Conducting Value Investigations on Valorant
In-game Intervention Design
My Role: VSD Researcher/Designer
Team: Sydney Morales, Athena Le & Tiffany Lu
Project Scope 🕹️
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Methods: Stakeholder Analysis, User Survey, User Interviews, Value-oriented Coding Manual, Competitive Analysis, Harms & Benefits Analysis
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Tools: Miro, Google Docs, Google Forms
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Duration: April - June 2024 (9 weeks)
Discovering Valorant gamers’ values to design an in-game intervention that encourages healthy gaming habits
Context 🎮
Valorant is a 5v5 first-person shooter (FPS) game developed by Riot Games, whose immense popularity has brought concerns about excessive gaming - when gamers play for unhealthily prolonged periods of time.
No in-game intervention currently exists to address the negative effects of excessive gaming within Valorant despite the large player base.
This project idea started from our own observations of friends who started neglecting school and life responsibilities to play Valorant.
Playable characters from Valorant
Objective 🎯
Our objective is to create a support system within Valorant's gaming environment to promote mental well-being and awareness by focusing on comprehending Valorant gamers' values.
How might we design an in-game intervention that encourages Valorant gamers to develop healthier gaming habits?
Design Process ✏️
Our design process was split into three value investigations:
1. Conceptual Investigation
2. Empirical Investigation
3. Technical Investigation
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Stakeholder Analysis
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Literature Review
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User Survey
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Semi-structured Interviews
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Value-oriented Coding Manual
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Competitive Analysis
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Harms & Benefits Analysis
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Solution Development
The conceptual investigation was focused on defining stakeholder groups and deepening our understanding of the problem space within gaming and mental health.
Stakeholder Analysis 👥
To start our investigation, we identified different stakeholders to understand the diverse interests impacted by our solution.
Direct Stakeholders
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Valorant Players
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Riot Games
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Valorant Developers & Designers
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Professional Valorant Gamers & Coaches
These stakeholders are directly impacted by our solution, including the potential positive and negative effects on gaming.
Indirect Stakeholders
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Parents
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Friends
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School
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Workplace
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Broader Gaming Community
These stakeholders are indirectly influenced by gaming's impact on players' behavior, social interactions, and other life commitments.
Literature Review 📚
Our goals for the literature review were to understand the causes of excessive gaming and the qualities of solutions that successfully mitigate excessive gaming.
Key Takeaways:
1. Excessive play stems from several reasons
Games are used for achievement needs, social interactions, and stress coping, affecting whether it leads to excessive play.
2. Interventions should be engaging and supportive
Effective interventions against excessive play must be engaging, supportive, and aligned with health and social outcomes.
Articles Used:
The empirical investigation was focused on understanding our users and uncovering the key values they hold to incorporate into our solution
User Survey 📝
We drafted and sent out a user survey to better understand Valorant gamers and their gaming habits, and received 29 responses.
"Why do you play games?"
37.9%: To spend time with friends
31%: To pursue game-related goals
"Have you ever experienced physical discomfort (e.g., headaches, eye strain) while gaming?"
62.1%: Yes
37.9%: No
"Do you feel in control of your gaming habits?"
51.7%: Yes
34.5%: Sometimes
13.8%: No
Survey Findings:
1. Motivations for gaming
Primary reasons for gaming were socializing and pursuing in-game goals, supporting the values of social connection and self-achievement.
2. Negative health effects
The majority of survey participants reported experiencing physical discomfort while gaming, emphasizing the need for an in-game intervention.
3. Lacking sense of control
Only half of the participants felt they had complete control over their gaming habits, indicating an underlying factor is influencing gamer's control.
Semi-structured Interviews 🎥
We conducted three semi-structured interviews with Valorant players which provided further evidence for the two main motivations for playing Valorant: to play with friends or to climb in rank.
We created personas based on motivations for gaming: The Social Gamer and the Competitive Gamer.
"I played Valorant for 3 and a half hours because my friends and I were on a winning streak and we didn’t want to stop the momentum”
“Some days it’s hard to stop playing - that’s how loss streaks usually happen. I think ‘I’m going to play until I win’”
Interview Findings:
1. Awareness of when to stop playing
Although the personas have different motivations for playing Valorant, they share a certain amount of awareness of when they need to stop playing
2. Desire to Win
A strong desire to win may cause players, especially Competitive gamers, to continue playing until they win, disregarding their need to stop.
