Week starting 15th October
11. Lazzaro, N., XEODesign, Oakland (2005) Why We Play Games: Four Keys to More Emotion Without Story, Available at:
http://xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf
Accessed: 11/10/07
Pioneers in Player Experience Research and Design methods XEODesign conducted an independent cross-genre research study on why people play games and identified over thirty emotions coming from gameplay rather than story. Our results revealed that people play games not so much for the game itself as for the experience the game creates: an adrenaline rush, a vicarious adventure, a mental challenge; or the structure games provide, such as a moment of solitude or the company of friends.
XEODesign created 12 models of Player Experience from the data collected. In looking at how games create emotion without story we created 4 Keys to emotion without story that met these requirements:
Criteria for 4 Keys
1. What Players Like Most about Playing
2. Creates Unique Emotion without Story
3. Already Present in Ultra Popular Games
4. Supported by Psychology Theory and Other Larger Studies
XEODesign’s research shows that each Key is a reason people play and is a mechanism for emotion in a different aspect of the Player Experience. Both players and games vary in how important each Key is to having fun.
This is another must-read journal mentioned by Matt/Nick. It covers a lot of interesting points concerning how some emotions can be generated without actually having a story in the game. They concluded that there were 4 keys to emotion without story:
1. Hard Fun: Players like the opportunities for challenge, strategy, and problem solving. Their comments focus on the game’s challenge and strategic thinking and problem solving. This “Hard Fun” frequently generates emotions and experiences of Frustration, and Fiero.
2. Easy Fun: Players enjoy intrigue and curiosity. Players become immersed in games when it absorbs their complete attention, or when it takes them on an exciting adventure. These Immersive game aspects are “Easy Fun” and generate emotions and experiences of Wonder, Awe, and Mystery.
3. Altered States: Players treasure the enjoyment from their internal experiences in reaction to the visceral, behaviour, cognitive, and social properties. These players play for internal sensations such as Excitement or Relief from their thoughts and feelings.
4. The People Factor: Players use games as mechanisms for social experiences. These players enjoy the emotions of Amusement, Schadenfreude, and Naches coming from the social experiences of competition, teamwork, as well as opportunity for social bonding and personal recognition that comes from playing with others.
They also created a list of emotions (p6), with common themes and triggers, even going so far as to use terms from other languages since there was no adequate description in the English vocabulary. For example, Fiero (Italian), means personal triumph over adversity. The ultimate Game Emotion
12. Ermi. L., Mäyrä, F., Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere, Finland, (2005) Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analysing Immersion
Available at:
http://www.uta.fi/~tlilma/gameplay_experience.pdf
Accessed: 13/10/07
Challenge consists of two main dimensions, the challenge of speed or ‘pace’ and ‘cognitive challenges’. The quality of gameplay is good when these challenges are in balance with each other.
Playing games does not always feel fun: on the contrary, it quite often appears to be stressful and frustrating. Experiences that are usually classed as unpleasant can be experienced as pleasurable in certain contexts. So, what makes e.g. failing fun? Klimmt has applied Zillmann’s excitation transfer theory and proposed that the suspense, anxiety and physical arousal elicited by playing are interpreted as positive feelings because players anticipate a resolution and a closure such as winning the game or completing the task.
Klimmt has constructed a three-level model of the enjoyment of playing digital games, the first level of which consists of the interactive input-output loops, the second of cyclic feelings of suspense and relief, and the third is related to the fascination of a temporary escape into another world.
This journal talks a lot about immersion in games, and what factors contributed to this. Many children who played games were interviewed, and from this they were able to create a diagram (Figure 1, p6) that shows the elements related to pleasurable gameplay experiences that emerged from those interviews, with audiovisual quality and style being one of the central aspects of good digital games. In addition to this, they also found children analysed the varying levels of challenge in games quite carefully, depending if the succeeded, advancing and the uncertainty of the final outcome was an important factor to the overall suspense of playing. Thirdly the children considered imaginary world and fantasy to be another central aspect in many games.
Figure 2 (p 8) has an interesting diagram on how the three key dimensions of immersions are related to several other fundamental components.
The authors went on to test their Gameplay Experience model by using a questionnaire that addressed the three aspects of gameplay immersion and responses give on a 5-point Likert scale, using players from multiple different games (p9). From the list of games on that page, Half-Life 2 produced the most immersion in terms of sensory experiences, with Nethack on the lowest. When analysing results from challenge-based immersion, Nethack was the game that achieved a top score. Figure 3 on page 11 shows a full breakdown of the games and their average amount of immersion for each type reported by players.
13. Portnow, J. (2007) GAME DESIGN: The Bifurcated Mind
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6652&Itemid=50
Accessed: 16/10/07
It’s already clear enough that this approach is relatively common, but let’s look a little closer. Consider all of those games where you thought you were offered two separate motivations only to realize later that there was really just one.
For example: imagine a game where you appear at first to be torn between saving civilians and protecting yourself. Now imagine that the civilians you save are worth points. Next imagine that in our game every 25,000 points gets you an extra life. The choice between saving civilians and saving yourself becomes moot when you put these two facts together and realize that, since saving civilians translate into points and 25,000 points gets you an extra life, you only risk dying if the profit is more than 25,000 points. Ergo there is only really one motivation.
