A thread about another weird and amazing thing that has happened because of my association with @thedicetower and gaming.

Buckle up.

In 2015 I proposed an experiment to test how theme affects player action. I suggested that if Incan Gold (Alan Moon & @Bruno_Faidutti) was themed as firefighters rescuing people instead of adventurers trying to get treasure, the emotional response would be different.

Here's the GameTek where I make the proposal in case you'd like to give it a listen.

https://ludology.libsyn.com/gametek-classic-163-theme-mechanics-experience

Well, Stephen Blessing, @cognitive_gamer a researcher from the University of Tampa, actually got a freakin' grant to test this idea, and I discuss the results this week with him and his asst Elena Sakosky. They created three versions: Adventurer, Firefighter, and Abstract.

Here's a link to the episode:

https://ludology.libsyn.com/gametek-2135-the-incan-gold-experiment

And here is a link to the paper. This hasn't been formally peer-reviewed or released yet, but you can check out the data. You'll also see that they graciously listed me as an author, which is wild and mind-blowing. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1uwoBy1KA8M56BfeNljHovJjmubJQIsxh/view?usp=sharing

In a nutshell, the results showed that in the themed versions, players took more risks, with the Firefighters showing playing a bit more risky than the Adventurers.

However after a few games, the difference in risk went away. Players focused on the mechanics over the experience.

While this is a limited experiment and you don't want to generalize, this is still very suggestive and intuitive. The more players play, the less theme matters.

Thanks again to @cognitive_gamer for doing this study!