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Taking the Challenge: An Exploratory Study on What Motivates Jammers to Participate in Game Jams

Published: 02 August 2021 Publication History

Abstract

Game jams have been attracting an increasingly diverse audience, with thousands of professionals, students, and hobbyists getting together to build game prototypes every year. However, little is understood about about peoples’ motivations to participate in such events and, most importantly, how their motivations differ according to their type and extent of involvement with game development. Through a large-scale survey with attendees of a global-scale game jam, we found that students, hobbyists, indie and professional developers participate for distinct reasons and favor motivations for participation differently. Indie developers are the ones most influenced by social motivations, while students and hobbyists favor the opportunity to strengthen technical skills more than other groups. Finally, game professionals attend game jams to experience teamwork with people other than their regular teammates. Our findings characterize the aspects that influence the attractiveness of game jams and provide a set of recommendations to organizations willing to engage people in their events.

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Cited By

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  • (2024)Developing and validating a scale for motivation in participating in time-bounded collaborative eventsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223185:COnline publication date: 25-Jun-2024
  • (2023)All For One and One For All: Investigating How Global Game Jam Participants Get and Offer Help2023 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1109/ESEM56168.2023.10304790(1-12)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2023

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cover image ACM Other conferences
ICGJ '21: Proceedings of the 6th Annual International Conference on Game Jams, Hackathons, and Game Creation Events
August 2021
82 pages
ISBN:9781450384179
DOI:10.1145/3472688
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Published: 02 August 2021

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  1. game jams
  2. jammers
  3. motivation

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View all
  • (2024)Developing and validating a scale for motivation in participating in time-bounded collaborative eventsInternational Journal of Human-Computer Studies10.1016/j.ijhcs.2024.103223185:COnline publication date: 25-Jun-2024
  • (2023)All For One and One For All: Investigating How Global Game Jam Participants Get and Offer Help2023 ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)10.1109/ESEM56168.2023.10304790(1-12)Online publication date: 26-Oct-2023

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