Power-ups in digital games: The rewarding effect of phantom game elements on player experience

TY - GEN

T1 - Power-ups in digital games

T2 - 6th ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2019

AU - Denisova, Alena

AU - Cook, Eliott

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © 2019 Copyright is held by the owner/author(s).

PY - 2019/10/17

Y1 - 2019/10/17

N2 - Power-ups are a type of game reward that allow the player to customise their experience by altering gameplay for a short period of time. Despite the wide use of power-ups in video games, little is known about their effect on gaming experiences. To explore this, we conducted an experimental study that compares the experiences of players depending on their exposure to power-ups in a recreational video game. The results show that players who collected power-ups felt significantly more immersed in the game, experienced more autonomy, but did not feel more competent or challenged than those who played the game without these collectables. Interestingly, a similar effect was observed for those players who picked up ‘placebo’ power-ups, despite the items having no effect on the gameplay. We provide a discussion of these results and their implications both for games user researchers and game designers.

AB - Power-ups are a type of game reward that allow the player to customise their experience by altering gameplay for a short period of time. Despite the wide use of power-ups in video games, little is known about their effect on gaming experiences. To explore this, we conducted an experimental study that compares the experiences of players depending on their exposure to power-ups in a recreational video game. The results show that players who collected power-ups felt significantly more immersed in the game, experienced more autonomy, but did not feel more competent or challenged than those who played the game without these collectables. Interestingly, a similar effect was observed for those players who picked up ‘placebo’ power-ups, despite the items having no effect on the gameplay. We provide a discussion of these results and their implications both for games user researchers and game designers.

KW - Autonomy

KW - Challenge

KW - Competence

KW - Digital games

KW - Immersion

KW - Placebo effect

KW - Player experience

KW - Power-ups

KW - Rewards

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85075023544&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1145/3311350.3347173

DO - 10.1145/3311350.3347173

M3 - Conference contribution

AN - SCOPUS:85075023544

T3 - CHI PLAY 2019 - Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

SP - 161

EP - 168

BT - CHI PLAY 2019 - Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play

PB - ACM

Y2 - 22 October 2019 through 25 October 2019

ER -