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< Back ​ Dr Nick Ballou Queen Mary University of London ​ iGGi Alum ​ ​ Hi there! I’m a psychology and human-computer interaction researcher interested in two main topics: how games affect wellbeing, and how we can reform the research ecosystem to be more trustworthy and efficient (aka “open science” or “metascience”). I’m originally from the US, and have bachelor and master’s degrees in linguistics, a topic that prepared me well for social science research, but whose use is relegated to excitedly sharing language fun facts at this point. In my free time, I play tennis, cook and bake, read—and of course play games (mostly deckbuilders, roguelikes, and AAA RPGs). A description of Nick's research: Psychological need frustration—experiences of feeling controlled and coerced, failure and self-doubt, or loneliness and exclusion—is a promising framework for understanding how players engage with video games. Grounded in self-determination theory, one of the most robust psychological theories, need frustration might help explain how and why players (dis)engage with a game and how gameplay impacts well-being. To realize this aim, however, we’re missing key building blocks: 1) a better grasp on when and why need-frustrating situations arise during play; 2) a questionnaire that can assess how much need frustration people experience in games quantitatively; and 3) studies that combine data on need frustration with carefully tracked behavioral data over time, rather than relying on simple self-reports like “how much time did you spend playing video games last week?” My thesis attempts to address all of these one step at a time and is underpinned by a strong emphasis on open and transparent methods. Results so far are promising—contact me to hear more! ​ nick@nickballou.com Email Mastodon https://www.nickballou.com Other links Website LinkedIn https://www.twitter.com/nbballou Twitter Github Supervisors: Prof. Sebastian Deterding Dr David Zendle Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk Featured Publication(s): The Basic Needs in Games (BANG) Model of Video Game Play and Mental Health (PhD thesis) The Basic Needs in Games (BANG) Model of Video Games and Mental Health: Untangling the Positive and Negative Effects of Games with Better Science The Relationship Between Lockdowns and Video Game Playtime: Multilevel Time-Series Analysis Using Massive-Scale Data Telemetry Affective Uplift During Video Game Play: A Naturalistic Case Study No evidence that Chinese playtime mandates reduced heavy gaming in one segment of the video games industry A manifesto for more productive psychological games research Four grand challenges for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games Perceived value of video games, but not hours played, predicts mental well-being in adult Nintendo players Development of the Brief Open Research Survey (BORS) to measure awareness and uptake of Open Research practices The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS): A new tool for investigating positive and negative video game experiences How does Juicy Game Feedback Motivate? Testing Curiosity, Competence, and Effectance Registered Report Evidence Suggests No Relationship Between Objectively Tracked Video Game Playtime and Well-Being Over 3 Months How do video games affect mental health? A narrative review of 13 proposed mechanisms Learnings from the case Maple Refugee: A dystopian story of free-to-play, probability, and gamer consumer activism. Four dilemmas for video game effects scholars: How digital trace data can improve the way we study games Cross-cultural patterns in mobile playtime: an analysis of 118 billion hours of human data Pinpointing the problem: Providing page numbers for citations as a crucial part of open science A large-scale study of changes to the quantity, quality, and distribution of video game play during the COVID-19 pandemic Reforms to improve reproducibility and quality must be coordinated across the research ecosystem: the view from the UKRN Local Network Leads ‘I Just Wanted to Get it Over and Done With’: A Grounded Theory of Psychological Need Frustration in Video Games A Manifesto for More Productive Psychological Games Research Understanding whether lockdowns lead to increases in the heaviness of gaming using massive-scale data telemetry: An analysis of 251 billion hours of playtime If everything is a loot box, nothing is: Response to Xiao et al. Awareness of and engagement with Open Research behaviours: Development of the Brief Open Research Survey (BORS) with the UK Reproducibility Network Do People Use Games to Compensate for Psychological Needs During Crises? A Mixed-Methods Study of Gaming During COVID-19 Lockdowns Self-Determination Theory in HCI: Shaping a Research Agenda “Clinically significant distress” in Internet Gaming Disorder: An individual participant meta-analysis A community-sourced glossary of open scholarship terms Actions, not gestures: contextualising embodied controller interactions in immersive virtual reality Not Very Effective: Validity Issues of the Effectance in Games Scale Themes Game Data Player Research Previous Next

