The placebo effect in digital games: Phantom perception of adaptive artificial intelligence

TY - GEN

T1 - The placebo effect in digital games

T2 - 2nd ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2015

AU - Denisova, Alena

AU - Cairns, Paul

PY - 2015/10/5

Y1 - 2015/10/5

N2 - Play-testing of digital games is a crucial part of any game development process, used to gather feedback about the game and correct any existing and potential flaws with the design. However, due to the nature of human subject testing, the feedback being collected in such experiments is prone to biases. Players' expectations play a great role in dictating their gaming experience, which means the information players receive before trying a new game, as well as the knowledge they already possess, may affect their perception and experience of the game. Two studies were conducted in order to evaluate how priming players to expect a game technology can positively influence their experience. The results supported the hypothesis that even basic instructions can change players' perception of the game, and lead to a higher level of perceived immersion when knowing that the game contains an improved feature, the adaptive artificial intelligence (AI), while it is not present in the game.

AB - Play-testing of digital games is a crucial part of any game development process, used to gather feedback about the game and correct any existing and potential flaws with the design. However, due to the nature of human subject testing, the feedback being collected in such experiments is prone to biases. Players' expectations play a great role in dictating their gaming experience, which means the information players receive before trying a new game, as well as the knowledge they already possess, may affect their perception and experience of the game. Two studies were conducted in order to evaluate how priming players to expect a game technology can positively influence their experience. The results supported the hypothesis that even basic instructions can change players' perception of the game, and lead to a higher level of perceived immersion when knowing that the game contains an improved feature, the adaptive artificial intelligence (AI), while it is not present in the game.

KW - Adaptive artificial intelligence

KW - Biasing effects

KW - Immersion

KW - Player experience

KW - Player knowledge

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84959315122&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/2793107.2793109

DO - 10.1145/2793107.2793109

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:84959315122

SN - 9781450334662

SP - 23

EP - 33

BT - CHI PLAY 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

PB - ACM

Y2 - 5 October 2015 through 7 October 2015

ER -