There are two basic ways to assess a game for health. First, is to instrument the game itself and use analytics to understand what is happening to the player. Second, is to design an out-of-game instrument that you can use to assess a player’s outcome. Ideally you can do both and look for correlations and other insights between out-of-game-data and in-game-data.
In addition to assessing a specific game for health, there is also the opportunity to do surveys of people to explore their exposure to games for health in general, as well as attitudes and beliefs about health, games, or both.
In all these cases, and other outcome measurement methods one particular thread is constant. What to ask to begin with, and how exactly to do it? Often this requires not only expertise in sound research methodology but also in games themselves. For example, in talks with gamers two distinct groups emerge concerning finishing games. Some prefer to express “beating the game” while others use “finishing the game”. Both can mean the same, or be interpreted as having slight differences concerning emotional impact. Could such differences be important to follow-up player surveys? How do you parse experienced game players from casual? What’s the best way to prepare log files for analysis?
These ideas, and more will be discussed by a panel of researchers who have recently prepared games and outside-of-game instruments and surveys for health game assessment. Together with the audience it is sure to provide an experienced and great discussion of how we determine what games in general, and specifically, are accomplishing with their players.
