Enhancing player engagement through game balancing in digitally augmented physical games
Introduction
Many physical games involve competition between players. Matching players with similar skill levels in these games is important in order to provide the right amount of challenge for players, which can help in enhancing player engagement (Campbell et al., 2008, Chen, 2007, Jackson and Csikszentmihalyi,, 1999, Kretchmar, 2005, Mueller et al., 2012). One approach for providing the right level of challenge is through game balancing (Bateman et al., 2011). Mueller et al. (2012) define “game balancing” as game adjustments that make the exertion activity not too strenuous, yet challenging for players, to optimize engagement levels. Therefore, understanding game balancing design can be important for enhancing player engagement.
Game balancing in physical games such as sports can be different from balancing digital games. In sports it is often applied static adjustments, which are set at the beginning of the game and remain unchanged, such as “ladders” that aim to match players with similar skill levels, score adjustments by giving additional points to the weaker player (Altimira et al., 2014), or the handicap applied in golf (Swartz, 2009). It is also noteworthy to point out that game balancing is important not only to enhance player engagement but also for preventing players from being exposed to unhealthy levels of intensity (Mueller et al., 2012).
In digital games there are more opportunities for game balancing. For example, a virtual table tennis game can be easily balanced by controlling the physics of a virtual table tennis ball to assist the weaker player. In digital games, balancing is often done on a software level, which allow us to alter the speed of the player's car in a racing game (Cechanowicz et al., 2014), or to provide target assistance techniques in a Wii shooting game (Bateman et al., 2011). In addition, digital technology can also be used to measure the player's performance or the player's effort during the game (Mueller et al., 2011) and dynamically balance the game accordingly (Mueller et al., 2012). Therefore, it is not surprising that researchers are trying to use digital technology to enhance the player's experience and for game balancing (Altimira et al., 2016, Mueller et al., 2012).
Prior research has studied game balancing: some of prior research focused on parallel games such as jogging (Mueller et al., 2012), dancing (Gerling et al., 2014), or car racing (Cechanowicz et al., 2014), where the player's activities are performed independently and therefore do not influence the opponent's activity (Mueller et al., 2008b). In contrast, other research focused on non-parallel games (Altimira et al., 2016, Vicencio-Moreira et al., 2015), where a player functions as an obstacle that an opponent has to overcome in pursuit of the game's goals (Mueller et al., 2008b). Game balancing in non-parallel games might need to moderate this influence (Altimira et al., 2016). Some game adjustments such as a score adjustment could help balancing such games, however they might fall short in moderating the influence each player has on the other. In consequence, we are looking into balancing solutions that can moderate the influence each player has on the other in non-parallel games. Altimira et al. (2016) showed how digital technology can be used to achieve this moderation by adjusting the table tennis playing surface area and altering the player's performance. However the authors studied only static adjustments, not dynamic adjustments that are altered as the game proceeds and hence may be more suitable to adapt to players better. Moreover, the authors focused only on altering the playing surface to achieve this moderation. Other sport equipment could also be altered, such as the table tennis bat, to impact on the player's performance.
To add to prior understanding of game balancing, we build on the work of Altimira et al. (2016) to study the effects of altering the sports equipment, i.e. the bat-head size and the table size, on game balancing and player engagement. In addition, we also investigated applying these adjustments both statically and dynamically.
We chose to alter the bat-head size and the table size as two different types of adjustments to sports equipment that could also be applied to other sports in a similar way. The table in table tennis is the equipment shared between the players, similar to the court in basketball. On the other hand, the bat is a type of sport equipment that belongs to an individual player, similar to a golf club. Since the bat-head size and table size can also be adjusted both statically and dynamically, these adjustments were suitable for our study in order to investigate the effects of the frequency of the update of the adjustment on game balancing and player engagement. We envisioned that by dynamically altering the sports equipment, we would be able to adapt to different players more effectively, and control the players' performance better than other commonly used adjustments, such as asking the players to play with the non-dominant hand.
This work makes the following contributions: it provides (i) insight into how static and dynamic game adjustments of sport equipment can affect the player experience and enhance player engagement in physical games; (ii) insight into how game adjustments can be used to moderate the influence of one player's actions on the other's performance; (iii) insight into how digital technology can be used to dynamically adjust a sport equipment to support game balancing and enhance player engagement in physical games; and (iv) provides of a set of game design strategies to facilitate engaging experiences when balancing physical games.
We note that the focus of this work is on enhancing our understanding of game balancing design in physical games so that it will aid those interested in using game balancing to design more engaging experiences. Our work aims to emphasise how digital technology can be used in designing novel balancing techniques. Although game balancing itself can enhance player engagement through providing the right level of challenge according to Flow Theory (Chen, 2007, Csikszentmihalyi, 1990), there are still challenges in game balancing design. For example, players might perceive the adjustment of the game as unfair, which could lower their engagement (Altimira et al., 2014). Therefore the design of game adjustments is important for player engagement as it can change the player's perception of the game. To overcome these challenges we need to understand game balancing design better. Contributing to this understanding is the main goal of the work we present in this paper.
Section snippets
Literature review
Prior work on game balancing shows that balancing can enhance player engagement as it can enhance competition between players and provide greater challenges to players (Abuhamdeh and Csikszentmihalyi, 2012, Kraaijenbrink et al., 2009, Mueller et al., 2012). This highlights the importance of applying game balancing. However, different game adjustments can be more suitable for game balancing according to the gaming context, and they can lead to different levels of player engagement.
