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The Role of Uncertainty in Moment-to-Moment Player Motivation: A Grounded Theory

Published: 17 October 2019 Publication History

Abstract

Uncertainty is widely acknowledged as an engaging characteristic of games. Practice and research have proposed various types and factors of game uncertainty, yet there is little work explaining when and why different kinds of uncertainty motivate, especially with respect to 'micro-level', moment-to-moment gameplay. We therefore conducted a qualitative interview study of players tracing links between uncertainty experiences, specific game features, and player motives. Data supports that uncertainty is indeed a key element in keeping players motivated moment-to-moment. We present a grounded theory of seven types of engaging gameplay uncertainty emerging from three sources - game, player, and outcome - and document links to likely underlying motives, chief among them curiosity and competence. Comparing our empirically grounded taxonomy with existing ones shows partial fits as well as identifies novel uncertainty types insufficiently captured in previous models.

Supplementary Material

ZIP File (fp1369aux.zip)
Sample questions are provided as supplementary material. The folder consists of two pdfs - Initial Questions Set - used as a starting point for the semi structured interviews - Modified Questions - This file showcases how the questions evolved as we progressed through the study. This is a set used as guideline for the initial stages of interviews when we started doing video recalls.
MP4 File (p351-kumari.mp4)

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cover image ACM Conferences
CHI PLAY '19: Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
October 2019
680 pages
ISBN:9781450366885
DOI:10.1145/3311350
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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Publication History

Published: 17 October 2019

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Author Tags

  1. engagement
  2. games
  3. moment-to-moment gameplay
  4. player motivation
  5. uncertainty

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CHI PLAY '19 Paper Acceptance Rate 51 of 181 submissions, 28%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 421 of 1,386 submissions, 30%

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  • (2024)Self-Determination Theory and HCI Games Research: Unfulfilled Promises and Unquestioned ParadigmsACM Transactions on Computer-Human Interaction10.1145/367323031:3(1-74)Online publication date: 15-Jun-2024
  • (2024)How does Juicy Game Feedback Motivate? Testing Curiosity, Competence, and EffectanceProceedings of the 2024 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems10.1145/3613904.3642656(1-16)Online publication date: 11-May-2024
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