Social Game Studies

Overview | Call for Papers | Schedule | Papers (to follow)

“Social Game Studies at CHI 2011” is a one-day workshop at the CHI 2011 conference in Vancouver, May 8, 2011. For questions, please contact us at chi2011 at socialgamestudies.org.

Abstract

Social network games, or “social games”, have become an important subject of research in a wide range of disciplines. Academics in Game Studies mostly study the mechanical and aesthetical forms of the genre; psychologists note the motivational and social psychological mechanisms employed; economists look at novel business models and processes for game development; and sociologists inquire the appeal of social games to a huge new audience not previously interested in games.

Social Game Studies at CHI 2011 is a one-day workshop that will bring together the CHI community with an inter-disciplinary mix of researchers and practitioners to explore the issues surrounding this emerging topic, how they connect to HCI research, and highlight the key questions and challenges for future academic study.

Workshop Topic

Social games are becoming an important part of the online gaming landscape. In February 2010, the Facebook game FarmVille peaked with over 83 million monthly active users only eight months after its launch, surpassing previous documented records of most wildly distributed PC, console and online video games This appeal of social games to a vast, formerly ‘nongamer’ audience raises the questions which new demographics social games engage, what (new) usage motivations and behaviors they tap into, and which (new) design features afford them. Who plays these games – and why? How are they designed and used? These questions are important not only to academics in the field of game studies, but also in psychology, sociology, computer science and HCI.

Social Game Studies at CHI 2011 is a one-day workshop at CHI 2011 that aims to bring together the HCI community with academics from a variety of backgrounds to further define the area of study and to highlight the major questions, challenges and opportunities in this new field of inquiry. Although researchers in HCI have already begun looking into aspects of social games – e.g. virtual item purchasing behaviors, diffusion dynamics of games on social networks and the effect of socio-contextual information, work has so far remained mostly exploratory. More importantly, it is wanting in terms of connections with research efforts in other fields, a shared understanding of the research opportunities afforded by social games. such as the negotiation of identities, communities and social contexts in online spaces; design patterns, principles and heuristics for hedonic and sociable user experiences; or the dynamics of social ties and informational diffusion in social networks.

We therefore believe that this CHI 2011 workshop on social games will be of great interest and benefit to HCI researchers. The goals of the workshop include:

1. Identify and systemize issues, methodologies and approaches from HCI that relate to the study of social games.
2. Cross-pollinate the HCI and social game studies community.
3. Identify the most relevant interdisciplinary research questions on social games, and how they might integrate the assets and interests of HCI.

The long-term goal is to build out a researcher community with a shared knowledge base and research trajectory from which sustained project and publication efforts can flow.Accepted workshop papers are invited to submit an amended version to a special issue of Entertainment Computing.

Organizing Committee

Ben Kirman
The primary contact for the co-organizers is Ben Kirman, a
Lecturer in the Social Computing (LiSC) Research Centre, whose research background includes the quantitative study of player patterns in social games using social network analysis.

Staffan Björk
Staffan Björk is an associate professor at Göteborg University, where he heads the interaction design unit, and as senior researcher at the Game studio of the Interactive Institute, where he heads the Game
research group. His research interest primarily focuses
upon developing a vocabulary for gameplay through the
use of design patterns.

Sebastian Deterding
Sebastian Deterding is an affiliated researcher with the Hans Bredow Institute for Media Research and a PhD Candidate with the Graduate School Media and Communication at Hamburg University. His research
looks into the use of game design elements to motivate user behaviour in non-game contexts.

Janne Paavilainen
Janne Paavilainen is a project manager at the Game Research Lab, University of Tampere, Finland. Janne is currently running the SoPlay research project focusing on play and games in social media. His research interests include social games design and evaluation heuristics, and player experience in social games.

Valentina Rao
Valentina Rao is a PhD candidate at Utrecht University in the Netherlands, currently working on argumentation and persuasion strategies in serious games; in several years as an independent researcher she published about the role of social games in social networks and the use of playful interaction for non-play purposes.

Overview | Call for Papers | Schedule | Papers (to follow)