An instrument to build a gamer clustering framework according to gaming preferences and habits.

In the era of digital gaming, there is a pressing need to better understand how people's gaming preferences and habits affect behavior and can inform educational game design. However, instruments available for such endeavor are rather informal and limited, lack proper evaluation, and often yiel...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores: Torrente, Javier, Manero Iglesias, José Borja, Freire Morán, Manuel, Fernández Manjón, Baltasar
Tipo de recurso: artículo
Fecha de publicación:2016
País:España
Repositorio:Docta Complutense
Idioma:inglés
OAI Identifier:oai:docta.ucm.es:20.500.14352/102672
Acceso en línea:https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14352/102672
Access Level:acceso abierto
Palabra clave:Educational games
Classification of gamers
Gaming preferences and habits
Instruments for serious games
Applied games
Informática (Informática)
3304 Tecnología de Los Ordenadores
Descripción
Sumario:In the era of digital gaming, there is a pressing need to better understand how people's gaming preferences and habits affect behavior and can inform educational game design. However, instruments available for such endeavor are rather informal and limited, lack proper evaluation, and often yield results that are hard to interpret. In this paper we present the design and preliminary validation (involving N ¼ 754 Spanish secondary school students) of a simple instrument that, based on a 10-item Game Preferences Questionnaire (GPQ), classifies participants into four ‘clusters’ or types of gamers, allowing for easy interpretation of the results. These clusters are: (1) Full gamers, covering individuals that play all kinds of games with a high frequency; (2) Hardcore gamers, playing mostly first-person shooters and sport games; (3) Casual gamers, playing moderately musical, social and thinking games; and (4) Nongamers, who do not usually play games of any kind. The instrument may have uses in psychology and behavioral sciences, as there is evidence suggesting that attitudes towards gaming affects personal attitudes and behavior. Besides, we propose applying the instrument to help designers of educational games to get better tailored their games to their target audiences.