Short paper · 2017

Challenge in Digital Games: Towards Developing a Measurement Tool

Denisova, A., Guckelsberger, C., & Zendle, D.

ConferenceExtended Abstracts of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA'17), 2017

Teaser figure: challenge-related items in nine existing questionnaires, from 10 in eGameFlow to 3 in several others; proposed cognitive, physical, emotional and social challenge types; and gaps found, such as no statistical validation. — Open full-size image

In short

Challenge is arguably the experience players most seek in games, yet there was no reliable way to measure how challenged they feel. We surveyed definitions and types of challenge, and the items existing player experience questionnaires use to capture it, drawing on game design, HCI and game AI.

Types of challenge

The challenge types the review draws on, in the paper’s words.

Cognitive
“Challenge that addresses the player’s cognitive and problem-solving capacities.”
Physical
“Physical challenges address a player’s abilities with regards to the speed and accuracy with which they perform actions in games.”
Emotional
“Challenge which confronts the player with emotionally salient material or the use of strong characters, and a captivating story.”

What existing questionnaires miss

Despite addressing the very general properties of challenge, the questionnaires lack depth.
Discussion of Table 1
Most importantly, different types of challenge are not distinguished, in particular not emotional and social challenge.
Discussion of Table 1
A player cannot overcome emotional challenge with skill or dexterity, but by resolving tension in the narrative, by identifying with characters, and by resolving ambiguities.
On emotional challenge

Key findings

About 40 challenge-related items appear across nine existing questionnaires, but none of them was designed to measure challenge.
The literature points to several distinct types of challenge, including cognitive, physical (performative), emotional and social challenge.
Existing items are fragmented, broad rather than deep, and mostly not statistically validated: the groundwork that led to CORGIS.

Read and cite

PDF (accepted version) Publisher's version (DOI)

APA citation

Denisova, A., Guckelsberger, C., & Zendle, D. (2017, May). Challenge in Digital Games: Towards Developing a Measurement Tool. In Extended Abstracts of the 2017 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI EA'17) (pp. 2511-2519).

Line of work

This paper · 2017Challenge in Digital Games: Towards Developing a Measurement Tool
Followed by · 2020Measuring Perceived Challenge in Digital Games: Development & Validation of the Challenge Originating from Recent Gameplay Interaction Scale (CORGIS)