Sebastian Deterding

University of York · Department of Theatre, Film and Television

The idea that game design can inspire the design of motivating, enjoyable interactive systems has a long history in human-computer interaction. It currently experiences a renaissance as gameful design, often implemented through gamification, the use of game design elements in nongame contexts. Yet there is little research-based guidance on designin...

Recent years have seen a rapid proliferation of mass-market consumer software that takes inspiration from video games. Usually summarized as "gamification", this trend connects to a sizeable body of existing concepts and research in human-computer interaction and game studies, such as serious games, pervasive games, alternate reality games, or play...

Autonomy experience constitutes a core part of the intrinsic motivation of playing games. While research has explored how autonomy is afforded by a game's design, little is known about the role of the social context of play. Particularly , engaging with serious games or gamified applications is often obligatory, which may thwart autonomy. To tease...

Gameful and playful design aspire to make existing activities and systems more engaging by infusing them with the engaging qualities of games and toys. One such quality is make-believe, the constitution of fictional “as ifs”. While frequently evoked, actual work on make-believe in gameful and playful design has remained quite scarce and scattered....

Existing theories of how game use relates to mental health have important limitations: few account for both quantity and quality of use, differentiate components of mental health (hedonic wellbeing, eudaimonic wellbeing and illbeing), provide an explanation for both positive and negative outcomes or readily explain the well-evidenced absence of pla...

As video games have moved to the mainstream of entertainment and popular culture, they also have given rise to new media fears. These span concerns for player welfare such as gaming addiction, negative effects of ‘screen time,’ gambling-like mechanics, dark patterns and questionable business practices, online toxicity, and extremism. Questions of g...

'Juicy' or immediate abundant action feedback is widely held to make video games enjoyable and intrinsically motivating. Yet we don’t know why it works: Which motives are mediating it? Which feedback features afford it? In a pre-registered (n=1,699) online experiment, we tested three motives mapping prior practitioner discourse---effectance, compet...

Existing theories of how game use relates to mental health have important limitations: few account for both quantity and quality of use, differentiate components of mental health (hedonic wellbe- ing, eudaimonic wellbeing, and illbeing), provide an explanation for both positive and negative outcomes, or readily explain the well-evidenced absence of...

Psychological need frustration—experiences like failure, loneliness, or coercion—is emerging as a promising explanation for why people disengage with games and other entertainment media, and how media may induce dysregulated use and ill-being. However, existing research on game-related need frustration relies on general instruments with unclear con...

Flow and self-determination theory predict that game difficulty in balance with player skill maximises enjoyment and engagement, mediated by attentive absorption or competence. Yet recent evidence and methodological concerns are challenging this view, and key theoretical predictions have remained untested, importantly which objective difficulty-ski...

Video games are increasingly designed to provoke reflection and challenge players’ perspectives. Yet we know little about how such perspective-challenging experiences come about in gameplay. In response, we used systematic self-observation diaries and micro-phenomenological interviews to capture players’ (n=15) lived experience of perspective chall...

Players’ basic psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness are among the most commonly used constructs used in research on what makes video games so engaging, and how they might support or undermine user wellbeing. However, existing measures of basic psychological needs in games have important limitations—they either do not measur...

Concerns about threats to human autonomy feature prominently in the field of AI ethics. One aspect of this concern relates to the use of AI systems for problematically manipulative influence. In response to this, the European Union’s draft AI Act (AIA) includes a prohibition on AI systems deploying subliminal techniques that alter people’s behavior...

Citizen science games are an increasingly popular form of citizen science, in which volunteer participants engage in scientific research while playing a game. Their success depends on a diverse set of stakeholders working together–scientists, volunteers, and game developers. Yet the potential needs of these stakeholder groups and their possible ten...

Artificial moral agents – systems that engage in explicit moral reasoning on their own and with users – present a potential new paradigm for behavior and system change for social and environ- mental sustainability. Moral agents could replace current individual- ist, prescriptive, inflexible, and opaque interventions with systems that transparently...

With the rise of microtransactions, particularly in the mobile games industry, there has been ongoing concern that games reliant on these obtain substantial revenue from a small proportion of heavily involved individuals, to an extent that may be financially burdensome to these individuals. Yet despite substantive grey literature and speculation on...

How does the difficulty of a task affect people's enjoyment and engagement? Intrinsic motivation and flow theories posit a 'goldilocks' optimum where task difficulty matches performer skill, yet current work is confounded by questionable measurement practices and lacks scalable methods to manipulate objective difficulty-skill ratios. We developed a...

Crises like the COVID-19 pandemic accelerate social and technological changes and put new political and public demands on science, technology, and innovation systems. Their urgency clashes with the deliberate slowness of existing responsible innovation and technology ethics practices and processes, while many fast and ad-hoc changes and infrastruct...

There is concern that some games obtain most of their revenue from a small proportion of heavily involved individuals; that some games may systematically encourage heavy spending amongst this group; and that this expenditure may be financially burdensome. We explore these questions using a transactional dataset of USD 4.7bn in in-game spending draw...

Psychological need frustration—experiences like failure, loneliness, or coercion—is emerging as a promising explanation for why people disengage with games and other entertainment media, and how media may induce dysregulated use and ill-being. However, existing research on game- related need frustration relies on general instruments with unclear co...

Why do we seek out and enjoy uncertain success in playing games? Game designers and researchers suggest that games whose challenges match player skills afford engaging experiences of achievement, competence, or effectance—of doing well. Yet, current models struggle to explain why such balanced challenges best afford these experiences and do not str...

Microtransactions have become a major monetisation model in digital games, shaping their design, impacting their player experience, and raising ethical concerns. Research in this area has chiefly focused on loot boxes. This begs the question whether other microtransactions might actually be more relevant and problematic for players. We therefore co...

Do people use games to cope with adverse life events and crises? Research informed by self-determination theory proposes that people might compensate for thwarted basic psychological needs in daily life by seeking out games that satisfy those lacking needs. To test this, we conducted a preregistered mixed-method survey study (n = 285) on people’s g...

Self-determination theory (SDT) has become one of the most frequently used and well-validated theories used in HCI research, modelling the relation of basic psychological needs, intrinsic motivation, positive experience and wellbeing. This makes it a prime candidate for a ‘motor theme’ driving more integrated, systematic, theory-guided research. Ho...

Effectance—the basic positive experience of causing effects—provides a promising explanation for the enjoyment derived from novel low-challenge game genres featuring ample ‘juicy’ feedback. To date, game researchers have studied effectance using a little-validated 11-item scale developed by Klimmt, Hartmann, and Frey. To test its dimensionality and...

Post-truth politics have thrived in the shape of fake news and the feeding of divisive emotional narratives. While stories with strong emotional appeal can mobilize, their current post-truth form erodes the ideals of democracy. Some have called to counter the post-truth populism with evidence-based participation , both online and offl ine. However,...

Within the wider open science reform movement, HCI researchers are actively debating how to foster transparency in their own field. Publication venues play a crucial role in instituting open science practices, especially journals, whose procedures arguably lend themselves better to them than conferences. Yet we know lit- tle about how much HCI jour...

Research actively explores and advances the play strength of general agents, which are able to play video games without having specific knowledge about them. However, how general agents impact player experience and motivation when implemented in commercially viable games is largely unexplored. In this paper, we investigate this relationship as init...

The automated evaluation of creative products promises both good-and-scalable creativity assessments and new forms of visual analysis of whole corpora. Where creative works are not ‘born digital’, such automated evaluation requires fast and frugal ways of transforming them into data representations that can be meaningfully assessed with common crea...

Casual creators are a genre of creativity support tool that integrate a generative system into the creative process with the goal of empowering amateurs to engage in autotelic and enjoyable creativity. They have been posited as a unique means of democratising creativity through the support of user exploration via system generativity, yet little is...

