Charting Skills in Uncharted Domains: Evaluating How Video Game Competence is Viewed Outside Competitive Desktop Gaming Environments

Abstract

Player competence heavily shapes multiplayer gameplay experiences, from team success to avoiding frustration, yet existing research focuses predominantly on competitive esports contexts on PC platforms. This lack of research leaves players in understudied domains without a clear understanding of competence. Therefore, I examined the contexts of casual, cooperative games and VR multiplayer games to uncover how competence is conceptualized within them. In study 1, I conducted a mixed-methods experiment with 23 participants playing Overcooked 2 with a competent or incompetent teammate, to examine competence, frustration, and cooperative behaviour. The results of study 1 showed that players evaluated teammate performance comparatively rather than through absolute metrics, and that current frustration and cooperation measures were insufficient in capturing the nuances of player experience. In study 2, I surveyed 111 VR multiplayer gamers to identify novel skill clusters, how skills are adapted from PC to VR, and whether player rank affects the importance of these skills. Findings revealed five new VR-specific skills, highlighted the body’s central role in skill adaptation, and found no significant rank-based rating differences. The overarching contribution is in demonstrating that an evaluation of competence drawn from competitive esports is insufficient in describing competence in these domains. Casual, cooperative players judge competence in primarily in relation to their teammates, while VR multiplayer gamers regard physicality and embodied interaction as essential to displaying relevant skills. My thesis puts forward new definitions of competence in casual, cooperative games and VR multiplayer games, as the first step to chart skills in uncharted domains.