Topics in AI: Applied Natural Language Processing Information Extraction and Recommender Systems for Video Games ‘Gameplay’ Feature November 2, 2009

What is ‘Gameplay’? The term ‘gameplay’ is vague. No clear/definitive definition exists. However, –“The term gameplay gained acceptance in popular gaming nomenclature, being the only common phrase describing the quality of player engagement or how "fun" the game is.” (wikipedia) –“Many consider "gameplay" to be the most important indicator of the quality of a game.” (wikipedia)

Some Definitions of ‘Gameplay’ Wikipedia [ –Gameplay includes all player experiences during the interaction with game systems, especially formal games. Proper use is coupled with reference to "what the player does". … Generally, the term gameplay in video game terminology is used to describe the overall experience of playing the game excluding factors like challenges and movement. The term game mechanics refers to sets of rules in a game that are intended to produce an enjoyable gaming experience. Current academic discussions tend to favor terms like game mechanics to avoid 'gameplay'.

Some Definitions of ‘Gameplay’ –Despite criticism, the term gameplay has gained acceptance in popular gaming nomenclature, being the only common phrase describing the quality of player engagement or how "fun" the game is. The primary aspects of gameplay are the challenges the game presents to players, and the actions that players may take in response to those challenges. Some gaming reviews give a specific score for gameplay, along with graphics, sound, and replay value. Many consider "gameplay" to be the most important indicator of the quality of a game.

Some Definitions of ‘Gameplay’ Webopedia [ –Gameplay is a term most commonly used to rate, or score the quality of the experience had by gamer while playing a particular game. The term gameplay is often found in game reviews where a score is given based on player experiences during the interaction with game.

Definitions of ‘Gameplay’ in Game Rating Systems GameSpot Rating System [ –Gameplay: By gameplay, we mean everything from the responsiveness and design of a game's controls to how challenging, intense, or exciting the game is. Basically, this represents how well a game plays and how enjoyable it is to play. Games very rarely earn a 10 in this category, due to how elusive games with perfect or near- perfect gameplay actually are. We weigh the gameplay score heavily when deriving the overall rating.

Definitions of ‘Gameplay’ in Game Rating Systems IGN's Ratings Guide [ –Gameplay: In a nutshell, how fun and satisfying the game is to play. Usually considered the most important part of any title, this category encompasses the controls, design, and overall feel of the experience.

Adjectives Which Describe ‘Gameplay’ In our project, we will focus on adjectives which describe/express gameplay as a qualitative feature of a game. –e.g. “addictive” gameplay There _may_ be two sub-categories of gameplay adjectives: –Descriptive – Adjectives which describe actions in the game or interactions with the game (i.e., “how well a game plays”) e.g. “fast”, “smooth”, “fluid”, –Experience -- Adjectives which describe the experiences the user will have (i.e., “how enjoyable it is to play”) e.g. “challenging”, “irritating”

‘Gameplay’ Feature in Our Game Search System We want to allow the user to search videogames by the Gameplay feature (in addition to genre, playform etc.) Values of the Gameplay feature will be those adjectives  However, there are many, many of them. So, we cluster those adjectives, into 10 or so clusters. Then, we will assign a label for each cluster, and use the labels as the values of the ‘Gameplay’ feature. To cluster adjectives, we will use co-occurring abstract nouns. [We will take this info from Google bi-gram data.] –e.g. “smooth” motion, “smooth” attitude

Clustering ‘Gameplay’ Adjectives addictive good unique actual excellent Noun 1Noun 2Noun 3Noun 4Noun 5 Mutual Information:

Assigning Games to ‘Gameplay’ Adjective Clusters We want to assign each game to (one or more of) the adjective clusters  as the value of its ‘Gameplay’ feature To do so, we use the review text for the game, and look for sentences which have the (member) adjective(s). However, not all such sentences in the review refer to ‘gameplay’ – irrelevant sentences  noise So we must extract ONLY sentences which refer to ‘gameplay’ This task is essentially Information Extraction (IE), but we are only looking for one type of information (not several).

‘Gameplay’ Feature Addictive Obsessive Hooking Enslaving Habit-forming Involving Originative Original Ingenious New Leading-edge Innovative Game Review Match

Steps 1.Create a list of ‘gameplay’ adjectives. [And cluster them and assign cluster labels.] 2.Create a list of ‘gameplay’ words  other words (mostly nouns) which are synonyms, hyper/hyponyms or words which are semantically related to ‘gameplay’. 3.For each game review, extract all sentences with ‘gameplay’ adjective(s) AND word(s). 4.Possibly parse those sentences to identify the ‘gameplay’ adjective(s) accurately. 5.Assign the game to the ‘gameplay’ adjective cluster(s)  all applicable ones. 6.Enter in the database.

Create a list of gameplay adjectives Create a list of gameplay words Extract sentences from Gamespot reviews Assign each game to adjective clusters Enter in database Cluster gameplay adjectives Assign a label to each adjective cluster