Hala Anwar

124 Pages·2016·5.86 MB·English

by  Anwar, Hala

Investigating the
Effect of Pace Mechanic on
Player Motivation and Experience

by

Hala Anwar

A thesis
presented to the University of Waterloo
in fulfillment of the
thesis requirement for the degree of
Master of Applied Science (MASc)
in
Management Sciences

Waterloo, Ontario, Canada, 2016

© Hala Anwar 2016
AUTHOR'S DECLARATION
I hereby declare that I am the sole author of this thesis. This is a true copy of the thesis, including any
required final revisions, as accepted by my examiners.
I understand that my thesis may be made electronically available to the public.

Hala Anwar
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Abstract
Games have long been employed to motivate people towards positive behavioral change. Numerous
studies, for example, have found people who were previously disinterested in a task can be enticed to
spend hours gathering information, developing strategies, and solving complex problems through
video games. While the effect of factors such as generational influence or genre appeal have
previously been researched extensively in serious games, an aspect in the design of games that
remains unexplored through scientific inquiry is the pace mechanic—how time passes in a game.
Time could be continuous as in the real world (real-time) or it could be segmented into phases (turn-
based). Pace mechanic is fiercely debated by many strategy game fans, where real-time games are
widely considered to be more engaging, and the slower pace of turn-based games has been attributed
to the development of mastery. In this thesis, I present the results of an exploratory mixed-methods
user study to evaluate whether pace mechanic and type of game alter the player experience and are
contributing factors to how quickly participants feel competent at a game. 36 participants were invited
to play one session of a real-time game and one session of a turn-based game, and asked to provide
feedback about their experience. The results of the study highlight some of the differences between
these two pace mechanics. Drawing inspiration from previous work in game design, these differences
are then used to present implications for the design of games for both play and serious tasks (e.g.,
educational games).
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Acknowledgements
The completion of this thesis would not have been possible without the support and contributions of
many people, to whom I owe my deepest gratitude.
First and foremost, I would like to thank my supervisor, Dr. Mark Hancock, for his tremendous
patience, understanding, and flexibility in letting me explore my career during these years. He
constantly encouraged my ideas and helped me to become a better researcher. In addition, thank you
to Dr. Stacey Scott for her expert knowledge and input. I would also like to express great appreciation
to my readers, Dr. Frank Safayeni and Dr. Parmit Chilana, for their valuable feedback that helped to
strengthen my contributions.
I am also thankful to my friends and family for their support and encouragement, especially my
mom who went through a lot this past year and came out stronger than ever. To my friends and
colleagues in the Touchlab, thank you for your contributions. Finally, thank you to everyone who
participated in my study.
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Table of Contents
AUTHOR'S DECLARATION ............................................................................................................... ii
Abstract ................................................................................................................................................. iii
Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................................... iv
Table of Contents ................................................................................................................................... v
List of Figures ..................................................................................................................................... viii
List of Tables ......................................................................................................................................... ix
List of Acronyms and Terms .................................................................................................................. x
Chapter 1 Introduction ............................................................................................................................ 1
1.1 Background .................................................................................................................................. 1
1.1.1 Serious Games ....................................................................................................................... 1
1.1.2 Strategy Games with a Purpose ............................................................................................. 1
1.1.3 Pace Mechanic ....................................................................................................................... 2
1.1.4 Social Innovation Lab ............................................................................................................ 3
1.2 Motivation .................................................................................................................................... 4
1.3 Research Questions & Objectives ................................................................................................ 4
1.3.1 Research Question 1 (Engagement) ...................................................................................... 5
1.3.2 Research Question 2 (Planning) ............................................................................................ 6
1.3.3 Research Question 3 (Competence) ...................................................................................... 7
1.4 Thesis Contributions ..................................................................................................................... 7
1.5 Thesis Organization ...................................................................................................................... 8
Chapter 2 Related Work ......................................................................................................................... 9
2.1 Serious Games .............................................................................................................................. 9
2.2 Strategy Games ........................................................................................................................... 11
2.3 Related Studies ........................................................................................................................... 15
2.3.1 Related Studies: Pacing ....................................................................................................... 15
2.3.2 Related Studies: Real-Time Games ..................................................................................... 16
2.3.3 Related Studies: Turn-Based Games ................................................................................... 17
2.4 Collaborative Environments ....................................................................................................... 19
2.4.1 Time ..................................................................................................................................... 20
2.4.2 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 21
