What Makes a Video Game Popular: Researchers Take on the Challenge

Researchers at the University of Granada have tried to establish the characteristics that a video game must have to be entertaining.

They have created a video game that will serve as a model to assess all aspects related to video games; it has also established a conceptual framework that will allow experts to assess players' experiences.

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The researchers based their study on their own experiences in previous projects where they developed educational resources and video games aimed at educational environments

According to Jose Luis Gonzalez Sanchez , playability is an abstract concept difficult to define "as it features both the inherent functional and the non-functional aspects of the experience undergone by a player, when playing with a video game".

Thus, playability is "the set of properties describing a player's experience when playing -be it alone or with other players- with a specific game that is intended to be both entertaining and credible".

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Their own experience in previous projects where they developed video games aimed at an educational environment "helped us in knowing what children expect from video games, and in understanding what they consider to be entertaining" -main author points out.

Thus, if surveys and trends are true "video games will be used both by children and by the elder in the future. For this reason, we should understand the standards that video games should meet to ensure that this comes true".

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The team concluded that "video games have their own evaluation and formalization rules. We think that this study represents a step forward in standarizing and defining what people exepct from electronic entertainment interactive systems".

The study appears in the journal Advances in Engineering Software.

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Source-ANI