Many studies of digital games have been developed to investigate a series of attributes to improve the games industry and to know the impacts of the use of digital games on users. Many arguments exist stating that the appeal of mainstream digital games could be used as an instrument to engage students in "serious games" to help improve their motivation in learning Computer Science topics. However, it is important to compare what is the experience of users with educational games in comparison to mainstream games to better understand this relationship. It is also very important to highlight important attributes that different educational games present that help improve the experience of students with educational games. The aim of the present study was to analyze the user experience with two educational games targeted at Software Engineering learning in comparison to a mainstream racing game. The method to measure user experience involved the application of the Game Experience Questionnaire (GEQ) proposed by Ijsselsteijn et al. and an adaptation of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory (IMI). The analysis of the results of the games with different characteristics in comparison to a popular game to students allowed us to draw initial conclusions about the effects of different game characteristics in making games more appealing to Computer Science students and the correlation with their intrinsic learning motivation.
