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Evaluating the PX and serious outcomes

5 important questions on Evaluating the PX and serious outcomes

Playtesting(≈ usability testing)

Emphasis on the game: finding bugs / flow breakers, ensuring everything is technically in order (usability). Different from games user research (GUR), which focuses more on the players (user experience). Also known as quality assurance (QA) when the testers are professionals, ‘regular’ playtesting can also be done with (potential) players.

Visualization: biometric storyboards

The graph itself is drawn based on (1) a player’s physiological arousal signals (GSR), (2) player post-session interviews to explain ‘why’ the change in their GSR occurred, (3) players’ self-drawn diagrams of their gameplay experience and (4) observation of player gameplay behavior (or context).

PXI (Vanden Abeele et al.)

Many of the questionnaires out there focus on engagement. Link between actions performed by the player and the resulting experience is often lost. Functional consequences: directly measurable, result of design and game elements. Psychological consequences: less direct, emotional consequences.

Logging, metrics, analytics

Often built into released game. Least invasive: can be controlled during normal gameplay, on your device, in your context. Requires access to the source code of the game, and a clear idea of what it is you want to log. Large quantities of data (can be considered a pro and a con). What (behavior), not why (attitude, emotion).
Examples:
- Locations of objects in the game world
- Interactions (player1 jumped onto player2’s head)
- Certain key events: winning, dying, leveling up

Serious Game Design Assessment (SGDA)

Not really a measurement instrument, but a kind of structure for testing serious games (≈ heuristics). Cohesiveness: the elements should be from a coherent whole. Coherence: the elements should align with the serious outcome