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< Back IGGI students and staff at the 2019 IGGI Conference The annual IGGI conference assembles is your games research download from 50+ PhD students at York, Goldsmiths, QMUL, and Essex Universities. Previous 12 Oct 2020 Next

< Back iGGi Game Jam 2022 We thought that with summer fast approaching and the end of term in close sight, the time would be right to reflect back on some of iGGi’s more iGGi-ish events which took place earlier this year. One such event was the iGGi Game Jam . iGGi PGRs gather once a year to create a game from scratch in a limited space of time (usually over 48 hours). This is an opportunity for those less familiar with game design/development to experience the process first hand, for those who are already experienced and/or have worked in industry before to explore new tools and/or skills, but most of all, we look at it as a shared fun time dedicated to (re-)connecting within and across cohorts, socialising and exchanging ideas. Traditionally, the Game Jam is coincided with international online events such as the Global Game Jam or Ludum Dare. This year, however, all of the jamming iGGi groups opted out of submitting to the Global Game Jam (for which iGGi was a registered site) – partly out of protest over the Global Game Jam’s initial choice of sponsor, partly because many felt that a relaxed group atmosphere was preferable to the high-octane pressure that participation in a global competition brings with it. This is not to say that we didn’t succumb to competitive spirit: prizes in 5 different categories were given out iGGi-internally at the final presentations upon conclusion of the jam. The categories were Non-fungible Gameplay - Best mechanic and game experience Houston, We Have A Problem - Most successful fail in a making a game Best Buddy - Best multiplayer game I Just Can't Get Enough - Best storytelling, immersive or replayable experience Tech Neutral - Most original & climate friendly use of technology You can find the majority of the resulting mini-games/proofs of concept uploaded on Itch here: https://itch.io/jam/iggi22/entries Previous 30 Jan 2022 Next

< Back iGGi Research Retreat "Unconference" Group Outcomes Generative AI, Abstraction and Epistemology The "Problem" Coming up with the skeleton of a 50-60 minute presentation for technologists in the former CIS region about the topic. What we did There was a lot of brainstorming about the three topics and how they link together. A Keynote presentation was produced, and then four sheets of flip-chart paper. We iterated on the content several times, attempting to join it all together in a coherent whole. The "Outcome" We found that this is a rich field that may yield actually yield a paper. The lack of understanding about epistemology in the wider field is quite evident, and this informs poor choices about the value and content of generative AI. Since AI is seeking to "be" human and "do" human things, ideally better and/or faster than humans, but without a sound understanding of what it means to be human this is unlikely to succeed. AI is NOT human, it is a simulacrum of a part of human nature, that which can be subject to reduction. It is effective at the correct point of abstraction but it is without context outside of that point. Previous Next Previous Next

Building Player Profiles in Mobile Monetisation: A Machine Learning Approach Theme Game Data Project proposed & supervised by David Zendle To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: david.zendle@york.ac.uk < Back Building Player Profiles in Mobile Monetisation: A Machine Learning Approach Project proposal abstract: This project aims to use machine learning techniques to segment and profile mobile gamers in terms of their in-game spending. Estimates suggest that more than 2.6bn people play mobile games globally; that more than 80 billion mobile games are downloaded annually; and that mobile gaming accounts for almost $100bn in transactions every year. Despite the profitability of mobile gaming, little is known about how different kinds of players spend money in mobile games. Informal theories regarding specific differences in gaming are widely espoused: one influential model, for example, posits the existence of a small but profitable layer of heavily-involved 'whales', and much larger groups of smaller-spending 'dolphins' and 'minnows'. However, it is unclear whether this structure really does explain the monetisation of most games; and whether monetisation may vary between games; and between cultural contexts. In this project, we will take a data-driven approach, and apply a variety of machine learning techniques to large datasets of real player transactions. By both applying and developing algorithmic techniques for the analysis of such data, we will help build an understanding of how in-game spending may be profiled. This project would suit a machine learning specialist; a quantitative social scientist, or a data scientist wishing to do impactful work. It will be supervised by David Zendle, one of the world's leading experts on video game monetisation, and may involve one or more industrial partners who will share player data for the project. Supervisor: David Zendle Based at:

Principled and Scalable Exploration Techniques for Reinforcement Learning Theme Game AI Project proposed & supervised by Paulo Rauber To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: p.rauber@qmul.ac.uk < Back Principled and Scalable Exploration Techniques for Reinforcement Learning Project proposal abstract: Reinforcement learning has received significant attention due to its success in training agents that play popular games such as Go , Starcraft II , Dota 2 , and others. Inefficient exploration, one of the earliest problems recognized in the field, still limits the success of reinforcement learning approaches that do not require domain knowledge. Although techniques like posterior sampling convincingly solve hard exploration problems in simple domains ( https://searchworks.stanford.edu/view/11891201 ), scalable exploration techniques remain elusive. In this project, you will develop principled and scalable exploration techniques based on reducing model uncertainty ( https://arxiv.org/abs/1609.04436 ). Besides benefiting from games as excellent testbeds, this project has the potential to radically improve automated playtesting. Supervisor: Paulo Rauber Based at:

< Back Best Game Related Research Award Goes to iGGi Today, iGGi won the Best Game Related Research Award at the Game Republic 20th Anniversary Awards!! The ceremony was part of GaMaYo #21 (by Game Makers Yorkshire and the North ) which took place today, Thursday, 23 November 2023 at Tileyard North in Wakefield, and the award was sponsored by Red Kite Games . For further details please follow this link to the related news item on Game Republic's website. Big thank yous go to the organisers, hosts and sponsor! Last but not least: a WELL DONE to the iGGi Researchers!!! Previous 23 Nov 2023 Next

