Using Video Communication in Online Multiplayer Games : The effects of adding a video chat overlay on the game experience in online multiplayer video games - a quasi-experimental design

Abstract: The focus of this thesis is to investigate whether adding video communication inonline multiplayer video games will affect the game experience. The work uses usercentered design and a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Literaturereview, pre-study questionnaire and semi-structured interviews are used to create aprototype of a video chat overlay that can be used in games. The prototype is thenused in a quasi-experiment to test if adding a video chat will result in better gameexperience. Participants in the experiment play the same online multiplayer videogame without and with video chat overlay and fill out a game experiencequestionnaire after each condition. The GEQ scores after the two conditions arecompared using a Wilcoxon Signed-Rank Test. Results showed that adding videochat did not improve the game experience significantly. If a video chat would becreated for use in video games, it is important to keep it simple and easy to use.Regarding the effect of video chat on game experience, with the prototype designedfor this work, the null hypothesis could not be rejected since there was no significantdifference in the game experience.