5. eSports, Streaming, Social Play

説明

In recent times, millions of people enjoy watching video gameplays at an eSports stadium or home. We seek a method that improves gameplay spectator or viewer experiences by presenting multisensory stimuli. Using a motion chair, we provide the motion effects automatically generated from the audiovisual stream to the viewers watching a first-person shooter (FPS) gameplay. The motion effects express the game character’s movement and gunfire action. We describe algorithms for the computation of such motion effects developed using computer vision techniques and deep learning. By a user study, we demonstrate that our method of providing motion effects significantly improves the viewing experiences of FPS gameplay. The contributions of this paper are with the motion synthesis algorithms integrated for FPS games and the empirical evidence for the benefits of experiencing multisensory gameplays.

日本語まとめ

説明

Tilt as a gaming term is associated with frustration, rage, and deterioration of gameplay ability. We surveyed 95 esports players in a high school esports league on their definitions of tilt, triggers for tilting, responses to tilt, and perception of its malleability. We found that players are tilted most commonly by their own teammates rather than opponents, with their most negative tilt responses reserved for themselves. The majority surveyed believe that they can change how easily they are tilted and believing so was found to lead players to choose more positive responses to tilt. In contrast, perceiving tilt as malleable was found to increase the probability that participants respond with positive strategies. Implications for efforts to improve esports culture and community are discussed.

日本語まとめ

説明

Competitive VR gaming has emerged as a new trend in recent years, due to the availability of consumer grade VR technologies and the rise of esports as a billion dollar industry. Despite the considerable attention to competitive VR gaming, there is a lack of research on attitudes and experiences that players have with these games. In this qualitative study with a pre-post interview design, we recruited eight competitive Counter-Strike: Global Offensive players from a university esports club. We aimed to understand their attitudes towards VR esports and their experiences playing a representative location based VR esports game. Findings showed that players had visceral and positive affective experiences in the game, such as how players map physical movements to the game. These findings can help design future competitive VR esports, while also further contributing to HCI as the first exploration on player experiences with VR esports, laying groundwork for future studies.

日本語まとめ

説明

Esports are rapidly growing within academia. In HCI, earlier work explored how problematic behaviors emerging from gender biases(e.g., toxicity) negatively impact female participation in esports. Here, we further explore gender biases in esports by interviewing19 self-identified female and male professional gamers and event organizers. We inquire our interviewees about personal experiences with gender biases in esports, and their perspective on how these biases impact participation, inclusivity, and career prospects. Our interviewees see gender biases in esports as a consequence of stereotypical gender roles in gaming tout-court (e.g., girls do not like violence, boys are competitive by nature). The rationale for separating male and female in esports, however, seems rooted in the need for female gamers to create role-models and grow in self-confidence. We scrutinize the considerations emerging from our interviews under a Feminist HCI lens and discuss how HCI research can help design equitable environments in esports.

日本語まとめ

説明

Esports is a rapidly growing industry, generating interest from research disciplines including marketing, social sciences, and human-computer interaction. Despite its continued growth, there is a lack of studies surrounding the health of esports players. Previous workon the subject is limited, as research has only recently begun to explore the potential factors affecting physical and psychologicalwellness. Using an exploratory mixed-methods approach, a series of semi-structured interviews (n= 10) and an online survey (n= 68)were used to identify the biggest health concerns among esports players. The results demonstrate a better understanding of issuesregarding physical and psychological wellness according to the players. Moving forward, we suggest the HCI community adaptsmindfulness, ergonomics, and social-emotional learning as methods for supporting player’s health concerns.

日本語まとめ

説明

Game industry professionals are frequently implementing new methods of addressing ethical issues related to in-game toxicity and disruptive player behaviours associated with online multiplayer games. However, academic work on these behaviours tends to focus on the perspectives of players rather than the industry. To fully understand the ethics of multiplayer games and promote ethical design, we must examine the challenges facing those designing multiplayer games through an ethical lens. To this end, this paper presents a reflexive thematic analysis of 21 in-depth interviews with games industry professionals on their ethical views and experiences in game design and community management. We identify a number of tensions involved in making ethics-related design decisions for divided player communities alongside current game design practices that are concerned with functionality, revenue and entertainment. We then put forward a set of design considerations for integrating ethics into multiplayer game design.

