Evaluating enjoyment within alternate reality games

Abstract

Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) are interactive narrative experiences which use the real world as the platform of the game. By bringing play out into the real world, ARGs provide players with an opportunity to enjoy both the gameplay, and benefit from the rich social experiences and physical activity which come synonymously with the genre. Due to its recent emergence, very little is known on what makes for an enjoyable ARG experience. What can we take from traditional game literature and where does this genre demand changes in our understanding? In this paper we present out work on understanding the player experience within ARGs. We look at the existing literature on enjoyment within video games, and use this to devise a set of new criteria. Through a preliminary validation of our metric, we found that a game which scores well using our analysis is significantly more likely to be enjoyed than a game which scores relatively low. In the process, we found that some of the key components of an enjoyable traditional video game experience are not so essential when considering ARGs.