Melissa J. Rogerson
Joshua Newn
ABSTRACT
More than 18 months after it was first identified, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to restrict researchers’ opportunities to conduct research in face-to-face settings. This affects studies requiring participants to be co-located, such as those that examine the play of multiplayer boardgames. We present two methods for observing the play of boardgames at a distance, supported by two case studies. We report on the value and use of both methods, and reflect on five core concepts that we observed during the studies: data collection and analysis, recruitment and participation, the temporality of play, the sociality of play and material engagement, and the researcher’s role in the study. This work highlights the different considerations that online studies generate when compared to in-person play and other study methods. Future work will present an in-depth discussion of the findings of these studies and present recommendations for the adoption of these distinct methods.
- Deepti Aggarwal, Bernd Ploderer, Frank Vetere, Mark Bradford, and Thuong Hoang. 2016. Doctor, Can You See My Squats? Understanding Bodily Communication in Video Consultations for Physiotherapy. In Proceedings of the 2016 ACM Conference on Designing Interactive Systems (Brisbane, QLD, Australia) (DIS ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1197–1208. https://doi.org/10.1145/2901790.2901871Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Mandy M. Archibald, Rachel C. Ambagtsheer, Mavourneen G. Casey, and Michael Lawless. 2019. Using Zoom Videoconferencing for Qualitative Data Collection: Perceptions and Experiences of Researchers and Participants. International Journal of Qualitative Methods 18 (2019), 1609406919874596. https://doi.org/10.1177/1609406919874596Google ScholarCross Ref
- Tom Boellstorff. 2006. A Ludicrous Discipline? Ethnography and Game Studies. Games and Culture 1, 1 (2006), 29–35. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412005281620Google ScholarCross Ref
- Murray Campbell, A.Joseph Hoane, and Feng hsiung Hsu. 2002. Deep Blue. Artificial Intelligence 134, 1 (2002), 57 – 83. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0004-3702(01)00129-1Google ScholarDigital Library
- Marcus Carter, John Downs, Bjorn Nansen, Mitchell Harrop, and Martin Gibbs. 2014. Paradigms of Games Research in HCI: A Review of 10 Years of Research at CHI. In Proceedings of the First ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play(Toronto, Ontario, Canada) (CHI PLAY ’14). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 27–36. https://doi.org/10.1145/2658537.2658708Google ScholarDigital Library
- Frederico da Rocha Tomé Filho, Pejman Mirza-Babaei, Bill Kapralos, and Glaudiney Moreira Mendonça Junior. 2019. Let’s Play Together: Adaptation Guidelines of Board Games for Players with Visual Impairment. In Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–15. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290605.3300861Google ScholarDigital Library
- Geoffrey Engelstein and Isaac Shalev. 2019. Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design: An Encyclopedia of Mechanisms. CRC Press. https://doi.org/10.1201/9780429430701Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jérémy Frey. 2016. Remote Heart Rate Sensing and Projection to Renew Traditional Board Games and Foster Social Interactions. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (San Jose, California, USA) (CHI EA ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1865–1871. https://doi.org/10.1145/2851581.2892391Google ScholarDigital Library
- Fernand Gobet, Jean Retschitzki, and Alex de Voogt. 2004. Moves in Mind: The Psychology of Board Games. Psychology Press.Google Scholar
- Barbara B. Kawulich. 2005. Participant Observation as a Data Collection Method. Forum Qualitative Sozialforschung / Forum: Qualitative Social Research 6, 2 (May 2005). https://doi.org/10.17169/fqs-6.2.466Google ScholarCross Ref
- Erica Kleinman, Sara Chojnacki, and Magy Seif El-Nasr. 2021. The Gang’s All Here: How People Used Games to Cope with COVID19 Quarantine. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 327, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445072Google ScholarDigital Library
