Scaffolding Player Location Awareness through Audio Cues in First-Person Shooters.

Digital games require players to learn various skills, which is often accomplished through play itself. In multiplayer games, novices can feel overwhelmed if competing against better players, and can fail to improve, which may lead to unsatisfying play and missed social play opportunities. To help novices learn the requisite skills, we first determined how experts accomplish an important task in multiplayer FPS games -- locating their opponent. After determining that an understanding of audio cues and how to leverage them was critical, we designed and evaluated two systems for introducing this skill of locating opponents through audio cues -- a training system, and a modified game interface. We found that both systems improved accuracy and confidence, but that the training system led to more audio cues being recognized. Our work may help people of disparate skill play together, by scaffolding novices to learn and use a strategy commonly employed by experts.