Enhancing Social Ties Through Manual Player Matchmaking in Online Multiplayer Games

Abstract

Beyond skill and performance, there is a large social aspect to online multiplayer games that contributes to the overall gameplay experience. To complement this experience, player matchmaking techniques in those games have evolved from using only simple skill-based data to integrating multitude of different data such as social data, player personality etc. However, these techniques still lack sensitivity to this social aspect of multiplayer gaming. Modern player matchmaking techniques are dominated by automatic matchmaking algorithms which do not provide a way to the players to manually recommend one friend to another. We identify this as a limitation of the existing player matchmaking techniques which restricts players’ ability to leverage their existing ties to enhance their gameplay experience, and perhaps, also deprives them of extending their social ties through online games. We propose that the ability to perform such manual recommendation within online multiplayer games can strengthen the social aspect of online gaming and enhance the overall gameplay experience.