(Value Sensitive Design) Analysis of Arena of Valor
已更新：2021年5月21日
Overview: Conducted value sensitive design analysis to find out users' behaviors regarding toxic gaming languages and design suggestions
Context:
Arena of Valor is a 3D, third-person perspective, multiplayer online battle arena style game for mobile where people can team up with random players or chosen players and fight the opponent team in a match. Now the game is pervasive across generations, including primary school children. To win a match, it requires individual playing skills and teamwork strategy. The gameplay usually gets very intense, so people use its audio or message chat to communicate during the gameplay. However, some players use these functions to blame or insult teammates when they have a bad match.
Problems:
There are cases that players sued those who insulted them in this game. Sometimes insults in the game were made by primary students, without neither respect for people nor awareness of possible legal results. Therefore, ‘respect’ is an important human value to discuss in the video game play practices and the game design.
Methods:
I chose to use the framework based on Batya Friedman's Value Sensitive Design (VSD), an approach to account for the human values perspective 'respect' in the technologies or media related to children and young adults.
I explored the stakeholders, value propositions, pervasiveness and temporality of Arena of Valor.
Findings:
The mobile video game, “Arena of Valor,” involves in a wide range of playersof different ages, experiences, and backgrounds. Among cross-generational players, the plasticity of teenagers and children make them vulnerable in this hostile gaming culture. Parents and related professions who are aware of the impact of toxic gaming behaviors also take proactive actions to educate children, young adults and general public by game-integrating education and relevant law consultation.
Various players, however, hold different attitudes towards respect and considerations for people. The conflicts and collapsed contexts occur if players interpret others’ behaviors and express themselves only based on their own context and perspectives.
When designers of the game can perceive players’ communication conflicts, values serve as hypotheses to examine problematic situations. According to players’ reactions to the preventive measures of disrespectful behavior, designers can continuously refine the features. The dynamic and iterative process shows the intertwined relationship between value and design.
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