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GURB the Game User Research Blueprint by Naeem Moosajee A

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GURB the Game User Research Blueprint by Naeem Moosajee A GURB the game user research blueprint by naeem moosajee A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of masters of science in computer science university of ontario institute of technology supervisors: dr. pejman mirza-babaei & dr. lennart nacke August 2016 Copyright © Naeem Moosajee, 2016 ABSTRACT With the rise of new platforms, distribution and crowdfunding services, the game industry is facing fast changes and advances in technology. Game development studios are under more pressure to create successful games due to the increase of competition and emerging technologies. The need for Games User Research (GUR) is becoming more important in order to ensure that the player experience matches with the game’s design intention. GUR helps validate experiences and fix issues before they reach the mass market ensuring the highest quality player experience through rigorous iterative evaluation. This thesis presents an investigation into the triangulation of identifying the design intent, measuring the player experience and communicating both in a sin- gle document within the context of GUR. GUR studies the interaction between the game and its users (players) to find where the design intention does not match the player experience in order to provide feedback to the developers on how to optimize the experience. A tool called Games User Research Blueprint (GURB) is developed, which compares the design intent for a player experience with the measured result of a user test in order to communicate issues with rele- vant context. This thesis contributes to the field of Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) and GUR in three important areas: (1) communicating design intent across the multidisciplinary field of game development, (2) highlighting important chal- lenges when conducting GUR with small studios, and (3) the development of the GURB tool for effectively communicating the results of a user test. The contributions are described through case studies and interviews with game developers. The results indicate that the GURB is an effective tool for facilitating communication in a multidisciplinary field while delivering a clear and concise summary of issues from a playtest in a timely and cost effective manner. The ii contributions in this thesis are directly applicable for user researchers, game de- velopers, and other user experience disciplines. keywords: game design, user research, mixed methods iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I am very thankful for the multitude of mentors and friends that I have worked with to make this thesis possible. First, I would like to express my gratitude to my supervisors for their time, ideas and the opportunities. Their support allowed me to focus on relevant topics in industry helping to prepare me for future endeavours. To Dr. Pejman Mirza- Babaei for his endless support and guidance throughout the masters, without whom I’d have not been able to complete this thesis. I’d also like to further thank Pejman for his mentorship from the early days of Clan Combat to the present of finding opportunities in industry. To Dr. Lennart E. Nacke as well for introducing me to the field of games research while supporting all my crazy game develop- ment projects from my undergrad till the end of my masters while driving me to publish and participate in workshops. I’d also like to thank Dr. Bill Kapralos and Dr. Andrew Hogue from the UOIT Games and Entertainment Media Research (GAMER) Lab and the Faculty of Business and IT for their support in conducting my research. Additionally I would like to thank Dr. Karthik Sankaranarayanan for moderating my thesis defence panel and my reviewers Dr. Bill Kapralos and Dr. Jennifer R. Whitson for their comments that were instrumental in improving my thesis. I enjoyed my time at UOIT working in the constructive and entertaining GAMER Lab environment surrounded by several talented individuals. Firstly, I would like to thank to Rob Shewaga for his friendship, feedback and assistance throughout my masters. Everyone at the GAMER Lab for their support over the past few years: James Robb, Wallace Balanuic, Nathan Gale, Mike Gharbharan, Brandon Drenikow, Thomas Galati, Alvaro Uribe, and last but not least, Cameron Choden. I’d also like to thank Saad Khattak and Rina Wehbe for their support during the iv start of my Masters while I was figuring out the focus of my research. For helping me transcribe my interview studies, I’d like to thank Maya Levinshtein. I am extremely grateful to Jason Della Rocca for the support from Execution Labs in allowing me to work with independent developers. Specifically Derek Elliot and Lysiane Charest for their support with my studies and initial versions