Raphaël Marczak

Feedback-based gameplay metrics: measuring player experience via automatic visual analysis

Using gameplay metrics to articulate player interaction within game systems has received increased interest in game studies. The value of gameplay metrics comes from a desire to empirically validate over a decade of theorization of player experience and knowledge of games as ludic systems. Taking gameplay metrics beyond formalized user testing (i.e. with the aim of improving a product) allows researchers the freedom of examining any commercially available game without the need to have access to the games source code. This paper offers a new methodology to obtain data on player behavior, achieved through analyzing video and audio streams. Game interface features are being analyzed automatically, which are indicative of player behavior and gameplay events. This paper outlines the development of this methodology and its application to research that seeks to understand the nature of engagement and player motivations.

Influence of Dissociated Mechanisms of Gamification on the Learning of Reading

The introduction of serious games as pedagogical supports in the field of education is a process gaining in popularity amongst the teaching community. This article creates a link between the integration of new pedagogical solutions in first-year primary class and the fundamental research on the motivation of the players/learners, detailing an experiment based on a game specifically developed, named QCM. QCM considers the learning worksheets issued from the Freinet pedagogy using various gameplay mechanisms. The main contribution of QCM in relation to more traditional games is the dissociation of immersion mechanisms, in order to improve the understanding of the user experience. This game also contains a system of gameplay metrics, the analysis of which shows a relative increase in the motivation of students using QCM instead of paper worksheets, while revealing large differences in students behavior in conjunction with the mechanisms of gamification employed. Received on 12 September 2017; accepted on 30 October 2017; published on 4 January 2018

Postprocessing Gameplay Metrics for Gameplay Performance Segmentation Based on Audiovisual Analysis

This paper introduces a new variant of gameplay metrics that further develops a set of processes that expand user-centered game testing practices capable of quantifying user experiences. The key goal of the method presented here is to widen the appeal and application of game metrics within research relevant to, and representative of the wider field of game studies. In doing so, we acknowledge that the interests of this research community is often focused on player experience and performance with a broad range of off-the-shelf games that have already been released to the public. In order to be able to include any PC game system within research (or audiovideo stream, e.g., YouTube walkthroughs) our approach comprises of a postprocessing method for analyzing player performance. Through exploiting the audiovisual streams that are transmitted to the player, this approach processes content activated and generated during play and is therefore representative of individual players encounters with specific games.