Hyerim Cho

User-centered approach in creating a metadata schema for video games and interactive media

Video games and interactive media are increasingly becoming important part of our culture and everyday life, and subsequently, of archival and digital library collections. However, existing organizational systems often use vague or inconsistent terms to describe video games or attempt to use schemas designed for textual bibliographic resources. Our research aims to create a standardized metadata schema and encoding scheme that provides an intelligent and comprehensive way to represent video games. We conducted interviews with 24 gamers, focusing on their video game-related information needs and seeking behaviors. We also performed a domain analysis of current organizational systems used in catalog records and popular game websites, evaluating metadata elements used to describe games. With these results in mind, we created a list of elements which form a metadata schema for describing video games, with both a core set of 16 elements and an extended set of 46 elements providing more flexibility in expressing the nature of a game.

VIZMO Game Browser: Accessing Video Games by Visual Style and Mood

Despite the growing interests in video games as consumer products as well as objects of research, current methods for accessing video games are limited. We present Vizmo as a new way of browsing video games based on their visual style and mood. In order to test the usability and usefulness of Vizmo, we asked 19 video game experts to evaluate their interaction with the tool. The results show that experts perceived Vizmo as a novel and aesthetically pleasing game discovery tool which would be most useful for game research on historical and aesthetic aspects. We discuss five key points for improving the design of Vizmo as well as our future plan for the next iteration of this prototype game browser.

Art in an algorithm: A taxonomy for describing video game visual styles

The discovery and retrieval of video games in library and information systems is, by and large, dependent on a limited set of descriptive metadata. Noticeably missing from this metadata are classifications of visual style–despite the overwhelmingly visual nature of most video games and the interest in visual style among video game users. One explanation for this paucity is the difficulty in eliciting consistent judgements about visual style, likely due to subjective interpretations of terminology and a lack of demonstrable testing for coinciding judgements. This study presents a taxonomy of video game visual styles constructed from the findings of a 22‐participant cataloging user study of visual styles. A detailed description of the study, and its value and shortcomings, are presented along with reflections about the challenges of cultivating consensus about visual style in video games. The high degree of overall agreement in the user study demonstrates the potential value of a descriptor like visual style and the use of a cataloging study in developing visual style taxonomies. The resulting visual style taxonomy, the methods and analysis described herein may help improve the organization and retrieval of video games and possibly other visual materials like graphic designs, illustrations, and animations.

Information needs for anime recommendation: analyzing anime users' online forum queries

Despite the increasing consumption and popularity of audio-visual materials and non-textual information, recommendation-based information retrieval research regarding these materials remains limited. To provide robust recommendation services to users, it is critical to understand how users describe their needs when they seek audio- visual materials. We conducted a content analysis of 396 recommendation threads from Anime News Network online forums to identify 19 common information features used in these requests. Work, Theme, and Genre were the most frequently mentioned features when users described anime they were seeking. Findings also show Audience as an important anime information need. Together, these form a distinct set of interests, vital to understanding the information needs of anime users.