S O C I A L P L AY E R A N A LY T I C S I N A FA C E B O O K H E A LT H G A M E

L E N N A RT N A C K E , M A T T H I A S K L A U S E R , A N D PA U L P R E S C O D

U N I V E R S I T Y O F O N TA R I O I N S T I T U T E O F T E C H N O L O G Y A N D A Y O G O H E A LT H I N C .

A B O U T M E

• Research in Human-Computer Interaction and Games

• Psychophysiological Sensors

• Gameplay Experience

• Loves game design

• twitter.com/acagamic

• facebook.com/hcigames

• youtube.com/hcigames

• www.acagamic.com

M A I N R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N

• How can we quantify socially-engaging gameplay behaviour based on player interactions?

O V E R V I E W

1. The game

2. Motivation

3. Related Work

4. Data gathering and metrics

5. The study

6. Results

7. Takeaways

T H E G A M E : H E A LT H S E E K E R

• HealthSeeker motivates better lifestyle choices for people living with diabetes

• To improve both their nutritional and physical health habits

H E A LT H S E E K E R : A C T I O N S / M I S S I O N S

• Missions are based on healthy everyday actions

• Goals, missions and simple action steps help players get started on the road to better health

• Kudos: Players can show support to one another’s missions

M O T I VAT I O N

• Get access to a real Facebook health game

• Analyse user behavior in social games

• Which functions are important for users?

R E L AT E D W O R K

• Drachen et al.’s work on game analytics

• Kirman et al.’s and Wohn et al.’s work on social game analyses

• Games for Health, for example, Grimes et al.’s work on the Order Up game

D ATA G AT H E R I N G P R O C E S S

• Worked together with health game company Ayogo to create and refine the data set

• Filtering active players out of the data set

• Focus on social analysis of the game

Restructured Dataset

Filter Data

Statistical AnalysisIterations

Visualisation Social Network

Creating new Variables

HealthSeekerDatabase

U S E R - C E N T R E D M E T R I C S

User Data

Social Metrics

…

Virality Actions

Success Metrics

1. Missions 2. Challenges 3. Wall posts 4. Kudos 5. Invitations 6. Friends 7. Actions

R E S E A R C H Q U E S T I O N S

• RQ1: Are players with more friends more successful, and do they show more engagement in the game than players with fewer friends?

• RQ2: Do players who are socially active solve more missions in the Social Network Game?

R E S U LT S : F R I E N D S

• Active players solve more missions than players without friends (F (27,780) = 13.799; p < .001; η² = .283; ω = .456)

• More friends, more missions completed (F (1, 775) = 152,043; p < 0.001; η² = .14; ω = .372)

R E S U LT S : A C T I V E S O C I A L A C T I O N S

• Sending kudos (F (27,780) = 13.799; p < .001; η2 = .283; ω = .456)

• Sending challenges (F (1, 775) = 152,043; p < 0.001; η2 = .14; ω = .372)

TA K E A W AY S

• A well-connected social network can improve a user’s success to solve healthy missions and therefore help to live healthier

• Social interactions are important to motivate and encourage users to be more active/successful in the game

• The kudos system in the game seems to work perfectly for engaging and motivating users to complete missions

• Defining valid users or other user groups based on observed behaviour is a good way to group users

K E E P I N T O U C H

• Email: lennart.nacke@acm.org

• Twitter: twitter.com/acagamic

• Facebook: facebook.com/hcigames