Week 9

Week 9

Why We Play Games—Four Keys to More Emotion Without Story—Nicole Lazarro, XeoDesign

Somewhat rambling article about a small study examining the role of emotion in game play—specifically emotion that is not tied to story. The author identifies four “keys” that evoke emotion in players:
1.Hard fun – the challenge of strategy and problem solving produces positive, enjoyable emotion
2. Easy fun—the chance to explore and play and satisfy their curiosity in an absorbing game produces emotions of excitement and pleasure.
3. Altered states –refers to how games can alter the player’s mood and change his or her internal experience in an enjoyable way.
4. The People Factor – refers to playing with friends and the emotions produced by teamwork, competition, and social bonding.

I found this article kind of hard to read because it was not written well, but it did make an interesting distinction between emotion tied to story and emotion tied to game play. I am not generally a fan of games –either making them up or playing them – so I don’t have much to say on this topic. Although it may be interesting to consider why I am not a fan of games. I resist them, often finding them boring, though sometimes when pressed to play I am capable of enjoying the experience. Maybe it has to do with a tendency to be internally oriented, and games force an extended engagement with something outside of myself. I like to relax by reading, which is a more self-contained, internal experience. I just sort of revert to my inner world whenever possible, I guess.

Why We Play Games Together: The People Factor – Nicole Lazarro, XeoDesign

A companion piece that outlines 7 ways to produce emotion during group game play:
1. Support player interaction—build in mechanisms that allow players to affect one another, even help one another
2. Put on a spectacle – make the game interesting to watch as well as play, which will encourage interaction, especially among players at different levels of expertise
3. Include tools to communicate emotion and to enable users to create their own meanings
4. Use non-player characters that display emotion and inspire emotion in players
5. Create emotionally expressive tools and objects as part of the game
6. Emotion cycles, feedback, chains—take into account how groups of players process emotions, how one person’s emotion affects another, and how situations can be created specifically to form feedback loops and interactions
7. “Save money,” by which she means that developers should include user testing early in the development process, so you can get it right the first time. Early inclusion of user feedback is the only way to know what works and produce the best possible” entertainment appliance.”