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Learning from the Past: a Process Recommendation System for Video Game Projects using Postmortems Experiences

Title:

Learning from the Past: a Process Recommendation System for Video Game Projects using Postmortems Experiences

Politowski, Cristiano, Fontoura, Lisandra M., Petrillo, Fabio and Guéhéneuc, Yann-Gaël (2018) Learning from the Past: a Process Recommendation System for Video Game Projects using Postmortems Experiences. Information and Software Technology . ISSN 09505849 (In Press)

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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.infsof.2018.04.003

Abstract

Context: The video game industry is a billion dollar industry that faces problems in the way games are developed. One method to address these problems is using developer aid tools, such as Recommendation Systems. These tools assist developers by generating recommendations to help them perform their tasks.

Objective: This article describes a systematic approach to recommend development processes for video game projects, using postmortem knowledge extraction and a model of the context of the new project, in which “postmortems” are articles written by video game developers at the end of projects, summarizing the experience of their game development team. This approach aims to provide reflections about development processes used in the game industry as well as guidance to developers to choose the most adequate process according to the contexts they’re in.

Method: Our approach is divided in three separate phases: in the the first phase, we manually extracted the processes from the postmortems analysis; in the second one, we created a video game context and algorithm rules for recommendation; and finally in the third phase, we evaluated the recommended processes by using quantitative and qualitative metrics, game developers feedback, and a case study by interviewing a video game development team.

Contributions: This article brings three main contributions. The first describes a database of developers’ experiences extracted from postmortems in the form of development processes. The second defines the main attributes that a video game project contain, which it uses to define the contexts of the project. The third describes and evaluates a recommendation system for video game projects, which uses the contexts of the projects to identify similar projects and suggest a set of activities in the form of a process.

Divisions:Concordia University > Gina Cody School of Engineering and Computer Science > Computer Science and Software Engineering
Item Type:Article
Refereed:Yes
Authors:Politowski, Cristiano and Fontoura, Lisandra M. and Petrillo, Fabio and Guéhéneuc, Yann-Gaël
Journal or Publication:Information and Software Technology
Date:12 April 2018
Funders:
  • National Council for Scientific and Technological Development of Brazil
Digital Object Identifier (DOI):10.1016/j.infsof.2018.04.003
Keywords:Software development process, Video game development, Recommendation system
ID Code:983778
Deposited By: Monique Lane
Deposited On:19 Apr 2018 14:31
Last Modified:12 Apr 2020 00:00

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