research-article

Improving player balancing in racing games

Authors:

Jared E. Cechanowicz,

Ian StavnessAuthors Info & Claims

CHI PLAY '14: Proceedings of the first ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play

Pages 47 - 56

https://doi.org/10.1145/2658537.2658701

Published: 19 October 2014 Publication History

Abstract

In competitive games where players' skill levels are mis-matched, the play experience can be unsatisfying for both stronger and weaker players. Player balancing provides assistance for less-skilled players in order to make games more competitive and engaging. Although player balancing can be seen in many real-world games, there is little work on the design and effectiveness of these techniques outside of shooting games. In this paper we provide new knowledge about player balancing in the popular and competitive rac-ing genre. We studied issues of noticeability and balancing effectiveness in a prototype racing game, and tested the effects of several balancing techniques on performance and play experience. The techniques significantly improved the balance of player performance, were preferred by both experts and novices, increased novices' feelings of competi-tiveness, and did not detract from experts' experience. Our results provide new understanding of the design and use of player balancing for racing games, and provide novel tech-niques that can also be applied to other genres.

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Cited By

Tyack AMekler E(2024)Self-Determination Theory and HCI Games Research: Unfulfilled Promises and Unquestioned ParadigmsACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/367323031:3(1-74)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3673230
Sako SIkeda TAoki RMiyata A(2024)Inclusive esports: Sense of Agency and Fairness through Pre-Training-Based Assistive MethodsProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3688488(1-4)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663548.3688488
Majid MCrawfis R(2024)A Framework to Even-Out Racetrack BiasProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3659849(1-8)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3659849
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Index Terms

Improving player balancing in racing games
1. Human-centered computing

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

CHI PLAY '14: Proceedings of the first ACM SIGCHI annual symposium on Computer-human interaction in play

October 2014

492 pages

ISBN:9781450330145

DOI:10.1145/2658537

General Chair:
Lennart E. Nacke
University of Ontario Institute of Technology, Canada
,
Program Chair:
T.C. Nicholas Graham
Queen's University, Canada

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected].

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SIGCHI: ACM Special Interest Group on Computer-Human Interaction

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Published: 19 October 2014

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CHI PLAY '14

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CHI PLAY '14: The annual symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

October 19 - 21, 2014

Ontario, Toronto, Canada

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CHI PLAY '14 Paper Acceptance Rate 30 of 104 submissions, 29%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 421 of 1,386 submissions, 30%

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Cited By

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https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3673230
Sako SIkeda TAoki RMiyata A(2024)Inclusive esports: Sense of Agency and Fairness through Pre-Training-Based Assistive MethodsProceedings of the 26th International ACM SIGACCESS Conference on Computers and Accessibility10.1145/3663548.3688488(1-4)Online publication date: 27-Oct-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3663548.3688488
Majid MCrawfis R(2024)A Framework to Even-Out Racetrack BiasProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3659849(1-8)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3659849
Vlahovic SSlivar ISilic MSkorin-kapov LSuznjevic M(2024)Exploring the Facets of the Multiplayer VR Gaming ExperienceACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications10.1145/364989720:9(1-24)Online publication date: 29-Feb-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649897
Pais PGonçalves DGerling KRomão TGuerreiro TRodrigues A(2024)Promoting Family Play through Asymmetric Game DesignProceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction10.1145/36373928:CSCW1(1-24)Online publication date: 26-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3637392
Gonçalves DBarros DPais PGuerreiro JGuerreiro TRodrigues A(2024)The Trick is to Stay Behind?: Defining and Exploring the Design Space of Player Balancing MechanicsProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642441(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3613904.3642441
Mortazavi FMoradi HVahabie A(2024)Dynamic difficulty adjustment approaches in video games: a systematic literature reviewMultimedia Tools and Applications10.1007/s11042-024-18768-x83:35(83227-83274)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/s11042-024-18768-x
Rings SSchmidt SSchmelter TBrosius MSteinicke F(2023)Gaze Assistance for Older Adults during Throwing in Virtual Reality and its Effects on Performance and MotivationProceedings of the 29th ACM Symposium on Virtual Reality Software and Technology10.1145/3611659.3615706(1-11)Online publication date: 9-Oct-2023
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Ballou N(2023)A Manifesto for More Productive Psychological Games ResearchGames: Research and Practice10.1145/35829291:1(1-26)Online publication date: 12-Mar-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3582929
Schneider AGraham T(2023)Supporting Aim Assistance Algorithms through a Rapidly Trainable, Personalized Model of Players’ Spatial and Temporal Aiming AbilityProceedings of the 2023 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3544548.3581293(1-17)Online publication date: 19-Apr-2023
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