The Effectiveness Evaluation among Different Player-Matching Mechanisms in a Multi-Player Quiz Game

This study aims to investigate whether different player-matching mechanisms in educational multi-player online games (MOGs) can affect students’ learning performance, enjoyment perception and gaming behaviors. Based on the multi-player quiz game, TRIS-Q, developed by Tsai, Tsai and Lin (2015) using a free player-matching (FPM) mechanism, the same game, but incorporating an automatic player-matching (APM) mechanism and Elo rating system, was developed in order to compare its effectiveness with the original TRIS-Q. The research findings indicate that students using this new player-matching mechanism of TRIS-Q acquired more knowledge of energy, experienced more enjoyment and exhibited more favorable gaming behaviors than did the students using the original TRIS-Q with FPM mechanism. Besides, after comparing the other TRIS-Q with APM mechanism, but using an automatic random player-matching mechanism, this study found that using Elo scoring for automatic matching was the more favorable playermatching mechanism in educational MOGs.