How Players Play Games: Observing the Influences of Game Mechanics

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45vHjW0aoyw

The popularity of computer games is remarkably high and is still growingevery year. Despite this popularity and the economical importance of gaming,research in game design, or to be more precise, of game mechanics that can beused to improve the enjoyment of a game, is still scarce. In this paper, weanalyze Fortnite, one of the currently most successful games, and observe howplayers play the game. We investigate what makes playing the game enjoyable byanalyzing video streams of experienced players from game streaming platformsand by conducting a user study with players who are new to the game. Weformulate four hypotheses about how game mechanics influence the way playersinteract with the game and how it influences player enjoyment. We presentdifferences in player behavior between experienced players and beginners anddiscuss how game mechanics could be used to improve the enjoyment forbeginners. In addition, we describe our approach to analyze games withoutaccess to game-internal data by using a toolchain which automatically extractsgame information from video streams.