Social gaming—analysing Human Computer Interaction using a video-diary method

The social gaming industry is transforming rapidly today, and much effort has been dedicated towards improving the quality of social games. Many case studies have been conducted on highly popular platforms, but these studies place too much emphasis on the game platform. Therefore, this study aims to bridge the gap between the game platform and the gamer by using a user centric approach to evaluate Human Computer Interaction in social games—the video diary method. After conducting a preliminary study, the video-diary method was developed, drawing on two perspectives; the first-person perspective (gamer) and the third-person perspective (researcher) to understand what attracts gamers to the game. Implementing this method in a social game, Maplestory, we discovered that gamers are drawn to the repetitive tasks that lead to level advancement and a highly integrated player-to-player interaction system. More importantly, we have proved that this video-diary method can be a potentially effective tool to evaluate Human Computer Interaction, and can be further developed for a more diverse application, ultimately leading to the advancement in quality of social games.