Video Game Satisfaction with Adaptive Game AI

Video Game Satisfaction with

Adaptive Game AIBy Aaron Elkin

What Makes Video Games Enjoyable?

This is a popular question, which goes back many years.

What Makes Games so Fun? [Malone TW 1980]

Game flow: A Model for Evaluating Player Enjoyment [Sweetser P 2005]

Enjoyment recognition from physiological data in a car racing game [Tognetti 2010]

Explaining the enjoyment of playing video games: the role of competition [Vorderer 2003]

There are specifically agreed upon traits, which are accepted as aspects of a “fun” game.

Challenging

Engages Self-Esteem

Engages Curiosity

Why Video Games are fun?

John Snowden, in 2011, from the University of Derby ran a study showing that games became more fun when they implemented an adaptive element in the AI.

Research Question How much does personality affect user’s

enjoyment of game play with an adaptive game AI?

Methods• Mrs. Pacman Game Types

• Generic Game Type - Control• Difficulty Adaptation

• Changes the game speed• Changes ghost reversal

behavior• Changes ghost strategy

• Event Adaptation• Changes the images of the

ghosts• Happy, Sad, Chill, Angry

• Adds a story element to the game

• Changes ghost behavior due to events

• Level Ending• Ghost Eating

Personality• Big Five Personality

Test• Extroversion• Agreeableness• Conscientiousness• Neuroticism• Openness

Hypothesis• Game Types

• Event Adaptation: • Neuroticism

• People high in neuroticism tend to be more worried and have higher stress levels than other people.

• Agreeableness• People high in agreeableness tend to be very kind, easy going and are more

trusting than other people.• Difficulty Adaptation:

• Openness• People high in openness tend to be very creative, and imaginative and are

more curious than other people• Conscientiousness

• People high in conscientiousness tend to be very well organized, punctual and hard working compared to other people.

• Extroversion• People high in extroversion tend to be very talkative, and active people who

are generally more affectionate than other people.

ProcedureBegin the study by briefing the participants on what this

study is.

Issue the personality test

Play the control version of the game

Play the emotional and difficulty adaptation versions of

the game The order of the game will be randomized to control for outside

variables.

Issue the satisfaction survey

Evaluation Users will be evaluated as they play the game

What levels the users dies on when they finish a game. How many points the user accrues in each life. How many ghosts the player eats during each game.

Users will also be given a satisfaction survey regarding their gaming experience.

How well the user thinks they did in game How much the user enjoyed each game type How likely the user would be to want to replay each game type

Analysis and Results

Hypothesis Recap Event Adaptation – Neuroticism, Agreeableness Difficulty Adaptation – Conscientiousness, Openness,

Extroversion

Actual Emotional Correlations Event Adaptation – Extroversion, Neuroticism Difficulty Adaptation – Agreeableness, Openness Control - Conscientiousness

Analysis and Results

Player Skill and Preference Players who scored higher in overall skill were

more likely to enjoy the difficulty version (M=6.2) than the event version. (M=5.6)

Skill had no significant correlation with overall game enjoyment scores

Adaptive Game Variants were effective overall Every participant reported higher enjoyment

scores of the adaptive variants than the control version

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Discussion

Poor predictions from our Hypothesis The significant correlations in order of strength

Event Adaptation enjoyment and Extroversion Difficulty Adaptation enjoyment and Player Skill Difficulty Adaptation and Neuroticism had a

strong negative correlation Control version enjoyment and

Conscientiousness

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Discussion The strongest correlations

Event adaptation enjoyment and extroversion (r=.88, p<.01)

Difficulty adaptation enjoyment and player skill(r=.68, p=.04)

Difficulty adaptation and neuroticism (r=-.82, p<.01)

Control version enjoyment and conscientiousness. (r=.78, p=.01)

The lack of stronger personality correlations Fewer participants than we

would want Not a strong enough

discrepancy in how people chose enjoyment.

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2 2.5 3 3.5 4 4.502468

Event Game En-joyment and Ex-

troversion

The Interaction

Extroversion

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ent

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Difficulty Game En-joyment and Neuroti-

cism

The Interaction

Difficulty Adaptation Enjoyment

Neu

rotic

ism

Sco

re

Relevance The video game industry generates over forty

billion dollars a year Computing advancements made in video

games can be applied elsewhere The relationship between personality and

video game playing is relevant for marketing purposes

Determining traits that make games more fun for different personality types can aid in making more enjoyable video games in the future.

Conclusions

Video Games are a highly relevant industry and this study gives insight into different players gaming preferences.

The results of this study indicate that: People who are more frequent gamers are more likely to enjoy

games that conforms to their skill level People who are outgoing may be more likely to enjoy games where

they feel involved in the story and world People who get easily stressed are not likely to enjoy games that

will be constantly challenging Extraversion and Neuroticism are the personality levels that are

most strongly related to video game preference.05/29/12

Questions?