Posts by: SkillCraftLee
Check this site out for an in depth interview with Dr. Mark Blair on the questions behind the birth of the SkillCraft research project, the portrait of a SC2 player, and how real world applications can be enhanced by the study of such complex cognitive systems.
We would like to thank Playhem.com and all of their staff for their amazing support of the SkillCraft.ca project.
They are helping out the science of e-sports and SC2 by allowing us access to all the replays they have collected over the last 5 months, about 155,000 of them, from their daily tournaments. About 37,000 replays are from their Open Tournament consisting of mostly high level masters, grand masters, and pro players. The other 118,000 replays include players from the lower leagues (Bronze to Diamond).
Please show them some love by creating your own free account, inviting a buddy, and playing a quick match for points and get started at Playhem.com. Or you can check out their SC2 stream at Playhem.tv.
Sandra Upson, a reporter from Scientific American, contacted us after attending MLG Providence and did an interview with Dr. Mark Blair regarding the SkillCraft.ca project . The article came out today and can be found here.
It discusses how Starcraft 2 expertise and our Skillcraft research project can help us understand what makes experts better than the rest of the crowd. From varying cognitive executive functions such as distributed attention in real-time to practical learning techniques, there are many levels of discernable data within our sample of SC2 replay files and survey responses collected from the SC2 community that will yield pertinent results on expertise development.
We are thankful for the excited responses and informative press about our areas of research so far.
After the great run of data collection, we have started collaborations with Dr. Derek Bingham and his team from the Department of Statistics and Actuarial Science at Simon Fraser University. Through our combined efforts, our goal of examining the different skill sets involved across the various levels of expertise in SC2 competitive gameplay is coming together quite nicely. We continue to refine our analysis scripts and review the literature in preparation for our publications.
Over the course of this project I have come to appreciate the dedicated work needed for proper scientific analysis to occur, that and how huge the e-sports and SC2 scene really is. From international tournaments to barcraft events, the application of training ones fingers to obey ones mind is truly a skill worthy of the time and effort needed to understand it mental processes in more detail. From all the people involved we are thankful for the participants who took the time and effort to partake in our study and look forward to sharing our findings.
GL and HF.
Mark got a chance to do an interview with InfestedMtT from rCraftGaming on Saturday. You can see it here on their channel on twitch.tv.
Here is a preview of our participants so far after our first week of data collection. We are off to a great start and are looking forward to expanding our project internationally. Stay tuned for future updates here on the site and on Facebook and Twitter.
Ways you can still help:
1. Go to SkillCraft.ca, complete the survey and upload your replay.
2. Spread the link: by mouth and thread, by tweet and by vid. For the study to have the kind of impact that can spread back to the community (e.g., positive mainstream press) it needs to be mindbogglingly big. People need to think “Wow, that’s a lot of f*ing gamers”.
3. Let us know if you hear about us on any streams. We’d love to know about any press we’re getting and we want to thank anyone who mentions us on their show.
If this is your first time hearing about our project please see our previous posts or visit our site for more information:
SkillCraft.ca – On Facebook – On Twitter
On Reddit: (Original)
On WellPlayed: (Original)
On TeamLiquid: (Original)
Yesterday, Mark Blair held an AMA on /r/starcraft/. We had some excellent questions asked and people made some really good points regarding research using StarCraft 2. It was amazing to see the community take an interest in our project. Thanks to all the nerd-ballers who took part.
We now have an accurate sense about the current numbers of our participants. We previously made the assumption that everyone was doing all three steps. As it turned out many people are only submitting a replay and not their battle.net link, or vice versa. It’s great to see that many players from Gold to Masters are contributing to the process of helping to legitimize StarCraft 2 to the academic community. But since an expertise study tracks changes across skill levels, it is critical that beginners and top-tier players are strongly represented.
Ways you can still help:
1. Go to SkillCraft.ca, complete the survey and upload your replay.
2. Spread the link: by mouth and thread, by tweet and by vid. For the study to have the kind of impact that can spread back to the community (e.g., positive mainstream press) it needs to be mindbogglingly big. People need to think “Wow, that’s a lot of f*ing gamers”.
3. Let us know if you hear about us on any streams. We’d love to know about any press we’re getting and we want to thank anyone who mentions us on their show.
If this is your first time hearing about our project please see our previous posts or visit our site for more information:
SkillCraft.ca – On Facebook – On Twitter
WellPlayed: (Original, UPDATE 1)
TeamLiquid: (Original, UPDATE 1)
ANNOUNCEMENT: We will be holding an AMA session on reddit (r/starcraft) this Thursday at 10 a.m. (UTC-08:00) Pacific Time (US & Canada). Dr. Mark Blair, Director of the Cognitive Science Lab at Simon Fraser University, will answer any and all questions about the project.
The response from the SC2 community has been fantastic. We’ve taken into account all of your comments, and made corrections based on your feedback. Thanks to those who let us know that the survey was quick and painless to do; that was what we were trying to accomplish.
It’s taboo to analyze your data before it’s all collected, but we thought we’d give you a sense of where we are now.
We have players representing every league. We would love to see more Bronze and Silver players. If you have friends who play casually, or if you are mentoring beginners, please encourage them to participate (and help them find their replay folder). Grand Masters, we know you love StarCraft and we also know you have replays. Please help out. Because an expertise study tracks changes across skill levels, it is critical that beginners and top-tier players are strongly represented.
It’s still early in our 2-3 week data collection period so there is still time for your friends to participate. PLEASE REMIND THEM TO UPLOAD THEIR REPLAY! Half the surveys sent to us have no replay attached. We are studying your screen movements, hotkey use, APM and other factors that we can ONLY get from your replay.
North American players are dominating currently, but there is a strong European contingent as well. We have translated the survey into Korean, and hope to get some responses from Asia soon.
Ways you can help:
- Go to SkillCraft.ca, complete the survey and upload your replay.
- Spread the link: by mouth and thread, by tweet and by vid. For the study to have the kind of impact that can spread back to the community (e.g., positive mainstream press) it needs to be mindbogglingly big. People need to think “Wow, that’s a lot of f*ing gamers”.
- Let us know if you hear about us on any streams. We’d love to know about any press we’re getting and we want to thank anyone who mentions us on their show.
- We plan to spread the survey around the Korean scene. The problem is that we don’t know anything about the Korean scene; we welcome suggestions.
ANNOUNCEMENT: We will be holding an AMA session on reddit (r/starcraft) this Thursday. Dr. Mark Blair, Director of the Cognitive Science Lab at Simon Fraser University, will answer any and all questions about the project.
Finally, a big thanks to the players that responded to our original post.
