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Small-Scale Exertion in Sports Video Games

Sports video games should be inherently competitive, but they fall short in providing competition between player skills. The translation of real-world physical activities to a game controller and the emphasis on statistical simulations in traditional sports video games leads to a limited opportunity for expertise development, individual differentiation, and fatigue. These are three very important aspects of real-world sports that are lacking in sports video games. One possible solution to these difficulties is to use small-scale exertion. This method requires the design of an input mechanic that requires only the use of hands and fingers (or feet). We created two small-scale exertion sports video games (Track and Field Racing and Jelly Polo) and ran four studies to compare our small-scale exertion games to traditional rate-based sports video games. Qualitative and quantitative results suggest that using small-scale exertion increases the amount of expertise development, individual differentiation, and fatigue in sports video games. Results also suggest small-scale exertion controls are more engaging than traditional rate-based controls. By using small-scale exertion to add physicality into sports video games, we are able to increase richness, competitiveness, and realism in order to create a game which is competitive, in terms of player skill, and sport-like.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:USASK/oai:ecommons.usask.ca:10388/ETD-2015-04-2011
Date2015 April 1900
ContributorsGutwin, Carl
Source SetsUniversity of Saskatchewan Library
LanguageEnglish
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext, thesis

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