The Impact of Rewards and Trait Reward Responsiveness on Player Motivation

Despite rewards being seemingly ubiquitous in video games, there has been limited research into their impact on the player experience. Informed by extant literature, we built a casual video game to test the impact of reward types, both individually (i.e. rewards of: access, facility, sustenance, glory, praise) and by variety of rewards (i.e. no rewards, individual rewards, all rewards). No evidence was found for differing reward types impacting the player experience differently. However, evidence was found for a greater variety of rewards having a positive impact on interest and enjoyment. Regardless of the impact of variety of rewards, the individual characteristic of reward responsiveness was found to be predict sense of presence and interest and enjoyment. This paper makes contributions to the application of reward types, general understanding of the impact of rewards on the player experience, and discusses the importance of trait reward responsiveness in player experience evaluation.

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