Bayesian clustering of player styles for multiplayer games

Abstract

With game play data, empirical approaches to clustering are typically based solely on game outcomes, e.g. kills, deaths, and score for each player. In this paper, we investigate a method for clustering players based on how a player's choices relate to outcomes, or equivalently the latent player styles exhibited by players. Our approach is based on a Bayesian semi-parametric clustering method which has several advantages: the number of clusters do not need to be specified a priori; the technique can work with a very compact representation of each match (e.g. consisting primarily of indicator variables for player choices); a player can belong to multiple clusters and hence can have a hybrid style; and the resulting clusterings often have a straight-forward interpretation. To demonstrate the approach, we apply our method to multiplayer match logs from Battlefield 3 consisting of over 1200 players and 500,000 matches.