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Digital games are well known for holding players' attention and stopping them from being distracted by events around them. Being able to quantify how well games hold attention provides a behavioral foundation for measures of game engagement and a link to existing research on attention. We developed a new behavioral measure of how well games hold attention, based on players' post-game recognition of irrelevant distractors which are shown around the game. This is known as the Distractor Recognition Paradigm (DRP). In two studies we show that the DRP is an effective measure of how well self-paced games hold attention. We show that even simple self-paced games can hold players' attention completely and the consistency of attentional focus is moderated by game engagement. We compare the DRP to existing measures of both attention and engagement and consider how practical it is as a measure of game engagement. We find no evidence that eye tracking is a superior measure of attention to distractor recognition. We discuss existing research on attention and consider implications for areas such as motivation to play and serious games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• A state of the art review of the work in making digital games accessible. • An argument for the limitations of current approaches to game accessibility. • A proposal to have a design language that is suitable to support games developers to think about how to make their games accessible. • An initial vocabulary based on a content analysis of existing guidelines to support the design of accessible games. Games represent one of the most significant cultural artefacts of this century. They are a massive force in economies around the world and are enjoyed by millions of players worldwide. With their cultural significance firmly in place, it is important to ensure that all people can participate in and play games in order to feel included in our wider society. For people with disabilities, games in particular provide a cultural outlet where they can be included with everyone else, and enabled to do things on an even footing with their non-disabled peers. However, this only happens if we create the necessary design environments that provide inclusive opportunities to game alongside the rest of the player base. Guidelines have been successful in raising awareness of accessibility in games and still function well for evaluating finished games. However, they are not the generative design thinking tools that developers need. Further in being divided to address specific disabilities, they are not capturing the diversity of needs of players with disabilities and the personalised and idiosyncratic adaptations that they make in order to play. We therefore propose developing a vocabulary and language of game accessibility which is no longer about whether someone can perceive or operate an interactive technology, but instead as to whether they can have the experience they want to have. We propose the structure for such a vocabulary showing that it needs to distinguish between access to controls, enablement to meet the challenges of the game and the player experience itself. We show how the intermediate-level knowledge embodied in guidelines can be reformulated in this way to be more generative and so support designers to develop games that deliver accessible player experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Uncertainty has previously been identified as an important ingredient of engaging games. Design in games can create different levels of uncertainty in players that they can recognize and describe as being either attributable to external forces, such as chance or hidden information, or internal to their own understanding of what to do in relation to their own goals. While it appears that uncertainty can contribute both positive and negative play experiences, there is little work in trying to operationalize and measure this concept as a component of player experience. Reported in this article is an analysis of data from over 700 players using modern bi-factor analysis techniques resulting in a five factor psychometric scale which captures the broad feelings of players about uncertainty in games. Three of these specific factors appear to point toward a single generic factor of uncertainty that is internal to the players, one captures experiences relating to external uncertainty, with the final factor relating to player's experience of exploring the game to resolve uncertainty. In order to further validate the scale, we conducted an experiment with a commercial puzzle game manipulating the duration of play with predicted outcomes on the different specific factors of the scale. Overall the scale shows promise with good statistical reliability and construct validity of the separate factors and so will be a useful tool for further investigating player experiences in digital games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loot boxes are items in video games that contain randomised contents and can be purchased with real-world money. Similarities between loot boxes and forms of gambling have led to questions about their legal status, and whether they should be regulated as gambling. Previous research has suggested a link between the amount that gamers spend on loot boxes and their problem gambling: The more individuals spent on loot boxes, the more severe their problem gambling. However, the generalisability of prior work may be limited by both the self-selected nature of the sample under test, and the fact that participants were aware of the study’s aims. A large-scale survey of gamers (n = 1,172) was undertaken to determine if this link remained when these limitations of previous work were taken into account. These gamers did not self-select into a loot box study and were not aware of the study’s aims. This study found similar evidence for a link (η2 = 0.051) between the amount that gamers spent on loot boxes and the severity of their problem gambling. Previous research strongly suggested both the size and the direction of link between loot box use and problem gambling. This paper provides further support for this link. These results suggest either that loot boxes act as a gateway to problem gambling, or that individuals with gambling problems are drawn to spend more on loot boxes. In either case, we believe that