Playability: How to identify the player experience in a video game

Abstract

Nowadays Video Games occupy a privileged position in the leisure and entertainment market, representing the fastest-growing industry globally. In this paper we will analyse how, in video game development, Usability alone is not sufficient to achieve the optimum Player Experience. We argue that the concept of Usability needs broadening and deepening, to embrace further attributes and properties that identify and describe the Player Experience. We present our proposed means of defining Playability, its attributes and properties and how associate them with the different elements of a video game. © 2009 Springer.