Excerpt on Attention | ‘You Wanna Play?’

Part III. The Castle: No Grass, No Class 

You Lucky Shamrock

Presence! Immersion! Buzz! False Information!

You’ve heard those words a billion times by now. You’ve also heard them defined differently a million times. Allow me to enlighten you once and for all, and this time, they are not just nouns, they are proper nouns.

The name of the game to measure is Immersive (literally).

The name of the mage to measure is Present (literally).

Present is the first-non negotiable character existing in Immersive, covered in The Playground. 

Read this with your best Irish voice. 

Present is a defining character of Immersive.

However, Present is not always fully immersed in Immersive.

Sometimes, Present is distracted… His mind, senses and virtues are elsewhere.

Lately, Present has been very distracted.

So, Present has been retracted from Immersive for a short period of time.

Meaning, Present is supposed to be present, but is temporarily restricted.

Back to regular nouns.

There. 

We just proved that your presence is not always immersed by the possibility of it being distracted, or retracted.

This is good news for everyone.

Presence sits in the middle of a polarized spectrum, the positive is immersed, the negative is retracted, and the neutral is distracted. Those who like to digress get it. Those who have disabilities also get it. This spectrum of immersive is all inclusive.

We covered already in The Playground Existence by, presence is a product of:

Your intention– call it alpha.

Your attention– call it beta.

Measured over time and across space.

Your intention is driven by your urgent (x) needs, random (y) wants and deepest (z) wishes.

Measured over time via your inner space.

How well you define needs, wants and wishes determines the success of your intention.

How well you succeed with defining intentions determines your spectrum of satisfaction.

You get a star for satisfying. ★

Your attention is determined by your attendance, in many ways.

Measured over time and across space.

How well you define your attendance determines the success of your attention.

How well you succeed with your attention determines your spectrum of engagement.

You get a heart for engaging. ♥

Attendance for Engagement

Let’s start with attendance– the more engaged, the closer you get to Queen of hearts.

Intelligent deduction from all chapters above demonstrates that:

You can attend for– a time.

You can attend in– a location.

You can attend as– an identity.

You can attend via– an exchange.

Or, you are in attendance for– a cause.

Before you attend, you must Enter. 

Be it through a real or imaginary door, the portal exists, it must be entered.

In physical 3D, you can enter anything either alone, or together.

Both are measured easily, ‘obviously’, by yourself and others. Peter and Ben arrived at my event together.

In digital 3D, you can also enter anything either alone or together.

However so far, only solo entrance has been measured and assumed in most digital worlds. 

Group entry can be measured, though more difficult because it implies matching digital footprint with entrance time. We fail to consider it in our activation strategies often, thought it carries valuable insight. I’ve also rarely come across it in my assessment of immersive experience platforms measuring their own data or third party measurement platforms– time will tell.

Group entrance is an incredible indicator of willingness to attend. Sometimes, I’m more likely to attend if a friend agrees to literally enter the door with me. Let’s track that.

The easiest way to do so is by means of self-report, to ask the player at entry if they are entering the game with someone or alone. 

Another way to do so is to map game entry time with the number of players who have entered at the same time, though it involves many assumptions. The error margin on those can be minimized case by case, though it’s still risky business. 

An even better way is to cross check self-report with platform data, however you’d need a really good reason for that (high-security or solving for inconsistent data), as that can be wasted data stored (and energy).

Better yet, if you can build the right platform integrations to figure out where the solo or group players entered from… Ooo. Historical data will enable us to study patterns of behaviors related to willingness to enter.

Attend for– a Time

A player attends for a time.

How does a player attend for a time?

An instance– in time. 

A duration– over time.

An instance in time is a count of Visits. 

A visit is characterized by a brief period of time, which you get to decide its ceiling.

Visits are measured by an integer, typically starting at 1.

Visit frequency is a count over time of integers 1 + (1 + 1 + ...).

A duration over time is a count of Stays. 

A stay is characterized by a long period of time, which you get to decide its range.

Stays are measured by a range of time, of which you can decide the format.

Stay frequency is a count over time of ranges [..] + ([..] + [..] + …)

Should you attend for a fraction of the time, it’s still a duration, simply a shorter one.

Should you attend a game again, you are said to have returned.

You can draw a single closed loop– and while you may have different reasons to visit, stay or return, the measurement of return in attendance still falls in the above two categories. 

You either return for a visit, or you return for a duration.

Warning.

Should you NEVER return, you have completely lost my attention.

Should you return at least once, you have my attention.

It weighs heavier to never return than to return only a few times.

To regain my attention, you’d have to do a lot more work.

This means, design the first time right, well–- take your time.

Whether visits or stays, attendance frequency is an indicator of attractiveness. 

In your next study of factors of attractiveness, start with attendance for any given time.

Is there such a thing as staying for too long of a duration?

Is there such a thing as visiting for too many of an instance?

Yes. 

Either you have very passionate players, or anomalies in data measurement (player idle, inactive). If passionate players overstay their welcome, you are very attractive, though remember it could cost you extra hosting fees.

Either way, the extremes indicate how to model for the average (normal distribution).

All ways, the data won’t clean itself, just be vigilant with your deductions.

On the spectrum of engagement, you’ve just received your first heart ♥.

Attend in– a Location

A player attends in a location.

Location is special. It’s special four times.

Location.

Location.

Location.

Location.

The first thing about location is that you have a right to share it, or not to share.

Ask first.

Where does a player attend in a location? 

In an environment– ground, world, scene, session, seance, etc.

In a hardware– HMD, AR glasses, mobile phone, smartwatch, etc.

In a software– Mozilla Hubs, Spatial.io, Artur, Decentraland, etc.

In-experience, at-location– at the coffee bar, inside the elevator, etc.

What can location location location location tell us?

Patterns across locations tell us behaviors.

Paths through locations tell us journeys.

The study of patterns and paths of the four locations is a string of unique metadata.

The study of patterns of locations can enable us to understand player distribution across locations and their willingness to be present in one location over another, or their tendency to be present at multiple locations of different nature.

This is cross-location type.

If the data shows more people on mobile having an irish coffee before therapy… 

It’s a pattern you can design around. 

It’s a pattern you can inquire about. 

It’s a pattern you could be concerned about.

The study of paths through locations can enable us to understand player journeys and their route traveled, or across experiences of similar or same nature. They might glide, jump, time travel, quantum leap, etc. 

This is cross-location type, though better understood for in-experience location.

Should you not get motion sickness, your locations on a cruise ship experience reveal your desire to be present in one location over another, or your desired tendency to be present at multiple locations of similar or different nature. 

Your desired presence from mobile to desktop, back to mobile might tell us you might be having some hardware issues, your device may have run out of battery, or you just can’t make up your mind.

On the spectrum of engagement, you’ve just received your second heart ♥♥.

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Continue reading through the dissertation (unedited copy) available to view in the interim.