How Game Balancing Affects Play: Player Adaptation in an Exergame for Children with Cerebral Palsy

Player balancing helps people with different levels of physical ability and experience play together by providing customized assistance. Player balancing is particularly important in exergames, where differences in physical ability can have a large impact on game outcomes, and in making games accessible to people with motor disabilities. To date, there has been little research into how balancing affects people's gameplay behaviour over time. This paper reports on a six-day study with eight youths with cerebral palsy. Two games incorporated algorithms to balance differences in pedaling ability and aiming ability. Balancing positively impacted motivation versus non-balanced conditions. Even in "blowout" games where one player won by a large margin, perceived fun and fairness were higher for both players when a player balancing algorithm was present. These results held up over six days, demonstrating that the results of balancing continued even after players had the opportunity to understand and adapt to the balancing algorithms.