Adapting content presentation and control to player personality in videogames

Abstract

In this paper, we present a first step towards a personality based framework for adapting videogame content to the player, in which the game infers a player's type from his behaviour, then selects how content is managed and presented to the player based on the inferred player type. This paper focuses on the later aspect.We detail how we assessed (offline) the player's Myers-Briggs personality type through a questionnaire, inferred his player type based on the Demographic Game Design model (conqueror, manager, wanderer, and participant), and propose how player type can enhance the player's experience by informing the game on three distinct aspects: difficulty management, presentation and depth of control over certain aspects of the game.To evaluate our approach, we developed a videogame, Grim Business, asked players of different types to play under different conditions and evaluated the experience using a questionnaire based on the GameFlow model. Our results suggest that player immersion, and consequently enjoyment, is higher when the game adapts to the player type.