Findings from our research

Gender Bias in Video Game Dialogue

A study led by Stephanie Rennick at the University of Stirling and Seán Roberts at Cardiff University performed the first large-scale test of gender imbalance in the dialogue of 50 role-playing games. It discovered that games include nearly twice as much male dialogue as female dialogue on average.

Main Findings

• 35% of words were spoken by female characters.
• 29% of characters were female, which suggests the imbalance is driven by a lack of female characters.
• 94% of games had more male dialogue than female dialogue.

You can read an accessible summary at The Conversation, see the press release, or find the full paper here.

Improving Optionality

Trope-Informed Design is our eponymous method for identifying opportunities for subverting and averting patterns in game design, with a view to enhancing player experience. In response to discussions with gamemakers, we’ve undertaken research into dialogue optionality in RPGs and suggest ways of expanding and improving dialogue systems. This included a systematic study of what kinds of dialogue options players are given in games, and then use trope analysis to review what issues players have with dialogue option systems. We present several suggestions for how game makers can expand optionality in a manageable way, including:

1. Focus on giving the player meaningful and appropriate options for what to do with language rather than what to say.
2. Provide cues for options that accurately and transparently convey the intended pragmatic options of the PC. This is more important than showing the exact phrasing of what will be said.
3. Provide script notes for voice actors about the pragmatic context of the lines being uttered.
4. Do not aim to cover all possible choices. Players are unlikely to expect it, since pragmatic optionality in real-life conversations is relatively predictable and systematic. Instead:
   • Spend resources where the predictability of a response is lower.
   • Conserve resources where predictability is higher.
   • Have NPCs initiate actions with relatively predictable responses (questions, requests or offers rather than statements).
   • Spend resources on branches that follow polite options. Players are more likely to choose these (face-saving) responses than impolite (face-threatening) responses.
5. When real choice between outcomes is an illusion, consider:
   • Using escalating coercive impoliteness before “but thou must.”
   • Using semantic optionality to allow for more nuanced characterisation and roleplay, thereby enhancing player agency in a different way.
   • Using humour.
6. Consider types of optionality beyond the pragmatic — how and when characters speak, the sounds they utter, the intention behind the words — and the ramifications this has for their characterisation and relationships.

You can read the full paper here

Key Barriers for Women in Gaming

A study in collaboration with Undone Games and Unity on how women feel about playing video games. We found:

Main Findings

• Almost a third (29%) of women experience guilt about taking the time to play video games
• One in six women (16%) keep gaming a secret for fear of judgement
• A third (30%) are embarrassed to call themselves a ‘gamer’
• Despite this, 41% feel that playing games is a daily highlight in their lives

You can read an accessible summary at The Conversation, listen to Steph talk about it on the Last Show, or find the full paper here.

Trope-Informed Design

Trope Informed Design is a new approach to designing game dialogue systems. Drawing from the fields of pragmatics and Conversation Analysis we explain when and why many conversations with NPCs break player immersion. Considering how and when to perpetuate, subvert, or transcend tropes can help guide designers in improving their game mechanics.

In this paper we talk about handling repetition, turn-taking, skipping and interrupting - you can read it here, or invite us to come and talk to you about it! More recently, we’ve applied the trope-informed design methodology to dialogue optionality, which you can read about here.