Intrinsic elicitation
David Gundry, Sebastian Deterding · 2018
Applied games are increasingly used to collect human subject data such as people's performance or attitudes. Games afford a motive for data provision that poses a validity threat at the same time: as players enjoy winning the game, they are motivated to provide dishonest data if this holds a strategic in-game advantage. Current work on data collection game design doesn't address this issue. We therefore propose a theoretical model of why people provide certain data in games, the Rational Game User Model. We derive a design approach for human subject data collection games that we call Intrinsic Elicitation: data collection should be integrated into the game's mechanics such that honest responding is the necessary, strategically optimal, and least effortful way to pursue the game's goal. We illustrate the value of our approach with a sample analysis of the data collection game Urbanology.