More than 3 billion people worldwide and 90% of UK children play video games; in countries like the US, only television beats gaming in adult leisure time spent. This has made video games a focal point of public health, from hopes that game-based interventions can promote mental health or motivate positive health behaviour to fears over negative screen time effects.
As recognised in the UK Government’s recent Video Games Research Framework, this makes player engagement a highly socially and policy-relevant question: what drives desirable and undesirable play? Unfortunately, existing research overwhelmingly consists of cross-sectional surveys or short-term experiments on console and PC games, which have less and less to do with people’s actual gaming. Today, casual games played on mobile phones capture the majority of players and time and money spent. Recent work suggests that existing engagement models for console and PC games don’t fit such casual mobile game play. People increasingly stick to one or few games over years, and game companies increasingly try to design such service games with long-term appeal.
Thus, existing research likely doesn’t capture the factors that drive most people’s actual gaming: longitudinal play of casual games on mobile devices. Further, we don’t know whether different factors matter for day-to-day, week-to-week, or months-long engagement, while such longer-term engagement arguably matters most – for game companies, health games, and worries about disordered gaming.
To unpack which factors drive casual game engagement across different time scales, this interdisciplinary project will combine psychology, game design, and machine learning, collaborating with King, developer of one of the world’s most successful casual mobile games, Candy Crush Saga. With over 200 million active players, it has managed to keep millions of players regularly playing over years. This offers unique access to players and terabytes of existing data over years and millions of players in a highly ecologically valid case of people’s longitudinal casual game engagement.
A qualitative ecological momentary assessment study linked with in-app telemetry and follow-up interviews will identify possible engagement factors. A large-scale panel study then allows to test and validate factors: Players self-report factors in intervals over 12 weeks, linked with minute-to-minute playtime telemetry over a full year. Interpretable machine learning and advanced statistical approaches let us identify the relative contribution of different engagement factors and their robustness across different time scales.
Results will help UK entertainment and health game developers make more responsibly engaging casual games, and inform policy-makers on factors of potential concern.
How to apply:
- Details on how to apply can be found in here: https://www.imperial.ac.uk/design-engineering/study/phd/funding-opportunities/design-engineering-scholarships/other-phd-scholarships-available-in-design-engineering-/, https://www.findaphd.com/phds/project/unpacking-casual-game-engagement-across-time-scales/?p181474
- Applicants should also complete the online LISS-DTP Diversity Monitoring Form
- The closing date for applications is 1 March 2025
- Interviews will be held on week of 17 March 2025
- This project is offered as full-time only
- For any queries contact Sebastian Deterding, s.deterding@imperial.ac.uk