Start Date
16-8-2018 12:00 AM
Description
Understanding what makes computer games fun not only helps with game design, it tells us how to design any interactive experience for enjoyment. Existing models of computer game enjoyment are either not comprehensive enough, not generated by empirical research, or both. To fill this literature gap, we conducted a card sort exploring participants’ experiences and mental models around what makes computer games enjoyable. A broad literature review identified 167 sources of enjoyment, which we printed on cards. Our research group did an open card sort to create 24 initial categories. Sixty participants then sorted the cards into the categories. After every ten participants, we revised cards and categories. Participants in the last two rounds of ten participants had inter-rater reliabilities of 0.9381 and 0.9367, as calculated with Randolph’s free-marginal multi-rater kappa. We present our final 34 categories as a new, more comprehensive model of the sources of computer game enjoyment.
Recommended Citation
Schaffer, Owen and Fang, Xiaowen, "What Makes Games Fun? Card Sort Reveals 34 Sources of Computer Game Enjoyment" (2018). AMCIS 2018 Proceedings. 2.
https://aisel.aisnet.org/amcis2018/HCI/Presentations/2
What Makes Games Fun? Card Sort Reveals 34 Sources of Computer Game Enjoyment
Understanding what makes computer games fun not only helps with game design, it tells us how to design any interactive experience for enjoyment. Existing models of computer game enjoyment are either not comprehensive enough, not generated by empirical research, or both. To fill this literature gap, we conducted a card sort exploring participants’ experiences and mental models around what makes computer games enjoyable. A broad literature review identified 167 sources of enjoyment, which we printed on cards. Our research group did an open card sort to create 24 initial categories. Sixty participants then sorted the cards into the categories. After every ten participants, we revised cards and categories. Participants in the last two rounds of ten participants had inter-rater reliabilities of 0.9381 and 0.9367, as calculated with Randolph’s free-marginal multi-rater kappa. We present our final 34 categories as a new, more comprehensive model of the sources of computer game enjoyment.