Designing and evaluating sociability in online video games

Abstract

The emergence of Online Video Games has led to new ways of socializing with friends. Nowadays a good online game is also associated with the pleasure of socializing and interaction with other players. One cannot play such a game solitarily in a meaningful sense without interacting with the other players. However, there are still no integrated ways of designing and evaluating the inherent sociability of online video games, nor are there methods or guidelines for designing and evaluating social user experiences. Designers of online video games are often left to use their intuition and experience, many times leading to design failures.

This workshop aims to further the understanding of designing for sociability and evaluating such designs for online video games. The goal is to exact a framework for the design of sociability structures in online games, and identify methods of effective evaluation of those structures that are practical and can be applied in the industry. With the wide reach of online video games, the time is ripe to codify and integrate the methods that have been developed for designing and evaluating social player experiences. The results will then be turned into a methodological framework that enables online video game designers to select appropriately existing methods and tools to design and evaluate systematically the social player experience of their online computer game prototypes and products.