It was an amazing workshop at FDG this year. We would like to thank all participants for stimulating and inspiring talks. Videos will be made available at the end of August. Thanks for your patience

We are looking forward to our workshop participants. Here is a preliminary list of all registered participants. Let us know if you recently registered and your name is not on the list.

1. Johannes Sebastian Breuer
2. Donald Brinkman
3. Paolo Burelli
4. Alessandro Canossa
5. Seth Cooper
6. Ed Donahue
7. Anders Drachen
8. Allan Fowler
9. Stefan Göbel
10. Katherine Isbister
11. Dirk P Janssen
12. Theodore Lim
13. Lindsay Lindstrom
14. Fabien Lotte
15. Andrew P Macvean
16. Paul Martin
17. Tim Rance
18. David L. Roberts
19. Magy Seif El-Nasr
20. Iris Soute
21. Ben Weber
22. Robert Winckler
23. R. Michael Young
24. Jichen Zhu

09.30-09.45 Welcome (Licia Calvi and Anders Drachen)

09.45-10.00 Making sense of Player Experience – Introducing a Player Experience framework (Lennart Nacke and Anders Drachen)

10.00-10.15 Paper presentation: Towards a Setup for Longitudinal Evaluation of Player Experience with Children (Iris Soute and Janienke Sturm)

10.15-10.30 Morning/coffee break

10.30-10.45 Paper presentation: Using Data Mining to Model Player Experience (Ben Weber, Arnav Jhala and Michael Mateas)

10.45-11.00 Paper presentation: Introducing Archetypal Analysis for Player Classification in Games (Christian Thurau and Anders Drachen)

11.00-11.15 Paper presentation: Using a Declarative Representation of Actions in Game Environments to Model and Guide Player Experience (Jim Thomas and R. Michael Young)

11.15-11.45 Identifying key concepts of Player Experience (brainstorming) + forming break-out groups

11.45-12.30 Break-out groups working on PX components.

12.30-14.00 Lunch break – list of restaurants will be provided with the delegate materials

14.00-15.00 Break-out groups present results + discussion: Connecting the dots – how do we merge PX concepts and components in coherent frameworks?

15.00-15.30 Measuring PX – shared brainstorming and idea generation session

15.30-15.45 Rounding up – advancing the state-of-the-art, EPEX 11 website updates and journal special issue plans (Licia Calvi and Anders Drachen)

Evening Informal EPEX 11 Dinner (restaurant and time to be announced at the workshop).

Welcome from the Organizers

Research and industry show a rapidly growing interest in evaluating player experience in games and interactive entertainment systems, for example through analysis of physiological signals and game metrics data (such as telemetry); approaches that obtain data relevant for player experience and the interaction between player and game. Developing new and describing current methods for evaluating player experience in games is paramount for the successful design of gaming interfaces.

The EPEX 2011 workshop aims at presenting and discussing quantitative and qualitative methods for evaluating player experience in games. The workshop has a broad focus and is open to novel ideas and new inspirations, as well as established approaches, such as psychophysiological measures and behavioral game metrics, user experience evaluation methods and others. Additional issues covered by EPEX include the specific nature and industrial value of evaluation techniques that can be used during the game development process and provide actionable results, the player experience associated with it and its implications for gaming interfaces and game design, visualization and reporting of player experience data, dissemination to company stakeholders, management of player experience processes, novel approaches for player experience testing, theory and innovation in the field. (more…)

Please read and widely distribute our final CfP to your colleagues and see organizers and about the workshop for additional information.

2nd International Workshop on Evaluating Player Experience in Games (epex11)

Bordeaux, 28 June 2011

DEADLINE EXTENDED! April 8th

Workshop in conjunction with the Foundations of Digital Games (FDG) Conference 2011

There is a rapidly growing interest in evaluating player experience in games context, as well as other forms of digital interactive entertainment, for example via applying psychophysiological signals and user telemetry to obtain data on the user experience and the interaction between user and game, Developing useful methods for evaluating player experience in games is paramount for the design of interfaces that can better account for the user experience while interacting with different media (i.e., games, social media, pervasive marketing).

This workshop aims at presenting and discussing quantitative and qualitative methods for evaluating player experience in games. The workshop focuses especially on novel evaluation techniques such as psychophysiological measures and behavioral game metrics that supplement user experience evaluation methods, which can be used to e.g. evaluate and validate game designs, mechanics, and balancing.

Additional issues include the specific nature and industrial value of evaluation techniques that can be used during the game development process and provide actionable results, the player experience associated with it and its implications for interface and game design, visualization and reporting of user experience data, dissemination to company stakeholders, management of user experience processes, novel approaches for player experience testing, theory and innovation in the field. (more…)

We will be organizing a next iteration of our workshop at FDG 2011. Stay tuned for more information and an upcoming CfP.

The playability and player experience workshop at the Fun and Games 2010 conference from 15 – 17 September 2010 held in Leuven, Belgium was a great success.

The workshop proceedings are available in the NHTV Expertise Series 10. Please consider ordering the publication in print here. You can either download the PDFs of the complete proceedings or the individual papers below.

Playability and player experience – Proceedings of the Fun and Games 2010 Workshop

Editors: Licia Calvi, Koos C.M. Nuijten & Hans Bouwknegt

Abstract:
The development of systems for establishing playability and player experience, as well as implementing such measures earlier in the game design cycle can be expected to optimize the game development process as well as the final game design. (more…)

Playability and player experience of casual games (K.U.Leuven, 15 September 2010) workshop in conjunction with the Fun and Games Conference 2010

DEADLINE EXTENDED TO: 24 May 2010

This workshop focuses on the development and use of all kinds of playability and player experience measures, like quantitative metrics and data harvesting, to evaluate digital games. Playtesting metrics are very much in demand and yet not much often used within the casual gaming industry, although already standard practice in the larger game development studios. Therefore all game genres are addressed, but casual games are considered the preferred focus. Introducing a system for player experience evaluation earlier in the game design cycle will influence the final design as well while still under development.

The focus of this workshop consist therefore in defining which methods are best to apply in the casual game domain, and in analyzing their efficacy and applicability.

Call for papers

Position papers are invited on the use of different evaluation methods for digital games. Special attention is given to quantitative metrics, especially when applied to casual games. Additional issues include the specific nature and value of evaluation techniques/methodologies that can be used during the game development process, the player experience associated with it and its implications for interface design. The workshop will include thematically organized formal presentations, followed by group discussions. (more…)

The focus of this workshop consists in exploring and identifying which evaluation methods are most suitable to apply in the domain of casual games. Although evaluation methods applied to all kinds of game genres are addressed, casual games are considered the preferred focus, since playtesting metrics are very much in demand and yet not much often used within the casual gaming industry, although already standard practice in the larger game development studios. As such, this workshop aims  to discuss the efficacy and applicability of a wide range of evaluation methods  in the domain of casual games. The focus of this workshop consists therefore in defining which methods are best to apply in the domain of casual games, and in analyzing their efficacy and applicability.