Why Do We Play? Understanding Player Motivations in Games: Current Challenges and Future Directions
Why do people play games? Although this question appears simple, it remains one of the most fundamental and enduring topics in game research. Understanding player motivations is essential for explaining player behavior, interpreting engagement, and designing meaningful interactive experiences. Despite decades of research, the psychological processes that drive game participation continue to evolve alongside technological and societal changes.
This keynote presents an overview of the scientific foundations of player motivation research, drawing on established psychological theories and recent developments in game studies. It examines how motivational differences shape player experiences, engagement, and long-term interactions with games, while also discussing findings from my own research on the measurement and cross-cultural validation of gaming motivations. These findings demonstrate both the diversity and the universality of the psychological factors that influence why people choose to play games.
Following that, the keynote will explore how player motivation research is expected to evolve over the coming years. As games become increasingly intelligent, adaptive, and integrated into everyday life, understanding player motivations will move beyond traditional self-report approaches toward continuous, multimodal, and context-aware models of human behavior. This shift will open new opportunities for creating more personalized, engaging, and ethically responsible interactive experiences while also expanding the role of games in education, healthcare, training, and human-computer interaction research. By outlining these future directions, the keynote will argue that understanding why people play is not only central to game science but also to the broader future of interactive digital technologies.
