Paper Info
Title
Inside the Group: Investigating Social Structures in Player Groups and Their Influence on Activity
Abstract
Social features, matchmaking, and grouping functions are key elements of online multiplayer experiences. Understanding how social connections form in and around games and their relationship to in-game activity offers insights for building and maintaining player bases and for improving engagement and retention. This paper presents an analysis of the groups formed by users of the <monospace xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">the100.io</monospace> —a social matchmaking website for different commercial titles, including <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">Destiny</italic> on which we focus in this paper. Groups formed on <monospace xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">the100.io</monospace> can be described across a range of social network related metrics. Also, the social network formed within a group is evaluated in combination with user-provided demographic and preference data. Archetypal analysis is used to classify groups into archetypes and a correlation analysis is presented covering the effect of group characteristics on in-game activity. Finally, weekly activity profiles are described. Our results indicate that group size as well as the number of moderators within a group and their connectedness to other team members influences a group's activity. We also identified four prototypical types of groups with different characteristics concerning composition, social cohesion, and activity.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1109/TG.2018.2858024
IEEE Transactions on Games
Keywords
DocType
Volume
Games,Social network services,Measurement,Correlation,Buildings,Tools,Focusing
Journal
11
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
4
2475-1502
0
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.34
0
7
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Michael H. Schiller100.34
Günter Wallner28012.71
Christopher Schinnerl300.34
Alexander Monte Calvo400.34
Johanna Pirker57022.79
Rafet Sifa613330.03
Anders Drachen751453.24