Title
Difficulty in videogames: an experimental validation of a formal definition
Abstract
This paper synthetically presents a reliable and generic way to evaluate the difficulty of video games, and an experiment testing its accuracy and concordance with subjective assessments of difficulty. We propose a way to split the gameplay into measurable items, and to take into account the player's apprenticeship to statistically evaluate the game's difficulty. We then present the experiment, based on a standard FPS gameplay. First, we verify that our constructive approach can be applied to this gameplay. Then, we test the accuracy of our method. Finally, we compare subjective assessments of the game's difficulty, both from the designers and the players, to the values predicted by our model. Results show that a very simple version of our model can predict the probability to the player has to lose with enough accuracy to be useful as a game design tool. However, the study points out that the subjective feeling of difficulty seems to be complex, and not only based on a short term estimate of the chances of success.
Year
DOI
Venue
2011
10.1145/2071423.2071484
Advances in Computer Entertainment Technology
Keywords
Field
DocType
constructive approach,enough accuracy,subjective assessment,experimental validation,paper synthetically,short term estimate,measurable item,standard fps gameplay,formal definition,subjective feeling,video game,game design tool,experiment,evaluation,game design
Apprenticeship,Computer science,Constructive,Concordance,Game design,Formal description,Human–computer interaction,Multimedia,Feeling
Conference
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
4
0.41
8
Authors
3
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Maria-Virginia Aponte1483.14
Guillaume Levieux2607.69
Stéphane Natkin337980.66