Measuring Cooperative Behavior in Contemporary Multiplayer Games
MEASURING COOPERATIVE BEHAVIOR IN CONTEMPORARY MULTIPLAYER GAMES Martin Ashton Master of Science School of Computer Science McGill University Montreal, Quebec 2012-08-12 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Science Copyright c 2012 Martin Ashton DEDICATION This work is dedicated to my friends Pete, Dave, Kevin, Vanessa, Steve, Mike, Nadina, John, Chris, Max, Dan, Francine, Peter, Daniel, Michael, Dahlia, Sabrina, Michaela, Katrina, Diana, Stevie, Kathy, Bronson, Jess, Theo, Cynthia, Ben, Shayne, Paul, Andre, Fred, Justin, J.P., Aly, Carl, Udhay, Phil, Matt, Simon, Julien, and the rest of the Koalas. ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work was supported, in part, by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Council of Canada (NSERC), and Le Fonds de Recherche du Qu´ebec - Nature et Technologies (FQRNT). My particular thanks are extended to Prof. Clark Verbrugge for giving me the opportunity to research the exciting domain of modern video games, and to my parents for teaching me the importance of continuously exceeding my own limits. Lastly, I would like to thank the developers at Bungie, Blizzard, and Valve for making such excellent games. iii ABSTRACT Social aspects of multiplayer games are well known as contributors to game success, with online friendships and socialization expected to expand and strengthen a player-base. Understanding the nature of social behavior and determining the impact of cooperation on gameplay is thus important to game design. In this work, we make use of data exposed through in-game and web-based API’s of two contemporary multiplayer games, World of Warcraft and Halo: Reach.
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