Exploring Player Engagement in Social and Pervasive Learning Games

Abstract

Pervasive gaming is a genre of gaming that integrates with the physical and social aspects of the real world and blends into the player’s everyday life. The context of this thesis is the use of long-lasting pervasive games to facilitate learning. However, for students to achieve the intended learning outcome from pervasive learning games, they need to participate. Hence, player motivation and engagement are critical success factors and the strategies and mechanisms that can be implemented for this purpose is the focus for this thesis. Extrinsic and intrinsic motivation and player enjoyment is the theoretical foundation for the research presented here. Different methods and techniques to increase player engagement have been explored and evaluated, including features to support “in-game” awareness. The research presented is conducted on three primary artifacts. One artifact was a commercial web-based smokers’ cessation program designed as a 50-day real-time pervasive learning game. The two other artifacts were Pervasive Learning Games designed and developed as a part of this research project. Both these games were 100% designed, developed and game mastered by the author of this thesis. The game “Nuclear Mayhem” was in addition programmed by the author while the programming of the second game “HiNTHunt” was outsourced and done by a third party. A Design Science research method was applied to investigate how storytelling, real-life locations, real-life events, awareness enhancing, social game play, as well as other types of game play and game design, can be implemented in long lasting learning games to motivate and improve player participation. Results from this research project have been presented to the research community in six scientific papers, all published in renowned international conferences and journals according to the Norsk Publiseringsindikator (NPI) listing published by the Norwegian Centre for Research Data. Main contribution presented in these six papers are strategies and solutions demonstrated in the artifacts designed, developed, and instantiated as a part of this research project and expanded knowledge about how to increase player engagement in long-lasting pervasive learning. We learned that using pervasive learning games could expand the area for learning into the student’s everyday life and enable learning to be anytime and anywhere. Furthermore, we discovered that a dynamic game story that incorporates real life events that unfolds in the duration of the game as a part of the game story, created more awareness about the game and proved to be a valuable technique to create increased player engagement. This resulted in the development of the Dynamic Pervasive Storytelling model. Different iterations of the artifact HiNT Hunt provided information about the importance of a game story to engage players as early as possible and increase overall player engagement. Iterations of artifact HiNT Hunt also provided learning that led to the development of The-Last-Shall-Be-The-First Dynamic Bonus System, a method to activate passive players to get them more engaged in the game. Case study of the commercial web-based freeFromNicotine course, which provides a game-based approach to smoking cessation led to the principle of core assignments and individual assignments, a successful method to ensure that all users could participate in the overall competition on equal terms while still have a unique tailored personal course program to follow. The work presented in this thesis provides unique insight into strategies and methods for player engagement in pervasive games. This is relevant knowledge when designing and developing pervasive games to increase player engagement and the solutions that have been develop can be reused, as well as provide a good foundation for further research on the topic.