日本語まとめ

説明

Video game play is among the most popular forms of entertainment in the world and eSports is a multi-billion dollar industry. Esports gamers, and competitive gamers more broadly, want fast game systems to maximize their chances of winning. In general, the faster the game system, the lower the latency between a player's action and the intended outcome. But how much small reductions in local latencies benefit competitive players is not known. This paper presents results from a 43-person user study that evaluates the impact of system latencies for high-end gaming systems (below 125 ms) on experienced Counter-strike: Global Offensive (CS:GO) players. Analysis of the results show pronounced benefits to CS:GO player performance (accuracy and score) for even small reductions in latency, with subjective opinions on Quality of Experience following suit.

日本語まとめ

説明

In 2020, the rapid spread of COVID-19 forced many people to self-isolate, resulting in struggles with mental health [60], and an increase in gaming [3]. In this paper, we seek to examine how individuals used digital games during the quarantine. We conducted a two-tier qualitative study where we used a thematic analysis of tweets to derive questions for an online survey that we distributed. Results of thematic analysis of survey responses identified 15 themes. Some themes confirm previous works’ findings, particularly how games are used to increase social connection or distract oneself from unpleasant situations. We also found new themes unique to the quarantine, such as interactions with non-player characters used as a surrogate for real-world interaction and using in-game routines as a substitute to real-world routines lost due to the pandemic. This work discusses the use of games during the pandemic and can be seeds for future studies.

日本語まとめ

説明

Whereas past CHI-related work has paid attention to various elements of the esports industry, there exists a scarcity of such research on the increasing convergence between esports and gambling. This study, therefore, aimed to shed light on the emerging phenomenon of esports betting in two ways. First, we theorized about its characteristics according to the 5W1H framework. Second, using semi-structured laddering interviews and Means-End Chain Theory, we assessed the esports betting motivations of young, male and recreational gamblers who interact with monetary and skin betting websites. Our results show that gamblers follow various motivational pathways when using an esports betting platform and construct their motives in relation to platform-specific properties and personal values. As such, we demonstrate that a holistic understanding of esports betting is of utmost importance if we want to explain and investigate its appeal to a worldwide audience.

日本語まとめ

説明

Live streaming sites such as Twitch offer new ways for remote audiences to engage with and affect gameplay. While research has considered how audiences interact with games, HCI lacks clear demarcations of the potential design spaces for audience participation. This paper introduces and validates a theme map of audience participation in game live streaming for student designers. This map is a lens that reveals relationships among themes and sub-themes of Agency, Pacing, and Community---to explore, reflect upon, describe, and make sense of emerging, complex design spaces. We are the first to articulate such a lens, and to provide a reflective tool to support future research and education. To create the map, we perform a thematic analysis of design process documents of a course on audience participation for Twitch, using this analysis to visually coordinate relationships between important themes. To help student designers analyze and reflect on existing experiences, we supplement the theme map with a set of mapping procedures. We validate the applicability of our map with a second set of student designers, who found the map useful as a comparative and reflective tool.

日本語まとめ

説明

With the rise of competitive online gaming and esports, players ability to review, reflect upon, and improve their in-game performance has become important. Post-play visualizations are key for such improvements. Despite the increased interest in visualizations of gameplay, research specifically informing the design of player-centric visualizations is currently limited. As with all visualizations, their design should, however, be guided by a thorough understanding of the goals to be achieved and which information is important and why.

This paper reports on a mixed-methods study exploring the information demands posed by players on post-play visualizations and the goals they pursue with such visualizations. We focused on three genres that enjoy great popularity within the competitive gaming scene. Our results provide useful guideposts on which data to focus on by offering an overview of the relevance of different in-game metrics across genres. Lastly, we outline high-level implications for the design of post-play visualizations.

日本語まとめ

説明

In first-person shooters (FPS), professional players (a.k.a., Gosu) outperform amateur players. The secrets behind the performance of professional FPS players have been debated in online communities with many conjectures; however, attempts of scientific verification have been limited. We addressed this conundrum through a data-collection study of the gameplay of eight professional and eight amateur players in the commercial FPS Counter-Strike: Global Offensive. The collected data cover behavioral data from six sensors (motion capture, eye tracker, mouse, keyboard, electromyography armband, and pulse sensor) and in-game data (player data and event logs). We examined conjectures in four categories: aiming, character movement, physicality, and device and settings. Only 6 out of 13 conjectures were supported with statistically sufficient evidence.

日本語まとめ