Engagement is a key element in game design, and competition is frequently used to enhance players' engagement. However, it is presently unclear how winning or losing might influence player's engagement. We hypothesized that users in a competitive game will increase their level of engagement when they are losing. To test this hypothesis, we created a game in virtual reality, in which users compete against a virtual opponent that was programmed to either under-perform, tie with, or over-perform the user. We conducted a series of experiments on 72 volunteers who played four rounds of the game, with three rounds against each of the potential virtual opponents and one round alone. We found that user engagement increased when the virtual opponent outperformed the user, compared to when they played alone. A similar increase in user engagement was not registered when the user played against an under-performing or equally-performing virtual opponent. To further elucidate the effect of the virtual opponent on user engagement, we applied the information theoretic notion of transfer entropy, which offers a model-free approach for the inference of causal relationships between dynamical systems. Our findings provide insight into technology-mediated competition and its impact on engagement, thereby opening the door for targeted system interventions to modulate human response.

中文翻译：

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赢或输会改变玩家在竞技游戏中的参与度吗？虚拟现实实验

参与度是游戏设计中的一个关键元素，而竞争经常被用来提高玩家的参与度。然而，目前尚不清楚输赢会如何影响玩家的参与度。我们假设竞技游戏中的用户在失败时会提高他们的参与度。为了验证这一假设，我们在虚拟现实中创建了一个游戏，在该游戏中，用户与一个虚拟对手竞争，该对手被编程为表现不佳、与用户平起平坐或表现优于用户。我们对 72 名志愿者进行了一系列实验，他们玩了四轮游戏，与每个潜在的虚拟对手进行三轮比赛，单独进行一轮比赛。我们发现，与他们单独玩游戏时相比，当虚拟对手的表现优于用户时，用户参与度会增加。当用户与表现不佳或表现相当的虚拟对手比赛时，用户参与度的类似增加并未记录到。为了进一步阐明虚拟对手对用户参与度的影响，我们应用了转移熵的信息理论概念，它为动态系统之间的因果关系推断提供了一种无模型方法。我们的发现提供了对技术介导的竞争及其对参与的影响的洞察，从而为有针对性的系统干预打开了大门，以调节人类的反应。它提供了一种无模型的方法来推断动态系统之间的因果关系。我们的发现提供了对技术介导的竞争及其对参与的影响的洞察，从而为有针对性的系统干预打开了大门，以调节人类的反应。它提供了一种无模型的方法来推断动态系统之间的因果关系。我们的发现提供了对技术介导的竞争及其对参与的影响的洞察，从而为有针对性的系统干预打开了大门，以调节人类的反应。