Wharton Customer Analytics Initiative (WCAI)

Measuring Skill Level and Optimizing Player-Matching Algorithms in Online Games

(Paderborn, Juli 2014) Nadja Maraun and Dr. Daniel Kaimann (Members of the SFB 901) together with their research partner Joe Cox of the British University of Portsmouth were accepted for collaborative research with the Wharton Business School of the University of Philadelphia and a major game manufacturer.

The objective of the research project is to optimize how gaming partners in video games are assigned, thus enhancing the gaming experience. In collaboration with the Wharton Business School, the researchers have received non-personal usage data from more than 9.5 million video gamers. But even this non-personal data allows detailed insights into individual gaming behaviors and also individual usage histories. The research team now faces the challenge of developing new algorithms for distributing gaming partners, which take into account technological advancements and also the gamers' individual use behaviors. Thus, the project helps to learn more about an existing on-the-fly market namely the online gaming market. It has high potential for bringing this theoretical knowledge into the fields of matching markets especially in on-the-fly environments and consumer research, while also voicing practical recommendations for game manufacturers. Additionally, it is now possible to not only study the market side of an on-the-fly market but also to consider consumer side and specifically consumer perceptions.

The research team lines up with top American universities such as Yale, Stanford and Maryland, whose teams were also selected for the project.

Further information can be found here.