Effects of different scenarios of game difficulty on player immersion

This study investigates the effects of game difficulty on player's immersion. Key factors in this study are difficulty of direction changes, including three directions (up and down, down and up, and continuously increasing) and difficulty of rate changes, with three rates (slow, medium, and fast). An experiment was conducted with 48 participants, each playing the same experimental games with different difficulty of direction or rate changes. The results indicate that the players have better immersion when the difficulty changes up and down than when it changes down and up or when the difficulty is continuously increased. And the participants have better immersion when the difficulty changes at a medium rate than when it changes slowly or fast. (C) 2009 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.