The art of the game – how game aesthetics and visual perception affect the player involvement in videogames (original) (raw)
Related papers
2012
What is the nature of a computer game player’s experience? To have a computer game experience is to have a functional experience, one that is tailored to its function as a computer game. This function is defined by the sum of the properties that produce the meaning of a computer game experience, distinct from the other experiences of human existence: the player ascribes this particular meaning to his experience instead of another. The properties of this experience can be divided between its many dimensions, such as the technical (techne), ethical (ethos), aesthetic (aisthêtikos), etc., and account for the richness and complexity of human experience. These dimensions cannot be envisioned separately from their combined effects and function as an inseparable whole that define the meaning of life. However, for the needs of our demonstration, we will focus on a study of the aesthetic dimension of the computer game player’s experience to show how it deploys itself, whether one is playing ...
Looking for the heart of interactive media: reflections on video games' emotional expression
… of the 3rd International Conference on …, 2010
Ever since they first originated, video games have been perceived as an inferior form of media expression. One major concern has been that they do not seem able to elicit a wide spectrum of emotions, thus being perceived as emotionally shallow. Sustained by a theoretical overview of the nature of play activities and studies on emotion elicitation by video games, this paper hypothesizes on a relationship between certain elements of traditional games and subsequent elicited emotions. From these ensue concerns regarding the narrow spectre of emotions elicited by certain prototypical game structures employed by the game design process.
Exploring aesthetic ideals of gameplay
… in Games, Play, Practice and Theory …, 2009
This paper describes a theoretical exploration of aesthetics ideals of gameplay. Starting from observations about the game artifact, several gameplay properties that can affect the aesthetical experience are identified, e.g. tempting challenges, cohesion, and gamer interaction. These properties are then used to describe several aesthetical ideals of gameplay, e.g. emergence, reenactment, meditative, and camaraderie. The properties and ideals provide concepts for how games attribute aesthetical value to gameplay design and how they distinguish their own preferences from inherent qualities of a game artifact.
Are Videogames Art? - A Phenomenology of Game Experience
My aim in this essay is to compare the aesthetic experience with the experience of a game, and in particular of a videogame, to determine whether they are the same kind of thing or essentially different. The result of this inquiry has a decisive impact on the nature of videogames themselves.
Making Sense of Game Aesthetics [Panel Abstracts]
2009
In recent years, game studies scholars have brought an expanded conception of aesthetics to bear in the study of digital games. Far from being limited to speaking about the visual presentation of games and graphic styles (with the negative associations of “eye candy”), game aesthetics has become a perspective that allows us to examine the overarching principles and qualities of the gameplay experience. Our aim is to contribute to a fuller picture of what games can hope to become.
In Gameplay : the invariant structures and varieties of the video game gameplay experience
2018
This dissertation is a multidisciplinary study on video game gameplay as an autonomous form of vernacular experience. Plays and games are traditional research subjects in folkloristics, but commercial video games have not been studied yet. For this reason, methods and concepts of the folkloristic research tradition have remained unknown in contemporary games studies. This thesis combines folkloristics, game studies and phenomenological enactive cognitive science in its investigations into playergame interaction and the video game gameplay experience at large. In this dissertation, three representative survey samples (N=2,594, N=845, N=1,053) on "Rewarding gameplay experience" are analyzed using statistical analysis methods. The samples were collected in 2014-2017 from Finnish and Danish adult populations. This dissertation also analyzes data from 32 interviews, through which the survey respondents' gameplay preferences, gaming memories, and motivations to play were further investigated. By combining statistical and qualitative data analyses, this work puts forward a mixed-methods research strategy and discusses how the findings relate to prior game research from several disciplines and schools of thought. Based on theoretical discussions, this dissertation argues that the video game gameplay experience as a cultural phenomenon consists of eight invariants in relation to which each individual gameplay experience can be interpreted: The player must demonstrate a lusory attitude (i), and a motivation to play (ii). The gameplay experience consists of explorative and coordinative practices (iii), which engender a change in the player's self-experience (iv). This change renders the gameplay experience inherently emotional (v) and performative (vi) in relation to the gameworld (vii). The gameplay experience has the dramatic structure of a prototypical narrative (viii) although a game as an object cannot be regarded a narrative in itself. As a key result of factor analytical studies and qualitative interview analyses, a novel approach to understanding player-game interaction is put forward. An original gameplay preference research tool and a player typology are introduced. This work argues, that, although video games as commercial products would not be intuitive research subjects for folkloristics, video game gameplay, player-game interaction, and the traditions in experiencing and narrating gameplay do not differ drastically from those of traditional social games. In contrast to this, all forms of gameplay are argued to be manifestations of the same vernacular phenomenon. Indeed, folkloristic research could pay more attention to how culture is experienced, modified, varied and expressed, regardless of whether the research subject is a commercial product or not.
