Exploring Meaningful Hybridity in Hybrid Digital Boardgames

Paper Title

Exploring Meaningful Hybridity in Hybrid Digital Boardgames

Publication Info

• Topic area: Understanding meaningful hybridity in hybrid digital boardgames (HDBs) through player experiences.
• Keywords: Hybrid digital boardgames, player experience, meaningful hybridity, game design, thematic integration, hybrid play, gaming literacy, constructivist grounded theory, CPRG, qualitative research.

Background and Problem

• Problem / challenge: Existing research on hybrid digital boardgames (HDBs) focuses on technological augmentation and design guidelines but lacks a clear understanding of what constitutes meaningful hybridity in player experiences (HDB-PX). Players often perceive digital components as unnecessary or gimmicky.
• Significance: Understanding meaningful hybridity is crucial for designing engaging HDBs that resonate with players, ensuring the integration of digital and physical components enhances rather than detracts from gameplay.
• Motivation and related work: Prior studies have explored hybrid games, player attitudes toward technology, and player experience (PX) in games, but there is no consensus on constructs like hybridity, PX, or meaningful play. This paper builds on existing models like the Hybrid Digital Boardgame Model (HDB-Model) and frameworks like HybridGamePX to address these gaps.

Solution

• Proposed approach: A constructivist grounded theory of meaningful hybridity in HDBs, developed through qualitative analysis of player experiences in a Critical Play Reference Group (CPRG).
• Novelty:
  1. Identification of three categories of hybridity: functional, effective, and meaningful.
  2. Development of an eight-step process players use to evaluate meaningful hybridity.
  3. Introduction of thematic integration as a key factor in meaningful hybridity.
  4. Use of a CPRG to generate nuanced insights into HDB-PX.
• Procedure and key techniques:
  • Convened a CPRG of 21 players over 12 months, hosting monthly in-person play sessions with 25 unique HDBs.
  • Conducted 37 semi-structured group interviews and used reflexive, constructivist grounded theory for analysis.
  • Categorized games into functional, effective, or meaningful hybridity based on player feedback and iterative coding.

Results

• Concrete findings:
  • Players evaluate HDBs through an ordered process of eight questions, grouped into three stages: functional hybridity (basic functionality), effective hybridity (cohesion and utility), and meaningful hybridity (integration and personal resonance).
  • Meaningful hybridity is characterized by thematic integration and alignment with player expectations and gaming literacy.
• Advantage over baselines:
  • Provides a structured framework for understanding player perceptions of HDBs, moving beyond existing models like the HDB-Model by focusing on experiential and thematic factors.
• Experiments / evaluation:
  • Data collected from 10 CPRG sessions, involving diverse players and games with varying levels of complexity and hybrid mechanisms.
  • Analysis included iterative coding, visual mapping of game experiences, and critical discourse between researchers.
• Limitations and future work:
  • Focus on first-play experiences limits insights into long-term player engagement.
  • Genre fatigue and underrepresentation of certain HDB genres may skew findings.
  • Future work includes exploring underrepresented genres, refining the theory, and testing its application in game design and evaluation.

Summary

This study develops a grounded theory of meaningful hybridity in hybrid digital boardgames (HDBs), identifying three categories of hybridity (functional, effective, meaningful) and eight player-driven processes for evaluating HDBs. The findings emphasize the importance of thematic integration and player expectations in creating engaging HDB experiences. The research highlights the potential of the Critical Play Reference Group (CPRG) method for generating nuanced insights into player experiences. The theory provides practical guidance for HDB design and evaluation, with future work aimed at refining the model and exploring its application across diverse game genres.