Study on the Difference between Difficulty and the Subjective Difficulty of Players in Digital Games

Abstract

Games can be made interesting by setting the difficulty to match the player's skill level. Players feel difficult and drop out from game playing when the game is too difficult. However, we considered that the subjective difficulty of players is not limited to difficulty. We conducted qualitative and quantitative surveys on the experience that players feel difficult in gameplay. As a result, we found that the subjective difficulty of players is different from difficulty of games.