Lennart Nacke's PhD "Affective Ludology" on measuring game UX: http://bit.ly/9CroeM
— Sebastian Deterding (@dingstweets) January 30, 2010
Lennart Nacke @acagamic discusses his study on flow in game design, and why people are addicted to @Peggle http://t.co/whdGD97lXt
— Built to Play (@BuilttoPlay) December 14, 2013
Slightly puzzled by also *fascinated* > RT @acagamic 37m Another day, another jello controller @joaopccosta pic.twitter.com/VYhvgliDLT
— Julie Dirksen (@usablelearning) August 1, 2013
@acagamic takes the boss level challenge at #chi2014 by presenting a sick colleague's paper. #likeaboss http://t.co/NH5ezvZm5I
— elizabeth (beth) bonsignore, PhD (@ebonsign) May 1, 2014
@acagamic giving an impressive version of somebody else's talk at #chi2014 pic.twitter.com/djTq6Hfkiw
— Kathrin Gerling (@kathringerling) May 1, 2014
https://twitter.com/Brooklin_Olds/status/386166276844191745
Thrilled that @amyjokim's keynote on Coop Game Design + mine on Paths & Sandboxes are so very complementary!! Kudos to @acagamic #gameit13
— Stephen Anderson (@stephenanderson) October 3, 2013
Our own Mark Klintworth w @acagamic & @DannyOnions + a gaggle of play testers at GEL @IDEAHUBPortHope #UX #gamedev pic.twitter.com/L540rNSdtZ
— GEL Gaming / UX Lab (@GamingUX) July 11, 2014
#chiplay was most excellent! Thank you so much @acagamic & @Pejman_MB and everybody involved for this awesome conf!
— Elisa Mekler (@elisamekler) October 27, 2014
Honestly can say that with all the shenanigans at #chiplay and the cool stuff that is about to happen at work, this week has been phenomenal
— Ben Medler (@benmedler) October 24, 2014
Thanks to @acagamic @reganmandryk et al for such a brilliant job of organising it! #chiplay
— Conor Linehan (@conorlinehan) October 22, 2014
I don't think I've yearned to be at a conference more than I have for #chiplay. Looks like it was amazing, and I WILL see you in London 2015
— Ben Kirman (@benki) October 22, 2014
Done with Twitter until #chiplay 2015. Thanks @acagamic, @tcngraham and everyone else for organizing the best games conference ever!
— Kathrin Gerling (@kathringerling) October 22, 2014
Cheers for an awesome conference! Cya in London next year! @acagamic @acmchiplay #chiplay
— Jayson Turner (@musicbykits) October 23, 2014
Thanks to everyone for making #chiplay such an awesome experience. Great to be amongst leading like-minded academics and industry pro's!
— Mitchell McEwan (@MitchMcEwan) October 23, 2014
Professional memberships I have include the ACM SIGCHI, the IEEE Task Force on Player Satisfaction Modeling, the IEEE Game Engineering Special Interest Group. You can find me on Google+ and Twitter.