Defining personas in games using metrics

Abstract

Game metrical data are increasingly being used to enhance game testing and to inform game design. There are different approaches and techniques to gather the metrics data; however there seems to be a lack of frameworks to read and make sense of it. In this paper, the concept of play-persona is applied to game metrics, in the specific case of character-based computer games, where the player controls a single protagonist, around whom the gameplay and -story evolves. A case is presented for Hitman: Blood Money (IO Interactive, 2007). Player-controlled game characters can be deconstructed into a range of components and these expressed as monitored game metrics. These metrics can subsequently be utilized to discover patterns of play by building play-personas: Modeled representations of how players interact with the game. This process can also be useful to assist game design, by informing whether the game facilitates the specific play patterns implied by theoretical play-personas.

Measuring the impact of game controllers on player experience in FPS games

“…Game metrics data is not only used for balancing and bugtracking, but also to define play-personas, which are modeled representations of how players interact with the game and can provide a deeper understanding of how players experience a game [18]. Questionnaires like the Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) [6] or the Game Engagement Questionnaire (GEnQ) [2] are used individually or are combined with other methods to measure player experience.…”

On Metrics for Location-Aware Games

“…Tychsen and Canossa [31] "are numerical data obtained from user interaction with games", "denote a standard unit of measure", and "are utilized for quantitatively measuring and evaluating processes".…”

Game Play Evaluation Metrics

“…Current generation's psychology is great teacher in making the game metrics and improving the game-play [1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11][12]. We understand digital games differ by the way they require players to perform recursive actions [17], [20] that lead to polysemic performances and readings [11], [19].…”

“…We understand digital games differ by the way they require players to perform recursive actions [17], [20] that lead to polysemic performances and readings [11], [19]. Game research has consequently focused much attention on seeking to develop a better understanding of the different experiential components of gameplay, for example, through flow [7], [18], immersion [6], [13][14][15][16], player engagement and many more factors. Useroriented game testing is normally carried out at different stages of the production cycle of digital games, which are commonly produced using agile methodologies.…”