Abstract
Pokémon Go can be considered a successful persuasive game to promote physical activity. This study provides an in-depth analysis of Pokémon Go players’ characteristics that relate to adoption and continued play of the game. Based on online studies at two different points in time (at the initial release and three months later) we analyzed differences in personality traits between players and non-players, as well as between players who continued playing the game and those who stopped playing. The results show that people who played the game score lower in “Conscientiousness” and higher in “Player Motivation” than non-players. Furthermore, people who continued playing the game three months later have a lower score in “Neuroticism” than those who stopped playing. Insights into player characteristics from our empirical analysis of Pokémon Go contribute to answering the key research question regarding to which personality characteristics the persuasive game experience should be personalized.
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Notes
- 1.
- 2.
Reasons to play Pokémon Go, ratings of specific game elements, estimated effect, concerns and psychic as well as physical wellbeing.
- 3.
Ratings of specific game elements of Pokémon Go, estimated effect, psychic and physical wellbeing, reasons for stopping to play and time of stopping.
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Acknowledgements
This research has partly been funded by the Austrian Research Promotion Agency, contract no. 844845 (GEMPLAY) and 849081 (Bike‘N’Play).
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Mattheiss, E., Hochleitner, C., Busch, M., Orji, R., Tscheligi, M. (2017). Deconstructing Pokémon Go – An Empirical Study on Player Personality Characteristics. In: de Vries, P., Oinas-Kukkonen, H., Siemons, L., Beerlage-de Jong, N., van Gemert-Pijnen, L. (eds) Persuasive Technology: Development and Implementation of Personalized Technologies to Change Attitudes and Behaviors. PERSUASIVE 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10171. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-55134-0_7
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