Video gaming actively demands players’ attention, affording positive experiences like flow. Recent research has suggested to extend analysis from cognitive and physical to the social and emotional demands of gameplay. This paper argues that Erving Goffman’s concept of interaction tension offers a promising theoretical model for social demands. We r...

Ethereum crypto-games are a booming and relatively unexplored area of the games industry. While there is no consensus definition yet, 'crypto-games' commonly denotes games that store tokens, e.g. in-game items, on a distributed ledger atop a cryptocurrency network. This enables the trading of game items for cryptocurrency, which can then be exchang...

Reflection has become a core interest for game designers. However, empirical research into the kinds and causes for reflection within games is scarce. We therefore conducted an on- line questionnaire where participants (n=101) openly reported perspective-challenging moments within games, their causes, experience, and impact. Where past work has emp...

Uncertainty is widely acknowledged as an engaging characteristic of games. Practice and research have proposed various types and factors of game uncertainty, yet there is little work explaining when and why different kinds of uncertainty motivate, especially with respect to ’micro-level’, moment- to-moment gameplay. We therefore conducted a qualita...

Os game studies há muito tempo vêm debatendo como relacionar os elementos ficcionais e os do jogo nos videogames. Este artigo propõe que muitos dos desafios conceituais nesse debate podem ser solucionados se os jogos e a ficção não forem tratados separadamente, mas como formalizações específicas de um mesmo fenômeno comum: o jogar. O artigo apresen...

In a wide range of social networks, people's behavior is influenced by social contagion: we do what our network does. Networks often feature particularly influential individuals, commonly called "influencers." Existing work suggests that in-game social networks in online games are similar to real-life social networks in many respects. However, we d...

Video games routinely use procedural content generation, player modelling, and other forms of computational interaction that provide a good starting point for engaging computational interfaces. However, across these practices, games model environment (game content) and actor (player type) separately, which is out of tune with both basic and applied...

In a wide range of social networks, people’s behavior is influenced by social contagion: we do what our network does. Networks often feature particularly influential individuals, commonly called “influencers’.’ Existing work suggests that in-game social networks in online games are similar to reallife social networks in many respects. However, we d...

Background. Games are increasingly used to collect scientific data. Some suggest that game features like high cognitive load may limit the inferences we can draw from such data, yet no systematic overview exists of potential validity threats of game-based methods. Aim. We present a narrative survey of documented and potential threats to validity in...

Do game design elements like badges have one, fixed motivational effect or can they have several different? Self-Determination Theory suggests that people situationally appraise the functional significance or psychological meaning of a given stimulus, which can result in different motivational states, but there is little empirical work observing ac...

Applied games are increasingly used to collect human subject data such as people's performance or attitudes. Games afford a motive for data provision that poses a validity threat at the same time: as players enjoy winning the game, they are motivated to provide dishonest data if this holds a strategic in-game advantage. Current work on data collect...

For millennia, magicians have designed illusions that are perceived as real regardless of their impossibility, inducing a sense of wonder in their audience. This paper argues that video game designers face the same design challenge - crafting believable and engaging illusions - and that the practice of magic provides an untapped wealth of design pr...

Gamification in management is currently informed by two contradicting framings or rhetorics: the rhetoric of choice architecture casts humans as rational actors and games as perfect information and incentive dispensers, giving managers fine-grained control over people’s behavior. It aligns with basic tenets of neoclassical economics, scientific man...

Casual creators are a type of design tool identified by Compton & Mateas, characterised by an orientation towards enjoyable, intrinsically motivated creative exploration, rather than task-oriented designer productivity. In our experiments holding rapid game jams with Wevva, a casual creator for mobile game design, we have noticed, however, that use...

For millennia, magicians have designed illusions that are perceived as real regardless of their impossibility, inducing a sense of wonder in their audience. This paper argues that video game designers face the same design challenge - crafting believable and engaging illusions - and that the practice of magic provides an untapped wealth of design pr...

