Change is Hard: Consistent Player Behavior Across Games with Conflicting Incentives
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arXiv
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| Auteurs principaux: | , , , , |
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| Format: | Preprint |
| Publié: |
2026
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| _version_ | 1866917410110439424 |
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| author | Chen, Emily Bisberg, Alexander J. Williams, Dmitri El-Nasr, Magy Seif Ferrara, Emilio |
| author_facet | Chen, Emily Bisberg, Alexander J. Williams, Dmitri El-Nasr, Magy Seif Ferrara, Emilio |
| contents | This paper examines how player flexibility -- a player's willingness to engage in a breadth of options or specialize -- manifests across two gaming environments: League of Legends (League) and Teamfight Tactics (TFT). We analyze the gameplay decisions of 4,830 players who have played at least 50 competitive games in both titles and explore cross-game dynamics of behavior retention and consistency. Our work introduces a novel cross-game analysis that tracks the same players' behavior across two different environments, reducing self-selection bias. Our findings reveal that while games incentivize different behaviors (specialization in League versus flexibility in TFT) for performance-based success, players exhibit consistent behavior across platforms. This study contributes to long-standing debate about agency versus structure, showing individual agency may be more predictive of cross-platform behavior than game-imposed structure in competitive settings. These insights offer implications for game developers, designers and researchers interested in building systems to promote behavior change. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2603_16136 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2026 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | Change is Hard: Consistent Player Behavior Across Games with Conflicting Incentives Chen, Emily Bisberg, Alexander J. Williams, Dmitri El-Nasr, Magy Seif Ferrara, Emilio Human-Computer Interaction K.8.0; J.4; H.5.3; I.2.6 This paper examines how player flexibility -- a player's willingness to engage in a breadth of options or specialize -- manifests across two gaming environments: League of Legends (League) and Teamfight Tactics (TFT). We analyze the gameplay decisions of 4,830 players who have played at least 50 competitive games in both titles and explore cross-game dynamics of behavior retention and consistency. Our work introduces a novel cross-game analysis that tracks the same players' behavior across two different environments, reducing self-selection bias. Our findings reveal that while games incentivize different behaviors (specialization in League versus flexibility in TFT) for performance-based success, players exhibit consistent behavior across platforms. This study contributes to long-standing debate about agency versus structure, showing individual agency may be more predictive of cross-platform behavior than game-imposed structure in competitive settings. These insights offer implications for game developers, designers and researchers interested in building systems to promote behavior change. |
| title | Change is Hard: Consistent Player Behavior Across Games with Conflicting Incentives |
| topic | Human-Computer Interaction K.8.0; J.4; H.5.3; I.2.6 |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2603.16136 |