Efficiently detecting outlying behavior in video-game players

PeerJ. 2015 Dec 10:3:e1502. doi: 10.7717/peerj.1502. eCollection 2015.

Abstract

In this paper, we propose a method for automatically detecting the times during which game players exhibit specific behavior, such as when players commonly show excitement, concentration, immersion, and surprise. The proposed method detects such outlying behavior based on the game players' characteristics. These characteristics are captured non-invasively in a general game environment. In this paper, cameras were used to analyze observed data such as facial expressions and player movements. Moreover, multimodal data from the game players (i.e., data regarding adjustments to the volume and the use of the keyboard and mouse) was used to analyze high-dimensional game-player data. A support vector machine was used to efficiently detect outlying behaviors. We verified the effectiveness of the proposed method using games from several genres. The recall rate of the outlying behavior pre-identified by industry experts was approximately 70%. The proposed method can also be used for feedback analysis of various interactive content provided in PC environments.

Keywords: Game environments; Outlier detection; User behavior analysis.

Grants and funding

This research was supported by a Korea University Grant and Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education, Science, ICT and future Planning (NRF-2015001196, NRF-2013R1A1A2011602, NRF-2014R1A2A2A01007143, NRF-2012R1A1A3006807).