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The Situated Design of User-Created Content

This research explores the process of user-generated game design within the context of the metagame, examining player-created levels in the platforming and level-creation game Little Big Planet 2. The findings highlight the importance of the metagame and development kit in shaping player design, with implications for future game design that includes user-created content.

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The Situated Design of User-Created Content

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  1. The Situated Design of User-Created Content Oliver Holmes Ph.D. Candidate Joel Ross Associate Professor Bill Tomlinson SURF-IT, UROP, Calit2, UCI

  2. Contents • Intro: • User-Generated Game Design • Situated Design • Metagame • Thesis • Method and Data • Analysis of Data (and videos!) • Conclusion • Questions

  3. User-Generated Game Design • Game design as participatory culture [Deen] • Modding • Developer kits • The creation of levels is not just an artistic expression, but a phenomenon in its own right. [Jenkins] • Deen, P.D. Interactivity, Inhabitation and Pragmatist Aesthetics. Game Studies 11, 2 (2011).7. • Jenkins, H. Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century. MIT Press, 2009. Image from: http://www.cryosites.com/images/dota_5ssdhwt

  4. Situated Design • “Where you are when you do what you do matters.” [Clancey] • People do not design within a vacuum. • Example: leaning how to program. Learn by example projects. • Clancey, W.J. Situated cognition: on human knowledge and computer representations. Cambridge University Press, 1997. • Photo Credit: “Angle of Light” by Peter Morgan

  5. Metagame • “Games that take place parallel to the normal game, at an informal level but central to the development of the main game.” [Zagal] • Zagal, J.P., Nussbaum, M., and Rosas, R. A Model to Support the Design of Multiplayer Games. Presence: Teleoperators and Virtual Environments 9, 5 (2011), 448-462. • Photo Credit: “Poker Face” by Lawrence Chua

  6. Thesis • The design of the levels that players are creating for each other is situated by the metagame and the style facilitated by the development kit.

  7. Method & Data • Original goal: Find out how Creators design and negotiate rules and challenges for Players within the context of an existing game. • Chose LittleBigPlanet 2 (LBP2) as an exemplar game for user-created content • Compare the LBP2 gameplay to user-created levels • Make “taxonomy” of games • Study the creation community

  8. Analysis of LBP2 Levels: elements of the Metagame • Platforming • Collectability • Replayability • Perfection • For example….

  9. Conclusion • Because users rely on a metagame to do their game design, a game that wants players to create challenges needs to have sufficient scaffolding for players to construct that metagame. • The game needs to have a metagame so players aren’t designing in a void.

  10. From Persuasive Pervasive Gaming to Situated Design • Why the change? • The PP Gaming project is still going on. My peer mentor is still working on it; this project is an extension of that. • The idea is that this project is a foundation for that project: if you are going to give people the ability to challenge other people with tasks, what “games” are they going to make with that power?

  11. Genres of LBP2 • Gallery • Movie • New game • Recreation of an existing game • Their own levels

  12. Long Abstract A video game is traditionally an interactive experience designed by professional developers, though with the rise of participatory culture and developer kits included in the game, more players are performing game design of their own. User-generated game design is not well understood in academia and little research has been done about it, even though it is becoming an increasingly more significant social activity. For this project we explored the process of user-generated game design and how this design process is positioned within the context of the metagame by being framed as a type of gameplay itself. To do this we examine a variety of user-generated levels from the platforming and level-creation videogame Little Big Planet 2 (LBP2). We find that design of the levels that players are creating for each other is situated by the metagame and the style facilitated by the development kit. Our findings are significant for future game design that includes development kits for user-created content.

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