3. Peer Pressure
Social gamers who play with friends who share the same desire to win can create peer pressure to continue playing because they "can't end on a loss."
Value-oriented Coding Manual 📔
We analyzed recurring themes based on interview responses, which enabled us to directly link quotes to values and produce a summary of the users' key values.
Value-oriented Coding Manual: this helped us gain an overview of our empirical findings and systematically create interpretations of Valorant gamers' values.
Lastly, the technical investigation refined our approach by analyzing existing solutions, which revealed several significant shortcomings and further informed our final solution design
Competitive Analysis 🔎
To explore existing solutions, we researched related interventions, apps, and in-game solutions.
1. MapleStory: MapleStory’s direct intervention for when their users play for a very long time, is through a red message at the bottom.
+ Message reminder & suggestion
+ Shows how long you’ve played for
+ Can intervene in their game session
- Notification is not noticeable
- Not an FPS game
2. RescueTime: an external software that automatically tracks how much time the user has spent on apps and websites without manual entry
+ Raises awareness of time spent
- External solution/app
3. Forest App: a gamified productivity app that helps users stay productive by utilizing the Pomodoro method. The gamified portion includes planting trees and earning gold to buy different types of trees.
+ Raises awareness of time spent
+ Fun, engaging and gamified solution
- External solution/app
Harms & Benefits Analysis ⚖️
We analyzed the harms and benefits of our different solution ideas while considering the values of fun, self-care, self-awareness, and social connection.
1. Gaming Statistics Notification:
Notifying the user “Your headshot % is decreasing for the past 3 games.”
+ Raises self-awareness
+ A downward performance trend may encourage gamers to take a break
- Could make gamers angry & perceive the notification as criticism
- Players could continue to play until their statistics improve
2. Discord Add-On:
Collective Discord messages/reminders to the group playing - “You all have been playing for 5 hours!”
+ Helps social gamers to not feel peer-pressured to continue playing
+ Increases group awareness of playing time
- Not catered to competitive gamers
- Could create a negative impact on Discord’s reputation
- Users may not see the message
3. Suggestions & Reminders During Queue:
Characters provide actionable suggestions while the user waits for games - “Let’s stretch your legs!”
+ Increases self-awareness by briefly taking them out of their competitive mindset
+ Encourages fun, health-promoting activities to relax
- Users who don't play often may not care to follow the suggestions
- Users could take offense to suggestions
Our Solution 💎
For our final solution, we decided to implement actionable suggestions & reminders the user can easily follow as they wait for the game to start, improving their self-awareness and encouraging healthy gaming habits in a fun, engaging way.
Solution Goals:
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Preserve fun values by using Valorant characters to deliver notifications
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Remind social gamers to value self-care even when friends are still playing
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Raise self-awareness by recommending practical actions to benefit health
Key Features:
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Actionable Suggestion Notifications
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Valorant Character Integration
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Player Interaction & Autonomy
Water Break
The Valorant character kindly reminds players to stay hydrated and drink water after playing for a few hours.
Stretch Break
The Valorant character leads players through a series of stretches to help them feel refreshed after they have played for a long time.
Eye Break
The Valorant character advises players to look away from the screen to give their eyes a much-needed rest to protect them from strain.
Sleep Reminder
The Valorant character reminds the team of the late time, allowing them to vote on whether they want to stop playing after the game.
End Result 📍
Our approach encourages healthy habits, promotes mindfulness, and self-care among Valorant players. By understanding the values of Valorant gamers, we identified various reasons for excessive play and developed interventions tailored to these reasons.
Reflection 🔮
This project was focused on understanding users’ values when developing a solution, which led to insightful findings that helped solidify our goals for the final design.
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If we had more time, we would create high-fidelity prototypes of our solution and conduct usability testing to validate our solution with Valorant gamers and gain feedback to iterate on.
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If I could approach this project differently, I would work with mental health professionals and game designers to ensure our intervention effectively promotes well-being and integrates into the game.
Overall, this was a fun and insightful project that allowed me to realize the importance of understanding users' values when designing solutions for them.