Tamsin Isaac

University of York

Tamsin has been a lifelong gamer ever since receiving her first Game Boy and has long been fascinated by how people engage with games emotionally, socially, and behaviourally. She joined the iGGi CDT in 2023 after completing a BSc and MSc in Psychology at the University of Plymouth, where she developed a growing interest in player motivation, disengagement, and live-service game design.

Her PhD research focuses on limited-time events (LTEs) in digital games—temporary content designed to encourage engagement and re-engagement in live-service games. Through this work, she explores how LTEs shape player behaviour, routine, anticipation, disengagement, and return play across platforms and genres.

Tamsin’s research combines large-scale content analysis with qualitative diary-and-interview methods to investigate both the structure and lived experience of LTEs. She is currently developing a cross-platform taxonomy of LTEs using data from over 2,600 Steam and Google Play games, alongside player-focused research exploring how individuals decide whether events are “worth” participating in during everyday play.

Her work aims to support more ethical, sustainable, and player-friendly approaches to live-service game design by helping researchers and developers better understand how event structures influence player experience and long-term engagement.

She is open to collaboration opportunities with game studios interested in live-service systems, player behaviour, engagement design, and event analysis using player data or design insights.

When not researching or analysing games, Tamsin enjoys baking, reading, playing cosy indie games, and quietly grinding dailies.