CHI '95 Conference Companion on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Aesthetics and apparent usability: empirically assessing cultural and methodological issues
Proceedings of the ACM SIGCHI Conference on Human factors in computing systems
Practical guide to controlled experiments on the web: listen to your customers not to the hippo
Proceedings of the 13th ACM SIGKDD international conference on Knowledge discovery and data mining
The art of game design: a book of lenses
The art of game design: a book of lenses
On the harmfulness of secondary game objectives
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games
Feature-based projections for effective playtrace analysis
Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games
The impact of tutorials on games of varying complexity
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Optimizing adaptivity in educational games
Proceedings of the International Conference on the Foundations of Digital Games
ITS'12 Proceedings of the 11th international conference on Intelligent Tutoring Systems
GamiCAD: a gamified tutorial system for first time autocad users
Proceedings of the 25th annual ACM symposium on User interface software and technology
Changing perspectives on evaluation in HCI: past, present, and future
CHI '13 Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems
Optimizing challenge in an educational game using large-scale design experiments
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
A trace-based framework for analyzing and synthesizing educational progressions
Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems
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Game designers frequently invest in aesthetic improvements such as music, sound effects, and animations. However, their exact value for attracting and retaining players remains unclear. Seeking to estimate this value in two popular Flash games, we conducted a series of large-scale A/B tests in which we selectively removed aesthetic improvements and examined the effect of each component on play time, progress, and return rate. We found that music and sound effects had little or no effect on player retention in either game, while animations caused users to play more. We also found, counterintuitively, that optional rewards caused players to play less in both games. In one game, this gameplay modification affected play time three times as much as the largest aesthetic variation. Our methodology provides a way to determine where resources may be best spent during the game design and development process.