Open Player Modeling: Empowering Players through Data Transparency

TL;DR

This paper introduces Open Player Modeling, a new research area focused on making game player data and models transparent to enhance user understanding and engagement, supported by a synthesis of related fields and a case study.

Contribution

It defines the design space of Open Player Models and highlights open research problems, bridging game development with data transparency practices from related disciplines.

Findings

Identified key open problems in open player modeling

Presented a case study demonstrating potential benefits

Synthesized insights from Intelligent User Interface and Learning Science

Abstract

Data is becoming an important central point for making design decisions for most software. Game development is not an exception. As data-driven methods and systems start to populate these environments, a good question is: can we make models developed from this data transparent to users? In this paper, we synthesize existing work from the Intelligent User Interface and Learning Science research communities, where they started to investigate the potential of making such data and models available to users. We then present a new area exploring this question, which we call Open Player Modeling, as an emerging research area. We define the design space of Open Player Models and present exciting open problems that the games research community can explore. We conclude the paper with a case study and discuss the potential value of this approach.