Gerling et al.
Methodology
This section describes the research method, which includes a justification of the chosen game, the study design, the participants of this study, the game adjustment design, the set up of the study, the procedure (the steps participants followed during the study), and the data collection and analysis methods.
Game balancing
RQ1: Do different game adjustments impact game balancing differently? The table and bat adjustments significantly reduced the score differences (in absolute values) compared to the no-adjustment condition (see Fig. 7). A repeated measures ANOVA on the score difference between participants revealed significant differences between game adjustments (bat, table and no-adjustment), . Pairwise comparisons with the Bonferroni correction showed that the score difference in
Discussion
This study shows how game adjustments that alter sport equipment statically and dynamically can affect game balancing and player engagement. The studied game adjustments effectively created a more balanced game and enhanced player engagement for players with different skill levels in comparison to the no-adjustment condition. Regarding game balancing, this study also showed the difference between dynamic and static adjustments. For example, the dynamic adjustment rewarded the more skilled
Conclusions
Practicing physical activity can provide health benefits, but people might not always find a suitable partner to play with because of the skill difference between players. However, this difference can be moderated through game balancing.
Understanding game balancing that enhances player engagement is challenging owing to the many factors that can influence engagement (O'Brien and Toms, 2008). In addition, balancing in non-parallel games should be able to moderate the influence players have on
Acknowledgments
We thank all the volunteers who participated in this study and helped in making this work possible. We also would like to thank Tony Tsai, Matthew Tait and Eduardo Sandoval for their help in building the electronic circuit which detected the timing of the ball-hit on the table tennis table, and Philippa Beckman for her proofreading. Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller appreciates support from the Australian Research Council (DP110101304&LP130100743).
David Altimira is a Software Engineer who studied a PhD at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ), University of Canterbury, researching exertion games. He studied computer science (2002–2007) and the Master of Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media (2007–2009) at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His research interests include human computer interaction, exertion games, computer vision and full body interaction. He has done research internships at the Learning
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Cited by (0)
David Altimira is a Software Engineer who studied a PhD at the Human Interface Technology Laboratory New Zealand (HIT Lab NZ), University of Canterbury, researching exertion games. He studied computer science (2002–2007) and the Master of Cognitive Systems and Interactive Media (2007–2009) at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra. His research interests include human computer interaction, exertion games, computer vision and full body interaction. He has done research internships at the Learning Technologies Group, University of Illinois at Chicago (2010), at the HIT Lab NZ, University of Canterbury (2011) and at the Exertion Games Lab, RMIT University (2012).
Florian ‘Floyd’ Mueller is a professor at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia, directing the Exertion Games Lab, which invents the future of digital play and games. His research is situated within a broader interaction design agenda that supports people's values such as an active and playful life. Floyd has most recently been a Fulbright Visiting Scholar at Stanford University, having worked on the topic of exertion games now across four continents, including at organizations such as the MIT Media Lab, Microsoft Research, Media Lab Europe, Fuji-Xerox Palo Alto Laboratories, Xerox Parc, the University of Melbourne and the Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), where he led the Connecting People team.
Dr Jenny Clarke is a senior lecturer in Sport Science in the School of Health Sciences at the University of Canterbury, NZ. Prior to taking a role lecturing biomechanics and anatomy, and coordinating the Bachelor of Sport Coaching programme at the university, Jenny completed a PhD in theoretical elementary particle physics at Oxford University, UK, and worked on particle collider experiments at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Centre and at the Centre for European Nuclear research (CERN). Current research interests include biomechanics, technique analysis, performance analysis and coaching pedagogy.
Dr. Gun Lee is a Senior Research Fellow at the Empathic Computing Laboratory, University of South Australia, investigating interaction and visualization methods for sharing virtual experiences in Augmented Reality (AR) and immersive 3D environments. He had been working at the HIT Lab NZ (2011–2016) leading mobile and wearable AR research, and at ETRI (2005–2011) he developed VR and AR systems for industrial applications. He received his PhD degree in Computer Science and Engineering at POSTECH in 2009, researching immersive authoring methods for creating VR and AR contents.
Mark Billinghurst is Professor of Human Computer Interaction at the University of South Australia in Adelaide, Australia. He earned a PhD in 2002 from the University of Washington and researches innovative computer interfaces that explore how virtual and real worlds can be merged, publishing over 300 papers. He has previously worked at British Telecom, Nokia, Google and the MIT Media Laboratory. His MagicBook project, was winner of the 2001 Discover award for best entertainment application, and he was awarded the 2013 IEEE VR Technical Achievement Award for contributions to research and commercialization in Augmented Reality.
Dr. Christoph Bartneck is an associate professor and director of postgraduate studies at the HIT Lab NZ of the University of Canterbury. He has a background in Industrial Design and Human-Computer Interaction. His interests lie in the fields of Social Robotics, Design Science, and Multimedia Applications. He has worked for several international organizations including the Technology Centre of Hannover (Germany), LEGO (Denmark), Eagle River Interactive (USA), Philips Research (Netherlands), ATR (Japan), Nara Institute of Science and Technology (Japan), and The Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands). Christoph is a member of the New Zealand Institute for Language Brain & Behavior, the IFIP Work Group 14.2 and ACM SIGCHI.
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Present address: University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia.