Understanding Human Skill Acquisition through Statistical Modelling of Big Data in eSports
Lead Research Organisation:
University of York
Department Name: Computer Science
Abstract
Expert knowledge and skill play an increasingly important role in society, with an economy which is increasingly knowledge-driven and which involves rapid technological change and longer and longer working lives. Game players develop profound skill over hours, days and even years of practice, generating huge reservoirs of data about gameplay and skill development that can be easily and unobtrusively recorded. The result is an unparalleled opportunity to investigate what aspects of play determine expert skill, and how it is acquired.
The topic of the proposed PhD is to test theories of skill acquisition and characterise expert skill in gaming through the statistical interrogation of naturally occurring data in eSports games. The research would be conducted under the joint supervision of Professor Anders Drachen from the University of York and Dr Tom Stafford from the University of Sheffield under the IGGI research theme of using eSports data to understand human psychology. The proposed research fits well with available links to the eSports industry (i.e., DC Labs), available expertise (e.g., Professor Alex Wade), and ongoing analytics at IGGI into performance and skill acquisition through the analysis of player data from major online games (e.g., League of Legends, DOTA 2, Destiny)
The cognitive science of skill acquisition has broad applicability and is of practical significance for the eSports industry. Developing measures of skill that are predictive of high level performance can allow professional teams to identify talent more effectively, and allow game developers to engineer more effective matchmaking systems. Understanding what aspects of play accelerate skill acquisition also presents an opportunity to design more effective tutorials, engineer feedback systems that help novice to professional players maximise their rate of learning by suggesting changes to gameplay behaviour, and optimise training behaviours for competition.
Beyond gaming, skill acquisition research is of tremendous import for domains such as surgery and military aviation, where technical advancements and performance conditions often outpace the rate at which skilled personnel can adapt to them. Understanding how to optimise learning can significantly impact these arenas, as the success of an operation can depend upon an individual's ability to adapt in good time.
Previous research into expertise and skill acquisition has generated much knowledge about practice, feedback, and transfer, but has largely relied on laboratory findings and retrospective accounts of practice behaviour. By applying statistical modelling and data visualisation techniques on large, real-world data sets from eSports, the current research would bypass the drawbacks of laboratory methods to generate original findings about skill learning at high levels of statistical confidence. Taken together, the impact of the proposed research could inform coaching practices and game development in eSports, improve our current understanding about the psychology underpinning skill acquisition, and motivate subsequent scientific inquiry into the domain of learning.
Keywords
prediction modeling
skill prediction
machine learning
sports analytics
performance analysis
The topic of the proposed PhD is to test theories of skill acquisition and characterise expert skill in gaming through the statistical interrogation of naturally occurring data in eSports games. The research would be conducted under the joint supervision of Professor Anders Drachen from the University of York and Dr Tom Stafford from the University of Sheffield under the IGGI research theme of using eSports data to understand human psychology. The proposed research fits well with available links to the eSports industry (i.e., DC Labs), available expertise (e.g., Professor Alex Wade), and ongoing analytics at IGGI into performance and skill acquisition through the analysis of player data from major online games (e.g., League of Legends, DOTA 2, Destiny)
The cognitive science of skill acquisition has broad applicability and is of practical significance for the eSports industry. Developing measures of skill that are predictive of high level performance can allow professional teams to identify talent more effectively, and allow game developers to engineer more effective matchmaking systems. Understanding what aspects of play accelerate skill acquisition also presents an opportunity to design more effective tutorials, engineer feedback systems that help novice to professional players maximise their rate of learning by suggesting changes to gameplay behaviour, and optimise training behaviours for competition.
Beyond gaming, skill acquisition research is of tremendous import for domains such as surgery and military aviation, where technical advancements and performance conditions often outpace the rate at which skilled personnel can adapt to them. Understanding how to optimise learning can significantly impact these arenas, as the success of an operation can depend upon an individual's ability to adapt in good time.
Previous research into expertise and skill acquisition has generated much knowledge about practice, feedback, and transfer, but has largely relied on laboratory findings and retrospective accounts of practice behaviour. By applying statistical modelling and data visualisation techniques on large, real-world data sets from eSports, the current research would bypass the drawbacks of laboratory methods to generate original findings about skill learning at high levels of statistical confidence. Taken together, the impact of the proposed research could inform coaching practices and game development in eSports, improve our current understanding about the psychology underpinning skill acquisition, and motivate subsequent scientific inquiry into the domain of learning.
Keywords
prediction modeling
skill prediction
machine learning
sports analytics
performance analysis
Planned Impact
The IGGI Centre for Doctoral Training will impact upon:
The Digital Games Industry: IGGI will inject a substantial cohort of 55+ PhD graduates and a wide range of academic research leaders with direct experience of research collaboration with the UK digital games industry. Although large, the UK games industry is fragmented and geographically dispersed, consisting primarily of SMEs. Increasing skill levels and injecting research advances in such a community is best achieved through employment of and engagement with creative and entrepreneurial PhD graduates with good communication skills, and through stable long-term government-funded collaborative projects which offer the opportunity for research engagement at a time to suit the business cycles of games industry partners. IGGI offers the opportunity for a step change, yielding increased profits through an internationally distinctive UK games industry which is technologically advanced and research-aware. The financial barriers to starting a company in this area are low and many IGGI graduates will start their own games businesses, mentored by experienced investors and entrepreneurs, significantly increasing their chances of creating a successful games enterprise. Data mining tools developed during IGGI will allow increased understanding of game players, which can increase profitability of mainstream games.
