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This research report sought to understand how gamers experienced recent gaming sessions using traditional game controllers (gamepads) or natural user interfaces (NUIs, such as the Nintendo Wiimote). A secondary qualitative analysis of N=238 open-ended comments to a larger game controller experience survey were analysed for emergent themes, with χ2 tests used to compare the frequency of their mention between the two controller types. While the same eleven discussion themes emerged when players described either gamepad or NUI experiences, participants discussing gamepads were more likely to comment on the controller’s precision, comfort, success using the controller, and their past experience with the controller. Likewise, participants discussing NUIs were more likely to comment on the controller’s lack of precision, feeling unnatural, having less success during the game session, and seeing the controller as more novel. No differences in controller simplicity or the overall enjoyment were found. Additionally, game genre differences were found suggesting shooting games (first- and third-person shooters) to be more frequently played with gamepads and sports games to be more frequently played with NUIs, and gamepad session were as much as 50 per cent longer on average. This research supports and extends prior findings which suggest that NUIs might not be as natural and intuitive as they are designed to be.

Video games can be understood as a series of interesting decisions, and the game controllers are key to making those decisions. Advances in gaming technology have encouraged the development of natural user interfaces (NUIs), which should provide a superior user experience as players are able to use preexisting mental models from physical interaction rather than learning an abstract mapping schema. However, anecdotal and previous empirical research suggest the opposite-gamers prefer more familiaralbeit-abstract gamepad controllers. Because the exact nature and mechanism of this preference remains open for investigation, we suggest two rivaling mechanisms related to novelty and learning. Comparing self-identified gamer regarding their last gamepad and NUIs experience in an online quasi-experimental survey design (N ϭ 248), participants in the current study had less experience using NUIs, resulting in lower self-efficacy and enjoyment. Learning effects (via experience with a controller), rather than novelty effects (via exposure to a unique controller), seem to be the most relevant mechanism to understanding how controllers impact game enjoyment. However, both controller novelty and learning effects were significant mediators of the link between controller type and perceived controller naturalness. Our data suggest that perceptions of "natural" do not only depend on technological features of a user interface, but also on the user's previous experiences with the device. As such, users need to build robust mental models of the controllers through experience, which over time become more natural with increasing proficiency. Public Policy Relevance StatementRecent developments in consumer virtual reality technologies, such as head-mounted displays and motion controllers, aim to allow natural interaction with video games and other virtual environments. These developments assume that "naturalness" is a property of the technology itself, although our data suggest that naturalness very much depends on the user's experience with the controller and the perception of the interaction. With video games, traditional handheld gamepads were perceived as more natural than so-called natural user interfaces-a function of player's learned experiences with the former.

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