Leveraging digital social games for relatedness satisfaction

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Social rather than individual play is quickly becoming the dominant form of digital game play: the majority of gamers play in multiplayer mode at least weekly because they feel that video games help them connect with friends and family. Digital games played both in-person and online can foster social interactions that are vital for our well-being; but, the same mechanics and communication technologies that foster social closeness in games can also lead to harmful toxic social behaviours. As designers and developers currently have little guidance on how to design multiplayer games that lead to social closeness rather than toxicity, my long-term research objective is to establish the relationships between game design factors and social outcomes and leverage these relationships in the design of multiplayer game interfaces and systems.I will focus on three groups of Game Design Factors. In looking at the Structural Elements of Games, I will break down mechanics, rules, procedures, and patterns of play. To investigate the role of Communication Elements in Games, I will study interpersonal communication between players. And to consider the role of Individual Differences, I will investigate the moderating influence of individual differences in player motivation and play style. For each Game Design Factor, I will take three complementary Research Approaches. First, I will systematically deconstruct which design factors foster social interaction or lead to toxic behaviour, generating design frameworks and descriptions of relationships through controlled experiments. Second, I will create predictive models from natural gameplay of how design factors lead to positive social outcomes, building mathematical models that inform theory and design through data mining and predictive modeling. Third, I will design and evaluate novel interfaces that nudge interactions towards positive social behaviours, creating interaction techniques and novel interfaces through an iterative interface design approach. I will directly train 17 HQP in 9 projects that cross the 3 Game Design Factors with the 3 Research Approaches. Their research will lead to scientific discoveries and the invention of novel technologies. Pioneering advances will be made in Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), games research, user modeling, and Computer-Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW). This program of research will benefit Canada by training HQP with specialized skills who are in great demand in the thriving Canadian game and software development industries, will benefit Canadian game companies by helping to improve their products and extend them to new markets, and will help Canadians by developing technologies that can directly improve their social well-being.