Grants and Contributions:

Grant or Award spanning more than one fiscal year (2017-2018 to 2018-2019).

In collaboration with Norsfell, we aim to explore the design of in- and post-game mechanics intended tox000D
enhance long-term player retention, and understand what makes these interactions effective in sustaining playerx000D
interest. Our core goal is to gain a more complete understanding of how players remain engaged with digitalx000D
games over the long term, and how developers might improve their designs as a result. This research projectx000D
will focus on the evaluation of player engagement outside of the play experience, an area which has beenx000D
relatively understudied in the field. Given the challenges that designers must overcome in attracting andx000D
retaining a sizeable player base, the investigation of this topic is especially relevant in the contemporary gamesx000D
market.x000D
This is the current research challenge for Norsfell Studio, as their current project is a multiplayer title withx000D
persistent in-game progression, meaning that in-game events can occur while players are away. The developersx000D
are concerned with designing systems for encouraging retention, by balancing in-game mechanics to facilitatex000D
higher player engagement, and creating post-gameplay systems for keeping players informed of in-game eventsx000D
while they are not playing, for example.x000D
With this project, we hope to create a set of formalized guidelines for the design of player retention mechanics,x000D
providing a valuable contribution to the collective knowledge of game developers and researchers alike. Thex000D
video game industry contributes over $3.7 billion to Canada's GDP and employs the equivalent of over 21,700x000D
full time employees. The outcomes of this research will be directly applicable to the game industry.