BANGS: Basic Needs in Games Scale
Satisfaction and frustration of players' basic psychological needs

Please cite when you use this questionnaire:
Ballou, N., Denisova, A., Ryan, R., Rigby, C. S., & Deterding, S. (2024). The Basic Needs in Games Scale (BANGS): A new tool for investigating positive and negative video game experiences. International Journal of Human-Computer Studies, 188, 103289. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103289

Source: https://alenadenisova.com/paper-ballou-2024.html#questionnaire

HOW TO USE IT
- Replace [X] to fit what you are asking about: “the game” for a single session, “the games I played” for gaming in general, or the game's name (for example, piped in from an earlier question) for one game over time.
- Introduce the items with: “Below, we ask you about experiences of [X]. In [X]...”, where [X] describes the context, for example “the gaming session you described”, “gaming in general over the past 2 weeks”, or the name of the game.
- Present the items in random order, as in the validation studies.
- Use a 7-point agreement scale with the anchors 1 Strongly disagree, 4 Neither agree nor disagree and 7 Strongly agree.

INSTRUCTIONS FOR PLAYERS
Below, we ask you about experiences of [X]. In [X]...

RESPONSE SCALE
1 Strongly disagree
2
3
4 Neither agree nor disagree
5
6
7 Strongly agree

ITEMS

Autonomy satisfaction
bangs_01. I could make choices regarding how to play [X].
bangs_02. I could play [X] in the way I wanted.
bangs_03. I could direct my own play experience in [X].

Autonomy frustration
bangs_04. I felt forced to take certain actions in [X].
bangs_05. Many actions in [X] were boring.
bangs_06. I often found myself wishing I could do something else within [X].

Competence satisfaction
bangs_07. I felt I was getting better at playing [X].
bangs_08. I felt that I made progress while playing [X].
bangs_09. I felt a sense of achievement while playing [X].

Competence frustration
bangs_10. I often felt that I lacked the skills necessary for [X].
bangs_11. I kept failing to accomplish what I wanted to while playing [X].
bangs_12. I felt disappointed with my performance in [X].

Relatedness satisfaction
bangs_13. I felt I formed relationships with other players and/or characters in [X].
bangs_14. Engaging with [X], I felt a connection to others, virtual or real.
bangs_15. I felt that other players and/or characters in [X] cared about me.

Relatedness frustration
bangs_16. Interactions with other players and/or characters in [X] felt toxic to me.
bangs_17. The community or virtual world in [X] made me feel unwelcome.
bangs_18. Others in [X] were unfriendly towards me.

SCORING
- There are no reverse-scored items. Satisfaction and frustration are scored as separate subscales.
- Score each of the six subscales as the mean of its three items.

NOTES
- The autonomy frustration subscale had lower reliability than the others, so use it with caution, particularly when asking about one particular game.
- The relatedness items work for both single-player and multiplayer games, because they refer to other players and/or characters.

MORE
- BANGS user guide and files (Nick Ballou): https://nickballou.com/docs/bangs
- Data, code and materials (OSF): https://osf.io/uq8mp