Curiously Motivated

Abstract

Identifying player motivations such as curiosity could help game designers analyze player profiles and substantially improve game design. However, research on player profiling focuses on generalized personality traits, not specific aspects of motivation. This study examines how player behaviour indicates constructs of curiosity-related motivation. It contributes a more discriminating operationalization of game-related curiosity. We derive a curiosity measure from established self-report survey methodologies relating to social capital, behavioural activation, obsessive/harmonious passion, and BrainHex player types. We present the results of a cross-sectional study with data from 1,745 players of Destiny-a popular shared-world first-person shooter (FPS) game. Behaviour metrics were paired with four curiosity factors: 'social' curiosity, 'sensory/cognitive' curiosity, 'novelty-seeking' curiosity, and 'explorative' curiosity. Our findings provide key insights into the relationships between players curiosity and their in-game behaviour. We infer curiosity-related motivational profiles from behaviour metrics, and discuss how this may impact game design and player-computer interaction.

Motivational Profiling of League of Legends Players

“…Finally, participants were given the option to comment on the survey and asked to indicate whether they had answered questions conscientiously. Participants did not receive any compensation for completing the survey, but were presented with a LoL "Player-Style" badge as a reward, similar to how previous work (Schaekermann et al, 2017) provided Brainhex (Nacke et al, 2014) badges upon survey completion. On average, the survey took 12 min to complete.…”

“…Digital games motivate a variety of goal-directed behaviors (Przybylski et al, 2010), which may be reflected in players' ingame behavior (Schaekermann et al, 2017). As such, a growing body of research has emerged around detecting player motivation profiles from game metrics.…”

“…As we decided to advertise the survey on the League of Legends subreddit, we expected that most participants would be very passionate players of the game. However, passion to play can be harmonious or obsessive (Przybylski et al, 2009;Puerta-Cortés et al, 2017;Schaekermann et al, 2017;Perry et al, 2018). Hence, we included measures of harmonious and obsessive passion (Vallerand et al, 2003).…”

“…In that sense, this paper provides researchers and game designers with enhanced knowledge to better discern differing motivations and with it, experiences of their player basis. Building upon previous workon player profiling (e.g., Drachen et al, 2014;Chen et al, 2017;Nascimento Junior et al, 2017;Schaekermann et al, 2017), we present the results of a cross-sectional study with self-report and behavioral data from 750 players of League of Legends (LoL, Riot Games, 2009), a popular MOBA game. Drawing from work on SDT-based motivational profiling (Pastor et al, 2007;Howard et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2017;Gustafsson et al, 2018), we identify four distinct motivational player profiles (i.e., Amotivated, External, Intrinsic, and Autonomous) and compare these in terms of player experience and in-game behavior.…”

“…For many people, playing games is one of the most rewarding and motivating activities. In turn, people's motivation for playing games shapes their player experience and in-game behavior (e.g., Yee et al, 2012;Canossa et al, 2013;Schaekermann et al, 2017;Melhart et al, 2019), as well as their well-being (Przybylski et al, 2009;Vella et al, 2013;Perry et al, 2018). However, while concepts from motivational psychology, particularly Self-Determination Theory (SDT, Deci and Ryan, 2000), commonly inform research on player experience (Tyack and Mekler, 2020) and game analytics (e.g., Canossa et al, 2013;Melhart et al, 2019), the notion of motivational regulation (Deci and Ryan, 2000)has received limited attention in the context of games (Tyack and Mekler, 2020).…”