336 Chapter 8 prolonged engagement with an applied game for mental health. Critical distinctions in gameplay patterns between mental health and entertainment games may only emerge when gameplay is repeated without artificial session constraints. Therefore, future research should prioritize investigations into naturalistic gameplay, spanning weeks or even months, for instance by using passive data on real-world selection and retention. Moreover, it is crucial to note that the current studies only investigated two specific games, namely MindLight and Monument Valley. To build a more nuanced and comprehensive understanding of the factors influencing game selection and engagement, future research should explore whether other game-related motivational factors, such as genre and visual aspects of the game, play a role in individuals’ willingness to select and engage with a mental health game. Additionally, to enhance the generalisability of research findings concerning the promotion and delivery of mental health games, future studies should also consider broader contexts that capture the complexity of youth’s daily media choices. It would need to be investigated whether individuals would still opt for and engage with a mental health game in the vast landscape of game or app stores, where mental health games coexist with numerous entertainment options. While the study described in Chapters 6 and 7 allowed participants to choose between two alternatives, resembling real-world decision-making more closely than prior research where participants had no choice (Poppelaars, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, et al., 2018), the reality is that in everyday settings, youth can select from a multitude of nearly unlimited video games. In such scenarios, the likelihood of choosing a mental health game on a single occasion might be lower than observed in our research. However, youths may opt for a mental health game on subsequent occasions. Multiple games can be played concurrently, and the choice of one game does not preclude the selection of another. Hence, future research needs to explore the real-life factors influencing youth’s likelihood to engage with mental health games (e.g., their current emotional state, or recommendations made by peers) and examine how motivational factors impact sustained engagement and ongoing use of mental health games over time. Conducting daily diary studies, ecological momentary assessments or talk-aloud methods investigating choice and decision making could shed light on these dynamics and their relationship to effectiveness, informing strategies on how to make mental health games stand out to the public. Finally, mental health games could also be integrated and promoted through more traditional channels, such as mental health institutions and school counselling services. Future research should explore the most suitable
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