Hello, My name is Michael Yin from the University of British Columbia and I’m excited to present
our work titled: How Should I Respond to “Good Morning?”: Understanding Choice in Narrative-Rich Games
Games these days increasingly have the ability to deliver poignant, compelling stories.
Such narrative-rich games transport players into different worlds, situating them in a way that they themselves
feel as though they are part of a rich, expansive story.
However, unlike static entertainment mediums like movies or books,
games also afford interactivity with the player - mutual reciprocity based on player actions.
One way this sort of interactivity is often delivered is through the use of player decisions
players can make choices at key points in the game, allowing them to construct the story in the way that they want.
Choices can manifest in different ways in video games - they can be as serious as asking a player to pick between one of two inevitable deaths
or they can be as lighthearted as simply asking the user to respond to a joke
They can be as consequential as completing changing the ending of the game,
or they can simply change one or two lines of dialogue.
To illustrate, we show two, kind of similar choices here.
Both of these involve selecting a character to basically spend time together and bond with.
Can you tell which of these choices impacts the ending of the game?
If you were the player, what contextual factors might you use to figure this out?
If a choice doesn’t impact the ending of the game, then why should a game developer include it?
Many past studies have focussed on choices specifically within frameworks of, most commonly, morality;
and more recently meaningfulness (which extends on morality with added dimensions of sociality and consequences)
In these studies, the framework comes first and foremost -
and the choices investigated are those that specifically fit into these frameworks.
But what of the choices that get left out?
What about choices that don’t necessarily test the user’s morality,
or choices that don’t really have far-reaching consequences in the game
What purpose do they serve?
Thus, whereas past research takes a more deductive approach focussed on the framework,
our study does the opposite, starting with minimal prior assumptions
and inductively building out our findings based on all types of choices.
Thus, in this study, we had 3 main research goals
Understanding and classifying the choices present in current video games.
Understanding the impact that specific and general choices have on player experience, and
Understanding the characteristics of player decision-making when faced with choice
Our methods for this study were threefold
We first performed a series of semi-structured interviews with game developers,
expanding on initial background knowledge in the area to understand
the thought processes and approaches in creating choices in narrative stories.
We then performed a video analysis study of 56 existing choices from 12 narrative-rich games,
videos of the choices were extracted, and observational notes were taken
on the actions and dialogue proceeding, during, and after the choice.
To capture the long-term effects of the choice,
we additionally consulted resources such as walkthroughs or wiki pages.
Finally, we performed a series of semi-structured interviews with video game players,
to understand how choices affect players and how players make decisions when presented with choice.
Players largely discussed choices from the games they were personally familiar with,
but to introduce diversity in choices,
we additionally presented them with a subset, based on the classification system that we had developed.
For each method, thematic analysis was used in order to analyze the data,
and we will now present our findings, framed around our initial research questions
To address the first research question,
from mainly observing choices present in video games and talking to developers
we were able to address it
we find that all the choices we looked at can be mainly classified by three important criteria:
Temporal Consequence, or how long the impact of the choice carries over in the story
Perceived Significance - a subjective measure of how significant the choice feels on the world and its characters
and Reward and Benefit, which is a measure of the rewards that the various decisions of the choice may incur, like providing stats or items.
Towards the second research question, we find that choices impact several levels of meta-gameplay.
Firstly, choices impact the relationship between the player
and the characters and world of the game.
In framing this, we consider the relationship between the player and the player character,
who are different entities with different sets of intentions and goals.
However, instances of choice inevitably intertwine these two entities
at a meta-level, choice forces the Player Character to perform the choice or actions indicated by the player.
Thus, the player imbues some aspect of themselves into the story,
a “player persona” which we term
which may arise in the form of wishful identification, a perceived self, etc,
and thus, the player, by proxy,
develops responsibility for the consequences of their choices on the world.
Then, because players play in different ways, choices not only introduce autonomy,
but also personalization to the story
as p4 mentions - "you really do get to create your own experience”
We find that this aspect of personalised narratives promote social effects
players are eager to see the experiences of others
and to compare and contrast it to their own
which was also a key point that a game developer made as well, when designing their game.
So something that certain games do, e.g. Life is Strange
is show the global percentage of players that made each decision for every choice,
and this is similar for many of the Telltale series games.
But even going beyond this,
some players were interested in WHY people made choices different from their own,
and this promoted social discussion deriving from inclusion of choice.
Finally, we found that the permanence of a choice is an important consideration for player intention
whether players could save-and-reload (colloquially save-scum) their choices
to get a preferable outcome.
Players indicated that they may get curious about what COULD happen
and return to the choice that they WANT to happen in the end.
As such, the usual “rationale” for decision-making
is interrupted by the impermanence of specific choices.
Relating this together, we tie this into addressing our final research question,
in which we find 4 key factors that influence how players make decisions
Firstly, player persona, something we discussed prior
but essentially the conceptualization of the player represented onto the player character
Secondly, player-game relationship,
or the existing bonds between the player, player character and other virtual agents developed through storytelling
Thirdly, the mental model of consequences
basically relating to what players think may happen for each choice
players indicated that this mental model was derived from
Positive transfer effects from real-life
Knowledge of the game genre or similar games
or the game may explicitly list out the consequences
Finally, the permanence of each consequence
whether the choice was permanent per playthrough
was also a factor that affected player decision-making.
In the paper, we additionally discuss in detail the relationship
between player-decision making and certain types of choices
finding that for example, players sometimes feel inclined
to act in moral ways because they assume (from past transfer effects)
that it will provide them with more reward and benefit.
In addition, players sometimes treat the temporal consequence
(i.e. the ending of the game),
in similar ways as a more tangible reward or benefit, thus intertwining these two dimensions of the game.
Details about these findings, and all of the prior findings, can all be found in the paper.
But as a final takeaway, I would like to discuss
what do choices provide and how should game developers use them?
Well, firstly, choices can help develop empathy for virtual agents,
as each choice ties the decisions of the player with the fate of the characters and the world
Instances of empathy can later lead to emotional moments and moral and empathetic considerations,
for example in games such as Detroit Become Human, as indicated by P5.
Choices can also help foster empathy for other players,
as players who make different decisions for a choice can develop
social discussion to understand why
this is increasingly important as choices have been used to underpin political and moral themes
Finally, coming back full circle to what I discussed at the very beginning,
what about choices that don’t fit into any existing framework?
For example, this is the flowchart for the first choice
from the game The House in Fata Morgana
This choice induces very little of the 3 dimensions of meaningful choice
being almost a throwaway choice that has no effect after 2 lines of dialogue
What we found is that almost every participant indicated that this choice was inconsequential,
but they also all stated they would make the decision as they would in real-life.
Thus, we form a final hypothesis on the benefit of such “non-meaningful choice”
almost making a prediction based on our understanding of player decision-making.
With a minimal concept of reward and consequences,
players must lean more on the story-based decision-making factors,
for example, their player persona
to make the choice
this reinforces and strengthens the tie between the player in real life and their in-game representation.
Ultimately, It makes players feel closer to the character they are playing in the game.
Thanks for listening!