Study Finds Roles Influence Behavior in Video Games

[Guest_Jim_*]

Something shared across many video games are certain specific archetypes, such as tanks, fighters, mages, rogues, assassins, and so on. In some games you are able to select what role you get to play as, while in other games it may be selected for you, or never even described. Researchers at North Carolina State University decided to look into these roles and see if they influence a player's behavior, and if selecting a role makes any difference.

To do this experiment, the researchers create a single-player RPG (which you can play at http://go.ncsu.edu/ixd-demo-rpg) and had 210 people play it. Of those, 78 were assigned the role of fighter, mage, or rogue, while 91 were allowed to select their role, and the final 41 played without a role. The game contained twelve multiple choice decisions that were careful constructed to be aligned with the three roles, to see if players maintained the role as they played. The results showed that whether the players selected or were assigned the role, they maintained them most of the time, with fighters being consistent 65.7% of the time, mages 76.1% of the time, and rogues 69.7% of the time. Even for the players who were not given a specific role, made decisions consistent with a specific role.

This study indicates that even without explicit role-playing elements to a game, players will assume and maintain roles on their own, which could influence how game designers develop games. It also means that other studies that examine player choice should be careful to remove role as a variable, as it could skew results.

Source: North Carolina State University

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