Leveraging community-generated data to steer the evolution of computer games

电脑游戏是一种快速发展的应用类型。预计2018年游戏行业的收入将达到近1380亿美元，远远超过电影等其他流行娱乐行业。由于游戏行业的规模，以及玩家很难取悦的事实，开发一款成功的游戏变得具有挑战性，而且往往成本高昂。例如，《侠盗猎车手5》的开发预算为1.37亿美元，营销预算为1.28亿美元，总收益为60亿美元，使其成为有史以来收入最高的娱乐产品。另一方面，《Fable Legends》因为几个原因被取消，包括在投入7500万美元开发后缺乏玩家兴趣。

Computer games are a rapidly growing application genre. With a projected revenue of almost $138 billion in 2018, the gaming industry has significantly outgrown other popular entertainment industries, such as the movie industry. Because of the scale of the gaming industry, and the fact that gamers are extremely hard to please, it has become challenging, and often costly, to develop a successful game. For example, the Grand Theft Auto V game had a $137 million development budget, a $128 million marketing budget, and grossed $6 billion, making it the highest-grossing entertainment product ever. On the other hand, the Fable Legends game was cancelled for several reasons, including a lack of player interest, after investing $75 million in its development. To ensure that a game meets the high and ever-changing expectations of the gaming community, it is essential to take into account the feedback of gamers throughout the game development and maintenance processes. Traditionally, such feedback has been difficult to acquire. However, the recent trend of digitally distributing games has improved the process of providing and collecting feedback. For example, digital distribution platforms allow users to buy, download, and review thousands of PC games (e.g., through the Steam platform) and hundreds of thousands of mobile game apps (e.g., through the Google Play store). These reviews contain valuable information about the gamer-perceived quality of a game, which can be leveraged by game developers to make decisions about how to evolve their games. Such valuable information is also available from other sources, such as game blogs and gameplay videos. My long-term vision is to leverage the data that is generated by the gaming community to steer the evolution of computer games. In my proposed research program, I focus on the following two short-term goals: (1) better understanding and improving the feedback cycle between game developers and gamers, and (2) better understanding and supporting the efforts that are made by the gaming community to evolve games, such as unofficial game modifications. A better understanding of the feedback cycle, and community efforts to evolve a game, can help developers make important decisions about the evolution of their games, thereby reducing the financial risk of their current and future games. My research will allow game developers to leverage unexplored sources of user feedback, which gives them a competitive edge in the $138 billion gaming industry. Many game developers (e.g., Bioware) are based in Canada. These, and other game developers will greatly benefit from my research. My proposed research program will train 10 HQP: 2 PhD, 3 MSc students and 5 undergraduate students (one per summer term). Given the high need for data analysts in industry and academia, the set of data analytics skills that the trainees will acquire during this research program makes them extremely valuable after their graduation.