Games that Motivate to Learn: Design Serious Games by Identified Regulations

Need Theory: Competence, Autonomy, And Relatedness

Game theorist Sutton-Smith assumes that ‘psychological factors operate internally to determine the range of gratifications that the players will get from the activity and the needs that it will meet’ (1959, p. 24). The psychological factors that determine motivations are researched in what is called Theory of Needs, a part of cognitive psychology. According to Need Theory, (possible) need satisfaction is an essential condition to act. Specific goals, rules and activities (called regulations) may satisfy a particular need and in turn motivate to act.

It remains difficult to pinpoint which needs are satisfied through which regulations. People in different circumstances have different needs. The personal character of needs is stressed by Reiss’ theory of sixteen basic human desires (2004, 2009), for example needs for vengeance, eating, and romance are circumstance dependent. Most likely, these needs are not always of main importance to learning processes, nor are other basic human needs, like physiological needs or needs for safety (Maslow, 1943).