A Study of Team Cohesion and Player Satisfaction in two Face-to-Face Games

In this paper we investigate the link between game rules, team cohesion and players’ satisfaction with their teams within face-to-face team-based games. To measure team cohesion, rules from two games were analysed from the perspective of Social Identity Theory in order to form a hypothesis as to which game would be more likely to lead to more cohesive teams, where team cohesion is measured by the extent to which each player identifies with their team. Player satisfaction was measured by looking at three factors: communication within the team, player outcome versus team outcome, and fairness. Significant differences were found in the team cohesion measure suggesting that, as predicted by Social Identity Theory, team cohesion can be fostered by game rules. Team cohesion also correlated positively with player satisfaction. Taken together, this suggests that for games in which team cohesion is an important part, game designers can incorporate game rules in such as a way as to increase the likelihood of both team cohesion and player satisfaction.