This article discusses a lot of points concerning how the player deals with making choices within a game, usually choosing the path that has the most beneficial rewards to the player. The author also discusses the lack of “personality” on some of the NPC characters and possible options for developers to rectify this, for example making them cower or try to help allies who were gunned down by pulling them out of the fight
14. Desmet, P., (2005) Measuring emotion: development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products, Funology: from usability to enjoyment, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA
Accessed: 17/10/07
Measuring Emotions Development and Application of an Instrument to Measure Emotional Responses to Products, Department of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology, Before one can measure emotions, one must be able to characterise emotions and distinguish them from other states. Unfortunately, this is a problem that currently belongs to those yet unsolved. As there seems to be no empirical solution to the debate on which component is sufficient or necessary to define emotions, at present the most favoured solutions is to say that emotions are best treated as a multifaceted phenomenon consisting of the following components: behavioural reactions (e.g. approaching), expressive reactions (e.g. smiling), physiological reactions (e.g. heart pounding), and subjective feelings (e.g. feeling amused).
Subjective feeling (e.g. feeling happy or feeling inspired) is the conscious awareness of the emotional state one is in, i.e. the subjective emotional experience. Each emotion involves a specific feeling which is a basic, irreducible kind of mental element (Titchener 1908). These subjective feelings can only be measured through self-report. The most often used self-report instruments require respondents to report their emotions with the use of a set of rating scales or verbal protocols.
An example is the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; Lang 1985). With SAM, respondents point out the puppets that in their opinion best portray their emotion. Although applicable in between-culture studies, these non-verbal scales also have an important limitation, which is that they do not measure distinct emotions but only generalised emotional states (in terms of underlying dimensions such as pleasantness and arousal). It was therefore decided to develop a new instrument for emotions evoked by products.
Pages 2-6 in this article seem useful to our project, because it shows us one method an actual company has used to test how the test participants felt towards certain models of cars using their Product Emotion Measurement instrument (PrEmo). It also talks about how hard it is to determine characteristics of certain emotions, and that making the participant choose a “general” emotion rather than a specific one, or using something similar to figure 1 in the journal might be useful on our questionnaire. The rest of the journal describes how they implemented their PrEmo for multi-cultural use, rather than relying on vocal-based tests (which are limited by language).
http://www.oridem.eu/userfiles/File/pdf/papermeasuring.pdf
http://xeodesign.com/xeodesign_whyweplaygames.pdf
Accessed: 11/10/07
Pioneers in Player Experience Research and Design methods XEODesign conducted an independent cross-genre research study on why people play games and identified over thirty emotions coming from gameplay rather than story. Our results revealed that people play games not so much for the game itself as for the experience the game creates: an adrenaline rush, a vicarious adventure, a mental challenge; or the structure games provide, such as a moment of solitude or the company of friends.
XEODesign created 12 models of Player Experience from the data collected. In looking at how games create emotion without story we created 4 Keys to emotion without story that met these requirements:
Criteria for 4 Keys
1. What Players Like Most about Playing
2. Creates Unique Emotion without Story
3. Already Present in Ultra Popular Games
4. Supported by Psychology Theory and Other Larger Studies
XEODesign’s research shows that each Key is a reason people play and is a mechanism for emotion in a different aspect of the Player Experience. Both players and games vary in how important each Key is to having fun.
This is another must-read journal mentioned by Matt/Nick. It covers a lot of interesting points concerning how some emotions can be generated without actually having a story in the game. They concluded that there were 4 keys to emotion without story:
1. Hard Fun: Players like the opportunities for challenge, strategy, and problem solving. Their comments focus on the game’s challenge and strategic thinking and problem solving. This “Hard Fun” frequently generates emotions and experiences of Frustration, and Fiero.
2. Easy Fun: Players enjoy intrigue and curiosity. Players become immersed in games when it absorbs their complete attention, or when it takes them on an exciting adventure. These Immersive game aspects are “Easy Fun” and generate emotions and experiences of Wonder, Awe, and Mystery.
3. Altered States: Players treasure the enjoyment from their internal experiences in reaction to the visceral, behaviour, cognitive, and social properties. These players play for internal sensations such as Excitement or Relief from their thoughts and feelings.
4. The People Factor: Players use games as mechanisms for social experiences. These players enjoy the emotions of Amusement, Schadenfreude, and Naches coming from the social experiences of competition, teamwork, as well as opportunity for social bonding and personal recognition that comes from playing with others.
They also created a list of emotions (p6), with common themes and triggers, even going so far as to use terms from other languages since there was no adequate description in the English vocabulary. For example, Fiero (Italian), means personal triumph over adversity. The ultimate Game Emotion
12. Ermi. L., Mäyrä, F., Hypermedia Laboratory, University of Tampere, Finland, (2005) Fundamental Components of the Gameplay Experience: Analysing Immersion
Available at:
http://www.uta.fi/~tlilma/gameplay_experience.pdf
Accessed: 13/10/07
Challenge consists of two main dimensions, the challenge of speed or ‘pace’ and ‘cognitive challenges’. The quality of gameplay is good when these challenges are in balance with each other.
