The impact of tutorials on games of varying complexity

Abstract

One of the key challenges of video game design is teaching new players how to play. Although game developers frequently use tutorials to teach game mechanics, little is known about how tutorials affect game learnability and player engagement. Seeking to estimate this value, we implemented eight tutorial designs in three video games of varying complexity and evaluated their effects on player engagement and retention. The results of our multivariate study of over 45,000 players show that the usefulness of tutorials depends greatly on game complexity. Although tutorials increased play time by as much as 29% in the most complex game, they did not significantly improve player engagement in the two simpler games. Our results suggest that investment in tutorials may not be justified for games with mechanics that can be discovered through experimentation.

Rich media mobile advertising: comparison of gestures used for navigation through a photo gallery

“…Interestingly, this reduction was substantially smaller for the Tappy UI (from 2,34 to 2,06) than for the Swipey UI (from 1,00 to 0,29). Several explanations can be given for the fact that in spite of being presented with the coach notice many Tappy UI users still applied the faultyswipe -gesture -for navigation: as some previous studies showed, users tend to ignore too intrusive instructions/notices [25]; users prefer swiping to tapping (already confirmed in our study; see discussion regarding H1); users closed the coach notice before they read it; or our coach notice was simply not designed well enough. We can therefore conclude, that our third hypothesis was confirmed as well: the presence of a coach notice in general decreases usability problems by reducing the number of faulty gestures.…”

Identifying Learner’s Engagement in Learning Games - A Qualitative Approach based on Learner’s Traces of Interaction

“…For studying the impact of tutorials on players' engagement in digital entertainment games, (Andersen et al, 2012) collect some raw data like the number of unique levels completed, the total playing time and the number of times players have loaded the game. Expecting to predict when players will stop playing, (Bauckhage et al, 2012) study how engagement evolves over time.…”

Visual Abstraction for Games on Large Public Displays

“…Modern games often rely on in-game tutorials to help increase the rate at which users can become familiar with a game, even though it is not always effective [6]. However, many older abstracted games such as Tetris allow users to learn through discovery whilst playing the game, which it has been argued gives the user a deeper understanding of the game as a whole [7].…”