Evaluating User Experience in Games: Concepts and Methods - Lirmm

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92 P. Lemay and M. Maheux-Lessard fit or learning to cook). With this regard, attitudinal research in conjunction with the flow model could be useful to better characterize specific audiences like non-gamers and women, for example (Lemay, 2007a). Another interesting aspect of the flow theory is how it may be related to impacts of leisure on the quality of life of individuals. As stated by Csikszentmihalyi (1990, 1997), even if the most positive experiences in our daily lives tend to occur in a leisure context, all leisure activities don’t exhibit the same effects on the quality of experience. In this regard, this author differentiates the effects of passive and active leisure – where active leisure activities such as sports and arts, for example, tend to provide a context much more favorable for personal development and growth than the context provided by passive leisure activities such as watching TV and reading. The intrinsic rewards and feelings of gratification gained by deeply engaging in active leisure is a major factor that contributes to the quality of life in general (Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Should videogames then be considered a passive or an active leisure activity? Empirical data may provide some corresponding insights. Fortunately, there is a growing awareness toward quality-of-life and well-being issues, upon which the design community in general is reflecting (Press and Cooper 2003). If videogames are capable of generating fun and pleasure, from a logic of sustainable experiences (Lemay 2007b), can videogames also lead to well-being and furthermore to a better quality of life? The relationships between flow theory and leisure activities stir up interesting issues concerning the nature and value of videogames, and flow theory can help conceptualize important aspects of the gaming experience as a whole. To some extent, the quality-of-life shift in the design of videogames is already underway and the approach toward conceptualizing the gameplay experience in a holistic manner has already granted the gaming industry with numerous successes. Games such as Wii Fit, Guitar Hero, Brain Age, and even Dance Dance Revolution all share and integrate elements inspired from active leisure. 6.2.2 Why Attitudes Matter in Leisure Activities Such as Videogames From a game designer’s perspective, knowing what target users think of a certain game genre has always been valuable data when it comes to creating a new game. Focus groups, benchmarks evaluation, and playtests are typical research methods set forth in order to grasp information about player attitudes and preferences (Pagulayan et al 2003, Appelman 2007, Kuniavsky 2003). But since videogames are one among many other leisure activities worth taking part in, probing attitudes about other leisure activities may provide interesting data about perceptions and needs related to games per se. Conceptually, investigating attitudes toward leisure activities, including videogames, can enrich the understanding of the dynamics of engagement in an activity. This dynamic can be referred to as the causal chain of motivation/participation/satisfaction as suggested by Crandall (1980). Therefore,
6 Investigating Experiences and Attitudes Toward Videogames 93 answers to question such as why people engage in videogames, what motivates them to play, and what satisfaction they get out of it could help conceptualize gameplay experiences in a more profound manner and help designers create more engaging and compelling games from a practical point of view. From a leisure research perspective, attitudes toward leisure activities are relevant because of their positive effect on participation (Ragheb and Tate 1993). Said in a straightforward fashion, what people think of an activity influences whether they will engage in it or not. But other factors can also influence leisure participation such as availability, affordability, and social acceptance (Argyle 1987). Similar to other leisure activities, players interpret their engagement in videogames by means of referral to the cultural and social context (Ermi and Mäyrä 2005). Although videogames have grown over time to be a very popular and significant leisure activity, many social concerns have been addressed toward this form of entertainment (Barnett et al. 1997). That alone justifies the need to probe the attitudes of people and groups of people about it. For the reasons mentioned above, attitudinal research in the videogame domain represents a relevant and significant approach to grasp valuable information about the underlying players – and non-players – experiences. Knowing that attitudes toward a particular game genre or simply toward a general leisure activity can have a distinct impact on engagement, the acquired information could help game designers create more compelling games and help them tackle the challenge of creating user-friendly and quality-of-life-oriented games. 6.3 Case Study The authors present here how they have used and tested the semantic differential (SD) approach in the videogame domain. How are videogames affectively perceived? How do they compare with other popular leisure such as Internet surfing and communication, watching TV, reading, and playing a musical instrument? While there exists an abundance of literature regarding how people organize their free time and how their leisure activities are construed, playing videogames as an activity has not been described in such a fashion. The aim of the study was to compare the perceptions of videogames with other leisure activities and investigate if we could pinpoint specific positive and negative perceptions. 6.3.1 Research Objectives Mainly because this kind of approach was never used in this domain and because no other data were available to compare the results, no specific hypotheses were explicated in the research protocol. Data analyses were subsequently performed from a more descriptive stance rather than an inferential one. The following analyses were planned: the descriptive analysis of the participants, the descriptive analysis of the perception of each leisure activity, the multivariate comparison of the leisure activities, and finally comparisons between
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Human-Computer Interaction Series E
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Regina Bernhaupt Editor Evaluating
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For Philippe
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viii Foreword Chapter 3, Presence I
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x Foreword personality which evolve
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Contents Part I Introduction to Eva
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Contributors Regina Bernhaupt IRIT,
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Contributors xvii Manfred Tscheligi
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xx About the Authors Emily Brown is
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xxii About the Authors a post-docto
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xxiv About the Authors Christina Ko
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xxvi About the Authors MIT Media La
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xxviii About the Authors Theft Auto
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Chapter 1 User Experience Evaluatio
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1 User Experience Evaluation in Ent
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1 User Experience Evaluation in Ent
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Chapter 2 Enabling Social Play: A F
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2 Enabling Social Play 13 It is als
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2 Enabling Social Play 15 observati
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2 Enabling Social Play 17 for playe
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Chapter 3 Presence, Involvement, an
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3 Presence, Involvement, and Flow i
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150 K. Poels et al. in games. This
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226 M. Brown et al. Count 450 400 3
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Index A Advanced interaction games,
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