An inclusive view of player modeling

  • Authors:
  • Adam M. Smith;Chris Lewis;Kenneth Hullet;Anne Sullivan

  • Affiliations:
  • Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA;Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA;Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA;Center for Games and Playable Media, UC Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, CA

  • Venue:
  • Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Foundations of Digital Games
  • Year:
  • 2011

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Abstract

"Player modeling" is a loose concept. It can equally apply to everything from a predictive model of player actions resulting from machine learning to a designer's description of a player's expected reactions in response to some piece of game content. This lack of a precise terminology prevents practitioners from quickly finding introductions to applicable modeling methods or determining viable alternatives to their own techniques. We introduce a vocabulary that distinguishes between the major existing player modeling applications and techniques. Four facets together define the kind for a model: the scope of application, the purpose of use, the domain of modeled details, and the source of a model's derivation or motivation. This vocabulary allows the identification of relevant player modeling methods for particular problems and clarifies the roles that a player model can take.