Title
Designing for Emotional Complexity in Games: The Interplay of Positive and Negative Affect.
Abstract
People play games for the experience, and one of the aims of player experience research is to understand what constitutes and contributes to positive gaming experiences. Emotionally challenging and uncomfortable game play experiences have been largely neglected, as they are seemingly at odds with the field's focus on fun and positive affect. We argue that the positively-biased perspective on desirable emotions in games misses out on opportunities that the interplay between positive and negative emotions offers. A previous workshop at CHI PLAY 2015 covered this missed opportunity by focusing on the false dichotomy between positive and negative affect, and identified a number of factors, both personal and contextual, which determine when players will value emotional game experiences that go beyond the purely positive. The present workshop is a continuation of this effort, putting the spotlight on the complexity of emotional experience and how it evolves throughout game play. Crucially, a central aspect of this workshop is to get participants thinking more about the design and evaluation of these types of experiences, by allowing hands-on game design exercise for the examined emotional experiences.
Year
DOI
Venue
2016
10.1145/2968120.2968126
CHI PLAY (Companion)
Field
DocType
Citations 
Social psychology,Simulation,Game design,Psychology,Odds,Affect (psychology),Player experience,Multimedia
Conference
2
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.38
12
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Elisa D. Mekler126926.96
Stefan Rank2125.15
Sharon T. Steinemann3233.99
Max Valentin Birk410310.97
Ioanna Iacovides59211.35