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2.4.3 Group Interaction ................................................................................................................ 21
2.5 Summary .................................................................................................................................... 23
Chapter 3 User Study ........................................................................................................................... 24
3.1 Study Method ............................................................................................................................. 24
3.1.1 Setting & Apparatus ............................................................................................................ 25
3.1.2 Participants .......................................................................................................................... 25
3.1.3 Procedure ............................................................................................................................ 26
3.2 Study Conditions: Real-Time and Turn-Based Games .............................................................. 27
3.2.1 Solitaire (Turn-Based, Cards) ............................................................................................. 29
3.2.2 Speed (Real-Time, Cards) ................................................................................................... 30
3.2.3 Traditional Chess (Turn-Based, Chess) .............................................................................. 31
3.2.4 Real-Time Chess (Real-Time, Chess) ................................................................................. 31
3.2.5 Civilization V (Turn-Based, Video) .................................................................................... 33
3.2.6 Age of Empires III (Real-time, Video) ............................................................................... 34
3.3 Data Collection & Analysis ....................................................................................................... 35
3.3.1 Background Questionnaire .................................................................................................. 36
3.3.2 Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) ....................................................................................... 36
3.3.3 Game Engagement Questionnaire (GEQ) ........................................................................... 38
3.3.4 Player Experience of Needs Satisfaction (PENS) ............................................................... 38
3.3.5 Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI) .................................................................................. 39
3.3.6 Video Recordings ................................................................................................................ 40
3.4 Data Collection Limitations & Challenges ................................................................................ 41
3.5 Summary .................................................................................................................................... 43
Chapter 4 Study Results and Discussion .............................................................................................. 44
4.1 Hypotheses ................................................................................................................................. 44
4.2 Data Validity & Preparation ...................................................................................................... 45
4.3 Data Analysis ............................................................................................................................. 46
4.4 Study Results ............................................................................................................................. 47
4.4.1 Affect .................................................................................................................................. 48
4.4.2 Engagement ......................................................................................................................... 54
4.4.3 Motivation ........................................................................................................................... 58
4.4.4 Needs Satisfaction ............................................................................................................... 65
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4.4.5 Significant Effects of Game Type ....................................................................................... 67
4.4.6 Significant Effects of Trial .................................................................................................. 69
4.5 Research Questions .................................................................................................................... 72
4.5.1 Research Question 1 (Engagement) .................................................................................... 72
4.5.2 Research Question 2 (Planning) .......................................................................................... 74
4.5.3 Research Question 3 (Competence) .................................................................................... 76
4.6 Design Recommendations .......................................................................................................... 77
4.7 Summary .................................................................................................................................... 79
Chapter 5 Conclusion and Future Work ............................................................................................... 85
5.1 Contribution ................................................................................................................................ 85
5.2 Future Work ............................................................................................................................... 85
Appendix A Recruitment ...................................................................................................................... 87
A. 1 Ethics Approval ........................................................................................................................ 87
A. 2 Recruitment Material ................................................................................................................ 89
A. 3 Consent Form ........................................................................................................................... 91
Appendix B Study Material .................................................................................................................. 94
B. 1 Game Instructions ..................................................................................................................... 94
B. 2 Questionnaires ........................................................................................................................ 100
B. 3 Questionnaire Subscales ......................................................................................................... 104
Appendix C Statistical Analysis Details ............................................................................................. 107
C. 1 Missing Values ....................................................................................................................... 107
Bibliography ....................................................................................................................................... 110

