Chandler Cell
Andy Hampton
Zac Casull
Deliverable 2 - Project Proposal
Target Group:
Professional and Hardcore gamers will be the main focus of our 10 week study period. We chose this group because although some of us have experience with gaming as a pastime, we decided professional gaming is very different than anything any of us has ever experienced. There are many opportunities to observe these people in their “natural habitat.” We will plan to meet at common gaming grounds such as, Clockwork Games and Events, FX, and eventually we want to go to a big dollar tournament.
Hypothesis:
The expectation from this group is that it is male dominated with varying personalities from the quiet loners to the obnoxious attention cravers. Tendencies towards violence and verbal abuse will be interesting subjects to observe while observing as this has become a bit of hot button topic over the last couple of years. The scope of this study will range from individuals to local group competitions. From this study we hope to gain useful insight into this group that can be applied to our proposal of a product to be used by professional gamers While having fun in the form of games is important to many people, few can say that they take it to the limit by playing on average 30 – 40 hours a week, and even fewer can say that they are “professional” or make money for playing. We expect that the players we meet will have very little time for other things in their life that most of us have time for. We believe that instead of the normal person who watches TV for a few hours then reads a book for a few hours, and then hangs out with friends, the hardcore gamer will replace all of this with pure gaming time. Is this an unhealthy obsession or is there a legitimacy of it all?
Argument of Appropriateness:
This study is appropriate because of the many subjects we anticipate to observe while conducting the study. Demographic observations will show trends in the gender and age of participants which can further be broken down and compared to our own experiences with what would be considered “normal” people in these ranges. The violence and verbal observations mentioned above will also be valuable given the recent Supreme Court case regarding violence in video games and its effect on people who play which fit squarely in our target group. This study is not inappropriate as we have no reason to gather personal information beyond age, gender, and possibly appearance. Conducting interviews and attending public gaming events also prove appropriate and do not in any way break laws. This study will be exciting because of the breadth of people we anticipate on studying in a very animated environment that keeps them coming back for more. This study will take us into the little known world of professional and hardcore gaming. Few can say that they have played a game 30 – 40 hours a week or that they are in the top 1% echelon of the entire gaming population. This is a highly competitive and profitable network of people who consider themselves as legitimate as any football or basketball player. This can apply to HCI in a variety of ways. Since video gaming consists of interaction from the human to controller we can find ways to improve this as their are few better to interview than the players who use them 10 fold more than anyone else.
Argument of Feasibility:
This study is feasible because we will cover many different aspects of professional gaming conducting several interviews with acquaintances as well as observing competitions and tournaments. We also hope to eventually participate in the activity if the opportunity presents itself to one of us or one of our acquaintances. There are many tournaments going on if you just look them up online. It is all about keeping your eyes open. Just walking on campus We saw a guy with an MLG shirt on. (Major League Gaming) and asked him if he played MLG and sure enough he does. Our first encounter at Clockwork Games and Events went great. There are magnitudes of people who are willing to talk to us and show us their world. There are plenty of opportunities to find and study professional and hardcore gamers. Through statistics and interviewing these we can learn enough to validate or contradict our hypothesis as well as form a comprehensive conclusion.
Deliverable 2 - Week 1 Results
We attended a Gears of War 2 tournament at Clockwork Games and Events which we found out about through the internet. This experience proved to support some of my hypotheses and disprove others.
Upon arrival in the outlet area where Clockwork was located, I found it on the side of one of the buildings with poor signage out front. This lead me to believe that people who go here are a fairly tight nit bunch because advertising was nowhere to be found and the hours of the venue were odd, seemingly catering to an after school crowd. Once inside, I noticed a pretty sophisticated setup consisting of a row of 8 XBOX 360 consoles mounted about 1 foot off the ground on the wall with 8, approximately 20 inch, screens and 2 larger screens above them. The lighting was poor, as to be expected, and the interior was actually quite nice with about 6 tables, for card games I assume, and 2 couches in front of the console laden wall along with other various chairs. There was also a counter as I assume this place also sold games, cards, and snacks.
There were people of all ages ranging from 9 to 40. People were in and out but the amount of people averaged to around 15 or so. There was talk that one of the participants there was a former Major League Gamer. We learned that people that usually come to Clockwork play card games and video games.
It was explained to us that Gears of War 2 tournament would consist of 10 participants in a 1v1 double elimination tournament bracket following Major League Gaming rules. The winner received a new copy of Gears of Wars 3 sponsored by FX Games, represented by Chris, and some prize money. We entered in 2 of our own members, Neal and Zach, to support the event and immerse ourselves a little.
Everyone there was relaxed and enjoyed the company of other fellow gamers and we know many of them were familiar with each other. They were happy to converse with us and answered a lot of our questions.
It was heavily dominated by guys but there were two girls that attended but did not play. Julio is the tournament manager and assigns the rules of the game and prevents cheating such as screen peeking.
In the first game there was a 9 year old kid that beat a 18 year old and he was calling him out by saying “Now Suck This!” Everyone was animated and very into the tournament, yelling at the TV’s and having a good time. There was a lot of smack talk, sarcastic hostility, and jokes among everyone there.
We met Jacob who is in high school. He aspires to be a professional. He plays at least 3 hours a day. He recently played a $1000 tournament but got beat by some “hardcore kids” He says it is a lot about getting in some people’s heads. If they are young you can get in their heads with some smack talk he says, and “put the kids in their place”
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