of Blueprint. I would like to Daniel Napatov for proving me with the amazing opportu- nity to work at the Ubisoft Toronto user research lab gaining valuable experience working on major Ubisoft franchises. I’d also like to thank Jeff Bertrand, Ahmed Ghoneim, Lucas Rizoli, Al Jerek Torrijas, and Brad Kroese at Ubisoft Toronto for their mentorship over the summer and guidance. The International Game Development Foundation (IGDA) members Luke Dicken and Molly Proffitt for giving me the opportunity to be an IGDA scholar which has had a great impact on my career and life. My fellow 2015 IGDA scholars (John Armstrong, Nick Heindl, James Cox, Lanie Wiseman, Rhys Romero, Mea- gan Budgell, Raine Scott, Renee Blair, Stacey Mason, Brady Welch, JenJen Francis, Simon Wallner, Luis Wong, Ryan Leslie, Linda Kokkonen, Amanda Ochsner and Dave Churchill) for keeping me sane and providing the drive to do more and better everyday to compete with all the amazing things you guys do. My experience travelling abroad for the Global Edge exchange program in Hong Kong also inspired the pursuit of my post secondary studies. I’d like to thank Melissa Picard, Steven Rose and Dr. Patrick Hung for the valuable oppor- tunity. Also sharing the experience of exploring new places with talented individ- uals like Chris Weber, Azhar Saiyed, Rachit Rohan and Andrew Guthrie. I also want to thank the entire development team of Book Brawl for motivating me to pursue my masters after developing an amazing game with a talented group of friends. Specifically Jeremie Beddard, Guillaume Couture, Olivier Reeves and Marc-Antoine Prolux for your hospitality and friendship over the years and for putting up with a hurlu-berlu! v Last but certainly not least I am thankful for my family and friends for support- ing and assisting my research while also being patient while I was distantly work- ing over the past few years. I would like to thank my Mom for providing strong spiritual support and my Dad for believing and trusting me while supporting all my decisions. My sister Najia and her partner Adnan for their emotional support with writing my thesis. Also I need to thank my parrot Rafiki for his entertain- ing and hilarious commentary as I wrote my thesis. My friends Dennis, Aashkon, Andy, Adith, Lucas, Ameer and Aaron with whom I shared my experience as a masters student. My friends and family were instrumental in providing a lot of fun and crazy experiences that kept me going whilst writing. vi CONTENTS i introduction1 1 introduction2 1.1 Overview . 2 1.1.1 Why Games . 3 1.1.2 Games User Research . 7 1.1.3 Challenges for Independent Developers and Small Studios . 9 1.2 What Problem is this Thesis Solving? . 10 1.2.1 Games User Research Blueprint . 11 1.3 Outline of Thesis . 13 1.4 Summary Chapter 1 ............................ 14 2 related work 15 2.1 Introduction . 15 2.2 Brief History of HCI . 16 2.2.1 Modern HCI . 16 2.3 Games User Research . 18 2.3.1 User-Centered Design . 19 2.3.2 First-Time User Experience . 20 2.3.3 Rapid Iterative Testing Evaluation Method . 21 2.3.4 GUR Training and Learning . 22 2.3.5 GUR Tools . 23 2.3.6 Approaches to Games User Research . 24 2.4 Player Behaviour Theories . 30 2.4.1 Flow Theory . 30 2.4.2 Self Determination Theory and Motivation . 31 2.4.3 Player Behaviour and User Experience . 36 vii contents viii 2.5 Summary Chapter 2 ............................ 40 ii exploration 43 3 understanding needs and requirements for gurb 44 3.1 Introduction . 44 3.2 Part 1 - Exploring Design Approaches . 44 3.2.1 Clan Combat and Book Brawl . 45 3.2.2 The MDA Framework . 46 3.2.3 The Rational Game Design Method . 49 3.2.4 Workshop: RGD Takeaways . 52 3.2.5 Summary: Exploring Design Approaches . 52 3.3 Part 2 - Exploring Evaluation Approaches . 53 3.3.1 Playtesting . 54 3.3.2 Partnering with Execution Labs . 55 3.3.3 Playtest Lab . 56 3.3.4 Game Case Studies . 58 3.4 Summary Chapter 3 ............................ 67 4 games user research blueprint (gurb) 69 4.1 Use of Documents & Spreadsheets in GUR & Game Development . 71 4.2 Iterations of GURB . 75 4.2.1 GURB Version 1.0 .......................... 75 4.2.2 GURB Version 2.0 .......................... 78 4.2.3 GURB Version 3.0 .......................... 80 4.3 Discussion Chapter 4 ............................ 81 4.3.1 Limitations . 82 4.4 Summary Chapter 4 ............................ 83 iii studies 85 5 evaluating gurb version’s 1-3 86 5.1 Method: Study 1 ............................... 86 5.1.1 Phase 1 - Semi-structured Interview . 87 contents ix 5.1.2 Phase 2 - Categorization . 90 5.2 Results from Study 1 ............................ 92 5.3 Discussion Chapter 5 ............................ 101 5.3.1 Designers . 101 5.3.2 Producers . 102 5.3.3 User Researchers . 103 5.3.4 Artists . 103 5.4 Summary Chapter 5 ............................ 104 6 gurb version 4 105 6.1 Development of GURB V4 ........................
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