Contextual Autonomy Support in Video Game Play: A Grounded Theory

TY - GEN

T1 - Contextual Autonomy Support in Video Game Play

T2 - A Grounded Theory

AU - Deterding, Christoph Sebastian

PY - 2016/5/7

Y1 - 2016/5/7

N2 - Autonomy experience constitutes a core part of the intrinsic motivation of playing games. While research has explored how autonomy is afforded by a game’s design, little is known about the role of the social context of play. Particularly, engaging with serious games or gamified applications is often obligatory, which may thwart autonomy. To tease out contextual factors that affect autonomy, we conducted a qualitative interview study that compared gameplay experience in leisure and work contexts. We found that leisure contexts, particularly solitary play, support autonomy through a time and space shielded from outer demands, the license to (dis)engage with and configure the situation to fit one’s spontaneous interests, and a lack of social and material consequence. Thwarted autonomy occurs both in leisure and work contexts when players’ spontaneous interests mismatch socially demanded gameplay. We discuss implications for entertainment and applied gaming.

AB - Autonomy experience constitutes a core part of the intrinsic motivation of playing games. While research has explored how autonomy is afforded by a game’s design, little is known about the role of the social context of play. Particularly, engaging with serious games or gamified applications is often obligatory, which may thwart autonomy. To tease out contextual factors that affect autonomy, we conducted a qualitative interview study that compared gameplay experience in leisure and work contexts. We found that leisure contexts, particularly solitary play, support autonomy through a time and space shielded from outer demands, the license to (dis)engage with and configure the situation to fit one’s spontaneous interests, and a lack of social and material consequence. Thwarted autonomy occurs both in leisure and work contexts when players’ spontaneous interests mismatch socially demanded gameplay. We discuss implications for entertainment and applied gaming.

KW - Autonomy

KW - Context

KW - Games

KW - Gamification

KW - Motivation

KW - Play

KW - Self-determination theory

KW - Video games

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85015028948&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/2858036.2858395

DO - 10.1145/2858036.2858395

M3 - Conference contribution

T3 - CHI '16 Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

SP - 3931

EP - 3943

BT - CHI 2016 - Proceedings, 34th Annual CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

PB - ACM

CY - New York

ER -