Player characteristics and their relationship to goals and rewards in video games

Modern game developers encounter difficulties accounting for an increasingly disparate audience with uniquely individual preferences. These preferences must be identified before any substantive efforts to accommodate them. Because the pursuit of goals and rewards is the central organizing structure in games, individual preferences need to be approached through the lens of goals and rewards selection. Previous research has focused on identifying player types and characteristics, yet rarely connects these characteristics directly with game components. Our experiment applies categories of psychogenic needs to subjects' discrete choices when playing a simple open-source 2D platform game. We found subjects' valuation of short-term versus long-term goal selection to be of particular interest. We also found discrepancies between perceived enjoyments when measured during the gameplay and when measured after the game. The knowledge of how various personalities engage with given goals and selecting rewards is valuable beyond the narrow context of videogames in areas such as placement of employees in the business or soldiers in roles that better fit their personalities and preferences.