Research

Tailoring Game Difficulty to Player Types

Survey-based UX research exploring how game difficulty influences player engagement • 2023

Role: Survey design, analysis & reporting
Team: Solo
Duration: 2023
Tools: Online survey (Google Forms), descriptive statistics

Overview

This was one of the first research projects I worked on, during an HCI course in the final years of my undergrad. The question behind it was simple: what actually keeps someone playing a video game, and does difficulty level have much to do with it?

I ran a 28-person survey, analyzed the responses, and turned the findings into a short set of recommendations for game designers. It's a small study, and I want to say that plainly up front. What it gave me was something more lasting than the findings themselves: practice running a research method from question to write-up, start to finish. That habit has carried into every research project I've done since.

Horizontal bar chart, what motivates players to keep playing: engaging storyline 67.9%, reward system 60.7%, challenging difficulty level 53.6%, social interaction with other players 35.7%, other 0%. n = 28. — What motivates players to keep playing (n = 28).

Why this project

Most games use a single difficulty slider (easy, medium, hard) as if every player wants the same experience, just dialed up or down. That seemed like an assumption worth checking. If the goal is to keep players engaged, it made sense to first ask players what actually engages them, rather than assume harder automatically means better.

That's the HCI question underneath this project: understand behavior and preference before designing around an assumption.

Method

I built a Google Form survey covering what makes games engaging, what makes them frustrating, and how often players change difficulty mid-game. It ran for 28 responses. Most respondents were casual gamers in the 18–24 age range, playing primarily on PC or mobile.

What the survey found

Storyline beats difficulty as an engagement driver. Asked what makes a game engaging, 85.7% of respondents pointed to storyline, ahead of graphics (71.4%) and sound (46.4%). Difficulty level ranked last, at 35.7%.

Horizontal bar chart, what makes a game engaging: storyline 85.7%, graphics 71.4%, sound effects and music 46.4%, difficulty level 35.7%, other 7.1%. n = 28. — What makes a game engaging (n = 28).

But challenge is still what keeps people coming back. A separate question asked what motivates players to keep playing, and challenge and reward both scored highly: engaging storyline (67.9%), reward systems (60.7%), and challenging difficulty (53.6%) were the top three. Put next to the finding above, there's a real tension: players don't call difficulty "engaging," but it's still one of the top things keeping them in a game. Story pulls people in. Challenge is part of what keeps them there.

Frustration comes from content, not difficulty. The top frustrations were a lack of engaging content (64.3%) and bugs and glitches (53.6%). Unfair difficulty ranked lower, at 32.1%. Frustration was more about what's missing from a game than about how hard it is.

Horizontal bar chart, what frustrates players most: lack of engaging content 64.3%, bugs and glitches 53.6%, poor game design 42.9%, unfair difficulty level 32.1%, other 3.6%. n = 28. — What frustrates players most (n = 28).

Most players rarely touch the difficulty setting. Half of respondents said they only switch difficulty when they get stuck or bored, and another 17.9% said they never switch at all. Only a small minority (about 7% combined) said they adjust it often or always.

Donut chart, how often players switch difficulty: rarely, only when stuck or bored 50%, occasionally 25%, never 17.9%, often 3.6%, always 3.6%. n = 28. — How often players switch difficulty mid-game (n = 28).

That last point is worth sitting with. If most players set a difficulty level once and leave it, a single difficulty slider isn't really serving distinct player "types"; it's mostly being ignored after the first choice. Most of what drives engagement or frustration is happening somewhere else in the game.

On preferred difficulty itself, moderate and hard were the most selected ranges (64.3% and 50%; respondents could select more than one), which fits with the "casual gamer" profile of most respondents: they want some challenge, just not an extreme one. That said, the study measured preferences in aggregate. It didn't cluster respondents into distinct player types the way the project's title suggests, a gap I'd close first if I revisited this work.

What I recommended

Invest in storyline and visual presentation: these had the strongest link to what players call "engaging."
Keep reward systems and challenge present, since they motivate continued play even when players don't describe them as "engaging."
Prioritize regular content updates and bug fixes over difficulty tuning: this is where players say frustration actually comes from.
Support both single-player and multiplayer modes, since playing with friends came up consistently as a preference.

Limitations

Twenty-eight responses is a small sample, skewed toward one age group and self-selected respondents, so these findings describe this group's stated preferences more than gamers in general. It was a self-report survey: it captures what people say motivates them, not necessarily what they'd actually do in play. And it was a single method: no interviews, no usability testing, no prototyping alongside it. These are patterns in stated preference, not validated design decisions.

What I'd do differently now

The biggest gap is method diversity. A survey is good at telling you what people believe about themselves; it's weaker at telling you what actually happens when they play. If I ran this again, I'd pair the survey with a short usability test or session recordings, so stated preference could be checked against real behavior, and I'd design the sampling to actually segment player types, instead of measuring preferences in aggregate. That shift, from one method to several, and from broad patterns to defined segments, is the throughline into the research I do now.

Reflection

This project didn't produce a finished design: it produced a habit. Write questions that isolate one variable at a time. Read a table of percentages until you find the one comparison that actually says something, like storyline pulling players in while challenge keeps them there. Say plainly what a small study can't prove. That last part is the one I still check first on every research project I run.