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The trails of Just Cause 2: spatio-temporal player profiling in open-world games

Authors:

Simon Demediuk,

Shantanu Raghav,

Anders DrachenAuthors Info & Claims

FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

Article No.: 41, Pages 1 - 11

https://doi.org/10.1145/3337722.3337765

Published: 26 August 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Behavioral profiling of players in digital games is a key challenge in game analytics, representing a particular challenge in Open-World Games. These games are characterized by large virtual worlds and few restrictions on player affordances. In these games, incorporating the spatial and temporal dimensions of player behavior is necessary when profiling behavior, as these dimensions are important to the playing experience. We present analyses that apply cluster analysis and the DEDICOM decompositional model to profile the behavior of more than 5,000 players of the major commercial title Just Cause 2 integrating both spatio-temporal trails and behavioral metrics. The application of DEDICOM to profile the spatio-temporal behavior of players is demonstrated for the purpose of analysing the entire play history of Just Cause 2 players, but also for the more detailed analysis of a single mission. This showcases the applicability of spatio-temporal profiling to condense player behavior across large sample sizes, across different scales of investigation. The method presented here provides a means to build profiles of player activity in game environments with high degrees of freedom across different scales of analysis - from a small segment to the entire game.

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Cited By

Wallner GDrachen A(2024)Visualization of Player Movement Patterns with Line Integral Convolution and Alpha ShapesProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3649997(1-10)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3649997
Barbero GMüller-Brockhausen MPreuss M(2024)Challenges of Open World Games for AI: Insights from Human GameplayData Science and Artificial Intelligence10.1007/978-981-97-9793-6_9(127-141)Online publication date: 9-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9793-6_9
Davern SHaahr M(2023)On the Interactions Between Narrative Puzzles and Navigation Aids in Open World GamesInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-031-47655-6_16(259-275)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47655-6_16
Show More Cited By

Index Terms

The trails of Just Cause 2: spatio-temporal player profiling in open-world games
1. Applied computing
  1. Computers in other domains
    1. Personal computers and PC applications
      1. Computer games
2. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Data mining
      1. Clustering

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Information & Contributors

Information

Published In

cover image ACM Other conferences

FDG '19: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 2019

822 pages

ISBN:9781450372176

DOI:10.1145/3337722

Conference Chair:
Sebastian Deterding
University of York
,
General Chair:
Foaad Khosmood
California Polytechnic State University
,
Program Chairs:
Johanna Pirker
Graz University of Technology
,
Thomas Apperley
CEGCS Tampere University

Copyright © 2019 Owner/Author.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 26 August 2019

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Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council

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FDG '19

FDG '19: The Fourteenth International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games

August 26 - 30, 2019

California, San Luis Obispo, USA

Acceptance Rates

FDG '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 46 of 124 submissions, 37%;

Overall Acceptance Rate 152 of 415 submissions, 37%

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Cited By

Wallner GDrachen A(2024)Visualization of Player Movement Patterns with Line Integral Convolution and Alpha ShapesProceedings of the 19th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3649921.3649997(1-10)Online publication date: 21-May-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3649921.3649997
Barbero GMüller-Brockhausen MPreuss M(2024)Challenges of Open World Games for AI: Insights from Human GameplayData Science and Artificial Intelligence10.1007/978-981-97-9793-6_9(127-141)Online publication date: 9-Nov-2024
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-97-9793-6_9
Davern SHaahr M(2023)On the Interactions Between Narrative Puzzles and Navigation Aids in Open World GamesInteractive Storytelling10.1007/978-3-031-47655-6_16(259-275)Online publication date: 31-Oct-2023
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-47655-6_16
Jiang YMin TFan STao RCai W(2022)Towards Understanding Player Behavior in Blockchain Games: A Case Study of AavegotchiProceedings of the 17th International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games10.1145/3555858.3555883(1-12)Online publication date: 5-Sep-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3555858.3555883
Qian XSifa RLiu XGanguly SYadamsuren BKlabjan DDrachen ADemediuk S(2022)Anomaly Detection in Player Performances in Multiplayer Online Battle Arena GamesProceedings of the 2022 Australasian Computer Science Week10.1145/3511616.3513095(23-30)Online publication date: 14-Feb-2022
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3511616.3513095
Williams JBendell RFiore SJentsch F(2021)Towards a Conceptual Framework of Comprehensive Video Game Player Profiles: Player Models, Mental Models, and Behavior ModelsProceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society Annual Meeting10.1177/107118132165134365:1(807-811)Online publication date: 12-Nov-2021
https://doi.org/10.1177/1071181321651343
Sifa RDrachen ABlock FMoon SDubhashi AXiao HLi ZKlabjan DDemediuk S(2021)Archetypal Analysis Based Anomaly Detection for Improved Storytelling in Multiplayer Online Battle Arena GamesProceedings of the 2021 Australasian Computer Science Week Multiconference10.1145/3437378.3442690(1-8)Online publication date: 1-Feb-2021
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3437378.3442690
Fragoso LStanley K(2021)StABLE: Analyzing Player Movement Similarity Using Text Mining2021 IEEE Conference on Games (CoG)10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9619021(1-8)Online publication date: 17-Aug-2021
https://doi.org/10.1109/CoG52621.2021.9619021
Chittaro LSerafini M(2021)Visualization of User’s Behavior in Indoor Virtual Environments Through Interactive HeatmapsHuman-Computer Interaction – INTERACT 202110.1007/978-3-030-85613-7_38(600-609)Online publication date: 26-Aug-2021
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-85613-7_38
Javvaji NHarteveld CSeif El-Nasr MMirza-Babaei PMcArthur VVanden Abeele VBirk M(2020)Understanding Player Patterns by Combining Knowledge-Based Data Abstraction with Interactive VisualizationProceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play10.1145/3410404.3414257(254-266)Online publication date: 2-Nov-2020
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3410404.3414257
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