Towards a Conceptual Framework of Comprehensive Video Game Player Profiles: Player Models, Mental Models, and Behavior Models

Current approaches to player profiling are limited in that they typically employ only a single one of numerous of available techniques shown to have utility for categorizing and explaining player behavior. We propose a more comprehensive Video Game Player Profile Framework that considers the demographic, psychographic, mental model, and behavioral modeling approaches shown to be effective for describing gamer populations. We suggest that our proposed approach can improve the efficacy of video game player profiles by grounding data-driven techniques in game analytics with the theoretical backing of demographic, psychometric, and psychographic measurements. We provide an overview of our proposed framework, discuss the usage and relevance of each component technique, and provide a proof-of-concept demonstration with archived data.

The Female Video Game Player-character Persona and Emotional Attachment

This research, using online qualitative survey questions, explored how players of the PlayStation 4 console game, Horizon Zero Dawn, formed emotional attachments to characters while playing as, and assuming the persona of the female player-character, Aloy. It was found that the respondents (approximately 71% male) formed emotional attachments to the female player-character (PC) and non-player characters. Players found the characters to be realistic and well developed and they also found engaging with the storyworld via the female PC a profound experience. This research advances knowledge about video games in general and video game character attachment specifically, as well as the emerging but under-researched areas of Persona Studies and Game Studies.

SOWING SEEDS OF DISTRUST: VIDEO GAME PLAYER PERCEPTIONS OF COMPANIES IN ONLINE FORUMS

Video games have become a major source of entertainment across the globe. Along with this growth as a form of leisure, video game companies have recognized the importance of the communities and cultures that consumers build around their products. Fans establish identities linked to their gaming habits, whether they are playing games themselves or viewing games played by professionals. Fans also participate in communities, often facilitated through online forums. As part of this, fans discuss, express, and assess their relationship with the companies in charge of their hobbies. How do fans establish and negotiate trust with these companies and why might consumer trust to lapse? This project analyzes approximately 2,500 online forum posts from video game players and esports viewers to understand their perspectives on the companies involved in these spaces. Ultimately, the landscape appears to be developing increasing negativity where fans feel exploited and progressively concerned about company decisions. Fans have called into question the quality of video games and esports streams, motivations for specific decisions behind the scenes, and whether or not their actions as fans reward companies who are using them to meet a specific financial goal. A sense of common knowledge is developed that certain companies will make decisions at the perceived expense of the audience to increase profit. Although these sentiments are not present for all forum users, these discussions reveal increasing negative associations toward specific companies, games, and franchises.

Spinal pain syndromes among video game players

Aim of the study: The purpose of this study was to assess the occurrence of spinal pain syndromes among video game players. Material and methods: 550 persons took part in the survey, including 494 (89.8%) men and 56 (10.2%) women playing video games. The study was conducted using an online questionnaire created using Google Forms. The questionnaire contained 27 questions, including questions about time spent in sitting position, occurrence of spinal pain, ways of dealing with pain and knowledge of the principles of spinal pain prophylaxis. Results: 70% of respondents play on the computer seven days a week, about 3–4 hours a day. Half of the surveyed players devoted one to two hours a day to physical exercise, one third of the study subjects less than an hour, while every third video game player performed physical activity 3–4 times a week. When pain comes, almost 70% of respondents wait for it to subside, every fourth person treats themselves and the rest seeks help of a doctor or physiotherapist. Conclusions: There was no correlation between the number of years spent on playing video games and the occurrence of spinal pain as well as between the daily number of hours spent on playing video games and the occurrence of spinal pain.

A Multimodal Analysis Combining Behavioral Experiments and Survey-Based Methods to Assess the Cognitive Effect of Video Game Playing: Good or Evil?

This study aims to bridge the gap between the discrepant views of existing studies in different modalities on the cognitive effect of video game play. To this end, we conducted a set of tests with different modalities within each participant: (1) Self-Reports Analyses (SRA) consisting of five popular self-report surveys, and (2) a standard Behavioral Experiment (BE) using pro- and antisaccade paradigms, and analyzed how their results vary between Video Game Player (VGP) and Non-Video Game Player (NVGP) participant groups. Our result showed that (1) VGP scored significantly lower in Behavioral Inhibition System (BIS) than NVGP (p = 0.023), and (2) VGP showed significantly higher antisaccade error rate than NVGP (p = 0.005), suggesting that results of both SRA and BE support the existing view that video game play has a maleficent impact on the cognition by increasing impulsivity. However, the following correlation analysis on the results across individual participants found no significant correlation between SRA and BE, indicating a complex nature of the cognitive effect of video game play.

RECEPTION ANALYSIS OF PORNOGRAPHY IN VIDEO GAME PLAYER

This study aims to understand how teenagers know their meaning of pornographic content in the game Dragon Age and The Witcher and understand how this player reproduces the message received. This research used qualitative research methods with the ethnography method. The research subjects consisted of 2 gamers who have different backgrounds on the condition of owning or frequently playing games with pornographic content. The two subjects selected according to criteria, including those who have been playing video games for a long time, are over 18 years old and have free access to video games. The position of each informant in this study shows that they are in the position of negotiated readers. Although both informants actively received pornographic messages in the game, both informants negotiated the meaning of what was received. Each informant negotiates to mean based on their respective fields of reference.

DISAPPOINTING AND BEING DISAPPOINTED: VIDEO GAME PLAYER TRUST IN EACH OTHER

Hostility in video games has been a cause for concern since multiplayer gaming began gaining popularity. Many of the studies conducted on this topic have highlighted negative behaviors as particularly aggressive toward women, but relatively limited in the broad context of general audiences or in contrast to positive multiplayer encounters . This study uses interviews with 54 people and approximately 1900 online forum posts to further investigate player experiences with and understandings of hostility in video game play. Overall, it appears that female players do experience particular kinds of harassment, but that players have been negatively influenced and affected by these types of behavior regardless of gender. Largely, players have begun to feel like they cannot feel comfortable in these spaces or necessarily trust other players to behave in positive ways. For both male and female players, this has led to many avoiding certain types of game or specific titles all together. Additionally, players lack confidence that companies are doing what is necessary to shift the culture and have come to understand toxic players as something to be expected in the community. Because of its frequency, toxicity has become understood as a part of gaming culture and something that, perhaps, is immutable.