Player Engagement Analysis of a Business Simulation Game from Physiological, Psychological and Behavioral Perspectives: A Case Study

Abstract

To obtain an accurate understanding of player experience (PE) in serious games that simulate organizational environments, many factors must be considered and intertwined, psychological, physiological and related to the game performance itself. Such elements can be analyzed using experimental techniques such as recording attentional aspects or monitoring brain waves and subjective methods such as questionnaires. The objective of this work was to analyze the possible benefits of using a business simulation game (BSG) as a resource to stimulate learning based on the measurement of engagement in its different dimensions, using a hemoencephalogram (HEG) device to monitor cortical activation and the eye tracking (ET), for measuring pupillary dilation, both used concomitantly, in addition to pre- and posttest questionnaires, to record participants’ expectations and perceptions of the game experience. Data collection was carried out with 10 students and professors in the computer engineering course at the University of La Laguna, Spain. The results indicate that critical situations and recurring ethical decisions in the game are important elements of the involvement of participants. In addition, the two devices proved to be suitable as a source of important information in determining the flow and attentional level for BSG.