Applied games are increasingly used to collect human subject data such as people’s performance or attitudes. Games a ord a motive for data provision that poses a validity threat at the same time: as players enjoy winning the game, they are motivated to provide dishonest data if this holds a strategic in-game advantage. Current work on data collecti...

Many de nitions of “role-play” and “role-playing games” have been suggested, but there is no broad consensus. People disagree because they often have an unclear idea of what kind of phenomena they are talking about and, therefore, what kind of definition is appropriate. Existing definitions often assume games and, with them, RPGs to be a natural ki...

Research on gamified educational platforms has chiefly focused on game elements motivating continued engagement, neglecting whether and why people choose to use them in the first place. Grounded in Uses & Gratifications Theory, this study therefore combined use diaries with follow-up interviews to explore the situated reasons for use of 83 students...

Incremental games like Cookie Clicker are a perfect exemplar of gamification, using progress mechanics and other game features to make the rote act of clicking compelling. Hence, this chapter reads the game Cookie Clicker for its motivating features to illustrate the logic and limits of gamification.

Human computation games lack established ways of balancing the difficulty of tasks or levels served to players, potentially contributing to their low engagement rates. Traditional player rating systems have been suggested as a potential solution: using them to rate both players and tasks could estimate player skill and task difficulty and fuel play...

Playing a game is a complex skill that comprises a set of more basic skills which map onto the component mechanics of the game. Basic skills and mechanics typically build and depend on each other in a nested learning hierarchy, which game designers have modelled as skill chains of skill atoms. For players to optimally learn and enjoy a game, it sho...

Gamification has been repeatedly framed as an emerging multidisciplinary research field. However, it is unclear how multidisciplinary the field actually is. To answer this question, this paper presents initial results of a broader scoping review of gamification research published between 2010 and 2016. Close to 2,000 peer-reviewed English-language...

Gamification is an increasingly popular strategy for increasing user engagement. But how to design gamified systems? While there is an abundance of industry methods, they often remain elusive in essential steps and lack grounding in evidence. This course provides a hands-on introduction into a comprehensive, research-based method for designing gami...

The social meanings of play sit at odds with norms of responsible and productive adult conduct. To be ‘caught’ playing as an adult therefore risks embarrassment. Still, many designers want to create enjoyable, non-embarrassing play experiences for adults. To address this need, this article reads instances of spontaneous adult play through the lens...

Enabled by artificial intelligence techniques, we are witnessing the rise of a new paradigm of computational creativity support: mixed-initiative creative interfaces put human and computer in a tight interactive loop where each suggests, produces, evaluates, modifies, and selects creative outputs in response to the other. This paradigm could broade...

Background Compared to traditional persuasive technology and health games, gamification is posited to offer several advantages for motivating behaviour change for health and well-being, and increasingly used. Yet little is known about its effectiveness. Aims We aimed to assess the amount and quality of empirical support for the advantages and effe...

Although game studies are widely viewed as an interdisciplinary field, it is unclear how interdisciplinary they actually are. In response, this article reads scientometric data and game studies editorials, handbooks and introductions through the lens of interdisciplinarity studies to assess game studies’ status as an interdiscipline. It argues that...

Human Computation Games (HCGs) aim to engage volunteers to solve information tasks, yet suffer from low sustained engagement themselves. One potential reason for this is limited difficulty balance, as tasks difficulty is unknown and they cannot be freely changed. In this paper, we introduce the use of player rating systems for selecting and sequenc...

Cities across the world attempt to minimise the negative environmental and wellbeing effects of increasing traffic volume and density. To this end, an increasing number of cities have taken to games and gamified applications to motivate mobility behaviours with less adverse effects. Being a novel approach predominantly deployed on online platforms,...

Autonomy experience constitutes a core part of the intrinsic motivation of playing games. While research has explored how autonomy is afforded by a game’s design, little is known about the role of the social context of play. Particularly, engaging with serious games or gamified applications is often obligatory, which may thwart autonomy. To tease o...

