Modeling Motivation in a Social Network Game Using Player-Centric Traits and Personality Traits

People are drawn to play different types of videogames and find enjoyment in a range of gameplay experiences. Envisaging a representative game player or persona allows game designers to personalize game content; however, there are many ways to characterize players and little guidance on which approaches best model player behavior and preference. To provide knowledge about how player characteristics contribute to game experience, we investigate how personality traits as well as player styles from the BrianHex model moderate the prediction of player motivation with a social network game. Our results show that several player characteristics impact motivation, expressed in terms of enjoyment and effort. We also show that player enjoyment and effort, as predicted by our models, impact players’ in-game behaviors, illustrating both the predictive power and practical utility of our models for guiding user adaptation.