City Research Online

Abstract

Power-ups are a type of game reward that allow the player tocustomise their experience by altering gameplay for a shortperiod of time. Despite the wide use of power-ups in videogames, little is known about their effect on gaming experiences.To explore this, we conducted an experimental study that compares the experiences of players depending on their exposureto power-ups in a recreational video game. The results show that players who collected power-ups felt significantly more immersed in the game, experienced more autonomy, but didnot feel more competent or challenged than those who played the game without these collectables. Interestingly, a similareffect was observed for those players who picked up ‘placebo ’power-ups, despite the items having no effect on the gameplay. We provide a discussion of these results and their implications both for games user researchers and game designers.

Publication Type:	Book Section
Additional Information:	© Denisova, A. & Cook, E.| ACM 2019. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive Version of Record was published in CHI PLAY '19 Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347173.
Subjects:	G Geography. Anthropology. Recreation > GV Recreation Leisure Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA75 Electronic computers. Computer science Q Science > QA Mathematics > QA76 Computer software
Departments:	School of Science & Technology > Computer Science

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