Hello everyone!
My name is Michael – I am from the University of Applied Sciences Upper Austria, and in
this video, I will give an overview of the paper with the title "Social Gaze in Minimalist
games".
In the last couple of years, I have carried several research projects in the context of
gaze and games, ranging from the inclusion of gaze behaviors as a resource for game mechanics
to the use of gaze and play in social settings.
The use, impact, and visualization of gaze in collaborative and competitive environments
were primarily in the center of attention.
However, my main motivation to carry out this research project was that I have fallen in
love with so-called minimalist games.
These games use simple mechanics and an abstract art style to convey profound experiences.
Specifically, what fascinates me most about these kinds of games is that the game characters
are often made up of simplistic shapes that do not have any facial features whatsoever,
but could trigger social interactions.
To examine this aspect, I set up a comparative study that focuses on the players' perceived
quality of social interaction towards abstract non-player characters.
In the study, I investigated three social gaze concepts introduced by Vidal and her
colleagues via three game levels, each featuring two input variants.
Joint attention The first level, called joint attention, reflects
situations where two or more actors are interested in the same object.
I applied this concept to the game via the following mechanic: if the player, represented
as a white dot, looks at the big sphere, the triangles become aware of the big circle and
show a joint interest by facing it.
Furthermore, when the player continuously looks at the circle, the triangles move towards
its position.
If the player does not look at one of the circles, the triangles will stop moving.
Desire for interaction The second level, desire for interaction,
deals with the fact that players have an unerring ability to determine whether they are being
looked at or not.
In this level, players get in contact with characters that mirror their avatar's visual
appearance in the form of white circles.
The characters shapes change whenever the player views them, signaling attention and
triggering behavior caused by the players' gaze.
Furthermore, a line is created that connects the player's avatar with the focused game
entity to visually emphasize their relation.
The game entity also moves towards the character and stops on a predefined distance to communicate
interpersonal distances.
When this link is established, it continuously pursues the character.
Gaze Avoidance Level The third level deals with Gaze Avoidance,
which refers to a subject's desire to avoid a social encounter with another person through
his/her gaze behavior.
In the game, the player encounters triangular shapes circulated by small drops that the
player needs to collect to complete the level.
As soon as the player looks at the triangles, they will quickly evade the player's gaze,
leaving a trail to indicate their current location.
The drops follow the triangle and can only be collected when the player does not look
at the triangles.
Conditions Regarding the comparative study, each subject
played each level twice by either getting in contact with the game entities via an eyetracker
or through mouse input.
Consequently, the study is made up of two conditions embedded in the three levels.
Participants and procedure In total, 20 people between the age of 21-32
participated, 8 were female, 12 were male.
Subjects played a short tutorial to get accustomed to the game goals, the mechanics, and the
means of interaction.
After that, they played the first out of six-play sessions in a randomized order.
Results Let's get to the results: In general, the
comparative study showed that the inclusion of social gaze led to a positive experience
concerning the social interaction quality.
The inclusion of gaze affected how the players interpreted the social connection between
the player's avatar and the game entities.
Expressions such as "eye contact" or ``mutual interest" were reported several times.
Moreover, players in the gaze condition described the entities (i.e., circles) as lifeforms
and organisms.
The incorporation of gaze interaction appears to establish an interpersonal connection that
facilitates the attribution of human- and pet-like characteristics.
Limitations Although the study led to some interesting
findings, several limitations have to be acknowledged.
First, the test subjects' demographics were relatively narrow, mostly comprising of players
at the same age with a high level of education.
Besides, none of the players had any experience with eye-tracking technologies.
Thus, the aspect of novelty could have affected the gathered results.
However, this issue was addressed to some degree by including a short tutorial session
at the beginning of each playtest.
Conclusion Regarding future work, It is planned to compare
the introduced approach with other visual styles and game mechanics.
This entails scenarios with other social gaze concepts, different kinds of player and gaze
representations, as well as symmetric and asymmetric multiplayer scenarios.
Ok, that would be all.
I hope that the presentation was interesting, and I am now open to questions from the audience.