The Columns » W&L Students Accepted for Publication at the Gaming and Technology Conference » Washington and Lee University
Publish Date: 2026-05-21 13:25:00
Source Domain: columns.wlu.edu
Washington and Lee University students Trey Custodio ’26 and Sanjog Basnet ’27 recently co-authored a paper alongside Liz Matthews, associate professor of computer science, titled “Exploring User Demographics for Research on Video Games.” The paper was accepted for publication at the Gaming and Technology Conference, an international conference concentrated on game and entertainment technologies.
Custodio and Basnet’s research focused on designing a survey centered around gaming preferences and player behavior. Their goal was to identify meaningful and consistent patterns that could help researchers better group and classify gamers in future research containing video games. Custodio and Basnet began the foundation for a non-linear classification system driven by capturing which enjoyment factors drive the participant to play games such as game flow, engagement or external motivating factors.
“Sanjog and Trey focused on the preliminary design of the questionnaire based on current established enjoyment factors, refining of the questionnaire with my guidance, distribution of the questionnaire, collection, verification and sanitization of the data, preliminary analysis of the data and drafting the publication,” said Matthews.
Custodio and Basnet conducted the research under Matthews as Summer Research Scholars in 2025.
“It was my first experience conducting research at this scale, so it was both exciting and a little intimidating at first, especially since the topic was something we were genuinely passionate about,” said Basnet, a computer science and cognitive and behavioral science double major from Kathmandu, Nepal. “There were a lot of small details and processes that were completely new to me, but it ended up being an incredibly valuable learning experience.”
The Gaming and Technology Conference, at which Matthews will present their work, will be held July…
