Investigating the Impact of Task Significance on Task Engagement and Enjoyment in Digital Games

摘要

The Positive Psychologists Peterson, Park, and Seligman identified three paths to human happiness, which they called orientations to happiness: pleasure, flow and meaning. Pleasure can be attained by making games beautiful and pleasurable to the five senses, and flow can be attained with dynamic difficulty adjustment to maintain an optimal level of challenge. However, to the best of our knowledge there has yet to be empirical research showing the impact of meaning on enjoyment in digital games. This study aims to fill that gap in the literature. An online controlled experiment with 440 total participants is proposed to test the impact of Task Significance on Task Engagement and Enjoyment. Participants will play one of 12 versions of a custom research game online (3×4 factorial experimental design), and then complete an online survey. Two different ways to facilitate Task Significance in games are proposed and tested: narrative framing and character upgrading mechanisms. This results of this experiment will advance the study of game enjoyment by testing how well these two ways of designing for meaning or Task Significance lead to enjoyment in digital games.