research-article

Grinding to a Halt: The Effects of Long Play Sessions on Player Performance in Video Games

Authors:

Thomas Muender,

Dmitry Alexandrovsky,

Rainer MalakaAuthors Info & Claims

CHI PLAY Companion '23: Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

Pages 36 - 42

https://doi.org/10.1145/3573382.3616073

Published: 06 October 2023 Publication History

Abstract

An increasing number of people spend considerable amounts of their leisure time on video games. For aspiring eSports athletes and professionals alike, playing for ten to fourteen hours per day to gain proficiency has become the norm. Consequently, musculoskeletal pain and injuries are common among eSports athletes, while the increased risk for various health issues connected to prolonged sitting is often considered to be a necessary sacrifice for mastery. However, studies that show a decrease in player performance due to prolonged task execution have already emerged. These studies use rough estimates of player performance, such as overall win rates or kill-death-assist-ratio (KDA), and are often restricted to a rather modest number of participants. In this paper, we present an observational study that uses nuanced and individual performance metrics to measure performance in a large sample (n = 5, 000) of League of Legends players. Significant decreases in individual performance relative to the number of consecutively played matches are found and presented. Moreover, a considerable decline in the win rate is observed. This study highlights the potential improvement that the exploration of structured training methods could have on training efficiency and overall health in eSports enthusiasts.

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Cited By

Bikas IPfau JMuender TMalaka R(2024)Space Out Gaming: Comparing Distributed Practice Sessions with Massed PlayProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3656985(1-4)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3656985

Index Terms

Grinding to a Halt: The Effects of Long Play Sessions on Player Performance in Video Games
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
      1. Computer games
2. Human-centered computing
  1. Human computer interaction (HCI)
    1. Empirical studies in HCI

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cover image ACM Conferences

CHI PLAY Companion '23: Companion Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

October 2023

370 pages

ISBN:9798400700293

DOI:10.1145/3573382

Copyright © 2023 ACM.

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Published: 06 October 2023

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Bikas IPfau JMuender TMalaka R(2024)Space Out Gaming: Comparing Distributed Practice Sessions with Massed PlayProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3656985(1-4)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3656985

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