Abstract
Emotions are key to the player experience (PX) and interest in the potential of games to provide unique emotional, sometimes uncomfortable experiences is growing. Yet there has been little empirical investigation of what game experiences players consider emotionally moving, their causes and effects, and whether players find these experiences rewarding at all. We analyzed 121 players' accounts of emotionally moving game experiences in terms of the feelings and thoughts they evoked, different PX constructs, as well as game-related and personal factors contributing to these. We found that most players enjoyed and appreciated experiencing negatively valenced emotions, such as sadness. Emotions were evoked by a variety of interactive and non-interactive game aspects, such as in-game loss, character attachment and (lack of) agency, but also personal memories, and were often accompanied by (self-)reflection. Our findings highlight the potential of games to provide emotionally rewarding and thought-provoking experiences, as well as outline opportunities for future research and design of such experiences. They also showcase that negative affect may contribute to enjoyment, thereby extending our notion of positive player experience.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | CHI 2016 – Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |
Pages | 2996-3006 |
Number of pages | 11 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 1 Jan 2016 |
MoE publication type | A4 Conference publication |
Event | ACM SIGCHI Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - San Jose, United States Duration: 7 May 2016 → 12 May 2016 Conference number: 34 https://chi2016.acm.org/wp/ |
Conference
Conference | ACM SIGCHI Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |
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Abbreviated title | ACM CHI |
Country/Territory | United States |
City | San Jose |
Period | 07/05/2016 → 12/05/2016 |
Internet address |
Keywords
- Appreciation
- Emotion
- Enjoyment
- Player Experience
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Dive into the research topics of 'Negative emotion, positive experience? Emotionally moving moments in digital games'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Prizes
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CHI Honorable Mention
Bopp, J. (Recipient) & Mekler, E. (Recipient), 2016
Prize: Award or honor granted for a specific work