HCI Games Group
Researching Affective Systems and Engaging Interactions
Crosspost from SWaGUR.ca. An Exchange with Europe’s Cyprus Interaction Lab Earlier this summer, SWaGUR professor Lennart Nacke visited the Cyprus Interaction Lab visited from the Cyprus University of Technology on an Erasmus exchange for teaching and training of students there and to set up a collaboration with the group to integrate the local training efforts with the SWaGUR training …
Written by Alberto Mora. Puede leer la versión en español de este post aquí. A lot has been written about the benefits of gamification in recent years. When people talk about gamification they generally focus on sectors such as education, marketing, sales, energy, and health. However, there are a variety of different areas that could …
Written by Lennart E. Nacke, Director of the HCI Games Group. It happened this afternoon. I was on a weekend trip. Outside of town. Pokémon Go finally arrived in Canada. I did not believe what happened next. Pokémon GO is now available in Canada! Discover and capture Pokémon all around you. pic.twitter.com/uTXwIk85IZ — Pokémon GO …
Written by Melissa Stocco. In my last post, I looked at the 15 ways gamification can be applied to education. I wanted to supplement my previous post by providing some concrete examples of how gamification is being used in the classroom. In addition, I made a list of tools for teachers and for students that …
Written by Dennis L. Kappen and Lennart E. Nacke HCI Games Group collaborated with Erin Billowits, founder and owner of Vintage Fitness, a Toronto based health and wellness company catering to the fitness training needs of adults of age 50 years and older. Vintage Fitness aimed to engage older adults in daily exercise routines by catering to …
The HCI Games Group attended and presented several works at CHI PLAY 2015, the second edition of the ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. CHI PLAY is an international and interdisciplinary conference for researchers and professionals of all areas of play, games, and human-computer interaction, which fosters discussion of current high quality …
The HCI Games Group will be at CHI PLAY 2015 next week in London, UK! If you are going to the Conference, come play our game CHI PLAYGUE with us! CHI PLAYGUE is a conference game designed to facilitate interaction among strangers and encourage social networking. To defend from a cybernetic alien invasion, each participant …
By: Amanda Leo, Samantha Stahlke, Rylan Koroluk, and Rina Wehbe Left 4 Dead 2 is a cooperative first-person shooter game developed by Valve Corporation and released in 2009. The immense popularity of the Left 4 Dead (L4D) series has inspired the release of a comic and a large …
The Gameful World is a book that aims to examine the key challenges of gamification and the ludification of culture, or, as presented by the editors, the Gameful World. It contains essays from more than 50 acknowledged experts representing both academia and industry. The collection is edited by Steffen P. Walz, Associate Professor and Director …
There are many methods of combining various technologies with the goal of enhancing an experience, especially within the context of user immersion. The Gadget Show, a television program based out of the United Kingdom, looks at many of these combinations of technology both inside and outside of video game applications. In an episode focused on …
For those just joining, please see the first article in this series for an introduction to MOBA’s and general overview of this design discussion. https://hcigames.com/news/heroes-of-the-storm-vs-league-of-legends-a-game-design-breakdown/ Player Progression – Gold vs. Experience With the introduction to MOBAs out of the way, we delve a little deeper… This article in the series has been written to address …
An Introduction to MOBAs Multiplayer Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games are one of the most played genres of video games on the planet right now and they comprise a significant portion of modern e-sports. To understand how they developed, we should first examine one of the earliest examples. One of the most iconic early MOBAs …
In the last few years, there has been a growing interest in the application of game elements to real-life goals and tasks. These efforts are often directed towards self-improvement, encouraging positive lifestyle changes, and increasing motivation to complete work objectives. The idea of using games to modify activities that are not traditionally considered games is …
Stealth games are rather common in today’s video game culture. Popular titles such as Metal Gear Solid, Thief, Assassins Creed, The Last of Us, Hitman, Sly Cooper, and Splinter Cell often come to mind when discussing challenging yet exhilarating games. These games provide an overwhelming sense of immersion as difficult tasks draw the player in, …
Part of the article series Looking at Gamification: Personal Viewpoints. As a first-year wading (well, cliff-diving, really) into the depths of academic research reports last fall, I was struck with what you might call “jargon fatigue.” Though I was no stranger to general scientific reading, upon broaching the field of game research, I was quickly …
It seems like an age old argument among educators, parents, caretakers and peers; are video games good or bad for social behavior? Parents often worry that participating in video games will give their children poor morals, increase aggression and decrease sociability. However, some find games to be an effective aid for social interactions, while others …
This year, the annual ACM conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), was held in Toronto, Ontario. The conference serves as a global summit of researchers, academics, and industry professionals in fields related to computer science, software development, user research, and interaction design. At the conference, the HCI Games Group was involved in the organization of both …
This year, the IEEE Consumer Electronics Society launched the Games, Entertainment, and Media (GEM) conference series, following the success of the previous International Games Innovation Conferences. Uniting the worlds of research and industry expertise, the conference serves as a platform for examining the current state of the art in game development and user research. The …
For the first time this year, prestigious game researchers and designers from all over the world gather for an international conference exploring new developments in gaming technology and research applications. The conference, entitled Computer-Human Interaction in Play or CHI PLAY, was held in Toronto this past week. We are proud to announce that CHI PLAY …
HCI research has many applications outside of the laboratory. Concepts related to user experience and interactive entertainment are ingrained in several aspects of everyday life, especially with the increasing prevalence of mobile and social technology. By applying the principles of games research to systems design, we can enhance the quality of commonplace interactions, inspiring a …
