Study on the Influence of Game Character Design on Users' Continuous Immersion

1-1 Research background, research purpose

The number of games released is very large all over the world in each year. Only in China, more than 9,800 games were released in 2017 [1]. But these games are very familiar with both content and gameplay. In this case, players can easily lose patience with the game and cause the game to lose competitiveness. Therefore, there are not many games that can be popular with a long time, which can attract new players or the player’s loss ratio can be maintained in a small range. Even though PUBG (PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS) has gained a lot of popular games due to its novel gameplay and unique worldview, it can be seen from the data released by SteamChart [2], this popularity has only lasted for less than 6 months. Popularity began to decline sharply, and about 60% of users were lost in just half a year (Fig.1).

Fig. 1.

Number of players in PUBG

The types and hobbies of game players can vary, so game developers should consider how to keep the number of players is unchanged in the game or reduce the loss rate after the game is released.

Park Sang-Jin means that investing in the game is an important factor of the sustainability of the game. If the user can't immerse himself in the game, he will lose interest in the game, Eventually led to the abandonment of the game [3]. It takes hours or dozens of hours to complete the single-player game. Players' immersion levels can be considered in terms of difficulty and balance with player skill. But as more and more social online games, especially RPG (Role-playing game) games, challenging levels about different levels of difficulty is no longer the only option of players to play time. So when making online games, you can't just consider the balance between challenges and skills, you also need to use other elements in the game to enhance the player's flow. Therefore, when preparing for game development and game design, you should consider how to use the various elements of the game to attract users' attention and enable users to immerse themselves in the game for a long time

As a player in the game directly controls the character of the game is another basic element in addition to game play. Different players will have different preferences, they will choose different types of roles. If a player does not find a game character that suits his or her interests in the game, then in the subsequent development of the game, the player will not be able to resonate with the role, and will not be interested in playing the game again. Therefore, it is the main purpose of this study to explore the relationship between design of game character and flow of user sustainability.

1-2 Research Methods

In order to understand the relationship between game character designed and user immersion, this study first investigated the existing research to determine whether the game character can influence the player's immersion and classify the design elements of the current game character. Questionnaires are used to find out which elements of the game character design affect the player, and how these elements affect the player's immersion. Through the survey results, you can understand the problem points and design directions that need to be considered when designing game characters.

2-1 Flow Theoretical

Csikszentmihalyi defines flow as a person that is completely immersed in the activity while engaged in an activity , Showing a mental state of full participation and enjoyment [4]. It is an interesting and enjoyable action in itself, even without external compensation, through continuous action, regardless of time and space, letting it be naturally invested in the activity [5]. For games, flow is a state of mind in which players feel fun and fully focused in online games [6]. As an important factor affecting the player's future behavior, Flow allows the player to continually invest in the game through a positive experience.

Therefore, how to maintain the player's interest in the game for a long time, the player constantly attracts the player's attention to the game through various game elements during the game, and is also a matter that the game designer should focus on.

2-2 Elements of the game and flow

Park Sang-Jin divides the components of the game into three categories, it is including interactions, interfaces and content. He believes that the game content is intended to grasp the order for the overall operation of the game, the interaction is the stage of the player directly operating after understanding the structure of the game, the interface is a manifestation of the specific visual part of the content and interaction part. It determines the Image of entire game [2].

Without physical interaction, there is no way for users to respond, so there is no difference between games and movies [7]. As an aesthetic element in the game, the interface can improve the atmosphere of flow factors. Content is a cognitive factor that induces flow (Fig.2).

Fig. 2.

Relationship between game elements and Flow

2-3 The Function of The Game Character

The game is an interactive media that provides instant feedback [8], However, the game character are a game element directly controlled by the player. It is the game protagonist born from the game script. Hyun-ju O pointed out that the character of the game represents the nature of the game and is an important factor of the development of the game [9]. Unlike the characters in general film and television works, the character of the game does not have the character of the character set in advance according to the script. In addition to the appearance, all the attributes are determined by the player himself. Therefore， during the game operation, the game character can introduce the player's feelings. This kind of character based on the script plays a mediating character of connecting players and games.

