Validation of serious games tends to focus on evaluating their design as a whole. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed. Perceived competence and relatedness contributed to psychological well-being for both older and younger players, although it carried more weight for the younger. The results showed that despite underperforming and having fewer in-game connections, older players reported no significant difference in their perceived competence and relatedness than younger players.
Age and in-game behaviors were tested as moderators for the relationship between perceived need satisfaction and psychological well-being. Survey data from 1213 randomly sampled World of Tanks players were combined with their behavioral data to investigate how players’ behaviors and their corresponding need satisfaction differ or converge across age.
This study connects the Self-Determination Theory, Motivational Theory of Life-Span Development, and Socioemotional Selectivity Theory to understand players’ in-game behaviors and their corresponding need satisfaction from a developmental perspective. The need satisfaction and psychological benefits derived from gameplay are generally understudied for older video game players. Based on these contributions, this thesis advances the field of gamification by contributing knowledge to the open questions of how and why gamification works and which factors play a role in this regard. Finally, we propose a conceptual framework to increase motivation in gamified systems, which builds upon our findings and outlines the importance of considering both contextual and personal factors. Lastly, we show that Hexad user types can be partially predicted by smartphone data and interaction behavior in gamified systems and that they can be assessed in a gameful way, allowing to utilize our findings in gamification practice. Moreover, we show that age, the intention to change behavior, and Hexad user types play an important role in explaining interpersonal differences in the perception of gamification elements and that tailoring gamified systems based on these personal factors has beneficial effects on both psychological and behavioral outcomes. Our contribution is manifold: We show that gamification affects motivation through need satisfaction and by evoking positive affective experiences, ultimately leading to changes in people's behavior. Guided by Self-Determination Theory, a major theory on human motivation, we investigate gamification and its effects on motivation and behavior in behavior change contexts, provide insights on contextual factors, contribute knowledge on the effect of personal factors on both the perception and effectiveness of gamification elements and lay out ways of utilizing this knowledge to implement personalized gamified systems. In this thesis, we contribute to this by considering the context in which gamified systems are applied and by understanding personal factors of users interacting with the system. Therefore, understanding the factors that have an influence on psychological measures and behavioral outcomes of gamified systems is much in need. In fact, literature reviews revealed that almost half of the interventions were only partially successful or even unsuccessful. However, past research has shown that gamification is not always successful. Gamification, the use of game elements in non-game contexts, has been shown to help people reaching their goals, affect people's behavior and enhance the users' experience within interactive systems.