Engaging Elements in a Commercial Game

This study examines which features of commercial video games sustain player engagement, a question the author argues has lacked concrete empirical support despite the strong engagement commercial games typically generate. To address this gap, the research compares the popular commercial game Peggle with a stripped-down, "engagement-stripped" version called Mockle, which was built in GameMaker Lite to remove engaging features while preserving the core skill of hitting targets. The sample consisted of 52 undergraduates from a single university course on videogames and learning, randomly assigned to one of the two conditions, with entry questionnaires, pre/post skill assessments, and exit questionnaires used to measure demographics, game-relevant skill, enjoyment, and self-assessed ability.

Peggle players demonstrated significantly higher enjoyment across several measures, including total time played, average time per session, self-reported enjoyment, and desire to continue playing. They also hit more targets on average and reported higher finishing skill levels, though their posttest scores were lower than those of Mockle players. The author notes that the advantage in targets hit appeared from the earliest turns of play, suggesting the Peggle environment was simply easier to score in, and that neither group meaningfully improved over time in targets hit.

The study's interpretation is tentative. The Mockle group's stronger posttest performance may reflect familiarity with the environment's physics, since the posttest was administered in the Mockle setting, which points toward near-transfer effects that favor similar environments over more engaging ones. Peggle players' higher reported confidence without measured skill gains is also flagged as a finding requiring further investigation. Overall, the work establishes that removing engaging features reduces desire to play but leaves unresolved whether that reduction affects players' ability to learn the embedded skills.