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List of Figures
Figure 1: Solitaire ................................................................................................................................ 29
Figure 2: Speed .................................................................................................................................... 30
Figure 3: Traditional Chess .................................................................................................................. 31
Figure 4: Real-Time Chess. ................................................................................................................. 32
Figure 5: Civilization V ....................................................................................................................... 33
Figure 6: Age of Empires III ................................................................................................................ 34
Figure 7: Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM) ......................................................................................... 37
Figure 8: Effect of Pace Mechanic on SAM subscales ........................................................................ 49
Figure 9: Marginal Mean of Games in the Circumplex Model of Emotion ......................................... 50
Figure 10: Marginal Mean of Games in Flow ...................................................................................... 51
Figure 11: Marginal Mean Dominance Scores by Pace Mechanic and Game Type ............................ 53
Figure 12: Effect of Pace Mechanic on GEQ measures ....................................................................... 55
Figure 13: Marginal Mean Engagement Scores by Pace Mechanic and Game Type .......................... 57
Figure 14: Effect of Pace Mechanic on IMI measures ......................................................................... 59
Figure 15: Marginal Mean Perceived Competence (IMI) Scores by Pace Mechanic and Game Type 61
Figure 16: Marginal Mean Perceived Choice (IMI) Scores by Pace Mechanic and Game Type ........ 62
Figure 17: Marginal Mean Competence (PENS) Scores by Pace Mechanic and Game Type ............. 66
Figure 18: Effect of Game Type on PENS measures ........................................................................... 68
Figure 19: Effect of Trial on SAM subscales ...................................................................................... 69
Figure 20: Marginal Mean Valence Scores by Pace Mechanic and Trial ............................................ 71

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List of Tables
Table 1: Categorization of Games by Pace Mechanic .......................................................................... 14
Table 2: Relationship between PENS measures and Important Outcomes for Strategy Games .......... 18
Table 3: Demographic information for study participants ................................................................... 25
Table 4: Games employed in our study ................................................................................................ 28
Table 5: Research Questions and associated Measures ........................................................................ 35
Table 6: Data collected in our study ..................................................................................................... 36
Table 7: Hypotheses ............................................................................................................................. 44
Table 8: Repeated Measures ANOVA Results for SAM Subscales ..................................................... 48
Table 9: Repeated Measures ANOVA Results for GEQ Subscales ..................................................... 54
Table 10: Significant Game Type  Pace Mechanic interactions for Immersion, Presence and
Engagement (GEQ) .............................................................................................................................. 57
Table 11: Repeated Measures ANOVA Results for IMI Subscales ..................................................... 58
Table 12: Repeated Measures ANOVA Results for IMI Subscales (Continued) ................................. 58
Table 13: Free-form responses to Value-Usefulness subscales ............................................................ 64
Table 14: Repeated Measures ANOVA Results for PENS Subscales ................................................. 65
Table 15: Significant Effects of Game Type ........................................................................................ 68
Table 16: Significant Effects of Trial ................................................................................................... 69
Table 17: Summary of SAM Results .................................................................................................... 80
Table 18: Summary of GEQ Results .................................................................................................... 81
Table 19: Summary of PENS Results .................................................................................................. 82
Table 20: Summary of IMI Results ...................................................................................................... 83
Table 21: Summary of Game Type Results.......................................................................................... 84
Table 22: GEQ Subscales ................................................................................................................... 104
Table 23: IMI Subscales ..................................................................................................................... 105
Table 24: PENS Subscales ................................................................................................................. 106
Table 25: Blank responses from SAM and GEQ Questionnaire ........................................................ 107
Table 26: Blank responses from PENS and IMI Questionnaire ......................................................... 109

ix
List of Acronyms and Terms
RT Real-Time
TB Turn-Based
AI Artificial Intelligence
SAM Self-Assessment Manikin
GEQ Game Engagement Questionnaire
PENS Player Experience of Needs Satisfaction
IMI Intrinsic Motivation Inventory
C Card Games
H Chess Games
V Video Games
n.s. Not Significant
SiG Social Innovation Generation
SI Lab Social Innovation Lab
COTS Games Commercial Off-The-Shelf Games

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