Steam Achievement Classification & Analytics Project
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Steam Achievement Classification & Analytics Project 3 Λ Adam Lathrop [email protected] Daniel Wilson [email protected] Jin Ha Lee Project Sponsor TM Problem "Action Games" Video games are notoriously hard to categorize. Unlike traditional media, video games have an interactive element that is difficult to sum up in a single, over-arching category. The digital distribution platform Steam™ groups games by genre, but these genres are often so broad as to be meaningless; all of the above games fall into the "Action" genre, even though they have nothing in common with each other. Users can add custom tags, but they can also be misleading or irrelevant to gameplay. For example, some of the more popular tags are "great soundtrack", "funny", and "colorful". We wanted to find a better way to classify games, in particular one that takes advantage of that interactive aspect. Solution We decided to use video game achievements. Achievements are rewards for completing game objectives or performing pre-determined actions in a game. They often explicitly describe these actions as well as the things players interact with (e.g. "Go here, do this, get that"). We apply data science methods to compare these descriptions: - Extract individual terms to create a corpus - Remove "stop" words from corpus (e.g. and, or, there, can, the) - Stem remaining terms to create unique unigrams (e.g. completed, kills, construction) - Produce document-term matrix for analysis Counter-Strike Team Fortress 2 King of Fighters Battle Fantasia Similar Games, Similar Achievements Result The DNA of Achievements Aliens vs. Predator CoD: Black Ops 2 Kane & Lynch 2 Kingdoms of Amalur Brutal Legend Tomb Raider Dying Light Sniper Ghost Warrior 2 Warhammer 40K: Space Marine complet win find kill defeat story enemi game chaos multiplay one challeng match single without mode campaign weapon use level coop difficult escap reach get play These stemmed unigrams can be seen as the metaphorical “genes” that determine the achievement make-up of each game. Based on the relative frequency of the unigrams, we used a hierarchical clustering algorithm to sequentially pair games whose compiled “genome” most closely resemble one another. The end result is a dedrogram; a tree-like diagram displaying the "family" that each game belongs to. In contrast to the thematic and meta-element nature of genres and tags, the strength of achievement-based analysis lies in its insight into the gameplay and structural elements within each game. Unigrams such as “discov” distinguish games that encourage open-world gameplay, while achievements frequently using the term “campaign” flag games utilizing long-form strategic gameplay.
Transcript of Steam Achievement Classification & Analytics Project
Steam Achievement Classification & Analytics Project
3ΛAdam [email protected]
Daniel [email protected] Jin Ha Lee
Project Sponsor
TM
Problem
"Action Games"
Video games are notoriously hard to categorize.Unlike traditional media, video games have aninteractive element that is difficult to sum up ina single, over-arching category.
The digital distribution platform Steam™ groupsgames by genre, but these genres are often sobroad as to be meaningless; all of the abovegames fall into the "Action" genre, even thoughthey have nothing in common with each other.
Users can add custom tags, but they can also bemisleading or irrelevant to gameplay. Forexample, some of the more popular tags are "great soundtrack", "funny", and "colorful".
We wanted to find a better way to classify games,in particular one that takes advantage of that interactive aspect.
SolutionWe decided to use video game achievements.
Achievements are rewards for completing game objectives or performing pre-determined actions in a game. They often explicitly describe theseactions as well as the things players interact with(e.g. "Go here, do this, get that"). We apply datascience methods to compare these descriptions:
- Extract individual terms to create a corpus - Remove "stop" words from corpus (e.g. and, or, there, can, the) - Stem remaining terms to create unique unigrams (e.g. completed, kills, construction) - Produce document-term matrix for analysis
Counter-Strike Team Fortress 2
King of Fighters Battle Fantasia
Similar Games,Similar Achievements
Result
The DNA of Achievements
Alie
ns v
s. P
reda
tor
CoD
: Bl
ack
Ops
2
Kane
& L
ynch
2
King
dom
s of
Am
alur
Brut
al L
egen
d
Tom
b Rai
der
Dyi
ng L
ight
Snip
er G
host
War
rior
2
War
ham
mer
40K
:
S
pace
Mar
ine
complet
win
find
kill
defeat
story
enemi
game
chaos
multiplay
one
challeng
match
single
without
mode
campaign
weapon
use
level
coop
difficult
escap
reach
get
play
These stemmed unigrams can be seen as the metaphorical “genes” that determine the achievement make-up of each game. Based on the relative frequency of the unigrams, we used a hierarchical clustering algorithm to sequentially pair games whose compiled “genome” most closely resemble one another. The end result is a dedrogram; a tree-like diagram displaying the "family" that each game belongs to.
In contrast to the thematic and meta-element nature of genres and tags, the strength of achievement-based analysis lies in its insight into the gameplay and structural elements within each game. Unigrams such as “discov” distinguish games that encourage open-world gameplay, while achievements frequently using the term “campaign” flag games utilizing long-form strategic gameplay.
