Enhancing Player Satisfaction Through Personality-Based Narrative Adaptation in Digital Games

We explore how tailoring game narratives to players’ real-life personality traits impacts player engagement and satisfaction in narrative-driven gaming environments. Using the Big Five Inventory (BFI-10), we adapted a text-based narrative game to reflect individual levels of Openness, Conscientiousness, and Extraversion. Through a mixed-methods study combining quantitative assessments and qualitative player feedback, we found that adaptations based on Openness and Extraversion led to increased player satisfaction. Unexpectedly, adaptations for Conscientiousness did not align with players’ expectations. Additionally, our results suggest that the freedom to make meaningful decisions and explore multiple narrative paths played a more significant role in player satisfaction than personality-driven adaptations alone. Our findings contribute to the understanding of personalized interactive storytelling and offer insights for designers aiming to create more engaging and satisfying player experiences through personality-based customization.