A Computational Model of Perceived Agency in Video Games
Open accessAbstract
Agency, being one's ability to perform an action and have some influence over the world, is fundamental to interactive entertainment. Although much of the games industry is concerned with providing more agency to its players, what seems to matter more is how much agency each player will actually perceive. In this paper, we present a computational model of this phenomena, based on the notion that the amount of agency that one perceives depends on how much they desire the outcomes that result from their decisions. Using a structure for high-agency stories that we designed specifically for this intent, we present the results of a 141-participant user study that tests our model's ability to select subsequent events in an original interactive story. Using a newly validated survey instrument for measuring both agency and fun, we found with a high degree of confidence that event sequences selected by our model result in players perceiving more agency than players who experience event sequences that our model does not recommend.
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Fun and agency were measured with a previously validated questionnaire (Vermeulen et al. 2010) that had been used to evaluate experience managers (Thue et al. 2011).
“For the survey, we used a previously validated instrument (Vermeulen et al. 2010).”
From Evaluating Planning-Based Experience Managers for Agency and Fun in Text-Based Interactive Narrative (2013) · cites this paper as Thue et al. 2011
PaSSAGE demonstrated significant effects of using a player model to select content, but its experience manager was manually scripted and did not use automated content generation.
“While significant effects of using a player model to select content were demonstrated, the experience manager within PaS-SAGE was manually scripted and did not use automated content generation techniques.”
From Evaluating Planning-Based Experience Managers for Agency and Fun in Text-Based Interactive Narrative (2013) · cites this paper as Thue et al. 2011
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Sorted by citations
Achieving the Illusion of Agency
Fendt, M. W., Harrison, B., Ware, S. G., Cardona-Rivera, R. E., & Roberts, D. L. (2012) · Lecture Notes in Computer Science · doi:10.1007/978-3-642-34851-8_11 · Cited by 48 · see citing works
”Naked and on Fire”: Examining Player Agency Experiences in Narrative-Focused Gameplay
Carstensdottir, E., Kleinman, E., Williams, R., & Seif El-Nasr, M. S. (2021) · Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems · doi:10.1145/3411764.3445540 · Cited by 18 · see citing works
“An evaluation study showed that their computational model could predict with 96% confidence which sub-trees of a story afforded the player with higher perceived agency [35].”
BackgroundEvaluating Planning-Based Experience Managers for Agency and Fun in Text-Based Interactive Narrative
Ramirez, A., Bulitko, V., & Spetch, M. (2013) · Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment · doi:10.1609/aiide.v9i1.12684 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Thue, D., Bulitko, V., Spetch, M., & Romanuik, T.
- Affiliations
- University of Alberta (CA)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment
- Published
- 2011-10-09
- Volume
- 7
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 91-96
- ISSN
- 2326-909X (ISSN-L)
- 2334-0924
- OpenAlex
- W2199477860
- Cited by
- 40
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 1 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 4 · 2020: 2 · 2019: 3 · 2018: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 1 · 2015: 4 · 2014: 4 · 2013: 6 · 2012: 4
- FWCI
- 3.51
- Type
- conference paper
- Language
- en
- Open access
- bronze
- doi.org
- Locations
- Proceedings of the AAAI Conference on Artificial Intelligence and Interactive Digital Entertainment (publishedVersion)
- AAAI Publications (The Association for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (AAAI)) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Artificial Intelligence › Artificial Intelligence in Games
- Social Sciences › Sociology and Political Science › Digital Games and Media
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Developmental and Educational Psychology › Educational Games and Gamification
- Keywords
- perceived agency, video games, interactive storytelling, event selection, fun, survey instrument validation, player experience
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