Motivated to lose? Evaluating challenge and player motivations in games

Players report losing some games can be as much fun, or more than winning. It is imperative to identify what motivates a player to pursue failure in games due to the importance of many games now used for educational and health purposes. The game’s intended outcomes can be entirely undermined if players would rather lose than win the game. To achieve reliable predictions on the win/lose dilemma, we propose a new model of challenge, Dynamic Probability Response, which quantifies the degree and type of challenge. Many previous studies focus on individual differences in play. This study focuses on how different play motivations interact. Three conceptualisations of winning were tested against each other by giving players a mutually exclusive choice between challenge, gratuitous feedback from interaction (juice hypothesis), and compliance with visual cues denoting victory (game value adoption hypothesis). Each potential motivation for play was derived from psychological theory that is prevalent in the game design literature. Using a within-subject ANOVA, the three hypothesised motivations investigated were each individually supported. Some hypotheses about which motivations can disrupt the game’s goal were supported. Others were not. The applications of these results to game and simulation design are discussed.