Playing games does not always feel fun: on the contrary, it quite often appears to be stressful and frustrating. Experiences that are usually classed as unpleasant can be experienced as pleasurable in certain contexts. So, what makes e.g. failing fun? Klimmt has applied Zillmann’s excitation transfer theory and proposed that the suspense, anxiety and physical arousal elicited by playing are interpreted as positive feelings because players anticipate a resolution and a closure such as winning the game or completing the task.
Klimmt has constructed a three-level model of the enjoyment of playing digital games, the first level of which consists of the interactive input-output loops, the second of cyclic feelings of suspense and relief, and the third is related to the fascination of a temporary escape into another world.
This journal talks a lot about immersion in games, and what factors contributed to this. Many children who played games were interviewed, and from this they were able to create a diagram (Figure 1, p6) that shows the elements related to pleasurable gameplay experiences that emerged from those interviews, with audiovisual quality and style being one of the central aspects of good digital games. In addition to this, they also found children analysed the varying levels of challenge in games quite carefully, depending if the succeeded, advancing and the uncertainty of the final outcome was an important factor to the overall suspense of playing. Thirdly the children considered imaginary world and fantasy to be another central aspect in many games.
Figure 2 (p 8) has an interesting diagram on how the three key dimensions of immersions are related to several other fundamental components.
The authors went on to test their Gameplay Experience model by using a questionnaire that addressed the three aspects of gameplay immersion and responses give on a 5-point Likert scale, using players from multiple different games (p9). From the list of games on that page, Half-Life 2 produced the most immersion in terms of sensory experiences, with Nethack on the lowest. When analysing results from challenge-based immersion, Nethack was the game that achieved a top score. Figure 3 on page 11 shows a full breakdown of the games and their average amount of immersion for each type reported by players.
13. Portnow, J. (2007) GAME DESIGN: The Bifurcated Mind
http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6652&Itemid=50
Accessed: 16/10/07
It’s already clear enough that this approach is relatively common, but let’s look a little closer. Consider all of those games where you thought you were offered two separate motivations only to realize later that there was really just one.
For example: imagine a game where you appear at first to be torn between saving civilians and protecting yourself. Now imagine that the civilians you save are worth points. Next imagine that in our game every 25,000 points gets you an extra life. The choice between saving civilians and saving yourself becomes moot when you put these two facts together and realize that, since saving civilians translate into points and 25,000 points gets you an extra life, you only risk dying if the profit is more than 25,000 points. Ergo there is only really one motivation.
This article discusses a lot of points concerning how the player deals with making choices within a game, usually choosing the path that has the most beneficial rewards to the player. The author also discusses the lack of “personality” on some of the NPC characters and possible options for developers to rectify this, for example making them cower or try to help allies who were gunned down by pulling them out of the fight
14. Desmet, P., (2005) Measuring emotion: development and application of an instrument to measure emotional responses to products, Funology: from usability to enjoyment, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Norwell, MA
Accessed: 17/10/07
Measuring Emotions Development and Application of an Instrument to Measure Emotional Responses to Products, Department of Industrial Design, Delft University of Technology, Before one can measure emotions, one must be able to characterise emotions and distinguish them from other states. Unfortunately, this is a problem that currently belongs to those yet unsolved. As there seems to be no empirical solution to the debate on which component is sufficient or necessary to define emotions, at present the most favoured solutions is to say that emotions are best treated as a multifaceted phenomenon consisting of the following components: behavioural reactions (e.g. approaching), expressive reactions (e.g. smiling), physiological reactions (e.g. heart pounding), and subjective feelings (e.g. feeling amused).
Subjective feeling (e.g. feeling happy or feeling inspired) is the conscious awareness of the emotional state one is in, i.e. the subjective emotional experience. Each emotion involves a specific feeling which is a basic, irreducible kind of mental element (Titchener 1908). These subjective feelings can only be measured through self-report. The most often used self-report instruments require respondents to report their emotions with the use of a set of rating scales or verbal protocols.
An example is the Self-Assessment Manikin (SAM; Lang 1985). With SAM, respondents point out the puppets that in their opinion best portray their emotion. Although applicable in between-culture studies, these non-verbal scales also have an important limitation, which is that they do not measure distinct emotions but only generalised emotional states (in terms of underlying dimensions such as pleasantness and arousal). It was therefore decided to develop a new instrument for emotions evoked by products.
Pages 2-6 in this article seem useful to our project, because it shows us one method an actual company has used to test how the test participants felt towards certain models of cars using their Product Emotion Measurement instrument (PrEmo). It also talks about how hard it is to determine characteristics of certain emotions, and that making the participant choose a “general” emotion rather than a specific one, or using something similar to figure 1 in the journal might be useful on our questionnaire. The rest of the journal describes how they implemented their PrEmo for multi-cultural use, rather than relying on vocal-based tests (which are limited by language).
http://www.oridem.eu/userfiles/File/pdf/papermeasuring.pdf
posted by PAbram at
18:41
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