these results suggest there is good reason to regulate loot boxes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Loot boxes are items in video games that can be paid for with real-world money and contain randomised contents. In recent years, loot boxes have become increasingly common. There is concern in the research community that similarities between loot boxes and gambling may lead to increases in problem gambling amongst gamers. A large-scale survey of gamers (n = 7,422) found evidence for a link (η2 = 0.054) between the amount that gamers spent on loot boxes and the severity of their problem gambling. This link was stronger than a link between problem gambling and buying other in-game items with real-world money (η2 = 0.004), suggesting that the gambling-like features of loot boxes are specifically responsible for the observed relationship between problem gambling and spending on loot boxes. It is unclear from this study whether buying loot boxes acts as a gateway to problem gambling, or whether spending large amounts of money on loot boxes appeals more to problem gamblers. However, in either case these results suggest that there may be good reason to regulate loot boxes in games. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Video games depict a variety of different concepts. Models of learning in games like the GLM (General Learning Model) and GAM (General Aggression Model) predict that exposing players to these in-game concepts can lead to important changes in player behaviour. Priming effects are thought to be key to determining these changes in behaviour. However, recent research has suggested problems with the priming effects that have previously been observed in the video game literature. Indeed, widespread methodological issues with this body of research make it unclear whether priming effects occur at all in video games. Two experiments (total N = 532) investigated whether priming effects still occurred in video games when known confounds in the literature were accounted for. Priming was observed in neither study. However, in both studies a novel negative priming effect was observed instead, in which exposure to a specific concept inhibited players’ reactions to things that were related to that concept. These studies support previous research which indicates there may be serious confounding in the video game literature. They also suggest that the priming-related effects of video games may be overestimated. Finally, they highlight the potential existence of negative priming as an effect of video game play. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] We introduce a novel research methodology for measuring social presence in video games. [•] We investigate changes in social presence based on the agency of other entities. [•] We find that the affect of agency is task dependent. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Computational analysis of player style has significant potential for video game design: it can provide insights into player behavior, as well as the means to dynamically adapt a game to each individual's style of play. To realize this potential, computational methods need to go beyond considerations of challenge and ability and account for aesthetic aspects of player style. We describe here a semiautomatic unsupervised learning approach to modeling player style using multiclass linear discriminant analysis (LDA). We argue that this approach is widely applicable for modeling player style in a wide range of games, including commercial applications, and illustrate it with two case studies: the first for a novel arcade game called Snakeotron, and the second for Rogue Trooper, a modern commercial third-person shooter video game. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

• Scale measuring perceived challenge in video games. • Four sub-scales (30 items) measuring four types of perceived challenge in video games: cognitive, performative, emotional, and decision-making challenge. • Development and validation are carried out over three studies including 1390 players with diverse backgrounds playing video games from a range of genres. • The questionnaire is a systematic, extensive, reliable, and valid tool to measure perceived challenge in video games. Challenge is a key element of digital games, but a clear conceptualisation and operationalisation of this player experience were long missing. This made it hard for game researchers to measure this experience in different video games across different skill sets and impeded the synthesis of challenge-related games research. To overcome this, we introduce a systematic, extensive, and reliable instrument to evaluate the level of players' perceived challenge in digital games. We conceptualise challenge based on a survey of related literature in games user research, design and AI, as well as interviews with researchers and players. Exploratory factor analysis (N=394) highlights four components of experienced challenge: performative, emotional, cognitive and decision-making challenge. Refinement of the items allowed us to devise the Challenge Originating from Recent Gameplay Interaction Scale (CORGIS), which has been further validated in a study with nearly 1000 players. The questionnaire exhibits good construct validity for use by both game developers and researchers to quantify players' challenge experiences. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Despite the word''s common usage by gamers and reviewers alike, it is still not clear what immersion means. This paper explores immersion further by investigating whether immersion can be defined quantitatively, describing three experiments in total. The first experiment investigated participants’ abilities to switch from an immersive to a non-immersive task. The second experiment investigated whether there were changes in participants’ eye movements during an immersive task. The third experiment investigated the effect of an externally imposed pace of interaction on immersion and affective measures (state anxiety, positive affect, negative affect). Overall the findings suggest that immersion can be measured subjectively (through questionnaires) as well as objectively (task completion time, eye movements). Furthermore, immersion is not only viewed as a positive experience: negative emotions and uneasiness (i.e. anxiety) also run high. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]