The Spheres of Player Motivation: Towards a New Typology for Player Motivation in Digital Games

The Spheres of Player Motivation: Towards a New Typology for Player Motivation in Digital Games

The Spheres of Player Motivation: Towards a New Typology for Player Motivation in Digital Games

By Corey Thomas Martin, James Baumeister, Andrew Cunningham, and G Stewart Von Itzstein

Abstract

“Due to the subjective and complex nature of topics like fun and enjoyment, the motivations for players engaging with interactive games are particularly difficult to explore. However, understanding player motivation within games is indisputably valuable for those wishing to succeed in this highly competitive industry. While numerous models exist to quantify the motivations felt by players, the industry is ever evolving, and emerging sub industries have given rise to new reasons to play. In this work, though a meta-ethnography study clustering 284 motivation metaphors extracted from 30 included papers, the Spheres of Motivation is proposed; a new preliminary typology which synthesizes the last three decades of player motivation research.”

Reference

Martin, C., Baumeister, J., Cunningham, A., Itzstein, G., & Linz, J. (2021, October 15). The spheres of player motivation: Extended abstracts of the 2021 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in play. Retrieved February 24, 2022, from https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3450337.3483491

Keyword

Player motivation, typology, immersion, player experience, digital games, serious games, research