E STRUCTURA DE F INANCIAMIENTO Y P RINCIPALES R IESGOS

The thematic analysis (Braun and Clarke, 2006) of participants’ gameplay recordings and interview responses revealed interesting nuances to the patterns found in their survey responses.

The Rhythm of Interdependence

When queried as to their overall preference of play modes, many participants described how they would most prefer to be able to shift and alter their interdependence with their partner over the course of the game. Multiple different styles of interdependent behaviour were observed across participant pairs, and while most players had distinct favourites, they were still cautious about being locked into a single dynamic over the course of a hypothetical full game (e.g., dozens of hours of play). As one participant described, “Shake it up from level to level, don’t have the same style of dependence every time.” [P129] These comments suggest that, despite the general trend towards enhanced social connectedness with increasing degrees of interdependence during short play sessions, it would be generally preferable for both the direction and intensity of dependence to vary over time throughout longer play sessions.

This mirrors the concept of “interest curves” from both game and film literature (Schell, 2014) wherein it is actually counter to overall audience enjoyment to present a sustained level of high excitement/interest over the full course of an experience. Rather than provid- ing “more of a good thing”, audiences eventually become bored and fatigued without being provided opportunities to relax and process the moments of intensity with complementary periods of calm.

Tedious Reliance vs. Thoughtful Contributions

Based on observations of players’ collaborative decision making behaviours, simply having players “wait on other’s actions” (as described by Beznosyk et al. (2012)) is not neces- sarily enough to engender feelings of interdependence and social connectedness. Rather,

a partner’s action is better received when that partner overcomes their own challenges in order to make a meaningful contribution to the team. For example, in the tight coupling condition, Scotty could only shock an enemy once Kirk had successfully embedded their axe into it; a bidirectional cooperative action with tight timing constraints and high skill requirements. However, Kirk simply barking at Scotty to “Shock!” (i.e. press Scotty’s shock button) once Kirk’s axe was in place was viewed as tedious by many participant pairs.

In contrast, Scotty using their unique perspective to plan out a route through a maze- like area and communicate directions (e.g. “left, right, straight”) to Kirk was generally much better received even though the pattern of command/action was very similar. In- terviewing participants about this distinction, the main difference appeared to be that Scotty was putting thought into their contribution rather than just the rote response of pressing a button when mindlessly commanded to. As one participant described, “This isn’t a challenge. It’s just tedious.” [P135]

In this case, the distinction between tedious and thoughtful interactions likely stems from the asymmetry of information created between Kirk’s and Scotty’s perspectives in the maze area and an absence of meaningfully asymmetric information when using the tightly- coupled shock ability. In the maze, Kirk cannot see the overall layout of paths on their own and must rely on Scotty to use their unique information to plan a route. With the shock ability however, both Kirk and Scott know exactly what needs to happen (Scotty presses the shock button), the only challenge is when to press it: as soon as Kirk embeds the axe. Without any more sophistication to the shock/axe mechanics, this interdependence results in consistent and thoughtless tedium.

Ability Tuning

For each of the different mechanical conditions in this study, the specific timing and di- rections of coordination between participants was varied for each of Scotty’s five abilities in order to manipulate the degree of coupling between the two players. At the same time, other factors not necessarily related to coordination (such as energy costs, damage, and duration) remained unchanged as experimental controls. However, reflecting on the gestalt play experience, these combined (in)actions had the potential effect of altering the efficacy of each ability as a whole.

More specifically, in the loose coupling condition, Scotty players could typically deploy their abilities unilaterally. In the tight coupling condition, Kirk players would typically have to intervene in some way before Scotty players’ abilities could be fully utilized. In terms of balance/tuning, it could be argued that this made Scotty’s abilities more cumbersome to

use in the tight coupling condition and potentially less powerful for those participants who were unable to coordinate smoothly. In a more realistic design scenario then, the need to balance or tune the different abilities becomes important in addition to considerations of asymmetry and interdependence: if tightly coupled abilities are more difficult for player pairs to deploy, these more difficult to use abilities should be comparatively more power- ful/effective in order to compensate and to ensure every choice of coupling degree is viable, interesting, and worthwhile.

Both during their play sessions and during the interview portion of the study, numerous participants noted this apparent oversight on the part of the game designers, for example exclaiming “Wait. . . so the [bomb] explosion isn’t any bigger?! Well, that’s just a hassle. Why even bother then?” [P129]

7.7

Discussion

Generally, the quantitative player experience metrics from this study indicated a trend towards improved perceptions of social connectedness as the degree of interdependence in- creased across BMRS3 ’s three experimental conditions. In conjunction, qualitative obser- vations highlight numerous subtle complexities and challenges in the design of asymmetric cooperative games.

Enhancing social connectedness in asymmetric cooperative play is not simply a case of “more is better”, with participants highlighting the potential frustration and exhaustion of sustained, tightly coupled interdependence over extended periods without any interesting variations in intensity. At the same time, the quality and necessary forethought required as part of a play partner’s contribution is critical for ensuring that independence is viewed as meaningful and enriching rather than tedious.