- Wolfgang Kramer and Richard Ulrich. 1995. El Grande. [Boardgame].Google Scholar
- Bernhard Maurer and Verena Fuchsberger. 2019. Dislocated Boardgames: Design Potentials for Remote Tangible Play. Multimodal Technologies and Interaction 3, 4 (2019), 72. https://doi.org/10.3390/mti3040072Google ScholarCross Ref
- Jane Mavoa, Martin Gibbs, and Bjørn Nansen. 2020. “Sometimes I Like Killing as a Treat”: Children’s Transgressive Play in Minecraft. In Proceedings of the 2020 Digital Games Research Association Conference (DiGRA 2020). http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/DiGRA_2020_paper_263.pdfGoogle Scholar
- David L Morgan. 1996. Focus Groups as Qualitative Research. Vol. 16. Sage Publications.Google Scholar
- Joshua Newn, Fraser Allison, Eduardo Velloso, and Frank Vetere. 2018. Looks Can Be Deceiving: Using Gaze Visualisation to Predict and Mislead Opponents in Strategic Gameplay. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Montreal QC, Canada) (CHI ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 261, 12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173835Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joshua Newn, Ronal Singh, Fraser Allison, Prashan Madumal, Eduardo Velloso, and Frank Vetere. 2019. Designing Interactions with Intention-Aware Gaze-Enabled Artificial Agents. In Human-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 2019, David Lamas, Fernando Loizides, Lennart Nacke, Helen Petrie, Marco Winckler, and Panayiotis Zaphiris (Eds.). Springer International Publishing, Cham, 255–281. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-29384-0_17Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joshua Newn, Eduardo Velloso, Fraser Allison, Yomna Abdelrahman, and Frank Vetere. 2017. Evaluating Real-Time Gaze Representations to Infer Intentions in Competitive Turn-Based Strategy Games. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) (CHI PLAY ’17). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 541–552. https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116624Google ScholarDigital Library
- Joshua Newn, Eduardo Velloso, Marcus Carter, and Frank Vetere. 2016. Exploring the Effects of Gaze Awareness on Multiplayer Gameplay. In Proceedings of the 2016 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play Companion Extended Abstracts (Austin, Texas, USA) (CHI PLAY Companion ’16). Association of, New York, NY, USA, 239–244. https://doi.org/10.1145/2968120.2987740Google ScholarDigital Library
- Nandini Pasumarthy, Yi Ling (Ellie) Tai, Rohit Ashok Khot, and Jessica Danaher. 2021. Gooey Gut Trail:Demystifying Human Gut Health Through a Board Game. In Creativity and Cognition (Virtual Event, Italy) (C&C ’21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 19, 1 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3450741.3465390Google ScholarDigital Library
- André Pereira, Rui Prada, and Ana Paiva. 2012. Socially Present Board Game Opponents. In Advances in Computer Entertainment, Anton Nijholt, Teresa Romão, and Dennis Reidsma (Eds.). Springer Berlin Heidelberg, Berlin, Heidelberg, 101–116.Google Scholar
- Melissa J. Rogerson, Martin Gibbs, and Wally Smith. 2016. ”I Love All the Bits”: The Materiality of Boardgames. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (San Jose, California, USA) (CHI ’16). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 3956–3969. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858433Google ScholarDigital Library
- Melissa J. Rogerson, Martin R. Gibbs, and Wally Smith. 2017. What Can We Learn from Eye Tracking Boardgame Play?. In Extended Abstracts Publication of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) (CHI PLAY ’17 Extended Abstracts). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 519–526. https://doi.org/10.1145/3130859.3131314Google ScholarDigital Library
- Melissa J. Rogerson, Martin R. Gibbs, and Wally Smith. 2018. Cooperating to Compete: The Mutuality of Cooperation and Competition in Boardgame Play. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173767Google ScholarDigital Library
- Melissa J. Rogerson, Lucy A. Sparrow, and Martin R. Gibbs. 2021. More Than a Gimmick – Digital Tools for Boardgame Play. In Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, Vol. 5, CHI PLAY. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 261, 23 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3474688Google ScholarDigital Library