Compared with the overall design of the game, the game characters that can quickly and flexibly adjust the appearance of the change of appearance and clothing can attract the attention of the players more quickly through the characteristics of "good-looking" or "fun".

3-1 Selection of Game

Because the Chinese market has a large number of game users, and the actual sales revenue accounts is 23.6% of the world's total revenue [10]. Therefore, the game's measurement selects the higher ranked game in the Chinese game market [11]. Based on the descriptions of these games on their respective websites, the game is categorized and games of the same type are selected. The characters of these same types of third-person 3D games have a high degree of detail and authenticity. Therefore, the selection of <League of Legends>, <Swordsman Online 3>, <World of Warcraft>, <World of Xian Xia>, <Moonlight Blade>, <Realm of Chaos> as the object of this study see Table 1.

Table 1.

Selection of game.

3-2 Determination of Game character classification

According to the characteristics on the characters on the game, the survey is divided into three categories: race, occupation, and design style (Table 2).

Table 2.

Classification of Game character.

Because there is no ethnic distinction between <Swordsman Online 3>, <World of Xian Xia> and <Moonlight Blade>, and the occupation classification of all games is different, this study focuses on the classification of game character design style.

3-3 Determination of Game style classification

1) Definition of style

Through the introduction of the above official website of the game, the characters of these games are divided into three types (Table 3).

Table 3.

Definition of style

2) Classification of game style

Through the introduction to the above-mentioned game official website, the selected games are classified according to the above games (Table 4).

Table 4.

Game style classification.

3-4 Extraction of research samples

Since <League of Legends> has launched a number of character skins based on game character, <Swordsman Online 3>, <Moonlight Blade> and other games have a custom system that can choose the shape of the character and a lot of costumes that players can pay for. Therefore, in order to avoid the influence of personal hobbies on the survey, the samples are extracted from a random manner.

Considering the gender characteristics of the characters, the character designs style of each game selects the design styles of two male characters and female characters as samples of this study.

So far, a total of 24 character designs have been extracted as research samples, including 10 traditional Chinese styles, 8 western magic styles and 4 cartoon styles (Table 5).

Table 5.

Character Style Classification.

3-5 Selection of Investigator and questionnaire composition

Compared to the average player, a player with a long-term game experience has a richer game experience, and the number of games contacted is unmatched by ordinary players. A game that wants to constantly attract such players to play games repeatedly requires more effort. Therefore, the player's evaluation of the game with a long-term game experience can better reflect the overall quality of the game.

In this study, 52 gamers with long-term gaming experience were surveyed with questionnaires. The content of the questionnaire is shown in Fig. 3.

Fig. 3.

Questionnaire

3-6 Results of an investigation

As shown in Fig. 4, 65.38% of respondents said that because the game characters attracted them to play games. In other words, the plot of the game and the gameplay of the game is not the main forces that attracts gamers. Compared to the game plot and gameplay, the game characters can more easily attract the attention to the players and gain their favor.

Fig. 4.

Motivation to play games

As with the results from Fig. 5, the contrast and single game, the socialization brought by the network can make the game's own plot and level difficulty become less important, but the player is more interested in decorating the appearance of their own game character.

Fig. 5.

Player's interest in the game

As can be seen from the results shown in Fig. 6, players prefer cartoon character and Chinese traditional style character design, while Western fantasy style game character designs is not so popular.

Fig. 6.

Survey results of preferences for character design styles

Like Fig. 7, players will be interested in the game because they like the character style of the game. In other words, the style of the game character affects the player's overall preference for the game.

Fig. 7.

Survey results of design style and player's interest in the game

As shown in Fig. 8, if a player has an interest in the game character in the game, the player will increase the energy of the game to ensure that he can contact the game character for a long time.

Fig. 8.

Survey results of Design Style and Player's Sustainable Immersion