As a child, I’ve been hooked to a computer ever since I had the chance. The sheer possibilities and experiences have always drawn me towards computer games and in later stages towards programming and the technology behind it all.
Fast forward to when I graduated from high school and decided to pursue a degree in engineering due to my interest in mathematics, physics and after all, computers. After obtaining my bachelor’s degree, the road towards a master’s degree in Computer Science lie ahead. The option Human Computer Interaction seemed like a natural fit as this leaned the most towards the gaming industry. Starting off my last year, I am required to write a master’s thesis with the following subject:
"Designing live data visualisations for the new spectator sport: video games"
When people ask me what my thesis entails, I often have a hard time explaining it to them. First of all, the world of esports is still not widely known and respected, even not in my own age category. The majority finds it hard to even consider validating esports as a real sport. They correlate sport to physical prowess and not so much to mental capabilities. When you truly get involved with the esports scene though, you begin to notice it isn’t that different at all from ordinary competitive sport scenes. The prodigies, dreams, drama and sheer amount of effort the players put into the game every day are all there. If you still don’t believe me, you should probably go ask Rick Fox (former NBA player) who is closely involved in the coaching of his own esports team and thus has an extensive understanding about both worlds.
Apart from that, there’s usually the short speechless moment when they’re thinking:
"Wait, this guy has studied all these years to master Computer Science and decides to design data visualisations for video games? Isn’t implementing some data visualisations kind of too simple to be the subject of a thesis and aren’t video games a downright waste of time?"
Admittedly, my thesis isn’t about optimising approximation methods for solving multidimensional recursive integrals for global illumination rendering algorithms but aside from the more technical and mathematical problems posed in Computer Science, as an application developer you must also be able to get the user experience just right. In the end you’re trying to make something that will be valuable to an end user. Delivering the right information in a compact and concise, yet sufficiently detailed manner isn’t a trivial thing to do the right way. Perhaps it all feels less sciency but to validate an application’s quality, a lot of scientific methodologies are utilized all the same. Observation of the user is key and drawing from those observations, changes are made to the application, often in an iterative way.
Still, the subject remains kind of vague. Those who are comfortable enough with it might ask for more details:
"But what will you visualise and for which game will you be designing these visualisations?"
To be honest I’m still not entirely sure but I’d be happy to figure that all out soon enough.
If you’re interested in following how this will turn out and learn something along the way, this blog is the ideal place! Updates of my progress will probably come through every 1-2 weeks.