Exploring Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment in Videogames

TL;DR

This paper reviews recent research on Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) in video games, focusing on automated mechanisms to keep players engaged by matching difficulty to skill levels, which impacts player retention and monetization.

Contribution

It provides an overview of recent DDA research and discusses implementation strategies, highlighting its importance for enhancing player experience and industry success.

Findings

DDA helps maintain player engagement by adjusting difficulty dynamically.

Implementing effective DDA can improve player retention and monetization.

Recent research offers various approaches to automate difficulty adjustment.

Abstract

Videogames are nowadays one of the biggest entertainment industries in the world. Being part of this industry means competing against lots of other companies and developers, thus, making fanbases of vital importance. They are a group of clients that constantly support your company because your video games are fun. Videogames are most entertaining when the difficulty level is a good match for the player's skill, increasing the player engagement. However, not all players are equally proficient, so some kind of difficulty selection is required. In this paper, we will present Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA), a recently arising research topic, which aims to develop an automated difficulty selection mechanism that keeps the player engaged and properly challenged, neither bored nor overwhelmed. We will present some recent research addressing this issue, as well as an overview of how to implement it. Satisfactorily solving the DDA problem directly affects the player's experience when playing the game, making it of high interest to any game developer, from independent ones, to 100 billion dollar businesses, because of the potential impacts in player retention and monetization.