Towards Understanding Balancing in Exertion Games

Playing exertion games with others can be engaging. How-ever, players with different physical skill levels competing against each other can experience reduced engagement be-cause they are either not challenged enough, or challenged too much. Balancing methods can address this; however, there is only limited understanding of balancing in exertion games. In this paper, we identify two distinct dimensional balancing techniques: “internal adjustment ” and “external adjustment”. We report results from a study where we measured player engagement after applying these adjustments to a digital ta-ble tennis game and the traditional table tennis game, find-ing two disengagement factors: “unexpected physical chal-lenges ” and “unacceptable competitive advantage”. Based on these factors we derived a set of exertion game design con-siderations. We conclude that applying digital technology to a physical game can change the required skill level to play the game, and this can affect the impact of these adjustments on player engagement. These results enhances our understand-ing of balancing in exertion games, supporting the benefits of playing exertion games with others. Author Keywords Games; exertion games; sports; game balancing