– comparing the digital and tabletop gaming experience

Ville KankainenSchool of Information Sciences

University of Tampereville.e.kankainen@uta.fi

Starting Point• Personal gaming and design history• No previous research on these games• Little research on

board games in general• Hybrid experience?

The Games

• Blood Bowl (BB)– Tabletop fantasy football

miniature game– 1987 (1st ed.)– Jervis Johnson– Games Workshop

• Fumbbl– Java-based online Blood Bowl– 2002 – Christer & SkiJunkie

(javabbclient)– Fan-based– http://fumbbl.com/

Pre-research• Open discussions with experienced players• Own experiences

– playing both games– game design

• Previous study– mm. deBoer & Lamers (2004),

Evan et al. (2011), Krzywinski et al. (2011), Toivonen & Sotamaa (2011)

The Themes 1• Social aspects• Motivation• Lifestyle/ materiality• Visual appearance• Rules and interaction• Game fiction

The Themes 2• Social aspects

– Who to play with, meaning for the enjoyment, social circles, differences...

• Motivation– Why one, the other or both; differences, how

often...

• Lifestyle/ materiality– Daily life, home decoration, identity,

wargaming, collecting...

The Themes 3• Visual appearance

– painting the miniatures (BB), the ease of play, game graphics (fumbbl)...

• Rules and interaction– Game session, typical game actions, house

rules, digital interface (fumbbl), playing styles, cheating, luck/strategy...

• Game fiction– Meaning for the experience, cohesiveness,

bridging the games...

The Study• Pre-researched themes

– autoethnography, open discussion, previous research

• Around 10 semi-structured interviews– players as co-researchers?

• Jørgensen (2012)

• (auto-) Ethnography– playing the game, analyzing the forums

• Grounded theory or frame analysis?

Thanks for your interest!

Questions or suggestions?

ville.e.kankainen@uta.fi

BibliographyDe Boer, C., J. & H., L., Maarten, 2004. Electronic Augmentation of Traditional Board Games. Available at: http://www.maartenlamers.com/docs/deboer-catan-icec2004.pdf [Accessed October 1, 2012].Evan, B. et al., 2011. Chores Are Fun: Understanding Social Play in Board Games for Digital Tabletop Game Design. Available at: http://www.digra.org/wp-content/uploads/digital-library/11307.16031.pdf.Jørgensen, K., 2012. Players as Coresearchers Expert Player Perspective as an Aid to Understanding Games. Simulation & Gaming, 43(3), pp.374–390.Krzywinski, A., Chen, W. & Røsjø, E., 2011. Digital board games: peripheral activity eludes ennui. In Proceedings of the ACM International Conference on Interactive Tabletops and Surfaces. pp. 280–281. Available at: http://dl.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=2076415 [Accessed May 7, 2013].Toivonen, S. & Sotamaa, O., 2011. Of discs, boxes and cartridges: the material life of digital games. Available at: http://www.digra.org/dl/db/11312.23263.pdf [Accessed April 26, 2013].