Reward‐based or meaningful gaming? A field study on game mechanics and serious games for sustainability

TLDR

Digital gaming has largely been studied for commercial purposes, leaving its potential for societal sustainability applications—such as serious games—underexplored. This study examines whether a serious game can improve sustainability marketing outcomes—knowledge, value‑in‑behavior, and behavioral intentions—over time, and how reward‑based versus meaningful game mechanics affect these outcomes. A week‑long field study recruited 387 participants to play a serious game designed to encourage household energy conservation. The game significantly raised sustainability knowledge, value‑in‑behavior, and sustainable behavioral intention after one week; reward‑based mechanics (badges and trophies) enhanced knowledge and indirectly value‑in‑behavior, whereas reward‑based points and meaningful educational messages had little effect, supporting a “do‑learn‑feel” learning model and showing that higher‑tier rewards and reward‑based mechanics outperform meaningful ones in achieving sustainability marketing outcomes.

Abstract

Abstract Despite investigating digital gaming for commercial purposes, less scholarly attention exists on digital gaming for societal purposes such as sustainability (“serious games”). The current study investigates whether a serious game can enhance sustainability marketing outcomes, including knowledge, value‐in‐behavior, and behavioral intentions longitudinally (pre‐gameplay to post‐gameplay). Further, the study seeks to understand the influence of reward‐based and meaningful game mechanics on these sustainability marketing outcomes. We recruited 387 participants for a week‐long field study using a serious game which encourages household energy conservation. The findings show that the serious game significantly increased sustainability knowledge, value‐in‐behavior, and sustainable behavioral intention after one week. Reward‐based game mechanics (badges and trophies) significantly influenced sustainability knowledge and indirectly influenced value‐in‐behavior via sustainability knowledge, whereas reward‐based (points) and meaningful (educational messages) game mechanics had little impact. The results empirically support the conceptual model theorization—underpinned by a “do–learn–feel” behavioral learning approach—which possessed superior fit to a “do–feel–learn” rival model. This study provides novel insights regarding eliciting value‐in‐behavior longitudinally within serious games. Our multidimensional approach to assessing reward‐based game mechanics extends prior studies and suggests that higher‐tier rewards are more influential than lower‐tiered rewards to achieve sustainability marketing outcomes. We further demonstrate that reward‐based game mechanics outperform meaningful game mechanics at influencing desired outcomes, challenging existing gaming literature.