Differences in game playability between healthy players and problematic players

Abstract

Abstract Games played on mobile phones or tablets have become a serious game platform. In the new International Classification of Diseases in 2019, the WHO now includes video game disorder as a mental disease, this highlights the seriousness of game addiction which has now become a global problem. Game design may be one of the factors that affect game addiction. Game playability can be used to evaluate the game design and to determine the features that can cause game addiction. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship between playability and game addiction, and a comparison of the difference in playability among healthy players (N = 1286) and problematic players (N = 278) that allows game developers to design games in ways that may reduce addiction while maintaining or improving playability. In this study, 1564 valid questionnaires that collected data about the Game Playability Scale and the Game Addiction Scale showed that (1) The level of playability in the problematic players was significantly higher than in healthy players. (2) The degree of correlation between playability and game addiction in the problematic players was lower than in healthy players. (3) Some playability factors and addiction factors are negatively correlated.