Optimizing Player and Viewer Amusement in Suspense Video Games

Broadcast video games need to provide amusement to both players and audience. To achieve this, one of the most consumed genres is suspense, due to the psychological effects it has on both roles. Suspense is typically achieved in video games by controlling the amount of delivered information about th...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:IEEE access 2019, Vol.7, p.85338-85353
Main Authors: Delatorre, Pablo, Leon, Carlos, Salguero Hidalgo, Alberto, Tapscott, Alan
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Amusement
Biological system modeling
Computational modeling
Computer & video games
Data models
Game theory
Games
Information management
interactive narrative
Optimization
Players
Psychological effects
Psychology
Regression models
suspense
Video broadcasting
video game
Visualization
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Broadcast video games need to provide amusement to both players and audience. To achieve this, one of the most consumed genres is suspense, due to the psychological effects it has on both roles. Suspense is typically achieved in video games by controlling the amount of delivered information about the location of the threat. However, previous research suggests that players need more frequent information to reach similar amusement than viewers, even at the cost of jeopardizing viewers' engagement. In order to obtain models that maximize amusement for both interactive and passive audiences, we conducted an experiment in which a group of subjects played a suspenseful video game while another group watched it remotely. The subjects were asked to report their perceived suspense and amusement, and the data were used to obtain regression models for two common strategies to evoke suspense in video games: by alerting when the threat is approaching and by random circumstantial indications about the location of the threat. The results suggest that the optimal level is reached through randomly providing the minimal amount of information that still allows players to counteract the threat. We reckon that these results can be applied to a broad narrative media, beyond interactive games.
ISSN:2169-3536
2169-3536
DOI:10.1109/ACCESS.2019.2924200