Abstract
Videogames' increasing cultural relevance and suffusion into everyday use contexts suggests they can no longer be considered novelties. Broadly speaking, games research at CHI has concerned two forms of peak experience—historically, research aimed to support flow, or maximise enjoyment and positive emotions; more recently, scholarship engages with more varied experiences of intense emotion, such as emotional challenge. In different ways, both approaches emphasise extra-ordinary player experience (PX). Conversely, videogame play and PX have become more routine—indeed, more ordinary—as the medium's cultural presence grows. In this paper, we argue that HCI games research is conceptually ill-equipped to investigate these increasingly common and often desirable experiences. We conceptualise "ordinary player experience'' – as familiar, emotionally moderate, co-attentive, and abstractly memorable – articulating a phenomenon whose apparent mundanity has seen it elude description to date. We discuss opportunities to productively employ ordinary PX in HCI games research, alongside conceptual implications for PX and player wellbeing.
Original language | English |
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Title of host publication | CHI 2021 - Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |
Subtitle of host publication | Making Waves, Combining Strengths |
Publisher | ACM |
Number of pages | 12 |
ISBN (Electronic) | 9781450380966 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 6 May 2021 |
MoE publication type | A4 Conference publication |
Event | ACM SIGCHI Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems - Virtual, Online, Yokohama, Japan Duration: 8 May 2021 → 13 May 2021 https://chi2021.acm.org/ |
Conference
Conference | ACM SIGCHI Annual Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems |
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Abbreviated title | ACM CHI |
Country/Territory | Japan |
City | Yokohama |
Period | 08/05/2021 → 13/05/2021 |
Internet address |
Fingerprint
Dive into the research topics of 'Off-Peak: An Examination of Ordinary Player Experience'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.Prizes
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CHI Honorable Mention
Tyack, A. (Recipient) & Mekler, E. (Recipient), 2021
Prize: Award or honor granted for a specific work