From IEEE Task Force on Player Satisfaction Modeling

This page maintains a list of indicative articles that cover various aspects of player satisfaction modeling and optimization.

Contents 1 Player Satisfaction Modeling 1.1 Cognitive Modeling 1.2 Affective Modeling 2 Optimizing Player Satisfaction - Real-time Game Adaptation 2.1 Gradient-search 2.2 Reinforcement Learning 2.3 Neuro-Evolution

Player Satisfaction Modeling

Cognitive Modeling

• Bateman, C., Nacke, L.E. (2010) The Neurobiology of Play. In Proceedings of Future Play 2010, Vancouver, BC. pp. 24-31. (download).
• Pedersen, C., Togelius, J., and Yannakakis, G. N., (2009) "Modeling Player Experience in Super Mario Bros" in Proceedings of the IEEE Symposium on Computational Intelligence and Games, Milan, September. (Platform games)
• van Lankveld, G., Spronck, P., Rauterberg, M., (2008) "Difficulty Scaling through Incongruity, in Proceedings of the Forth Conference on Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment (AIIDE-08), pages 228-230. (RTS)
• Iida, H. "Fairness, Judges and Thrill in Games" (2008) IPSJ SIG Technical Report 28，pp. 61-68. (Board games)
• Yannakakis, G. N. and Hallam, J. (2006) "Towards Capturing and Enhancing Entertainment in Computer Games" in Proceedings of the 4th Hellenic Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Lecture Notes in Artificial Intelligence, vol. 3955, pp. 432-442, Heraklion, Crete, Greece, 18-20 May. Springer-Verlag. (Prey-Predator Games)
• Barber, H. and Kudenko, D. (2007) "A User Model for the Generation of Dilemma-based Interactive Narratives" In Proceedings of the AIIDE'07 Workshop on Optimizing Player Satisfaction, AAAI Press Technical Report WS-01-01, pp. 13-18, Stanford, USA, June, 2007. AAAI Press (Interactive Narrative)
• Roberts, D. L., Strong, C. R. and Isbell, C. L. (2007) "Estimating Player Satisfaction through the Author's Eyes" In Proceedings of the AIIDE'07 Workshop on Optimizing Player Satisfaction, AAAI Press Technical Report WS-01-01, pp. 31-36, Stanford, USA, June, 2007. AAAI Press (Interactive Narrative)
• Thue, D. Bulitko, V., Spetch, M. and Wasylishen, E. (2007) "Learning Player Preferences to Inform Delayed Authoring" In Papers from the AAAI'07 Fall Symposium on Intelligent Narrative Technologies. Arlington, Virginia. (Interactive Narrative)
• Thue, D., Bulitko, V. , Spetch, M. and Wasylishen, E. (2007) "Interactive Storytelling: A Player Modelling Approach" In Proceedings of the third Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment conference (AIIDE). Stanford, California. (Interactive Narrative)
• Iida, H., Takeshita, N. and Yoshimura, J. (2002) "A metric for entertainment of board-games: its implication for evolution of chess variants," IWEC 2002: 65-72 (Board games)

Affective Modeling

• Martinez, H. P., Jhala, A., and Yannakakis, G. N., (2009) "Analyzing the Impact of Camera Viewpoint on Player Psychophysiology, in Proceedings of the Int. Conf. on Affective Computing and Intelligent Interaction (ACII'09), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, September.
• Fairclough, S. H., (2009) "Fundamentals of physiological computing," Interacting with Computers, Elsevier, Volume 21, Issues 1-2, January, pages 133-145.
• Hudlicka, E., (2009) "Affective Game Engines: Motivation and Requirements," in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference On The Foundations Of Digital Games, pp. 299-306, ACM Press.
• Liu, C., Agrawal, P., Sarkar, N., and Chen, S. (2009). Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Computer Games Through Real-Time Anxiety-Based Affective Feedback. International Journal of Human-Computer Interaction 25, 6.
• Yannakakis, G.N. and Hallam J., (2008) "Entertainment Modeling through Physiology in Physical Play," International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, vol. 66, issue 10, pp. 741-755, October.
• Yannakakis, G. N., Hallam, J. and Lund, H. H. (2008) "Entertainment Capture through Heart Rate Activity in Physical Interactive Playgrounds" User Modeling and User-Adapted Interaction, Special Issue: Affective Modeling, vol. 18, no. 1-2, pp. 207-243, February. (Augmented-Reality Games)
• Tijs, T., Brokken, D., and IJsselsteijn, W. (2008). Creating an Emotionally Adaptive Game. In Entertainment Computing - ICEC 2008. Springer, 2009, 122-133.
• Tijs, T., Brokken, D., and IJsselsteijn, W. (2008). Dynamic Game Balancing by Recognizing Affect. In Fun and Games. Springer, 2008, 88-93
• Um, S., Kim, T., and Choi, J. (2007) Dynamic Difficulty Controlling Game System. IEEE Transactions on Consumer Electronics 53, 2, 812-818. (download)
• McQuiggan, S., Lee, S. and Lester, J. (2006) "Predicting user physiological response for interactive environments: an inductive approach" In Proceedings of the 2nd Artificial Intelligence for Interactive Digital Entertainment Conference, pp. 60–65, AAAI Press. (FPS games)
• Rani, P. Sarkar, N. and Liu, C. (2005) "Maintaining Optimal Challenge in Computer Games through Real-Time Physiological Feedback" In HCI International, July 2005, Las Vegas, USA.
• Gilleade, K.M. and Dix, A. (2004) Using frustration in the design of adaptive videogames. Proceedings of the 2004 ACM SIGCHI International Conference on Advances in computer entertainment technology (ACE), ACM , 228-232. PDF

Optimizing Player Satisfaction - Real-time Game Adaptation

• Hunicke, R. and Chapman, V. (2004) "AI for Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Games", Challenges in Game Artificial Intelligence AAAI Workshop, pp. 91-96, San Jose, 2004.

Gradient-search

• Yannakakis G. N. , and Hallam J. (2009) "Real-time Game Adaptation for Optimizing Player Satisfaction," IEEE Transactions on Computational Intelligence and AI in Games, vol. 1, issue 2, pp. 121-133, June.

Reinforcement Learning

• Andrade, G., Ramalho, G., Santana, H. and Corruble, V. (2005) "Automatic computer game balancing: a reinforcement learning approach", in Proceedings of the Fourth international Joint Conference on Autonomous Agents and Multiagent Systems , July 25 - 29, 2005, AAMAS '05. ACM, New York,
• Spronck, P., Sprinkhuizen-Kuyper, I. and Postma, E. (2004) "Difficulty Scaling of Game AI", GAME-ON 2004: 5th International Conference on Intelligent Games and Simulation , pp. 33-37. EUROSIS, Belgium, 2004.

Neuro-Evolution

• Yannakakis, G. N. and Hallam, J. (2007) "Towards Optimizing Entertainment in Computer Games" In Proceedings of Applied Artificial Intelligence 21:933–971, 2007.
• Togelius, J., De Nardi, R. and Lucas, S. M. (2006) "Making racing fun through player modeling and track evolution" In Proceedings of the SAB Workshop on Adaptive Approaches to Optimizing Player Satisfaction.