< Back ​ Lisa Sha Li University of York ​ iGGi Alum ​ ​ Gifting in video games (Industry collaboration with BT) Lisa’s research is an exploration of gifting behaviour in video games. In the fields of social science and positive psychology, a considerable amount of research has found out how being generous, and its incarnation in gifting can benefit one’s subjective well-being. However, when it comes to the digital space, little do we know about how people can become happier through gifting. On the one hand, the research is curious about whether the practice of gifting changes in the context of video games. If it changes, the research attempts to identify what features thereof are different or even new, and to understand how gifting protocols could function in the digital space. On the other hand, the research is curious about how to apply gifting to video games, employing its benefits in enhancing social relationships and good feelings. The current purpose is to propose a framework of gifting between a human player and non-player characters that designers can use as an instruction when designing such activities. There is also a potentially high value of gifting in the marketing aspect of the game industry. Inspired by the observation of everyday life, Lisa tries to find better solutions to problems which need to be considered from both artistic and informatics perspectives. She is now a research student at the University of York. She is a graduate of the University of Edinburgh where she received an MSc in Advanced Design Informatics, with Distinction. Her earlier degree is B.Eng in Digital Media Arts (Xiamen University, Software School). She spent half a year in Taiwan as an exchange student in 2012. She did a summer internship developing VR games with the Two Big Ears, back in 2014. ​ shali.8.lisa@gmail.com Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn Twitter Github ​ ​ Themes Player Research - Previous Next

< Back ​ Bobby Khaleque Queen Mary University of London ​ iGGi PG Researcher ​ Available for placement Bobby Khaleque is an IGGI student focused on the creation of Automated Game Design (AGD) Systems particularly for Secret Box experiences. Secret box experiences refer to games which focus less on their game mechanics and rules and more on their aesthetic design, mood evocation and exploration. AGD systems might help empower solo and indie developers during the game design process by quickly creating playable versions of games with little to no human intervention required. A further research goal of his project is game quality evaluation for games seeking to provide the aforementioned experience. After completing a Bachelors in Computer Science and a Masters in Artificial Intelligence both at QMUL he decided to pursue games research particularly for AGD and player experience due to the lack of research in regard to games aiming to provide a Secret Box experience. Bobby is part of the QMUL Game AI group actively pursuing his research in Computational Creativity to answer the question: Can a computer design a high quality Secret Box experience? ​ b.d.a.khaleque@qmul.ac.uk Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn https://twitter.com/b_khaleque Twitter https://github.com/BKhaleque Github Supervisor(s): Dr Mike Cook Dr Jeremy Gow Featured Publication(s): What Factors Do Players Perceive as Methods of Retention in Battle Royale Games? Themes Creative Computing Game AI - Previous Next

iGGi Partners We are excited to be collaborating with a number of industry partners. IGGI works with industry in some of the following ways: ​ Student Industry Knowledge Transfer - this can take many forms, from what looks like a traditional placement, to a short term consultancy, to an ongoing relationship between the student and their industry partner. Student Sponsorship - for some of our students, their relationship with their industry partner is reinforced by sponsorship from the company. This is an excellent demonstration of the strength of the commitment and the success of the collaborations. In Kind Contributions - IGGI industry partners can contribute by attending and/or featuring in our annual conference, offering their time to give talks and masterclasses for our students, or even taking part in our annual game jam! ​ There are many ways for our industry partners to work with IGGI. If you are interested in becoming involved, please do contact us so we can discuss what might be suitable for you. Spirit AI

