Serious Games Adaptation According to the Learner’s Performances

Basically, serious games provides enjoyment and knowledge, several researches in this field have focused into joining these two proprieties and make the best balance between them, in order, to provide the best game and enjoyable game experience and ensure the learning of the needed knowledge. Players differ and their knowledge background can be a lot different from one to the other. This study focused on how the SG adapts and provide the needed knowledge and enjoyment. The game should analyze players behavior from different angles, thus it can add difficulty, information, immersion or enjoyment modules to fit the player skills/knowledge

Comparing the potential of commercial off-the-shelf and educational games video games for adult foreign language education: an experimental study

The goal of this paper is to explore the experiences evoked by playing a commercial and two digital language learning games. More particularly, it deals with the differences in the playing and learning experiences of adult foreign language learners ( N=62). While results of the experimental design suggest that the commercial game evokes better playing and learning experiences, these findings are partly neutralized by the attitude of the participants towards learning through video games and by being a gamer or not. This raises questions as to how video games should look to appeal to a public of learners that is not familiar with gaming in general and with digital game-based learning in specific

Exploring the Empirical Link Between Game Features, Player Motivation, and Game Behavior

This research-in-progress paper aims to propose a framework for predicting use continuance and subsequent in-game purchases in the context of online, free-to-play (F2P) mobile games. Using previous games research, we first propose Perceived Enjoyment (PE) and Use Continuance (UC) as the key predictors of Purchase Intention (PI). However, in order to extend the extant literature and generate practical insights for game developers into how to enhance the level of PE and UC generated by their games, we further explore the relations between a set of technical game features and their impact on users’ motivations for playing online F2P mobile games. Specifically, we look at three groups of features—connect, bonding, and share-in features—and test their effect on three key motivations underpinning perceived enjoyment in the context of digital game play, namely Achievement, Social, and Immersion motivations. Using data from a scenario-based questionnaire, our findings show that although all three motivations—Achievement, Social, and Immersion—result in greater enjoyment, and in turn, use continuance and purchase intention, only a single technical feature of the games—namely the share-in feature—triggers greater perceived immersion motivation. Implications for theory and practice are discussed

Disentangling Fun and Enjoyment in Exergames Using an Expanded Design, Play, Experience Framework: A Narrative Review

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How self-esteem shapes our interactions with play technologies

The experience that results from video game play is shaped by the play environment, but also by various characteristics of the person playing. We investigated how player self-esteem predicts post-game motivation (enjoyment, effort, and tension), and conducted mediated regressions to show that players’ self-esteem alters post-play motivation by affecting how needs are satisfied during play. We also explored how self-esteem predicts post-play positive and negative affect and conducted mediated regressions to show how motivation partially mediates those effects. Our work suggests that players with different levels of self-esteem experience games differently; but more importantly, we provide an explanation of how these differences form by examining the mechanisms during games that ultimately contribute to player experience. Situating our results within theories of self, we discuss the importance of self-esteem for understanding player experience, describe the implications for games research, and consider how self-esteem shapes our interactions with play technologies

An Approach to Assess the Impact of Tutorials in Video Games

Video games are an established medium that provides interactive entertainment beyond pure enjoyment in many contexts. Game designers create dedicated tutorials to teach players the game mechanisms and rules, such as the conventions for interaction, control schemes, core game mechanics, etc. While effective tutorial design is considered a crucial aspect to support this learning process, the existing literature approaches focus on designing ad hoc tutorials for specific game genres rather than investigating the impact of different tutorial styles on game learnability and player engagement. In this paper, we tackle this challenge by presenting a general-purpose approach aimed at supporting game designers in the identification of the most suitable tutorial style for a specific genre of video games. The approach is evaluated in the context of a simple first-person shooter (FPS) mainstream video game built by the authors through a controlled comparative user experiment involving 46 players

The Development and Validation of a Universal Enjoyment Measure: The Enjoy Scale

For decades, the concept of enjoyment has been used to measure the psychological benefits of activities and has been shown to determine future behavior toward activities and objects of interest. However, there has been little consensus on the definition and dimensionality of enjoyment. This study introduced a new measure of enjoyment with scale development and validation reported. CFA and EFA findings from 1466 participants across 739 different activities were reported. The instrument developed measured enjoyment across activities, with demonstrated content validity, internal consistency, discriminant and convergent validity. The final 25-item version of the ENJOY scale is composed of 5 factors: pleasure, relatedness, competence, challenge/improvement, and engagement. Discussion of the ENJOY Scale places it within the conceptual framework of Self-Determination Theory