Parents, Game Players and Wider Society: Large and growing numbers of people are playing digital games with unprecedented enthusiasm. In a recent Forbes magazine article it was suggested that, by the age of 21, the typical child has played an average of 10,000 hours of digital games. Creating games which engage a wider range of players and which increase the social and scientific value obtained through playing games can have massive benefits: both economic ones and ones which harness the massive "cognitive surplus" implied by game players who are clocking up thousands of game hours. The potential benefits here are cultural (e.g. to raise awareness in important areas such as environmental change), scientific (e.g. to conduct experiments which use artificial economies to test economic theory), social (e.g. to educate children about science) and therapeutic (e.g. to use games to increase mobility in the elderly).
Scientists: Gameplay data can provide information about human behaviour and preference on a massive scale - this provides a major new experimental tool for researchers in Economics, Ecology/Biology, Computer Science, Psychology, Mathematics, Media and others. The very recent announcement (20th June) of a proposed call in the EU Horizon 2020 research funding programme on "Advanced digital gaming/gamification technologies" underlines how much the EU values this area and the opportunities for pan-European research in games and sustainability for IGGI.
IGGI Graduates and Supervisors: Digital games are already a major attractor to computer science and digital media courses. IGGI will provide a beacon for innovation in digital games, with heavy competition for PhD places allowing recruitment of top students. For each IGGI graduate, learning and conducting research alongside a strong cohort of students with related but different interests and expertise, with extensive interaction with industry, will give rise to a highly rounded and employable PhD graduate, who will be highly sought by both UK games industry and the growing games research community. Supervisors will gain knowledge at the cutting edge of games and gamification research.
Through the CDT, IGGI investigators, supervisors and students will become well versed in the issues and techniques of the digital games industry, developing a long-term understanding which will, we believe, result in a stronger digital games industry, a wealth of fascinating new research questions, and real benefits for wider society through the now-ubiquitous medium of digital games.
The Digital Games Industry: IGGI will inject a substantial cohort of 55+ PhD graduates and a wide range of academic research leaders with direct experience of research collaboration with the UK digital games industry. Although large, the UK games industry is fragmented and geographically dispersed, consisting primarily of SMEs. Increasing skill levels and injecting research advances in such a community is best achieved through employment of and engagement with creative and entrepreneurial PhD graduates with good communication skills, and through stable long-term government-funded collaborative projects which offer the opportunity for research engagement at a time to suit the business cycles of games industry partners. IGGI offers the opportunity for a step change, yielding increased profits through an internationally distinctive UK games industry which is technologically advanced and research-aware. The financial barriers to starting a company in this area are low and many IGGI graduates will start their own games businesses, mentored by experienced investors and entrepreneurs, significantly increasing their chances of creating a successful games enterprise. Data mining tools developed during IGGI will allow increased understanding of game players, which can increase profitability of mainstream games.
Parents, Game Players and Wider Society: Large and growing numbers of people are playing digital games with unprecedented enthusiasm. In a recent Forbes magazine article it was suggested that, by the age of 21, the typical child has played an average of 10,000 hours of digital games. Creating games which engage a wider range of players and which increase the social and scientific value obtained through playing games can have massive benefits: both economic ones and ones which harness the massive "cognitive surplus" implied by game players who are clocking up thousands of game hours. The potential benefits here are cultural (e.g. to raise awareness in important areas such as environmental change), scientific (e.g. to conduct experiments which use artificial economies to test economic theory), social (e.g. to educate children about science) and therapeutic (e.g. to use games to increase mobility in the elderly).
Scientists: Gameplay data can provide information about human behaviour and preference on a massive scale - this provides a major new experimental tool for researchers in Economics, Ecology/Biology, Computer Science, Psychology, Mathematics, Media and others. The very recent announcement (20th June) of a proposed call in the EU Horizon 2020 research funding programme on "Advanced digital gaming/gamification technologies" underlines how much the EU values this area and the opportunities for pan-European research in games and sustainability for IGGI.
IGGI Graduates and Supervisors: Digital games are already a major attractor to computer science and digital media courses. IGGI will provide a beacon for innovation in digital games, with heavy competition for PhD places allowing recruitment of top students. For each IGGI graduate, learning and conducting research alongside a strong cohort of students with related but different interests and expertise, with extensive interaction with industry, will give rise to a highly rounded and employable PhD graduate, who will be highly sought by both UK games industry and the growing games research community. Supervisors will gain knowledge at the cutting edge of games and gamification research.
Through the CDT, IGGI investigators, supervisors and students will become well versed in the issues and techniques of the digital games industry, developing a long-term understanding which will, we believe, result in a stronger digital games industry, a wealth of fascinating new research questions, and real benefits for wider society through the now-ubiquitous medium of digital games.
Organisations
People |
ORCID iD |
| Alex Wade (Primary Supervisor) | |
| Ozan Vardal (Student) |