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

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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.