How user reviews and achievements can be correlated with player engagement

Abstract

User reviews are one of the leading factors of judging player engagement and popularity of digital video games. They not only provide sentimental feedback but also give insight on what the player likes or dislikes about a product. Game achievements provide objective data related to the successes of a player in terms of engagement. A comparison between the subjective sentimental nature of user reviews and the objective data gathered from user achievements should be a credible comparison which gives us a fresh alternative in the analysis of player engagement. Looking through previous research on player experience, player engagement and player enjoyment aspects presents us with research, questionnaires, and sentiments. From this investigation we can summarize three categorization topics for analyzing player engagement in Western action role-playing games. We identify these topics with the game flow elements in this genre of video games as gameplay story and exploration. Regarding these three topics a categorization of user reviews based on subject focus and a categorization of player achievements based on the engagement aspects of these achievements should give us clear correlations between these data and player engagement for Western action role-playing games. This chapter will summarize the correlation of these player engagement and player experience aspects and the data collected from user reviews and achievements, while also detailing the three topics of player engagement created for Western action role-playing games. © 2024 Elsevier B.V., All rights reserved.