- Melissa J. Rogerson, Lucy A. Sparrow, and Martin R. Gibbs. 2021. Unpacking “Boardgames with Apps”: The Hybrid Digital Boardgame Model. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 111, 17 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445077Google ScholarDigital Library
- David Silver, Julian Schrittwieser, Karen Simonyan, Ioannis Antonoglou, Aja Huang, Arthur Guez, Thomas Hubert, Lucas Baker, Matthew Lai, Adrian Bolton, 2017. Mastering the Game of Go without Human Knowledge. Nature 550, 7676 (2017), 354–359. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature24270Google ScholarCross Ref
- Ronal Singh, Tim Miller, Joshua Newn, Liz Sonenberg, Eduardo Velloso, and Frank Vetere. 2018. Combining Planning with Gaze for Online Human Intention Recognition. In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Autonomous Agents and MultiAgent Systems(Stockholm, Sweden) (AAMAS ’18). IFAAMAS, Richland, SC, 488–496. http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=3237383.3237457Google ScholarDigital Library
- Ronal Singh, Tim Miller, Joshua Newn, Eduardo Velloso, Frank Vetere, and Liz Sonenberg. 2020. Combining Gaze and AI Planning for Online Human Intention Recognition. Artificial Intelligence 284, Article 103275 (7 2020), 103275:1–103275:26 pages. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.artint.2020.103275Google ScholarCross Ref
- James R. Wallace, Joseph Pape, Yu-Ling Betty Chang, Phillip J. McClelland, T.C. Nicholas Graham, Stacey D. Scott, and Mark Hancock. 2012. Exploring Automation in Digital Tabletop Board Game. In Proceedings of the ACM 2012 Conference on Computer Supported Cooperative Work Companion (Seattle, Washington, USA) (CSCW ’12). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 231–234. https://doi.org/10.1145/2141512.2141585Google ScholarDigital Library
- Justin D. Weisz, Maryam Ashoori, and Zahra Ashktorab. 2018. Entanglion: A Board Game for Teaching the Principles of Quantum Computing. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (Melbourne, VIC, Australia) (CHI PLAY ’18). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 523–534. https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242696Google ScholarDigital Library
- Dennis Wixon, Karen Holtzblatt, and Stephen Knox. 1990. Contextual Design: An Emergent View of System Design. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Seattle, Washington, USA) (CHI ’90). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 329–336. https://doi.org/10.1145/97243.97304Google ScholarDigital Library
- Xu Yan, Barba Evan, Radu Iulian, Gandy Maribeth, and Macintyre Blair. 2011. Chores Are Fun: Understanding Social Play in Board Games for Digital Tabletop Game Design. In DiGRA - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play. DiGRA/Utrecht School of the Arts. http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/11307.16031.pdfGoogle Scholar
Index Terms
- Observing Multiplayer Boardgame Play at a Distance
Index terms have been assigned to the content through auto-classification.
Recommendations
More Than a Gimmick - Digital Tools for Boardgame Play
CHI PLAYDespite increasing interest in the use of digital tools in boardgames for both commercial and research purposes, little research has to date explored how and why these tools are used. We interviewed 18 professionals working in the boardgame industry to ...
Unpacking “Boardgames with Apps”: The Hybrid Digital Boardgame Model
CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsIncreasingly, modern boardgames incorporate digital apps and tools to deliver content in novel ways. Despite disparate approaches to incorporating digital tools in otherwise non-digital boardgames, there has to date been no detailed classification of ...
Cooperating to Compete: the Mutuality of Cooperation and Competition in Boardgame Play
CHI '18: Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsThis paper examines the complex relationship between competition and cooperation in boardgame play. We understand boardgaming as distributed cognition, where people work together in a shared activity to accomplish the game. Although players typically ...
Comments