Video Games as Research Instruments

Abstract
The workshop aims to help researchers share
experience and expertise on the use of video games as
research instruments in HCI and related disciplines. It
will focus on existing uses, methodologies, results and
issues with using video games, and is expected to lead
to a better shared understanding of their current and
future use across a variety of disciplines.
Keywords
Video Games, Experience, Experimental Design.
ACM Classification Keywords
K8.0. Personal Computing: Games.
General Terms
Experimentation, Human Factors
Motivation
Video games have a history of being used as stimuli in
experiments that study a range of phenomena.
Although a great deal of work is focused on developing
and studying games for entertainment and education,
they may also be used to investigate more general
phenomena, albeit in a video game context.
Interest in more general uses of video games is on the
rise in HCI and other disciplines. They have been used
to study human error [1], addiction [2] and user
experience [3], among other subjects. However,
communication between researchers in different areas
Copyright is held by the author/owner(s).
CHI 2010, April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
ACM 978-1-60558-930-5/10/04.
Eduardo H. Calvillo Gámez
División de Nuevas Tecnologías
de la Información
Universidad Politécnica de San
Luis Potosi
Urbano Villalón 500
San Luis Potosi, SLP, México
e.calvillo@upslp.edu.mx

Paul Cairns
HCI Group
Dept of Computer Science
University of York
York YO10 5DD, UK
pcairns@cs.york.ac.uk

Jeremy Gow
Computational Creativity Group
Dept of Computer Science
Imperial College London
London SW7 2AZ, UK
jgow@doc.ic.ac.uk

Jonathan Back
UCL Interaction Centre
University College London
London WC1E 6BT, UK
j.back@ucl.ac.uk

Eddie Capstick
UCL Interaction Centre
University College London
London WC1E 6BT, UK
capsek2@hotmail.com
CHI 2010: Workshops April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA
4493

is often limited or nonexistent. There is an untapped
opportunity to share experience and expertise.
We aim to find common ground among diverse
methodologies, e.g. the need for logging, manipulating
existing game dynamics or developing games from
scratch for research. This common ground will be
identified during the workshop. A potential outcome is
to run a course next year at CHI on using video games
as research instruments.
Workshop Focus
The objective of the workshop is to encourage
discussion amongst researchers who use video games
as research instruments, who would not normally talk
to each other. It is aimed at researchers from across
HCI and related disciplines in order to share good
practice and resources while working with video games.

The focus is on research that uses video games to
contribute to an understanding of more general
phenomena, such as user experience, decision making,
human error or addiction, and which is not aimed
exclusively (or at all) at game development.
The workshop will cover the variety of uses,
methodologies and issues that characterize current
efforts to employ video games as research instruments.
It will bring together researchers from a variety of
disciplines that use video games in their work, to share
experience of and expertise in their use.
Workshop Goals
During the workshop, participants will present and
discuss their work in order to identify the shared
characteristics and key differences in their use of video
games.
At the end of workshop we expect to have an overview
of the state-of-the-art, and an improved understanding
of the key issues in using video games as research
instruments, based on the case studies presented. We
will also identify how different areas can learn from
each other and perhaps collaborate in the future.
Participants & Community
HCI researchers, computer scientists, psychologists
who work with video games are invited to apply. We
also encourage researchers from a wider range of
disciplines to apply. For example, medical researchers,
economists, social scientists, linguists, biologists
(protein folding as a game).

Participants from all disciplines that use video games as
part of their experimental design are invited to present
a 4 page position paper. The paper should focus on the
general problem your research addresses, how and why
video games are used, an overview of results and a
discussion of experiences and issues specific to using
games on how video games are used to address their
phenomena of interests, and how the experiments were
designed to account for the video game. No more than
20 participants will be invited to attend.
The research presented may have aims completely
unrelated to video games, or may focus on video
games in order to investigate a more general
phenomena. Work which is exclusively aimed at
development of video games (including serious games)
will not be accepted.
CHI 2010: Workshops April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA
4494

We hope the workshop will highlight to the general
research community the diverse uses and possibilities
of using video games in HCI and related disciplines.
References
[1] Back, J., Cheng, W, Dann, R., Curzon, P., &
Blandford, A. (2006). Does being motivated to avoid
procedural errors influence their systematicity? People
and Computers XX - Engage Proceedings of HCI 2006
(Vol. 1).
[2] Seah, M. and Cairns, P. (2008) From Immersion to
addiction in videogames. In England, D. and Beale, R.
(Eds) Proc. of HCI 2008, vol 1 BCS, 55-63.
[3] Calvillo-Gámez, E., Cairns, P. and Cox, A. (2009)
From the Gaming Experience to the Wider User
Experience. In Blackwell, A. (Ed.) Proc. of BCS HCI
2009.

CHI 2010: Workshops April 10–15, 2010, Atlanta, GA, USA
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