Interactivity as Dynamic Demand: A Conceptual, Methodological, and Empirical Foundation for an Innovative Approach to Study Video Games

Video games are anything but a marginalized subject among communication scholars and media psychologists for quite some time now. Nevertheless, a certain lack of empirically valid theoretical conceptualizations that truly respect the unique nature of the medium is still an important issue, even concerning basic concepts such as interactivity. Drawing from a recently introduced multidimensional conceptualization of video game interactivity as continuously required player effort to meet game demands and to exercise in-situ authorial control over the game experience, this dissertation consists of four manuscripts (covering seven individual studies) that aim for empirical evidence for a rather general but extremely vital question: How do players process video games? In my understanding of the field, this question exemplifies a substantial shift in how researchers examine games to explain not only the medium’s worldwide appeal but also the psychological consequences that may result from playing it. Just as psychophysiological and neurophysiological perspectives have gained significant momentum within game scholarship these days, an experiential approach that focuses on the (dynamic) interplay between demand and effort promises to serve as a valuable theoretical basis to develop an advanced understanding of video gaming beyond what we as game scholars currently know. My work is inspired by this vision and the four manuscripts that are included in this thesis contribute little pieces to it by examining interpersonal competition (manuscript 1) and game streaming (manuscript 3) as well as by developing and validating a German scale to assess different game demands (manuscript 2) and a methodology to explore demand dynamics (manuscript 4). In doing so, it intends to provide conceptual and empirical groundwork necessary not only to ask bigger questions about video games but also to answer them