ICONI 2011 - SocGameWorkshop

ICONI 2011 Social Game Workshop

- Workshop on Social game analytics and security

Scope/Topics of this Workshop

• Social Network Analysis in Game Community (Team Play, Trade, Socialization)

• Game Community Detection and Visualization

• Exploration of Avatars and Their Roles in Social Games

• Diffusion Process in Social Games

• Server Side Gold Farmer Detection

• Identity Theft Detection

In the broad sense, the social game is a new genre of computer games where entertainment and socialization processes of interaction, sharing, and connection with other players, are embedded. Social games are classified into two categories: social network games that are based on online social platforms and multiplayer games that require multi-players to play the game. A social network game is built on social media where a social network already exists. A multiplayer game is built purposefully to encourage social interactions and therefore builds up new social networks from interaction with other players.

The core element of social games is socialization. Instead of just playing games by themselves, players form a team, play games with other players in the team and interact with them in many different ways such as through e-mailing, chatting, virtual item trading, and community participation. In a multiplayer game, a variety of social networks, either explicit or implicit, exists. Social network games embed the underlying social network behind social networking sites. Another core component of social gaming is a virtual economy. Game items and currency gained through game play can be sold to other players and also monetized into real currency. Attaching a real economy to a virtual economy drives virtual crime such as gold farming using game bot and identity theft.

In this workshop, we focus on two topics: social interaction analytics and security in social games, which are derived from two core components of social games, social interaction and a virtual economy. Social game analytics are concerned with methodological and theological approaches to evaluate the nature and content of interactions between users. Studies that are developing and evaluating information tools and frameworks to analyze, summarize, and visualize social interactions are welcome. Social game security is concerned about virtual crime detection such as game bot detection and identity theft detection. Applying data mining techniques on large scale data in online games and incorporating social interaction to the detection model will provide a rich new area to the studies of virtual crime detection in social game.

Organizing Committee

• Co-chairs : Prof. Huy Kang Kim and Prof. Jiyoung Woo (Korea University)