The effects of juiciness in an action RPG

Abstract “Juiciness” is a term that has been widely used to describe the positive feedback (both visual/audial) present in digital games. However, few empirical investigations have looked at how juiciness concretely impacts players. In this paper, we perform a study (N = 3018) in which we compare four identical versions of an action role-playing game with varying amounts of juiciness: (1) None; (2) Medium; (3) High; and (4) Extreme. We find that both None and Extreme amounts of juiciness lead to significantly decreased play time, significantly decreased player experience, significantly decreased intrinsic motivation, and significantly decreased performance relative to both Medium and High. This is, to the best of our knowledge, the largest study to date on juiciness. Our results have implications for designers, developers, and researchers.

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