Engagement in Video Games : A comparison between a linear and a branching narrative

Abstract: Background. As video games increase in popularity and more people look to them as their primary source of entertainment, discussions around how they can affect players’ engagement become more important. One such discussion is around player agency, a player’s sense of control over the games that they play. Within this discussion, a new type of thinking regarding player agency has started emerging, where it gets divided into the amount of control a player experiences and the amount of control that they actually have. One way to see the difference between the two types of player agency is to look at linear and branching narratives. In a branching narrative, the player’s choices dictate the flow of the story, while in a linear narrative, the player chooses how to react, but the story itself is unaffected. Objectives. Our objective with this study was to explore how player engagement differs between a linear narrative and a branching narrative, and if there is a difference when going from one to the other. Methods. This was done by creating a game demo that contains both a linear narrative, as well as a branching narrative and conducting a user study where participants played the game and answered a questionnaire on their experience. Results. In our findings, no significant difference in engagement was observed through Pearson’s chi-square tests between the different narratives. However, there was a significant difference based on what order the narratives were presented. Participants that played the linear narrative first had significantly higher engagement levels than the participants that played the branching narrative first. Conclusions. We conclude that more research should be made, but we find there is a positive effect on engagement when both a linear and branching narrative presented in the same experience, and the linear narrative is presented first.