Emotional and functional challenge in core and avant-garde games

Tom Cole, Paul Cairns, Marco Gillies

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Digital games are a wide, diverse and fast developing art form, and it is important to analyse games that are pushing the medium forward to see what design lessons can be learned. However, there are no established criteria to determine which games show these more progressive qualities. Grounded theory methodology was used to analyse language used in games reviews by critics of both 'core gamer' titles and those titles with more avant-garde properties. This showed there were two kinds of challenge being discussed - emotional and functional which appear to be, at least partially, mutually exclusive. Reviews of 'core' and 'avantgarde' games had different measures of purchase value, primary emotions, and modalities of language used to discuss the role of audiovisual qualities. Emotional challenge, ambiguity and solitude are suggested as useful devices for eliciting emotion from the player and for use in developing more 'avant-garde' games, as well as providing a basis for further lines of inquiry.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationCHI PLAY 2015 - Proceedings of the 2015 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play
PublisherACM
Pages121-126
Number of pages6
ISBN (Print)9781450334662
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 5 Oct 2015
Event2nd ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2015 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: 5 Oct 20157 Oct 2015

Conference

Conference2nd ACM SIGCHI Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play, CHI PLAY 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period5/10/157/10/15

Keywords

  • Ambiguity
  • Art
  • Avant-garde
  • Challenge
  • Digital games
  • Emotional
  • Functional
  • Grounded theory
  • Solitude

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