Being enjoyably challenged is the key to an enjoyable gaming experience: an experimental approach in a first-person shooter game

Figures & data

Table 1. Gaming experience classification accounting for the self-rewarding dimension.

		Concentration-level assessment
		CAL	CAH
Concentration enjoyment	CEL	Boredom	Anxiety
	CEH	Relaxation	Flow

H and L subscripts stand for high and low levels of CA and CE.

Figure 1. Enjoyment-based challenge mapping.

Figure 2. Gaming experience/challenge correspondence mapping.

Table 2. Round breakdown according to enjoyment-based challenge mapping.

		Challenge mapping
		Low difficulty assessment (DAL)			High difficulty assessment (DAH)
Rounds		Low difficulty enjoyment DEL	High difficulty enjoyment DEH	Total DAL (a)	Low difficulty enjoyment DEL	High difficulty enjoyment DEH	Total DAH (b)	N
Introduction	(1)	13	24	37	0	5	5	42
Tank	(2)	9	23	32	4	6	10	42
Sniper	(3)	12	18	30	4	8	12	42
Difficult	(4)	0	0	0	22	20	42	42
Total	(5)	34	65	99	30	39	69	168

χ² _{challenge&round} = 88.938 (p-value = 0.000)

N: number of observations

Table 3. Round breakdown according to XPs.

	XPs
Rounds	Boredom (CAL, CEL)	Relaxation (CAL, CEH)	Flow (CAH, CEH)	Anxiety (CAH, CEL)	N
(1) Introduction	24	14	4	0	42
(2) Tank	15	14	10	3	42
(3) Sniper	9	6	20	7	42
(4) Difficult	5	1	23	13	42
(5) Total	53	35	57	23	168

N: number of observations

χ²_XPs&round = 62.29 (p-value = 0.000)

Table 4. Student mean tests of DA comparisons.

Hypotheses	XPs under comparison	ΔDA T test (p-value)
H3-b1	DA^R<DA^F	−1.808
		5.517**
		(0.000)
H3-b2	DA^B<DA^A	−2.215
		6.251**
		(0.000)
H3-b1&2	DA^R,B<DA^F,A	−1.804
		7.803**
		(0.000)

Superscript letters R, F, A, and B refer to XPs: Relaxation, Flow, Anxiety, and Boredom.

** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05.

Table 5. Student mean tests of DE comparisons.

Hypotheses	XPs under comparison	ΔDE T test (p-value)
H3-b3	DE^R>DE^B	0.911
		3.118*
		(0.002)
H3-b4	DE^F>DE^A	1.54
		4.911**
		(0.000)
H3-b3&4	DE^R,F > DE^B,A	0.991
		4.770**
		(0.000)

Superscript letters R, F, A, and B refer to XPs: Relaxation, Flow, Anxiety, and Boredom.

** p < 0.001, * p < 0.05.

Table 6. Estimates of the gamer experience model.

	Dependent variable
Explanatory variable	Boredom vs Flow	Relaxation vs Flow	Anxiety vs Flow
Intercept	2.710**	1.058	0.901
	(0.000)	(0.192)	(0.173)
DA	−0458**	−0.559**	0.0990
	(0.000)	(0.000)	(0.427)
DE	−0.303*	0.081	−0.557**
	(0.013)	(0.615)	(0.000)
Log LH	−183.43
Wald χ^2 test	58.71
	(0.000)
N	168

p-values in parentheses (two-tail tests): ** p < 0.01, * p < 0.05

Figure 3. DA and DE averages over XP.