Mike Schäkermann
Master's Student
Mike has a background in physiological sensors, medicine and game development. He has worked with Rina on a project about inserting real-time markers into EEG data for ERP analysis. His research at the University of Waterloo (co-supervisors: Dr. Lennart Nacke and Dr. Edith Law) will be located at the intersection of human computation, EEG analysis and playful interaction.
Projects
Publications
Year 2017
Mike Schäkermann,
Giovanni Ribeiro, Guenter Wallner, Simone Kriglstein, Daniel Johnson, Anders Drachen, Rafet Sifa, and
Lennart E. Nacke. 2017. Curiously Motivated: Profiling Curiosity with Self-Reports and Behaviour Metrics in the Game “Destiny”. In
Proceedings of the 2017 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play - CHI PLAY '17. Amsterdam, Netherlands. ACM, 143-156 .
doi:10.1145/3116595.3116603 @inproceedings{Schaekermann2017,
abstract = {Identifying player motivations such as curiosity could help game designers analyze player profiles and substantially improve game design. However, research on player profiling focuses on generalized personality traits, not specific aspects of motivation. This study examines how player behaviour indicates constructs of curiosity-related motivation. It contributes a more discriminating operationalization of game-related curiosity. We derive a curiosity measure from established self-report survey methodologies relating to social capital, behavioural activation, obsessive/harmonious passion, and BrainHex player types. We present the results of a cross-sectional study with data from 1,745 players of Destiny—a popular shared-world first-person shooter (FPS) game. Behaviour metrics were paired with four curiosity factors: ‘social' curiosity, ‘sensory/cognitive' curiosity, ‘novelty-seeking' curiosity, and ‘explorative' curiosity. Our findings provide key insights into the relationships between players curiosity and their in-game behaviour. We infer curiosity-related motivational profiles from behaviour metrics, and discuss how this may impact game design and player-computer interaction.},
author = {Schaekermann, Mike and Ribeiro, Giovanni and Wallner, Guenter and Kriglstein, Simone and Johnson, Daniel and Drachen, Anders and Sifa, Rafet and Nacke, Lennart E},
booktitle = {The ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (CHI PLAY 2017)},
doi = {10.1145/3116595.3116603},
isbn = {9781450348980},
mendeley-groups = {HCI Games Group Publications},
publisher = {ACM},
title = {{Curiously Motivated: Profiling Curiosity with Self-Reports and Behaviour Metrics in the Game "Destiny"}},
year = {2017}
}Identifying player motivations such as curiosity could help game designers analyze player profiles and substantially improve game design. However, research on player profiling focuses on generalized personality traits, not specific aspects of motivation. This study examines how player behaviour indicates constructs of curiosity-related motivation. It contributes a more discriminating operationalization of game-related curiosity. We derive a curiosity measure from established self-report survey methodologies relating to social capital, behavioural activation, obsessive/harmonious passion, and BrainHex player types. We present the results of a cross-sectional study with data from 1,745 players of Destiny—a popular shared-world first-person shooter (FPS) game. Behaviour metrics were paired with four curiosity factors: ‘social’ curiosity, ‘sensory/cognitive’ curiosity, ‘novelty-seeking’ curiosity, and ‘explorative’ curiosity. Our findings provide key insights into the relationships between players curiosity and their in-game behaviour. We infer curiosity-related motivational profiles from behaviour metrics, and discuss how this may impact game design and player-computer interaction.
Rina R. Wehbe,
Elisa D. Mekler,
Mike Schäkermann, Edward Lank, and
Lennart E. Nacke. 2017. Testing Incremental Difficulty Design in Platformer Games. In
Proceeding of the 2017 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - CHI 2017. Denver, CO, USA. ACM, 5109-5113.
doi:10.1145/3025453.3025697 @inproceedings{Wehbe2017,
abstract = {Designing difficulty levels in platformer games is a challenge for game designers. It is important because design decisions that affect difficulty also directly affect player experience. Consequently, design strategies for balancing game difficulty are discussed by both academics and game designers. In this paper, we study how manipulating the following design decisions, commonly found in platformers, moderates difficulty: Scroll Speed, Target Size, Jump Task Complexity, and Perspective. Results for Scroll Speed and Target Size indicate that errors increase as speed increases and platform size decreases. However, results for jump task complexity demonstrate a separation of errors from task complexity. Specifically, while double-jump tasks are harder than single-jump tasks, triple-jump tasks appear to be as difficult as double-jump tasks. Additionally, the study demonstrates how changes in perspective affect the errors made by players in gameplay. The study results are applicable both to automatic level generation and dynamic difficulty adjustment in platformer games.},
address = {Denver, CO, USA},
author = {Wehbe, Rina R and Mekler, Elisa D and Schaekermann, Mike and Lank, Edward and Nacke, Lennart E},
booktitle = {Proceeding of the 2017 ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems},
doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3025453.3025697},
pages = {5109--5113},
publisher = {ACM},
title = {{Testing Incremental Difficulty Design in Platformer Games}},
year = {2017}
}Designing difficulty levels in platformer games is a challenge for game designers. It is important because design decisions that affect difficulty also directly affect player experience. Consequently, design strategies for balancing game difficulty are discussed by both academics and game designers. In this paper, we study how manipulating the following design decisions, commonly found in platformers, moderates difficulty: Scroll Speed, Target Size, Jump Task Complexity, and Perspective. Results for Scroll Speed and Target Size indicate that errors increase as speed increases and platform size decreases. However, results for jump task complexity demonstrate a separation of errors from task complexity. Specifically, while double-jump tasks are harder than single-jump tasks, triple-jump tasks appear to be as difficult as double-jump tasks. Additionally, the study demonstrates how changes in perspective affect the errors made by players in gameplay. The study results are applicable both to automatic level generation and dynamic difficulty adjustment in platformer games.
