The effect of cognitive resources on the evaluation of digital games

Abstract

The current study was designed to investigate whether digital games which are difficult to control its character deprive cognitive resources of the players more than the games which are easy to control and the deprivation makes the games less fun. Twenty undergraduate students participated. They were randomly assigned to one of the two condition and asked to play a tennis game for 10 minutes. The deprivation of cognitive resources was measured by the number of confirmation of the game instruction. After the game play, participants fulfilled the questionnaire about how fun the game was and how difficult it was to control the character. The results showed that participants who played the difficult game confirmed the instruction more than those playing the easy one. However, there was no significant difference between the two condition on subjective measures.