Interactive Works and Gameplay Emotions
Games and Culture, 2019
Video games differ from films, books, and other mainstream media both in their interactive capabilities and in their affordances for gameplay. Interactivity and gameplay are closely related, as interactivity is necessary for gameplay. Unfortunately, this close relationship has led many video game scholars to conflate these two concepts when discussing player experience. In this article, I argue that, when discussing emotional responses to video games, gameplay and interactivity should be understood as distinct concepts: Gameplay involves both interactive and noninteractive elements, and interactive works do not always involve gameplay. I propose that there are significant drawbacks to overlooking this distinction and that highlighting it is important for understanding player experience, player emotion, and the ways video games differ from other entertainment media.
Proceedings of the 14th International Academic MindTrek Conference on Envisioning Future Media Environments - MindTrek '10, 2010
What does it mean to appreciate gameplay? When we judge a game's gameplay, what are the elements or characteristics of gameplay that we should focus our attention on? We report on a study that analyzed the use of the term gameplay in hundreds of thousands of user-submitted game reviews on a popular online website. Using Natural Language Processing (NLP) techniques we identified and extracted the adjectives that modified "gameplay", and then clustered those adjectives based on the words (nouns, verbs and adjectives) which appeared in the surrounding contexts. Our analysis of the resulting clusters shows a surprising richness in the variety of words used to describe gameplay, but more importantly we identify a popular aesthetic of gameplay. The primary elements of gameplay aesthetics are pacing, complexity, cognitive accessibility, scope, demand, and impact. This aesthetic provides two things: empirical support for the importance and centrality of the concepts we've outlined towards understanding gameplay, and evidence of the differences in language for describing gameplay between players and designers/scholars.
Playing games as an art experience How videogames produce meaning through narrative and play
My aim is to provide clarity about the nature of the videogame as a meaning generating system, while I consider imagination a central concept. I approach videogames as a common part of culture, that can be looked at as a signification system, just like other common cultural products like magazines, art, tv-shows, newspapers, films, books, ads, fashion, design, et cetera. I have examined the artistic and aesthetic nature of games: could imagination in a game experience be comparable to our perception of art and literature? Grounded on a distinction between first and second order representation I have scrutinized the meaning generating capacity of game stories. First order representation is the concrete representation of (narrative) occurrences, while second order representation concerns involvement with a consciousness, with a perspective on the meaning-making proces related to those occurrences. My hypothesis is that processes of signification in videogames are similar to those in literature and film, but that these signification processes betray a different nature, producing different effects - to a large extend induced by the gamers prosuming mental ánd physical input.
We are in an age of flourishing and innovation for games. Games are getting more creative, more biting, more innovative and just plain stranger. The aesthetic headliners these days are usually the independent, self-consciously arty wing of computer games. Take, for example, the intentionally queasy Papers, Please, a computer game in which the you play a border security guard in a fictional Eastern European country, tasked with endlessly scrutinizing paperwork, looking for forgeries, incentivized by the game with promotions and rewards for shutting out desperate immigrants.