Perfectionism in Games - Analyzing Playing Behaviors in an Educational Game

Perfectionism, if it is not pathological, can evoke desirable playing behaviors for games and applications that aim for high performance in their target audience. In a field trial of an educational game about waste sorting that accumulated over 1600 players, we analyzed a cluster of players that achieved perfect scores in terms of performance, effort and long-term commitment. During the analysis a complementary player type cluster emerged, that while seemingly not showing interest in the score at all, showed higher long-term commitment. The findings of our study suggest that perfectionism is a personality trait that can be fostered with specific gamification-design elements within a certain percentage of a user-base in order to optimize user interaction with a platform, application or interface.