EAGER: Collaborative Research: Motivation and Serious Gaming

当人们为了娱乐而玩游戏时，他们可以自由选择是否玩游戏以及玩什么游戏。所谓的“严肃游戏”采用了一种媒体形式，玩家习惯于将其作为娱乐，以达到学习、健康和说服等严肃目标。严肃的游戏不是出于自愿和乐趣，实际上可能是强制性的课堂作业，公司培训的必要部分，或者是改善大脑健康的规定活动。严肃游戏可能并不有趣。即使是对许多人来说都很有趣的游戏（游戏邦注：例如《文明》系列游戏是有史以来最畅销的游戏之一，并且被广泛用作教育类游戏），也可能不是“有趣”、“吸引人”、“激励人”，或者其他可以用来描述学者或设计师针对特定目标用户子集使用游戏的基本原理的词。众所周知，动机对学校学习很重要，但严肃游戏的动机还没有被研究过。就像学习者对与学习相关的内在和外在奖励持有不同的潜在亲和力一样，该项目也假设玩家在整个游戏体验过程中会形成独特的游戏动机亲和力和心态。玩家类型将玩家划分为成就者、探索者、社交者或杀手，但这些类型只考虑特定游戏或游戏类型的自愿体验。我们尚不清楚玩家是否能够轻松且热情地接受与他们偏好的游戏动机不相符的游戏，或者这种不匹配是否会影响他们的沉浸感和学习能力。从定义上看，严肃游戏是基于玩家的娱乐游戏体验，但它们却没有考虑不同玩家玩娱乐游戏的原因和方式，也没有考虑这些个人终身游戏动机和体验差异对严肃游戏的接受方式有何影响。该项目将开发和测试游戏动机概要（GMP）的理念，与动机和心态理论平行。这个项目是有风险的，因为GMP可能最终被证明不存在，或者不重要。这个项目是值得的，因为如果GMP确实能够调节严肃游戏的影响，那么它将对游戏设计以及如何引入严肃游戏以提高其有效性产生无数的影响。第1阶段探索性研究的目标是：1.)阐明、探索和收集关于作为个体特征的游戏动机概况（GMP）结构的规范性数据；2.)发现个体玩特定游戏的方式是否与他们的GMP一致；3.)研究当游戏中没有GMP时，制定的游戏风格和乐趣会发生什么。拟议的第二阶段研究是检验GMP和严肃游戏“那又怎样”的第一步。研究人员将研究当玩家的GMP（也就是他们喜欢的游戏模式）在游戏中可用或不可用时，学习型游戏和脑力游戏的预期结果（例如，学习和脑力训练）是如何受到影响的。第二阶段的实验将测试操纵调节契合度（引入与游戏一致或不一致的任务目标）对提高脑力游戏和学习游戏预期结果的效果。了解GMP对严肃游戏预期结果的影响，有助于为严肃游戏设计提供信息，并更好地为严肃游戏的不同用户提供服务。基于游戏数量和质量的巨大性别差异，我们可以合理地预测，GMP会因性别、年龄和其他人口统计数据而异，这意味着更普遍的严肃游戏设计。

When people play games for entertainment, they are free to choose whether to play at all and which games to play. So-called 'serious games' employ a media form players are accustomed to enjoying as entertainment for serious goals such as learning, health, and persuasion. Rather than voluntary and for fun, a serious game may in fact be a mandatory class assignment, a required part of corporate training, or a prescribed activity to improve brain health. Serious games may not be fun. Even games which are fun for many people (e.g., the Civilization series of games are some of the best selling games ever and are widely used as educational games), may not be "fun," "engaging," "motivating," or whatever other words may be used to describe the rationale for using games by academics or designers for a distinct subset of the target audience. Motivation is known to be important for school learning yet motivation for serious games has not been studied. In the same way that learners hold different underlying affinities for intrinsic and extrinsic rewards associated with learning, it is posited in this project that gamers develop unique gaming motivation affinities and mindsets throughout their lifetime of gaming experiences. Player typologies classify players as achievers, explorers, socializers, or killers, but these typologies only consider voluntary play of a particular game or game genre. It is not yet known whether players easily and enthusiastically embrace games which do not fit their preferred gaming motivations, or if such mismatches interfere with engagement and learning. By definition, serious games piggyback on players' entertainment gaming experiences, yet they do so with no consideration of why and how different people play entertainment games, nor what the implications of those individual lifetime gaming motivation and experience differences are for how a serious game will be received. This project will develop and test drive the idea of a Gaming Motivation Profile (GMP), parallel to motivation and mindset theories. The project is risky, because GMP may turn out not to exist, or to be unimportant. The project is worthwhile because if indeed GMP mediates the impact of serious games, there are myriad implications for game design and for how serious games are introduced to improve their effectiveness. The proposed Phase 1 exploratory research seeks 1.) to articulate, explore, and collect normative data about the construct of gaming motivation profile (GMP) as an individual trait, 2.) to discover whether the way individuals play particular games is consistent with their GMP, 3.) to study what happens as far enacted play style and enjoyment when GMP is not available within a game. The proposed Phase 2 rresearch be a first step in examining the "so what" of GMP and serious gaming. Researchers will study how a learning game's and a brain game's intended outcomes (e.g., learning and brain training) are impacted when players' GMP (and therefore, their preferred play patterns) are or are not available in the game. The Phase 2 experiment will test the efficacy of manipulating regulatory fit (introducing task goals which are or are not consistent with the game) for improving the intended outcomes of a brain game and a learning game. Understanding the impact of GMP on serious gaming intended outcomes holds promise to inform serious game design and to better serve diverse audiences for serious games. It is reasonable to expect, based on large gender differences in the quantity and quality of gaming, that GMP will vary by gender, age, and other demographics, with implications for more universal serious game design.