VOX POPULI - A Case Study of User Comments on Contemporary Video Games in Relation to Video Game Heuristics

摘要

Video game reviews and user comments on released video games are common. Sales figures can often be related to the judgement from such comments. Before release, video game designers can refine their design by assessing it using different tools, such as heuristic evaluations or user tests. However, do heuristic lists designed for video games really measure the same issues that players react on? The answer might lie in the user comments online. This paper presents a case study examines the relation between user comments and a set of heuristics designed to measure video gameplay. By conducting a linguistic analysis on video game user comments on three games of different user score, we matched common words and comments to a set of video game heuristics. Thus we could conclude which issues were most important to the users. The findings of this study can help designers and researchers to refine user studies.