Jonathan Barone-University of Washington
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“Dollars as Points: Marrying Real and In-Game Progress” Serious game creators want good play to create measurable real-world benefit. Players want games to provide positive feedback for good play. Learn strategies to satisfy both of these requirements in a harmonious, efficient way, and how to identify warning signs that your game may be missing the mark.
Citation preview
- 1. Dollars as Points Marrying Real and In-Game Progress
Jonathan Barone Center for Game Science University of
Washington
- 2. What stakeholders want: Users playing because they enjoy the
game Measurable benefit
- 3. Reality: Users playing because they have to ???
- 4. About CGS We make scientific discovery and math education
games then use those games for research. Ultimate goal:
expert-level knowledge from games centerforgamescience.org Foldit
Treefrog Treasure
- 5. Intro: DNA
- 6. Overview What reality-anchored scoring systems can do for
serious games How to design and implement such a system
- 7. Whats in a score? Super Hexagon score formula: t
Civilization 4 score formula:
- 8. Serious games and score How do serious games use score?
Engagement Performance Evaluation
- 9. Serious games and score How do serious games use score?
Engagement AND performance evaluation
- 10. Inaccurate/arbitrary scoring You scored 6,230 points! B -
No. Okay. Days? Days? Days? Weeks? Days? So, weeks or months
later:
- 11. Well-correlated scoring Instant (Little later) Work
- 12. Designing a scoring system Is a score that reflects real
metrics feasible and practical? How much flexibility do we have?
Prototype/iterate. Does it work for the players? Does it work for
the partners?
- 13. Should we bother? 66% 33% yep
- 14. Acceptable abstraction Scientists Players 100% 66% B-
- 15. Prototype, iterate You know the drill. One catveat: involve
a domain expert from the start.
- 16. Does it work for players? Qualitative, non-leading
questions: Do they understand the concepts? Is it motivating them?
A/B test if possible Hopefully:
- 17. Does it work for partners? Quantitative, statistically
significant data: Compare to control group. Show transfer to real
life. Compare to value of non-game methods. Hopefully:
- 18. Outro: DNA
- 19. Conclusion Scoring needs to suit the players. For use as a
real metric, it needs to suit the partners, too. Its critical for
the designer to understand the field and constraints. Qualitative
evidence from players, quantitative evidence to partners.
- 20. Acknowledgements The DNA team: Brian Britigan, Matt Burns,
Seth Cooper, Rowan Copley, Barbara Krug, Sundipta Rao, Zoran
Popovic, Georg Seelig, and Eric Winfree Screenshots credited to:
Terry Cavanagh, Firaxis, Green-Eye Visualization
Centerforgamescience.org jbarone@cs.washington.edu