Fraser Allison

Player Identity Dissonance and Voice Interaction in Games

In the past half-decade, advances in voice recognition technology and the proliferation of consumer devices like the Microsoft Kinect have seen a significant rise in the use of voice interaction in games. While the use of player-to-player voice is widespread and well-researched, the use of voice as an input is relatively unexplored. In this paper we make the argument that notions of player and avatar identity are inextricable from the successful implementation of voice interaction in games, and consequently identify opportunities for future research and design.

Good Frustrations: The Paradoxical Pleasure of Fearing Death in DayZ

The design of modern digital games has become increasingly oriented towards providing players with positive experiences such as fun and flow, and reducing negative experiences such as frustration and anger. DayZ is one notable exception, where negative experiences are central to its design. When a player is killed in DayZ, they lose their character with all its advancement, often equivalent to weeks of play, which can be an enormously frustrating and demoralising experience. However, the majority of its players view this as a positive and attractive feature, and one of the keys to the games appeal. In this paper, we draw on 1,704 responses to a player motivations survey to unpack the complex player experience of permanent character death and demonstrate how this moment of negative affect contributes to the positive experience of DayZ more broadly.

Word Play: A History of Voice Interaction in Digital Games

The use of voice interaction in digital games has a long and varied history of experimentation but has never achieved sustained, widespread success. In this article, we review the history of voice interaction in digital games from a media archaeology perspective. Through detailed examination of publicly available information, we have identified and classified all games that feature some form of voice interaction and have received a public release. Our analysis shows that the use of voice interaction in digital games has followed a tidal pattern: rising and falling in seven distinct phases in response to new platforms and enabling technologies. We note characteristic differences in the way Japanese and Western game developers have used voice interaction to create different types of relationships between players and in-game characters. Finally, we discuss the implications for game design and scholarship in light of the increasing ubiquity of voice interaction systems.

Design Patterns for Voice Interaction in Games

Voice interaction is increasingly common in digital games, but it remains a notoriously difficult modality to design a satisfying experience for. This is partly due to limitations of speech recognition technology, and partly due to the inherent awkwardness we feel when performing some voice actions. We present a pattern language for voice interaction elements in games, to help game makers explore and describe common approaches to this design challenge. We define 25 design patterns, based on a survey of 449 videogames and 22 audiogames that use the players voice as an input to affect the game state. The patterns express how games frame and structure voice input, and how voice input is used for selection, navigation, control and performance actions. Finally, we argue that academic research has been overly concentrated on a single one of these design patterns, due to an instrumental research focus and a lack of interest in the fictive dimension of videogames.