Measuring affective, physiological and behavioural differences in solo, competitive and collaborative games

Abstract

In this paper, we aim to measure affect and behaviour indicators of players to understand how they feel in different play modes and how games could be improved to enhance user experience, immersion and engagement. We analyse the affective states in sets of two users playing a Wii video game in three play modes: solo, competitive and collaborative. We measured their physiological signals and observed the nonverbal behaviours to infer their affective states. Although other studies have looked at these signals in gaming, this work focuses on the differences between the three play modes aforementioned. Our results show that: (1) Players experience similar levels of arousal during both solo and collaborative play modes; (2) players’ heart rates are significantly correlated during the competitive mode but not during the collaborative one; and (3) heart rate variability is a good indicator of engagement when playing video games.