Sources of computer game enjoyment: Card sorting to develop a new model

Abstract

Understanding what makes computer games enjoyable is important not only for game design, but for the design of any interactive experience where it is important that users will want to use the design. We define enjoyment broadly as the positive evaluation of your experience. Existing models of game enjoyment are either not comprehensive enough, were not generated by empirical research, or both. We aim to fill this gap in the literature with a card sorting study exploring participants’ experience and mental models around what leads to computer game enjoyment. A broad literature review identified 167 sources of enjoyment. Our research group conducted an open card sort with these items to identify 24 initial categories of enjoyment sources. Sixty participants will sort the 167 sources of enjoyment into the 24 categories, plus a “not a source of enjoyment” category. After every ten participants, we will calculate inter-rater agreement with Randolph’s free-marginal multi-rater kappa. We hope this research will lead to a new, more comprehensive and content valid model of the sources of computer game enjoyment.