< Back Intelligent Games and Game Intelligence at Develop:Brighton 12-14 July Want to improve the relationship between your game AI and your players? Or polish your VR character’s social interaction skills? Or discuss the latest academic research in the metaverse? Or just chance a flirt with Amy Smith ’s @artbhot? We are super excited to announce that @iggiphd will be attending @developconf in full force with 3 talks and over 20 researchers. This is our first big event since the pandemic and we are stoked! Who else is coming? We would love to meet you all at our stand! Click here for more information. Previous 2 Jul 2022 Next

Novel video narrative from recorded content Theme Creative Computing Project proposed & supervised by Nick Pears To discuss whether this project could become your PhD proposal please email: nick.pears@york.ac.uk < Back Novel video narrative from recorded content Project proposal abstract: In order to stimulate interest and engagement in games, it is important to give players a wide variety of video content that can provide scenario variations each time they engage with the game. However, creating a large volume of diverse video content manually is expensive and time consuming. This project aims to generate novel video narratives from recorded content with minimal human intervention. This requires automatic visual scene understanding that generates auto tagging of scene content and scene actions, either on a frame-by-frame or short clip basis. As well as understanding frame content, action segmentation strategies will be developed and evaluated. This will enable construction of short novel video narratives - for example, from a manually-defined storyline. Deep learning tools and techniques will be employed throughout this project. Supervisor: Nick Pears Based at:

< Back Children and Young People's Involvement in Designing Applied Games: Scoping Review Link Author(s) MJ Saiger, S Deterding, L Gega Abstract More info TBA Link

Training iGGi is a collaboration between Uni of York + Queen Mary Uni of London: the largest training programme worldwide for doing a PhD in digital games. Training The training programme is an essential part of the iGGi PhD. It helps students acquire the knowledge and skills they need to do great research -- research that can change both video games and wider society. The programme has a practical focus on the design and development of games. By deepening our PGRs' understanding of games, we aim to motivate and enable PhD research that has real relevance to how games are made and played. Page Index: The Modules - Bringing Researchers Together - Training Requirements The Modules Because iGGi offers a four year PhD programme, the PG Researchers (PGRs) are able to commit substantial time to this training during their first year. There are four modules, with delivery shared by the University of York and Queen Mary University of London: Game Design (York) PGRs learn how to conceive, design, prototype and playtest their own games, be it for entertainment or a 'serious' purpose like health, education, or research. Game Development (QMUL) The module provides hands-on training developing video games using industry-standard game engines. iGGi PGRs work together to prototype a new game in one week . It also introduces a range of state-of-the-art technologies for game development, such as novel interaction techniques, AI opponents and collaborators, and procedural content generation. Methods and Data (York) PGRs learn various methods for empirically studying games and players, including standard HCI methods and data science techniques for gaining insights from large game data sets. Research Impact & Engagement (QMUL) PGRs learn how to engage industry, players, and other societal stakeholders early on in their research, how to conduct responsible research and innovation that is overall beneficial to human wellbeing, and how to present their work online, to the media, and industry. Video Placeholder - to display Game Dev YouTube playlist >> For iGGi news and updates, including event announcements, follow us on social media Bringing Researchers Together A key aim of this training is to bring new researchers together as a well-connected cohort who will carry on learning from, and supporting each other throughout their studies. This has helped us build a strong iGGi community of researchers across four universities and multiple research fields, with a common goal of doing world class PhD research on games. Each module is delivered in two two-week blocks, with the exception of the remotely-supervised individual project. Six weeks of the training takes place in the Autumn of the first year, and another eight weeks is scheduled throughout the rest of first year. For researchers in receipt of an iGGi EPSRC studentship, travel and accommodation is provided for York researchers to study in London, and vice versa. Training Requirements Completing the training programme, including passing the modules, is a compulsory part of the iGGi PhD programme. The Game Development module does assume some knowledge of programming, at least the equivalent of an introductory class.

iGGi PhD Projects - listing iGGi PhD Projects 2023 Game AI This page displays the supervisor-proposed PhD projects on offer under the above stated theme: If you are interested in any of the projects listed and would like further details and/or to discuss, please email the project supervisor. Please note that you can also frame your own project independently granted that you have secured a supervisor's support. For a list of available supervisors please see the accepting students section of our website. While iGGi has checked that the project descriptions listed below are within iGGi's scope , we wish to highlight that you are still responsible for ensuring that your proposal, too, is in line with this scope, and we would further like to point out that supervisor-framed projects are not prioritised in the application selection process: they are judged by the same criteria as applicant-framed proposals. For guidance to make sure that the proposal you submit (regardless of whether it has been supervisor-framed or created entirely by you) sits within iGGi's scope please refer to this link: https://iggi.org.uk/iggi-scope Navigate to other Themes on offer: Game AI Design & Development Player Research Game Audio Game Data Immersive Technology Creative Computing E-Sports Applied Games Back to ALL Projects Game AI Automatic Evaluation of Tabletop Games This project proposal aims to research and develop methods to accurately evaluate the impact of modern Tabletop Games components in different aspects of gameplay. Price Game AI Duration Diego Pérez-Liébana Read More Game AI Principled and Scalable Exploration Techniques for Reinforcement Learning In this project, you will develop principled and scalable exploration techniques based on reducing model uncertainty. Price Game AI Duration Paulo Rauber Read More Game AI Evolving Perception for Game Agents This project will investigate game agents in open world games which evolve their senses and world representation alongside learning what actions to take in each state. We will evolve game agents with highly alien behaviours which nevertheless have high fitness in the open world environment, while investigating important scientific questions about how senses and world representations evolved in humans. Price Game AI Duration Alex Wade, Peter Cowling Read More Load More

< Back Examining the effects of video game difficulty adaptation on performance and player experience Link Author(s) M Frister, P Cairns, F McNab Abstract More info TBA Link