Research / Measuring player experience

Full paper · 2026

What We Talk About When We Talk About Agency: A Systematic Review of Agency in Video Games

Xu, X., Beeston, J., & Denisova, A.

JournalSJR Q1Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction (CHI PLAY 2026), 2026

Teaser figure: What we talk about when we talk about agency. A Venn diagram of 77 studies shows 50 frame agency as a system affordance, 45 as a subjective experience, and 18 as both. Bar chart of game elements studied: interaction 26, narrative 21, characters 20, environment 15. Only 33 studies addressed player experience, and few used validated measures.
Open full-size image

In short

Agency, players' capacity to make meaningful choices and see their consequences, is widely discussed in games research but has no agreed definition. We systematically reviewed 79 peer-reviewed articles to map how agency in video games is defined and measured.

Key findings

  • Definitions of agency vary widely across gaming contexts, which makes studies hard to compare.
  • Questionnaires are the most common measure, but few validated scales are designed specifically for video games.
  • Most research treats agency as part of the game's structure, such as interaction and narrative, rather than as the player's own experience.

Read and cite

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

APA citation

Xu, X., Beeston, J., & Denisova, A. (2026). What We Talk About When We Talk About Agency: A Systematic Review of Agency in Video Games. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction, 10(7). https://doi.org/10.1145/3831310

More on this topic