Review
Engagement in digital entertainment games: A systematic review

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Abstract

Since their introduction over 40 years ago, digital entertainment games have become one of the most popular leisure activities globally. While digital games clearly provide highly engaging activities, the nature of this engagement is not well understood. The current study aims to advance our understanding by reporting a systematic review of recent literature addressing engagement in computer games. The papers in the review comprise a sub-sample of papers relating to engagement in digital games that was selected from a broader literature search carried out on the outcomes and impacts of playing computer games. A diverse range of studies was identified that examined varied aspects of engagement in games including subjective experiences while playing games, the physiological concomitants of these experiences, motives for playing games, game usage and time spent playing games and the impact of playing on life satisfaction. A narrative review was carried out to capture these diverse aspects of engagement and to develop a more coherent understanding of engagement in computer games.

Highlights

► The paper reports a literature review of engagement in digital entertainment games. ► Different approaches to studying engagement in games were found. ► Papers addressed subjective experiences, reasons for playing games and game usage. ► The paper aimed to provide a coherent framework for understanding engagement.

Introduction

Since the introduction of the computer games Pong and Space Invaders into the UK during the 1970s, digital games have had a transformational impact on how we spend our leisure time. Games provide engaging and enjoyable activities and the digital games market has expanded to become the fastest growing leisure market even during a worldwide recession (Chatfield, 2010). While the appeal of digital games is self-evident in terms of sales of games, numbers of people playing games and time spent playing games, it has been deceptively difficult to explain (Nabi & Kremar, 2004). Vorderer, Klimmt, and Ritterfield (2004) suggested that research has neglected to consider the nature of media enjoyment, Sweetser and Wyeth (2005) claimed that understanding game usability has had priority over understanding game enjoyment, while Yannakis and Hallam (2007) argued that our knowledge of how to develop enjoyable computer games is “fundamentally incomplete”.

Existing theoretical frameworks developed in the literature on motivation, communication and media may help to structure our understanding of engagement in games. These theoretical perspectives broadly address two different topics relevant to engagement, the subjective experiences and enjoyment of games and motives for playing games. The most influential construct used to explain subjective experience while playing games is flow theory (Csíkszentmihályi, 1990). Csíkszentmihályi originally developed the notion of flow to describe the rewarding, subjective, emotional state of optimal pleasure that arises when an individual is absorbed in either work or leisure activities that are perceived as valuable. Csíkszentmihályi characterised flow as a complex construct with eight different components. Central to flow is the idea that there should be an optimal match between the skills an individual possesses and the challenges presented by an activity. In addition the experience should be intrinsically rewarding, immersive, involve a high degree of concentration and a sense of personal control, have clear goals and provide direct and immediate feedback. Sherry (2004) applied flow theory to explain the engagement that players experience in playing games.

Self determination (SD) theory is an influential account of human motivation (Deci & Ryan, 1985) which proposes that human behaviours are determined by very general human needs for competence, autonomy and relatedness. Competence refers to the need to take part in activities which allow us to feel capable and effective, autonomy refers to the need to experience freedom in the activities we choose and relatedness refers to the need to feel a sense of connection to other people. Self determination theory has been applied to many different human behaviours and could potentially explain engagement in digital entertainment games. Uses and gratifications (U&G) theory is another needs based motivational theory which claims that people have specific needs for entertainment and they will use a range of media to meet these needs. U&G theory was originally developed within the domain of media and mass communication to explain why people watch television and listen to music (Schramm, Lyle, & Parker, 1961) but has been extended to explain why people play computer games (Lucas & Sherry, 2004).

Another theory relevant to explaining why people play games is the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) (Davis, 1989). This theory was developed to explain determinants of technology acceptance in the area of work and training. TAM proposes perceived usefulness and perceived ease of use as two key factors in this. While ease of use of a system may be a contributing factor to explaining engagement in entertainment games, perceived usefulness may be less important in determining the acceptance of games for leisure purposes.

While much of the early research on computer games focused on the negative impacts of playing digital games, more recently there has also been interest in positive outcomes of playing games. Durkin and Barber (2002), for example, found that adolescents who play games had more favourable outcomes with respect to family closeness, school engagement, involvement in other leisure activities, positive mental health, substance use, self-concept, friendship network and obedience to parents. The engagement provided by games can be viewed as one of these positive outcomes. It is recognised that there is a dearth of empirical evidence concerning the impact of games (Connolly, Stansfield, & Hainey, 2008) and the current review aims to add to our understanding of the nature of engagement in digital entertainment games by reporting the results of a literature review of selected papers which address this topic.

Section snippets

Data collection

In 2011 a literature search was carried out with the aim of developing a searchable database of papers relevant to the impacts and outcomes of computer games. The time period covered in this search was 1961 to 2011.

Main literature search

19,776 papers were identified by the search terms used in the main literature search. The majority of these papers were speculative or discussion papers, considering the potential impact of games or papers describing how specific games were designed.

Papers selected for current review using our inclusion criteria

Fifty-five papers met the inclusion criteria for the current review on engagement in digital entertainment games. These papers were very diverse in scope and addressed a range of different aspects of engagement in games, utilised a range of

Discussion

The number of papers providing empirical evidence about engagement in digital entertainment games captured in the current review confirms the surge in interest in this area over the past 10 years. A structured approach to synthesising the findings from these diverse papers was developed which categorised studies in terms of the different approaches used by their authors to understand engagement in games. This categorisation is consistent with process models of engagement which look at different

Acknowledgment

This research was supported by a grant from the Wellcome trust to Professor Thomas M. Connolly.

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