1. ADVT: The social experience of gaming Paul Cairns paul.cairns@york.ac.uk

2. Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns Why study videogames?  Big business  Dominant phenomenon  Pure experience – Before, during, momentary, after  UX challenge 2

3. What experiences do games offer? Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns3

4. User Experience, Paul Cairns Where is the Science? UX  Personal  Unique  Subjective Science  Generalisable  Repeatable  Objective

5. Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns5

6. Holistic  McCarthy and Wright – Technology as Experience  Can’t ignore the complexity  Narrative: reflected and anticipated  Prosaic experience 6

7. Exercise  Tell a story (in pairs) about a really good game you played: why was it good, how did the game make you feel, what you did next… How would you summarise the UX in the story you heard? Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns7

8. Using stories  Where to focus?  From holism to design?  Need analysis – Holism lacks teeth Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns8

9. Reductionist  Analytic approach to experience  Partition up elements  Measure  Compare 9

10. Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns10

11. Measures of GX  Immersion  GEQ  CEGE  All have questionnaires! Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns11

12. Immersion  Commonly talked about  Various formulations  Jennett, five factors: – Emotional involvement, cognitive involvement, real world dissociation – Challenge & control Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns12

13. GEQ (unpublished)  An all encompassing measure  During and after modules  Seven factors: – Sensory & imaginative immersion, tension, competence, flow, negative affect, positive affect, challenge  SPGQ Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns13

14. Core Elements of the Gaming Experience  What’s needed for a good experience?  Puppetry  Five factors: – control, ownership, facilitators, environment, game-play Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns14

15. Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns15

16. Is social play GX or something else? Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns16

17. Immersion and social play  Reduces immersion (Sweetser & Wyeth, Ermi & Mäyrä)  Games as social setting (de Kort et al, 2008)  Social presence in games (SPGQ) Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns17

18. What is the SPGQ measuring?  3 factors, can you come up with a sensible name that summarising what each factor is about? Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns18

19. Immersion and social context  3 experiments  Using IEQ for immersion  Manipulation: – playing computer – playing online – playing colocated Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns19

20. Hayley Martin, UCL Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns20

21. Results  SPGQ goes up from “computer” to online to colocated  Immersion goes up from computer to online  BUT: deception, Hawthorne effect and old game Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns21

22. Matt Day, York Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns22

23. Results  Immersion more online than against computer Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns23

24. Tom Perryman, York Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns24

25. Results  Still no difference  Overall: It matters that you (think you) play a person. It doesn’t matter where that person is.  Social play improves immersion Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns25

26. Further work? 26Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns

27. Summary  GX is the purest form of UX  Lots of approaches – Holistic, reductionistic  Social play is an intergal part of GX 27

28. Social experience of gaming, Paul Cairns Reading  Chen, Flow in games (and everything else)  Jennett et al., Defining and measuring immersion in videogames  IJsselsteijn et al., Characterising and Measuring User Experiences in Digital Games (GEQ)  Calvillo-Gamez et al., Assessing the core elements of the gaming experience (CEGE)  de Kort et al., Digital games as social presence technology. (SPGQ) 28