A Study Shows That The Amount A Person Enjoys A Video Game Is Strongly Affected By The Type of User Interface: Graphics, Controls, & Difficulty of Gameplay

• People are able to interact with their video games by controlling players, solving difficult tasks, and navigating their own gameplay. 
• Gamers are enticed by new games and consoles that are created because they introduce a higher level of technology and graphics.
• There is a difference in the amount of gameplay between genders and age groups.

A video game that I loved to play as a child was a game called Crash Bandicoot. This is a game created by Nintendo for the original Play Station system. In this game, the player acts as the main character Crash, and attempts to defeat his enemy Vortex and save his girlfriend. The player has to go through a series of levels, in which the goal is to collect boxes and fend off enemies to advance to the next level. The player repeats this process in a variety of places and levels to reach the ultimate goal of facing Vortex. 

I originally liked this game because of the main character, Crash. Crash was an orange fox who wore jeans, and as a child, he looked extremely cool to me. I began to like the video game more because of the challenges I had to complete to move up to the next level. Knowing that I had the ability to pass each level made the game more exciting, and kept me wanting to play. The graphics, sound effects, and visuals within the game also attracted me to it, and kept the gameplay interesting and exciting. 

What makes a video game enjoyable? 

When creating a video game, one must think about the term user interface. User interface is defined as the junction between a medium and the people who use it. In regards to video games, the user interface is what allows players to interact with game. According to the textbook, Converging Media, the graphical user interface is what created the video game industry. Over the years, advancements in graphics have allowed the video game industry to thrive, and has attracted players of all ages. 

In Melissa A. Federoff’s article, Heuristics And Usability Guidelines For The Creation And Evaluation of Fun in Video Games, she discusses how video games can be evaluated on fun in three different areas. The topics include the game interface, game mechanics, and game play. 

“The game interface includes whatever is used to physically control the game such

as a controller, joystick, mouse, or keyboard” (Federoff). In the game Crash Bandicoot, and controller is used during gameplay, which allows users to control their player by pressing a number of different buttons. The buttons on a controller make it easy for users to navigate through the game. Game interface is a key aspect to the enjoyment of a game, because a difficult interface would make it harder for users to play, and therefore they would lose interest. 

Next, Federoff dicusses the mechanics of a game for player enjoyment. Game mechanics is defined as how a player is allowed to maneuver within in the game, which includes walking, running, driving, jumping, etc (Federoff). In Crash Bandicoot, my player was able to jump, run, walk, and drive a cart to race through different areas of the game.

Also, the overall game play is important to how users interact with the video game. A game should have problems and challenges in which a player must face to win the game. Video games become interesting to many users when they are required to make decisions regarding gameplay in order to advance. 

The video game industry is still growing, and continues to change overtime.

Although Crash Bandicoot was my favorite game, I eventually stopped playing it. One of the main factors that went into the retirement of my gameplay was the introduction of new consoles. Crash Bandicoot was a game made by Sony for the Play Station. While playstation was a leading console for years, companies began to create newer and better systems for games. These systems included the Play Station 2, Xbox, Xbox 360, the Wii, portable game systems, and motion sensing consoles. Unfortunately, Crash Bandicoot was not made for any of the new gaming systems, and as new consoles came out, I began to see what they had to offer, and stopped playing the game.

A study conducted in 2007 illustrated by Lingjin Meng, shows how long people play video games. This data is separated by age and gender, showing how long each group plays video games. This chart shows that as girls became teenagers, their gameplay time decreased from when they were children ranging from ages eight through twelve. This could be another reason as to why I stopped playing my favorite video game as a child. As I got older, I lost interest in playing video games, especially of the action and adventure genre. 

The video game industry is one of the largest forms of human and media interactivity that we see today. The creation of graphics within the media has opened the door to the creation of the cool video games that we see today. People of all ages are able to interact with video games like never before, and break new barriers within the technological world. A lot goes into making video games, and being able to easily navigate and and understand the game is a huge part in user enjoyment. With the amount of video games that have been created over the years, a number of consoles have been created as platforms for all video games. As the industry grows, more and more systems are being created and enhanced to offer users the best experience possible when interacting with video games. 

My post is in response to discussion question number 6. 

Work Cited

Federoff, Melissa A. Heuristics and usability guidelines for the creation and evaluation of fun in video games. Diss. Indiana University, 2002.