1. Today’s Topics Game technologies Game design Game studies Analysis of fantasy sports

2. Game Technologies Game engine vs. interface Game engine – Runs the simulation – Can be simple or very complex Interface – Graphics – Interaction

3. World Simulation Moving objects – Animations for water, fire, etc. – Physics engines for determining non-character movement Friendly (and not) characters – Scripts and triggers for behavior – Interactions between non-player characters becoming ever more complex Unintended results: – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8hetpJxXSw http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F8hetpJxXSw

4. Game Interface Point and click – Direct manipulation – Palettes of options Keyboards – Lots of options, faster response – Must be learned Vision and sensor based interfaces – Activity of player is more aligned with activity in game

5. Game Design Game design teams are specialized much like movie teams – Lead designer – System/simulation/user interface designer – Level/environment designer – Writer/scriptwriter – Graphic artist – Sound engineer – Tester

6. Serious Games Games for serious purposes Goal: Motivate “players” to learn or to act more by delivering an immersive/engaging experience

8. Game Studies Studies of stories/interpretation Studies of settings/worlds – “Compared with the rolling hills of Tamriel, the plains of Oblivion as represented in the opening shot involves a far more conventional version of the sublime, coming from Dante and Milton by way of Mordor. ” http://gamestudies.org/1103/articles/martin Studies of individual activity Studies of social interactions Studies of rhetoric in/surrounding games

9. Blending the Real and Virtual in Games: The Model of Fantasy Sports

10. Real and Virtual: Together “Real or virtual” vs. “real and virtual” – Decades of comparisons of on-line communities to physical communities – Computer games vs. in-person games Separation is artificial – forms of entertainment and art can integrate the physical and digital This is not news … we see it all the time.

11. Existing Methods for Combining Real and Virtual Using real people – Playing against other people – Basing people in game on real people Using external personal contacts – Friends lists Using physical location – Location aware games/arts Clearly not an exhaustive list

12. What are Fantasy Sports? Fantasy sports: a derivative entertainment Players of fantasy sports take on the role of coach – Draft actual sport players for team – Decide which players start each week/game – Get points based on player statistics that week – Trade players to other teams/waiver wire Many other variants of fantasy sports exist

13. Why Fantasy Sports? Fantasy sports rely on real sports Fantasy sports can / will change the real sport, perhaps to the point where real sports rely on fantasy sports … A big, mainstream phenomenon – 33.5 million players in the US in 2013 survey – 75% played on-line in 2008 – Billion dollar industry – Magazines and TV shows devoted to topic Yet, rarely discussed in gaming literature

14. History of Fantasy Sports Dates 1962: paper-based fantasy football game 1979: start of Rotisserie baseball Characteristics: – Leagues among local friends and colleagues – Significant effort of collecting statistics and computing winners – Trophies and prizes for winners (and losers)

15. Digitization A natural fit – Automatic collection and manipulation of statistics reduces overhead of leagues. – Network provides easy access for players from around the world to create leagues. Effect – Low overhead, no knowledge of other players – Low consequences results in lower interest – Players abandon teams early in season

16. Recapturing What Was Lost New interfaces aid sense of community – League statistics / power ratings / transactions – League newspapers / polls – League message boards Integrating virtual and real sport news – News of injuries, anticipated changes to starting players, and weather forecasts – Alongside articles about fantasy teams

19. Rhetoric in Fantasy Sports Empowerment “becoming the team's manager, owner, and president all in one” “have star athletes working for you” Competition “ever thought you could do a better job than the people running the teams?” “show the world just how smart you are” Participation “In Fantasy Sports, you can be as much the beneficiary of an athlete's performance as the athlete himself!”

20. Framework for Games and Sports Fantasy sports combine spectatorship with gaming – Players must understand and anticipate the real sport – Players act in the virtual sport based on this knowledge Real ActionVirtual Action Player ControlPlaying sports Playing games External Control Watching sports Observing game playing

21. Emotion and Engagement Lessons from fantasy sports Ease of playing resulted in less commitment to game Community presence and surrounding context can increase engagement Real consequences increase engagement (e.g. financial or other awards) Connection to events in the real world can remove the boredom that results from predictable game engines

22. Potential Effects of Fantasy Sports on Real Sports Audience: – Greater interest driving larger television audiences – Spectators via multiple media Game: – Rule changes to better support fantasy sports (e.g. injury reports, starting line-ups) Viewing: – Personalized presentations of real sports events

23. Games as Derivative Forms Simple model – Real world acts as data source for game engine – Model maps data to game Real-World Event Collection of Data from Event Model Mapping Data to Game Context Virtual Event

24. Examples of Model Simple mappings – Fantasy stock markets – Fantasy elections Streaming or querying data – Weather and traffic in racing or other simulation – Play/action selection in sports game based on database of play selections retrieved by similarity of conditions

25. Fantasy Sport meets Reality TV Information flow in model is in single direction What if: An Alternative “XFL” – Vote for next play, or player substitutions – Audience communication with players on the field

26. Data-Driven Entertainment: Next Steps Need to know – Q1: How do players select athletes for their teams? – Q2: What are players’ data collection and analysis practices? – Q3: How do players scope the data they include in their decision process? – Q4: What is the time commitment and activities of players? – Q5: What aspects of fantasy sports are problematic? Surveyed 160 self-reported fantasy sports players on Mechanical Turk

27. Data Gathering Practices Where do players get data? How much data?

28. What Tools? Which tools do players use for data analysis? Rationale of tool choice – Need range of features – Convenience – User Control – Usability

29. Activities and Time Number of interactions with game per week Length of average interaction

30. Motivations Why do people play? Many of the comments emphasized social reasons

31. Fantasy Sports Summary Fantasy games have 45 year history – 10s of millions of players in US alone – Billion dollar industry Connecting the real and digital – Using the real world as data for or part of “game engine” – Community, context, and consequence result in engagement Potential for digital games to be combined with existing modes of entertainment New forms of data-driven entertainment