Developing Guidelines for Improving Player Retention in Multiplayer Games by Designing Experiences Beyond Gameplay

在与Norsfell的合作中，我们的目标是探索旨在提高长期玩家留存率的游戏内和游戏后机制的设计，并了解是什么使这些互动有效地保持玩家的兴趣。我们的核心目标是更全面地了解玩家如何长期沉浸在数字游戏中，以及开发者如何改进他们的设计。该研究项目将关注玩家在游戏体验之外的参与度评估，这是该领域研究相对不足的领域。考虑到设计师在吸引和留住大量玩家基础方面必须克服的挑战，对这一主题的调查在当代游戏市场中尤为重要。这是Norsfell工作室目前面临的研究挑战，因为他们目前的项目是一款多人游戏，具有持续的游戏内进程，这意味着游戏内事件可以在玩家离开时发生。开发者关心的是设计鼓励留存率的系统，例如通过平衡游戏内部机制来促进更高的玩家粘性，以及创建游戏后系统来让玩家在不玩游戏时了解游戏内部事件。在这个项目中，我们希望为玩家留存机制的设计创造一套正式的指导方针，为游戏开发者和研究人员的集体知识做出有价值的贡献。电子游戏产业为加拿大的GDP贡献了37亿美元，雇佣了超过21700名全职员工。这项研究的结果将直接适用于游戏产业。

In collaboration with Norsfell, we aim to explore the design of in- and post-game mechanics intended toenhance long-term player retention, and understand what makes these interactions effective in sustaining playerinterest. Our core goal is to gain a more complete understanding of how players remain engaged with digitalgames over the long term, and how developers might improve their designs as a result. This research projectwill focus on the evaluation of player engagement outside of the play experience, an area which has beenrelatively understudied in the field. Given the challenges that designers must overcome in attracting andretaining a sizeable player base, the investigation of this topic is especially relevant in the contemporary gamesmarket.This is the current research challenge for Norsfell Studio, as their current project is a multiplayer title withpersistent in-game progression, meaning that in-game events can occur while players are away. The developersare concerned with designing systems for encouraging retention, by balancing in-game mechanics to facilitatehigher player engagement, and creating post-gameplay systems for keeping players informed of in-game eventswhile they are not playing, for example.With this project, we hope to create a set of formalized guidelines for the design of player retention mechanics,providing a valuable contribution to the collective knowledge of game developers and researchers alike. Thevideo game industry contributes over $3.7 billion to Canada's GDP and employs the equivalent of over 21,700full time employees. The outcomes of this research will be directly applicable to the game industry.