The Acagamic
User Experience Research & Design in Games
by Craig A Lindley, Lennart E Nacke, Charlotte C Sennersten Abstract: Understanding gameplay requires a consideration of basic epistemological questions about the nature of understanding. Grounded in a tradition of philosophical hermeneutics, it is possible to approach the understanding of gameplay as a matter of generating mappings to explanatory frameworks in alternative interpretation paradigms. It …
by Ian J Livingston, Lennart E Nacke, Regan L Mandryk Abstract: Game reviews are used by game developers for making business decisions and measuring the success of a title, and have been shown to affect player perception of game quality. We conducted a study where players read positive or negative reviews of a game before …
by Lennart E Nacke, Anders Drachen Abstract: Player Experience (PX), user experience in the specific context of digital games, is currently a nebulous term with no commonly accepted definition or coherent backing theory. In this paper, a brief overview of the current stateof-the-art of PX knowledge is presented, with a specific emphasis on comparing PX …
by Lennart E Nacke, Chris Bateman, Regan L Mandryk Abstract: This paper briefly presents a player satisfaction model called BrainHex, which was based on insights from neurobiological findings as well as the results from earlier demographic game design models (DGD1 and DGD2). The model presents seven different archetypes of players: Seeker, Survivor, Daredevil, Mastermind, Conqueror, …
by Lennart E Nacke, Craig A Lindley Abstract: Researching experiential phenomena is a challenging undertaking, given the sheer variety of experiences that are described by gamers and missing a formal taxonomy: flow, immersion, boredom, excitement, challenge, and fun. These informal terms require scientific explanation, which amounts to providing measurable criteria for different experiential states. This …
by Lennart E Nacke, Chris Bateman, Regan L Mandryk Abstract: This paper briefly presents a player satisfaction model called BrainHex, which was based on insights from neurobiological findings as well as the results from earlier demographic game design models (DGD1 and DGD2). The model presents seven different archetypes of players: Seeker, Survivor, Daredevil, Mastermind, Conqueror, …
by Lennart E Nacke, Mark Grimshaw Abstract: This chapter treats computer game playing as an affective activity, largely guided by the audio-visual aesthetics of game content (of which, here, we concentrate on the role of sound) and the pleasure of gameplay. To understand the aesthetic impact of game sound on player experience, definitions of emotions …
by Sophie Stellmach, Lennart E Nacke, Raimund Dachselt Abstract: Gaze visualizations hold the potential to facilitate usability studies of interactive systems. However, visual gaze analysis in three- dimensional virtual environments still lacks methods and techniques for aggregating attentional representations. We propose three novel gaze visualizations for the application in such environments: projected, object-based, and surface-based …
by Lennart E Nacke, Mark N Grimshaw, Craig A Lindley Abstract: The combination of psychophysiological and psychometric methods provides reliable measurements of affective user experience (UX). Understanding the nature of affective UX in interactive entertainment, especially with a focus on sonic stimuli, is an ongoing research challenge. In the empirical study reported here, participants played …