This study examines brand customization in advergames and its effects on brand memory, game enjoyment, and attitudes gamers form toward the embedded brand. This study also tests for interactions between individuals’ locus of control and brand customization on the measured variables. A 2(customization) x 2(locus of control) experimental design was used. Subjects (N=60) were invited to a laboratory and the car racing game Gran Turismo 3™ was used as the advergame. Participants completed a questionnaire before and after treatment exposure, t-tests were calculated to test the hypotheses, and ANOVAs were run to examine all research questions. Findings suggest that individuals who customize the brand during gameplay recall the brand almost four times as much as individuals who don’t customize the brand. Results also reveal that subjects under the no customization condition negatively described the brand twice as much as subjects under the customization condition. Furthermore, a significant interaction between individuals’ locus of control and brand customization on brand recall was detected. There were no significant differences in attitude toward the brand and game enjoyment due to brand customization. Finally, the data didn’t demonstrate significant interactions between individuals’ locus of control and brand customization for game enjoyment and brand attitude. / text

Tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs), also known as Pen-and-Paper role-playing games(PnP-RPGs), are games that can be described as a mix between board games and improvisationaltheatre. Each player takes on the role of a single character, while the game’s leader(GM or DM) is in charge of both simulating the game world, acting out all remainingcharacters and facilitating the game rules. The games are often played in campaigns,continual stories told over several gameplay sessions. This thesis investigates whetherplayers’ types/characteristics and preferences affect the enjoyment of play, and in particularwhether being coherent with the rest of the role-play group in these respects affects theenjoyment of TRPG play. The research questions were addressed primarily by a surveyamong TRPG players that received 1,982 completed questionnaires. These were thenanalysed by correlation and factor analyses in order to find connections between responses.The thesis work shows that the length and depth of previous experiences have almost nocorrelation to the level of enjoyment. Some aspects of the game itself contributed to theenjoyment, but a clearer factor was that of group coherence – if the player perceives thegroup to have the same or similar stances as him/herself on game preferences.Keywords: tabletop role-playing game, pen-and-paper role-playing game, groupcoherence, game enjoyment, satisfaction / Bordsrollspel (TRPGs), även känt som penna-och-papper-rollspel (PnP-RPGs), är en typ avspel som kan beskrivas som en blandning mellan brädspel och improvisationsteater. Varjespelare antar rollen av en karaktär, medan spelledaren (GM eller DM) ansvarar för simuleringenav spelvärlden, agerandet av resterande karaktärer samt ansvar för regelhållningen.Denna uppsats undersöker om spelartyper (egenskaper) och deras preferenser påverkarspelglädjen, och i synnerhet huruvida det är viktigt att ha samma uppfattning som den övrigagruppen i dessa frågor (gruppkoherens). Forskningsfrågorna besvarades huvudsakligengenom en enkätundersökning bland TRPG-spelare som gav 1982 komplett ifyllda enkätsvar.Dessa analyserades sedan med korrelations- och faktoranalyser för att hitta kopplingarmellan svaren. Uppsatsen visar att längden och djupet av tidigare spelupplevelser nästan intehar något samband med nivån av spelglädje. Några aspekter av själva spelet bidrog däremottill spelglädjen, och den tydligaste faktorn var gruppens koherens – om spelaren uppfattar attgruppen har samma eller liknande ståndpunkter som sig själv när det gäller spelpreferenser.Nyckelord: bordsrollspel, penna- och papper-rollspel, gruppkoherens, spelglädje, nöjdhet