Barbaros Bostan, National University of Singapore Ugur Kaplancali, Yeditepe University

Education

Why do people play games?

We are concerned with:

How do they play games and why do they play it like that? What are common player interaction patterns?

Motivation to reach a goal is influenced by both personal and situational factors.

Personal factors: needs, motives and goals of a person.

Situational factors: opportunities and possible incentives provided by the environment.

A need refers to a potentiality or readiness to respond in a certain way under given conditions and each need is characterized by a certain effect or the occurrence of a certain trend (Murray, 1938).

Flow

First introduced by Mihalyi Csikszentmihalyi (1977):

The holistic sensation that people feel when they act with total involvement characterized by a narrowing of the focus of awareness, the loss of self-consciousness and the feeling of being in control of the situation

Csiks. (1988):
flow experience begins only when skills and challenges are above a certain level and are in balance

Models of Flow

Ghani, Supnick and Rooney (1991), Ghani & Deshpande (1994): Two key characteristics of flow:
total concentration in an activity sense of control over ones environment

Two main types of models Flow Channel segmentation models Conceptual & causal models

Channel segmentation

High level of interactivity, Moderate level of sociability, Believable autonomous virtual characters, Open-ended story structure, High user freedom of choice, High visual and behavioral realism.

Statistic
Action Points

Description
Number of things a player can do during Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System, or V.A.T.S. See V.A.T.S. below for further explanation Maximum amount of weight a character can carry. Carrying more items means retaining more possessions. Chance to cause extra damage in combat. Critical hits provide a means for quick elimination of enemies and receiving less damage in combat. Reduces damage taken from attacks.

Needs Satisfied + nAgg, + nHarm

Skill
Barter

Description
Decreases the value of objects when buying, increases their value when selling. The ability to use bigger weapons such as flamer, gatling laser, minigun, missile launcher, etc. The ability to use energy-based weapons such as laser pistol, plasma rifle, pulse pistol, etc. The ability to set or disarm explosives, also increases damage of explosives such as mines, grenades, etc. The ability to open doors or safes without the proper key. Also promotes gaining access to places, avoiding heavily enemy crowded areas. Increases the health earned from medical items such as stimpaks, radaways, etc. The ability to combat with melee weapons such as a sword, knife, etc. Close combat results in receiving more damage.

Needs Satisfied + nAcq

Big Guns

+ nAgg

Carry Weight

+ nAcq, + nRet

Critical Chance

+ nAgg, + nHarm

Common Player Interaction Patterns

Energy Weapons

+ nAgg

Explosive s

+ nAgg AND/OR + nHarm

Damage Resistanc e Health

+ nHarm

Lockpick

+ nAcq AND/OR + nHarm

Radiation Resistanc e Perk Rate

Hit points or the game mechanic used to measure the health of the player. Reduces damage taken from radiation.
How often player is given a perk.

+ nHarm
Medicine

+ nHarm

+ nHarm
Melee Weapons

+ nAgg, nHarm

+ nAch

Murrays taxonomy could assist the analysis of gaming experiences and interaction patterns within a motivational framework. Restrictions imposed by the game mechanics, significantly reduce the number of player needs satisfied by a game, The player is usually trapped within the common motivational cycle of Achievement, Aggression, Harmavoidance and

Acquisition.

Most common need fusions: +Retention & +n Acquisition; +nAcquisition & +nDomination; +nCognizance & +nDominance; +Aggression & +Harmavoidance.

Barbaros Bostan, National University of Singapore Ugur Kaplancali, Yeditepe University