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Better Game Experience Through Game Metrics: A Rally Videogame Case Study

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Abstract

Rally racing is probably the oldest branch of motorsport, dating back to the origins of motor competitions in the late nineteenth century in Europe. Unlike track-based competitions, rallies take place on normal roads in a point-to-point format, alternating transfer and competitive sections. Participants must leave the service park and reach a predetermined start point within a certain time, wait in a row with the others for a staggered start, then race to the finish point in the shortest time possible, and then finally drive to the starting point of the next competitive section. The sum of all competitive stages’ completion times will dictate the final standings. Each rally hosts a total of 15–30 of such sections, called “special stages”, in a time period between 3 and 4 days.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    In fact, there is an old saying between rally drivers that goes, “Circuit racers see 10 turns 1000 times while rally drivers see 1000 turns 1 time!”

  2. 2.

    Early in development, computer-controlled opponents are not appropriately tuned (i.e., opponents drive too slow or too fast, being too easy or impossible to beat) or even absent. In these situations, games user researchers must be very careful in assessing the game and always provide a context, especially when dealing with subjective ratings of game difficulty and fun.

  3. 3.

    This last stage was modified in the retail version of the game, but was included in its sequel, WRC 2: FIA World Rally Championship (Black Bean Games 2011).

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Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thanks Magy, Anders and Alessandro – the editors of this volume – for the great work and their effort, constant availability and understanding. The authors are also grateful to the anonymous reviewers of this chapter for their valuable suggestions, which resulted in a stronger and improved chapter. A big “Thank you!” to our great colleagues at Milestone. Pietro would like to thank the Games User Research (GUR) community for providing constant inspiration.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Milestone S.r.l, via Gustavo Fara 35, 20124, Milan, Italy

    Pietro Guardini

  2. Milestone S.r.l, Milan, Italy

    Paolo Maninetti

  3. PopCap Games International, The Academy, Dublin 2, Ireland

    Paolo Maninetti

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  1. Pietro Guardini
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  2. Paolo Maninetti
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Correspondence to Pietro Guardini .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University, Huntington Avenue 360, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Magy Seif El-Nasr

  2. College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University, Huntington Avenue 360, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Anders Drachen

  3. College of Arts, Media and Design, Northeastern University, Huntington Avenue 360, Boston, 02115, Massachusetts, USA

    Alessandro Canossa

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About the Authors

Pietro Guardini works as games user researcher at Milestone, the major game development studio in Italy, where he started and is in charge of user testing activity. He began working on Human Computer Interaction as an undergraduate student in 1999 in the Virtual Reality Lab of the Department of Experimental Psychology at Padova University (Italy). After obtaining a Ph.D. in Experimental Psychology in 2008 from the same university, he started his collaboration with Milestone working on many titles, including: MotoGP 08, the Superbike World Championship (SBK) and the World Rally Championship (WRC) series of videogames. He also is lecturer in Research Methodology in Human Factors at the Bicocca University in Milan, Italy.

Paolo Maninetti worked as senior game programmer at Milestone, the most important game development studio in Italy, where he was in charge of A.I. Programming. He worked on titles such as MotoGP08, the Superbike World Championship (SBK) and the Superstars V8 series of videogames. He has also contributed to WRC: FIA World Rally Championship 2010 game as Gameplay Programmer, and developed the game metrics data logger mentioned in this chapter. In the past Paolo worked in Ubisoft Milan where he took part in the production of games such as Rayman M, Tomb Raider: The Prophecy and Beyond Good and Evil. He holds a M.A. in Computer Science from the University of Milan, Italy. Paolo is currently working as Game Programmer at PopCap Games on the Bejeweled franchise.

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Guardini, P., Maninetti, P. (2013). Better Game Experience Through Game Metrics: A Rally Videogame Case Study. In: Seif El-Nasr, M., Drachen, A., Canossa, A. (eds) Game Analytics. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-4769-5_16

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