Enhancing User-Game Engagement Through Software Gaming Elements

Mengxiang Li, Qiqi Jiang*, Chuan-Hoo Tan, Kwok-Kee Wei

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articlepeer-review

64 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

User-game engagement is vital for building and retaining a customer base for software games. However, few studies have investigated such engagement during gameplay and the impact of gaming elements on engagement. Drawing on the theoretical foundation of engagement, we meticulously deduced two cognitive-related gaming elements of a software game, namely, game complexity and game familiarity, and argued that these elements have individual and joint effects on user-game engagement. This research adopted multimethod empirical investigations to validate our conceptions. The first investigation used electroencephalography and a self-report survey to study quantitatively the cognitive activities of user-game engagement. The second investigation adopted the qualitative interview method to triangulate the findings from the quantitative data. This research contributes to theory in two ways, namely, conceptualizing and empirically examining user-game engagement as well as theorizing and demonstrating how the two gaming elements affect user-game engagement. This work contributes to the gaming practice by providing a set of design principles for gaming elements.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)115-150
Number of pages36
JournalJournal of Management Information Systems
Volume30
Issue number4
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2014

Scopus Subject Areas

  • Management Information Systems
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Management Science and Operations Research
  • Information Systems and Management

User-Defined Keywords

  • electroencephalography
  • NeuroIS
  • online games
  • software games
  • user-game engagement

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