Abstract
This paper investigates a novel methodological approach in performing user evaluation trials for pervasive games. The evaluation process of a pervasive role-playing game, Barbarossa, is used as a case study. Barbarossa involves a preliminary and a main execution phase. The former is freely available to anyone and may be played anytime/anywhere requiring no organizational and orchestration investments from the investigators team. The latter defines three interdependent player roles acted by players who need to collaborate in a treasure hunting game to achieve a common game goal. The eligibility of players for participating in the main game phase derives from those ranked relatively high in the preparatory phase. Drawing on concepts of cultural theory, we design the preparatory phase as an affective environment out of which the potential evaluators will emerge. The main hypothesis investigated is that the execution of such cost-effective preparatory phases may serve as a means for recruiting highly qualified subjects for user trials on pervasive game research prototypes, thereby increasing the reliability and quality of evaluation results. This hypothesis has been validated through the user evaluation trials performed on both the Barbarossa game phases.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
The Android application files along with the full reports of Google Play about the traffic of The Conqueror and ManHunt (which is presented below) applications can be found at the official site of Barbarossa, www.BarbarossaRPG.com, in the APKs and Reports section.
Following the end of the evaluation trials, ManHunt has been freely available for anyone to play and enjoyed more than 8000 downloads.
References
Bell M, Chalmers M, Barkhuus L, Hall M, Sherwood S, Tennent P, Brown B, Rowland D, Benford S, Capra M (2006) Interweaving mobile games with everyday life, In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on Human Factors in computing systems. ACM, New York, pp 417–426
Benford S, Crabtree A, Flintham M, Drozd A, Anastasi R, Paxton M, Tandavanitj N, Adams M, Row-Farr J (2006) Can you see me now? ACM Trans Comput-Hum Interact (TOCHI) 13(1):100–133
Benford S, Flintham M, Drozd A, Anastasi R, Rowland D, Tandavanitj N, Adams M, Row-Farr J, Oldroyd A, Sutton J (2004) Uncle roy all around you: implicating the city in a location-based performance. In: Proceedings of the advanced computer entertainment. ACE, pp 1–10
Bezerra C, Andrade R, Santos RM, Abed M, de Oliveira KM, Monteiro JM, Santos I, Ezzedine H (2014) Challenges for usability testing in ubiquitous systems. In: Proceedings of the 26th conference on l’Interaction homme-machine. ACM, New York, pp 183–188
H Bial, S Brady (2007) The performance studies reader. Routledge, London
Brown B, Reeves S, Sherwood S (2011) Into the wild: challenges and opportunities for field trial methods. In: Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. ACM, New York, pp 1657–1666
Bryan S (2013) The gamer tribes: an ethnography. A with Honors Projects, Parkland College. http://spark.parkland.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1097&context=ah
Chen L, Chen G, Benford S (2013) Your way your missions: a location-aware pervasive game exploiting the routes of players. Int J Human Comput Interact 29:110–128
Cheok AD, Khoo ET (2006) Age invaders: inter-generational mixed reality family game. Int J Virtual Real 5:45–50
Cheok AD, Sreekumar A, Lei C, Thang LM (2006) Capture the flag: mixed-reality social gaming with smart phones. IEEE Pervasive Comput 5:62–63
Davies N (2005) Proof-of-concept demonstrators and other evils of application-led research: a position statement. Ubicomp
e Silva ADS, Hjorth L (2009) Playful urban spaces a historical approach to mobile games, Simul Gaming 40:602–625
e Silva ADS, Sutko DM (2009) Digital cityscapes: merging digital and urban playspaces, Peter Lang
Eason KD (1984) Towards the experimental study of usability. Behav Inf Technol 3:133–143
Ekman U (2011) Issue on ubiquity. Fibreculture J 19
Fischer J, Lindt I, Stenros J (2006) Final crossmedia report (part II)—epidemic menace II evaluation report, integrated project on pervasive gaming
Fritsch J, Markussen T (2012) Issue on exploring affective interactions. Fibreculture J 21
Guo B, Fujimura R, Zhang D, Imai M (2012) Design-in-play: improving the variability of indoor pervasive games. Multimedia Tools Appl 59:259–277
Hannamari S, Kuittinen J, Montola M (2007) Insectopia evaluation report, integrated project on pervasive gaming
Herbst I, Braun A-K, McCall R, Broll W (2008) TimeWarp: interactive time travel with a mobile mixed reality game. In: Proceedings of the 10th international conference on human computer interaction with mobile devices and services. ACM, New York, pp 240–242
Jones M, Marsden G (2006) Mobile interaction design. Wiley, New Jersey
Kasapakis V, Gavalas D, Bubaris N (2013) Pervasive games research: a design aspects-based state of the art report. In: Proceedings of the 17th panhellenic conference on informatics. ACM, Thessaloniki, Greece, pp 152–157
Kirman B, Linehan C, Lawson S (2012) Blowtooth: a provocative pervasive game for smuggling virtual drugs through real airport security. Pers Ubiquit Comput 16:767–775
Kjeldskov J, Skov M, Als B, Høegh R (2004) Is it worth the hassle? Exploring the added value of evaluating the usability of context-aware mobile systems in the field. In: Brewster S, Dunlop M (eds) Mobile human–computer interaction—MobileHCI 2004. Springer, Berlin, pp 61–73
Rogers Y, Connelly K, Tedesco L, Hazlewood W, Kurtz A, Hall R, Hursey J, Toscos T (2007) Why it’s worth the hassle: the value of in-situ studies when designing ubicomp. In: Krumm J, Abowd G, Seneviratne A, Strang T (eds) UbiComp 2007: ubiquitous computing. Springer, Berlin, pp 336–353
Saarenpää H (2008) Data gathering methods for evaluating playability of pervasive mobile games. Master thesis, University of Tampere
Stenros J, Waern A, Montola M (2011) Studying the elusive experience in pervasive games. Simul Gaming 13:339–355
Wang AI, Guo H, Zhu M, Akselsen AS, Kristiansen K (2010) Survey on attitude towards pervasive games. In: Games innovations conference (ICE–GIC), 2010 international IEEE consumer electronics society’s, IEEE, pp 1–8
Zender R, Metzler R, Lucke U (2014) FreshUP—a pervasive educational game for freshmen. Pervasive Mobile Comput 14:47–56
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kasapakis, V., Gavalas, D. & Bubaris, N. Pervasive games field trials: recruitment of eligible participants through preliminary game phases. Pers Ubiquit Comput 19, 523–536 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-015-0846-z
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-015-0846-z