Finally, the numerous mechanical elements not directly being studied such as the en- ergy cost, area of effect, or potency of Scotty’s various abilities, despite being held constant as experimental controls, were likely to have had some impact on players’ gameplay ex- periences and thus both the quantitative and qualitative results. In this case, we again are faced with the interlocking complexity of mechanical design, gameplay dynamics, and research intent.

7.8

Chapter Summary

In this chapter, I described the third player experience study I conducted with my Beam Me ’Round, Scotty! prototype game, specifically investigating the effect of varying degrees of interdependence in players’ asymmetric mechanics on their social play experience. I ap- plied my conceptual framework (section 3.2) to design three variants (loose, medium, tight coupling) of each of Scotty’s five special abilities (heal, shield, shock, bomb, teleport) to test the general hypothesis that increases in inter-directional dependence and synchronicity of player interactions would result in a commensurate increase in participants’ perceptions of social connectedness.

Specifically, the primary contribution of this chapter is:

1. A player experience study demonstrating how deliberate mechanical manipulations that increase interdependent coupling of players’ asymmetries of ability can increase players’ perceptions of social connectedness.

This chapter demonstrates the utility of my conceptual framework for designing asym- metric cooperative mechanics as well as the deliberate degree to which interdependence between cooperating partners can be tailored. For both game designers and researchers, these results demonstrate that “degree of interdependence” can be viewed as a design pa- rameter that can be deliberately tuned to generate perceptions of specific degrees of social connectedness in players and that my conceptual framework can be used to effectively guide that tuning process.

In the next chapter, I reflect on broader insights gained as a result of reflecting upon my research results as a whole and my overarching “research through design” approach.

Chapter 8

Synthesis

My conceptual framework supporting the design and study of asymmetric cooperative games (chapter 3) was originally rooted in informal but practicable design frameworks (Hunicke et al., 2004; VandenBerghe, 2012) that had been synthesized through the hard- won experience of veteran games designers over time. Faced with the wicked problems of this design space, I adopted a “research through design” (chapter 4) approach and selected specific design alternatives from among numerous possibilities as targets for more in-depth examination. Subsequently, my research has built upon those informal frameworks and brought increased scientific rigour to the study of asymmetric cooperative games through numerous, focused player experience studies and has begun to build up an understanding of the larger design space by generalizing trends from the concrete examples I had realized via my prototype games.

In this chapter, I describe several insights gained as a result of “returning to the sur- face” following the deep dives of my “research through design” approach: insights that have evolved over the course of each individual player experience study and the iterative process of refining my prototype games and conceptual framework but have ultimately only crystallized when reflecting upon my research as a whole.

8.1

Designed vs. Emergent Interdependence

One of the important dynamics of asymmetric cooperative play identified in my conceptual framework is the “necessity” of collaboration: whether or not particular intervention from a play partner (or even a partner role in its entirety) is strictly required in order for

Figure 8.1: Vignette depicting a Super Kirk player using their healing ability on their partner. Different iterations of Super Kirk’s heal mechanics alternately allowed, disallowed, or required interdependence between players; a subtle mechanical distinction that would have significant impact on players’ social play experience.

a player to overcome certain in-game obstacles. Having reflected on the many creative and unexpected player behaviours across all three player experience studies, an important further distinction emerges regarding not just whether asymmetric mechanics are designed to require collaboration but also whether they allow or disallow collaboration.

A particularly clear example of this distinction comes from the improvised teamwork seen between “Super Kirk” players in study 2 (chapter 6) and how they employed their specially designed “heal” abilities. Because the Super Kirk heal ability was ultimately designed to operate in an area of effect (i.e., anyone standing near the deployment point would be healed), in addition to each player being able to heal themselves, it was also possible for them to heal their partner. In this way, the two Super Kirks were allowed to cooperate but it was not strictly required that they do so (Figure 8.1).

Compare this to an earlier iteration of Super Kirk’s healing mechanic (not used in any study) that would have seen Super Kirk’s heal ability affect only the player using it. In

this form, it was mechanically impossible for one Super Kirk to heal another; players were strictly disallowed from healing each other. Finally, consider a third, hypothetical variant of Super Kirk’s heal ability that players could only use on their partner. In this form, the heal ability would mechanically require collaboration.

By leaving the mechanical possibility for one Super Kirk to heal another but not require it, the game’s design left space for players to decide whether and how they wanted to cooperate. In many cases, one player would opt to focus on healing both players while their partner handled combat actions. In this way, the two players self-selected their own asymmetric roles (despite possessing symmetric abilities) in an instance of “emergent interdependence”. Contrast this with the normal “Split” condition (Study 1 & 3) where only Scotty could heal Kirk and this can be viewed as a form of “designed interdependence” between the two players as regards Kirk’s health and survival.

For both designers and researchers, this is a subtle but important distinction that is likely to have a significant impact on social play experiences. Feelings of autonomy are core to individual player enjoyment but so too are feelings of overcoming well-suited challenges and feelings of relatedness with fellow players. Whether a particular choice of asymmetric mechanics enforces designed interdependence, allows for it to emerge, or deliberately disallows collaboration at certain moments can set these two player motivations in competition with each other.