The Psychophysiology of Video Gaming: Phasic Emotional Responses to Game Events


Rajava Niklas Saari Timo Laarni Jani Kallinen Kari Salminen Mikko
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

The authors examined phasic psychophysiological responses indexing emotional valence and arousal to different game events during the video game Monkey Bowling 2. Event-related changes in skin conductance, cardiac interbeat intervals, and facial EMG activity over corrugator supercilii, zygomaticus major, and orbicularis oculi were recorded. Game events elicited reliable valence- and arousal-related phasic physiological responses. Not only putatively positive game events, but also putatively negative events that involved active participation by the player elicited positive emotional responses in terms of facial EMG activity. In contrast, passive reception of negative feedback elicited low-arousal negative affect. Information on emotion-related phasic physiological responses to game events or event patterns can be used to guide choices in game design in several ways.

 

Profiling Academic Research on Digital Games Using Text Mining Tools


Bragge Johanna Storgårds Jan
2007 DiGRA '07 - Proceedings of the 2007 DiGRA International Conference: Situated Play

Academic research on digital games has been conducted for over 30 years. However, the abundance of disciplines conducting research on the topic makes it challenging for the interested to get a holistic and comprehensive account of past digital game studies. Yet, sophisticated text mining tools designed for structured science information resources, such as the ISI Web of Science or INSPEC, make it possible to conduct insightful literature studies that profile and visualize large knowledge domains. The primary aim of this paper is to profile the research literature from the ISI Web of Science on digital games. More than 2.100 studies between years 1986-2006 were found using a set of digital games-related search words. Secondly, the aim is to find out what are the current “hot” research topics and research trends of the near future. Our profiling study demonstrates that digital game research is indeed highly multidisciplinary, covering more than 170 subject categories of the ISI Web of Science. When combining these categories into larger areas of science, it was found that the three most prominent areas are the Social Sciences (including e.g. psychology and communication), the Health Sciences (e.g. experimental psychology, psychiatry and pediatrics), and Information and Communication Technologies and Mathematics (e.g. computer science theory and methods, software engineering). The fields of Engineering and Arts & Humanities are also well represented in digital game research, although to a much lesser amount. The research in ICT (computer science, information systems etc.) seems to have grown the fastest in the last 10 years.

 

The Pleasures and Practices of Virtualised Consumption in Digital Spaces


Molesworth Mike Denegri-Knott Janice
2005 DiGRA '05 - Proceedings of the 2005 DiGRA International Conference: Changing Views: Worlds in Play

Videogames now enable players to spend virtual fortunes on exotic virtual goods and even create and sell virtual artefacts. Online consumers may also browse endlessly through virtual marketplaces and create and display virtual goods. These virtual commodities are desired and enjoyed as if they were real, but are not actually bought, or owned in a material sense – often resulting in frustration amongst marketers. In this paper we account for virtualised consumption by highlighting its pleasures. We start by historicising the trend towards imaginary consumption practices, depicting virtual consumption as the latest stage in an ongoing transformation of consumption from a focus on utility through to emotional value, sign value and finally playful experience. Viewed from this perspective, we consider the role of emerging virtual consumption spaces as liminoid, transformational play-spaces and explore examples of consumer practices found in these spaces. Ultimately we argue that virtual spaces encourage the development of new consumption practices and therefore constitute the ability of the market to stimulate consumers’ imaginations in new and exciting ways based on digital play.

 

Pattern Recognition: Gameplay as negotiating procedural form


Betts Tom
2011 DiGRA '11 - Proceedings of the 2011 DiGRA International Conference: Think Design Play

This paper will examine the relationship of pattern recognition and Gestalt principles to procedural form in gameplay. It will identify key features of pattern based play mechanics and outline important synergies between programming paradigms and procedural form. In the course of the paper I will examine the formal and aesthetic qualities of procedural structures and discuss how they generate the experience of psychological flow. I will also identify the role of these mechanisms and their effects in current game design.

 

Why gamers donʼt learn more: An ecological approach to games as learning environments


Linderoth Jonas
2010 DiGRA Nordic '10: Proceedings of the 2010 International DiGRA Nordic Conference: Experiencing Games: Games, Play, and Players

This paper criticizes the argument that video games by their nature are good learning environments. By applying the ecological approach to perception and learning to examples of game play, the paper shows that games can be designed so that players are able to see and utilize affordances without developing skills. Compared to other practices, gaming demands less learning of the practitioner since progress can be built into the system. Contrary to the arguments put forth by James Paul Gee in his book What video games have to teach us about learning and literacy, this paper comes to the conclusion that good games do not necessarily imply good learning.