High and Low Ping and the Game of Pong Effects of Delay and Feedback

Network problems and particularly delays create irritation for players. A version of the game Pong was developed to test how delay and feedback on the delay affect gamers. The delay feedback was a “shadow” tracking the paddle and a control condition without feedback. The experiment showed that higher levels of delay increased the mental effort, it was less fun to play and performance decreased. The player can adapt to a certain amount of delay. If the player receives feedback on the delay the mental effort the player spends is better adapted to the task. Game developers expecting significant delays should consider feedback on delay in design. ACM Classification Codes K.8.0 Personal Computing General [Games, Pong], H.5.2 Information Interfaces and Presentation User Interfaces [Graphical user interfaces], C.2.m Computer-Communication Networks Miscellaneous Terms Experimentation, Human Factors, Performance

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