Player Performance, Satisfaction, and Video Game Enjoyment

An experiment (N = 74) was conducted to investigate the impact of game difficulty and player performance on game enjoyment. Participants played a First Person Shooter game with systematically varied levels of difficulty. Satisfaction with performance and game enjoyment were assessed after playing. Results are not fully in line with predictions derived from flow and attribution theory and suggest players to (1) change their view on their own performance with its implications for enjoyment with increasing game experience and (2) to switch strategically between different sources of fun, thus maintaining a (somewhat) positive experience even when performance-based enjoyment is low.