From the social sciences to biology and physics, gamified systems and games are increasingly being used as "petri dishes" for observing human behavior in presumably perfectly controlled (digital) environments. This practice rests on the assumption that in-game behavior maps onto out-of-game behavior. This paper argues that methodological research i...

Play can open adults to novel experiences and behaviors, yet fear of embarrassment often keeps them from engaging in play, particularly when observed by others. This makes embarrassment a crucial design consideration for pervasive play.

Play can open adults to novel experiences and behaviors, yet fear of embarrassment often keeps them from engaging in play, particularly when observed by others. This makes embarrassment a crucial design consideration for pervasive play.

Human Computation Games (HCGs) aim to engage volunteers to solve information tasks, yet suffer from low sustained engagement themselves. One potential reason for this is limited difficulty balance, as tasks difficulty is unknown and they cannot be freely changed. In this paper, we introduce the use of player rating systems for selecting and sequenc...

Cities across the world attempt to minimise the negative environmental and wellbeing effects of increasing traffic volume and density. To this end, an increasing number of cities have taken to games and gamified applications to motivate mobility behaviours with less adverse effects. Being a novel approach predominantly deployed on online platforms,...

From the social sciences to biology and physics, gamified systems and games are increasingly being used as “petri dishes” for observing human behavior in presumably perfectly controlled (digital) environments. This practice rests on the assumption that in-game behavior maps onto out-of-game behavior. This paper argues that methodological research i...

Few theories of gaming enjoyment have focused what is absent in gameplay. One exception is Erving Goffman’s sociological theory of “euphoric ease”. Because spontaneous and socially demanded emotional involvement often align in gameplay, Goffman holds, it lacks the effortful self-monitoring and self-regulation of conduct and emotion typical for ever...

Few theories of gaming enjoyment have focused what is absent in gameplay. One exception is Erving Goffman's sociological theory of " euphoric ease ". Because spontaneous and socially demanded emotional involvement often align in gameplay, Goffman holds, it lacks the effortful self-monitoring and self-regulation of conduct and emotion typical for ev...

Recent years have seen a rapid proliferation of mass-market consumer software that takes inspiration from video games. Usually summarized as “gamification”, this trend connects to a sizeable body of existing concepts and research in human-computer interaction and game studies, such as serious games, pervasive games, alternate reality games, or play...

Wherever the rapid evolution of interactive technologies disrupts standing situational norms, creates new, often unclear situational audiences, or crosses cultural boundaries, embarrassment is likely. This makes embarrassment a fundamental adoption and engagement hurdle, but also a creative design space for human-computer interaction. However, rese...

From social sciences to biology and physics, gamified systems and games are increasingly being used as contexts and tools for research: as “petri dishes” for observing macro-social and economic dynamics; as sources of “big” and/or ecologically valid user behavior and health data; as crowdsourcing tools for research tasks; or as a means to motivate...

Die von digitale Netzwerkmedien ermöglichte Konvergenz der Medien wird in den Cultural Studies primär als Kulturwandel der Produktions- und Rezeptions-Rollen verstanden – zumeist in kritischer Auseinandersetzung mit dem von Henry Jenkins entwickelten Begriff der Konvergenzkultur: Dieser beschreibt die Entkopplung von Inhalten von spezifischen Techn...

This article presents six critiques of the currently dominant rendition of gamification, and six invitations to rethink it. It suggests expanding the remit of gamification (1) from the structuring of objects to the framing of contexts, and (2) from game design elements to motivational affordances. In its current form, gamification presents an addit...

Contemporary theories of video games face a double challenge: While digital convergence decouples the previously stable bundles of ‘media’, instrumental play phenomena like serious games, gamification, work in games and work-like gaming troubles notions of games as fun, inconsequential, and spatiotemporally bounded entities opposite of work. Severa...