K. Gerling, Matthew K. Miller, R. Mandryk, M. Birk, Jan David Smeddinck
{"title":"Effects of balancing for physical abilities on player performance, experience and self-esteem in exergames","authors":"K. Gerling, Matthew K. Miller, R. Mandryk, M. Birk, Jan David Smeddinck","doi":"10.1145/2556288.2556963","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"Game balancing can help players with different skill levels play multiplayer games together; however, little is known about how the balancing approach affects performance, experience, and self-esteem'especially when differences in player strength result from given abilities, rather than learned skill. We explore three balancing approaches in a dance game and show that the explicit approach commonly used in commercial games reduces self-esteem and feelings of relatedness in dyads, whereas hidden balancing improves self-esteem and reduces score differential without affecting game outcome. We apply our results in a second study with dyads where one player had a mobility disability and used a wheelchair. By making motion-based games accessible for people with different physical abilities, and by enabling people with mobility disabilities to compete on a par with able-bodied peers, we show how to provide empowering experiences through enjoyable games that have the potential to increase physical activity and self-esteem.","PeriodicalId":20599,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems","volume":"270 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2014-04-26","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"120","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1145/2556288.2556963","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 120
Abstract
Game balancing can help players with different skill levels play multiplayer games together; however, little is known about how the balancing approach affects performance, experience, and self-esteem'especially when differences in player strength result from given abilities, rather than learned skill. We explore three balancing approaches in a dance game and show that the explicit approach commonly used in commercial games reduces self-esteem and feelings of relatedness in dyads, whereas hidden balancing improves self-esteem and reduces score differential without affecting game outcome. We apply our results in a second study with dyads where one player had a mobility disability and used a wheelchair. By making motion-based games accessible for people with different physical abilities, and by enabling people with mobility disabilities to compete on a par with able-bodied peers, we show how to provide empowering experiences through enjoyable games that have the potential to increase physical activity and self-esteem.