Subhlok, Jaspal2019-11-132019-11-13December 22016-12December 2Portions of this document appear in: Staewen, Randal, Philip Trevino, and Chang Yun. "Player characteristics and their relationship to goals and rewards in video games." In 2014 IEEE Games Media Entertainment, pp. 1-8. IEEE, 2014.https://hdl.handle.net/10657/5397Targeting a specific audience correctly is a primary goal for game developers, as strong global competition prevents a generic game from succeeding in the modern market. Developers among the recent rise of indie developers tend to ignore such considerations entirely, and would benefit from a more methodical approach. The analysis of goal-directed behavior, or teleology, can provide a reliable tool towards clearly identifying audiences with well-supported tendencies in goal-directed behavior. We developed a game featuring multiple playstyles, each with distinct choices in goals and rewards. We then tracked player behavior in game to verify the approach. Our defined playstyles include carnivores, herbivores, and omnivores, with membership decided by in-game diet. We found strong correlations between the set of carnivore-associated players, frequent game-playing, and a preference for competition and aggression with other players and the environment. On the other hand, herbivores were correlated with more casual players and more passive play.application/pdfengThe author of this work is the copyright owner. UH Libraries and the Texas Digital Library have their permission to store and provide access to this work. UH Libraries has secured permission to reproduce any and all previously published materials contained in the work. Further transmission, reproduction, or presentation of this work is prohibited except with permission of the author(s).Video gamesPsychology2019-11-13Thesisborn digital