Making the Past Count: Developing Quantitative Measures for Past-Player Experience

This paper proposes a methodology for developing quantitative measures to study "past-player" experience in historical video games, aiming to shift historical game studies and archaeogaming from scholar-centric accounts to player-focused research. The core argument is that large-scale, iterative surveys are crucial for understanding the motivations, historical knowledge, and value systems of historical game players, complementing existing qualitative methods.

The research compares two survey studies. The first, the VALUE survey (VS), conducted in spring 2020 during the COVID-19 pandemic, recruited 1676 respondents over one month from historical video game subreddits, forums, and Facebook groups to map player demographics and perceptions of the past in games. The second, the Past-Play Experience Questionnaire (PPEQ), developed with adapted items from the VS, aimed to assess general attitudes towards historical content, the role of games in shaping historical ideas, and interest in history outside of games, as well as affective and embodied experiences with specific historical game franchises. The PPEQ ran for one month, recruiting 451 respondents primarily through social media and game-specific communities.

Key observations from these studies concern players' pre-existing historical knowledge, their investment in historical representation and verisimilitude, and the role of historical video games as catalysts for and sites of knowledge production. The authors advocate for quantitative interventions as a means to gain insight into player populations and foster common ground among researchers across the multidisciplinary field, emphasizing the importance of mixed-methods research design and iterative survey development. The research also highlights the untapped potential of direct communication with player communities, who actively shape these games through their interactions.