Player Types and Achievements -- Using Adaptive Game Design to Foster Intrinsic Motivation

Intrinsic motivation is a key factor in facilitating enjoyment and engagement in video games. In recent years, various approaches have been introduced by the industry to raise motivation of players. One of the most prominent methods in modern games comes in the form of Achievements which are defined as optional meta-objectives that players can obtain by fulfilling tasks in the game. However, Achievements are designed uniformly regardless of the player's personality, play style or general preferences. Therefore, individual differences between players are ignored which can diminish the motivational impact of Achievements. To tackle this problem, this paper proposes the design of adaptive Achievements based on specific archetypes extracted from the BrainHex player typology. For the validation of this approach, we developed a simple Action-RPG which included adaptive Achievements. In a comparative study (n=28) we found that adaptation of Achievements leads to an increase of motivational aspects such as perceived effort/importance and sense of reward & individualization.