Intrinsic Elicitation:A Model and Design Approach for Games Collecting Human Subject Data

Applied games are increasingly used to collect human subject data such as people’s performance or attitudes. Games a ord a motive for data provision that poses a validity threat at the same time: as players enjoy winning the game, they are motivated to provide dishonest data if this holds a strategic in-game advantage. Current work on data collection game design doesn’t address this issue. We therefore propose a theoretical model of why people provide certain data in games, the Rational Game User Model. We derive a design approach for human subject data collection games that we call Intrinsic Elicitation: data collection should be integrated into the game’s mechanics such that honest responding is the necessary, strategically optimal, and least e ortful way to pursue the game’s goal. We illustrate the value of our approach with a sample analysis of the data collection game Urbanology.