The Mario Brothers are unfair: A study on sense of progression in computer gameplay

Abstract

This study investigated how a sense of progression, rather than a precise calculation of the goal distance, is important in making the decision to invest additional resources in an ongoing task. One hundred participants were recruited to play a computer game in which the goal stage of the game was not provided and the game character could be killed by different death traps that were located in unexpected areas. The results indicate that more participants continued playing the game when they believed that they could make progress in the gameplay. When they did not experience a sense of progression, they chose to quit no matter how much time they had already spent playing the game. The results of this study further suggest that in fixed conditions, a sense of progression is built through the gradual improvement that can be anticipated in the gameplay. However, no sense of progression could be established in random conditions under which improvement through experience was impossible.