< Back ​ Lizzie Vialls University of York ​ iGGi Alum ​ ​ Discrete Models and Algorithms to create a more satisfying and strategic opponents For many 4x and Grand Strategy computer games (e.g. Civilisation, Europa Universalis), the player will be playing against one or more AI opponents. For many games, the AI is not clever enough to stand up to a player without being given the ability to "cheat" - ability to spawn in resources, see what the player is doing, etc. This creates an unsatisfactory opponent for a player, as it gives them opponents that fight through "cheating" over strategy or out-manoeuvring the player. The aim for my PhD is to look into the potential uses of SAT and similar to create a more satisfying and strategic opponent for players to play against in these styles of computer games. To this end, I’ll be identifying potential for improvement regarding my proposal, and once I’ve narrowed down the specifics - be it related to improving how SAT solvers can handle problems, or how better to encode AI into SAT - I will be working on ways to improve AI for turn based strategic games. Lizzie Vialls is a recent Computer Science graduate of University of Leicester, having graduated with a 2:1 and a prize for best third year project, which was the project that fueled her interest in SAT. When not searching for an errant semicolon in her code she can be found working with various online gaming communities, hunched over many a tabletop game, or attempting to make friends with the local feline populace. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress ​ Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn Twitter Github ​ ​ Themes Game AI - Previous Next

< Back Efficient evolutionary methods for game agent optimisation: Model-based is best Link ​ Author(s) SM Lucas, J Liu, I Bravi, RD Gaina, J Woodward, V Volz, D Perez-Liebana Abstract ​ More info TBA ​ Link

< Back ​ Dr David Gundry University of York ​ iGGi Alum ​ ​ Using Applied Games to Motivate Speech Without Bias (Industry placement Lightspeed Research) Eliciting linguistic data faces several difficulties such as investment of researcher time and few available participants. Because of this, many language elicitation studies have to make do with few subjects and coarse sampling rates (measured in months). It would be ideal if a game could crowd-source relevant linguistic data with frequent, short game sessions. To this end, David’s research is looking into how games shape and elicit players’ linguistic behaviour. The established design patterns of gamification do not apply to a domain that lacks a ‘correct’ answer like language or personal beliefs and attitudes. David’s research shows how a player’s strategic goals will systematically bias data collection. It also shows how to design around this. The conclusion: The player’s choice of how to express a given datum must be strategically irrelevant in the game. David can remember the halcyon days when he had the free time to play games. Now he’s doing a PhD and has a one-year-old. He has an background in linguistics. He loves writing expressive code and designing clever little games. He wants to show that research games can be fun, not just effective. Please note: Updating of profile text in progress ​ Email Mastodon Other links Website LinkedIn https://www.twitter.com/@davegundry Twitter Github ​ Featured Publication(s): Trading Accuracy for Enjoyment? Data Quality and Player Experience in Data Collection Games Designing Games to Collect Human-Subject Data Validity threats in quantitative data collection with games: A narrative survey Busy doing nothing? What do players do in idle games? Intrinsic elicitation: A model and design approach for games collecting human subject data Themes Applied Games - Previous Next

< Back Clyde: A deep reinforcement learning doom playing agent Link ​ Author(s) D Ratcliffe, S Devlin, U Kruschwitz, L Citi Abstract ​ More info TBA ​ Link

< Back Deep Learning for Wave Height Classification in Satellite Images for Offshore Wind Access Link ​ Author(s) RJ Spick, JA Walker Abstract ​ More info TBA ​ Link

< Back Generating Diverse and Competitive Play-Styles for Strategy Games Link ​ Author(s) D Perez-Liebana, C Guerrero-Romero, A Dockhorn, L Xu, J Hurtado, Dominik Jeurissen Abstract ​ More info TBA ​ Link

iGGi Partners We are excited to be collaborating with a number of industry partners. IGGI works with industry in some of the following ways: ​ Student Industry Knowledge Transfer - this can take many forms, from what looks like a traditional placement, to a short term consultancy, to an ongoing relationship between the student and their industry partner. Student Sponsorship - for some of our students, their relationship with their industry partner is reinforced by sponsorship from the company. This is an excellent demonstration of the strength of the commitment and the success of the collaborations. In Kind Contributions - IGGI industry partners can contribute by attending and/or featuring in our annual conference, offering their time to give talks and masterclasses for our students, or even taking part in our annual game jam! ​ There are many ways for our industry partners to work with IGGI. If you are interested in becoming involved, please do contact us so we can discuss what might be suitable for you. Dubit Limited

< Back Frontiers of GVGAI Planning Link ​ Author(s) DP Liebana, RD Gaina Abstract ​ More info TBA ​ Link