Using Frustration in the Design of Adaptive Videogames

In efforts to attract a wider audience, videogames are beginning to incorporate adaptive gameplay mechanics. Unlike the more traditional videogame, adaptive games can cater the gaming experience to the individual user and not just a particular group of users as with the former. Affective videogames, games that respond to the user's emotional state, may hold the key to creating such gameplay mechanics. In this paper we discus how the emotion frustration may be used in the design of adaptive videogames and the ongoing research into its detection and measurement

Affective Videogames and Modes of Affective Gaming: Assist Me, Challenge Me, Emote Me

In this paper we describe the fundamentals of affective gaming from a physiological point of view, covering some of the origins of the genre, how affective videogames operate and current conceptual and technological capabilities. We ground this overview of the ongoing research by taking an in-depth look at one of our own early biofeedback-based affective games. Based on our analysis of existing videogames and our own experience with affective videogames, we propose a new approach to game design based on several high-level design heuristics: assist me, challenge me and emote me (ACE), a series of gameplay "tweaks" made possible through affective videogames

Dark Lancaster

In this position paper we'll outline a few ongoing and planned projects at Lancaster that are not all sweetness and light. In some we are interested in some of the darker aspects of human nature: frustration when things go wrong in order to design games with the right emotional impact; and anger of those seeking jobs in order to help train those who need to defuse fraught situations. In others we deliberately seek to design ‘bad’ situations; obviously this is necessary to study issues like frustration, but also we design bad things in order to understand what is good! Finally, there are times when good is dark and the bright light of day needs to be shrouded just a little

A taxonomy and state of the art revision on affective games

Affective Games are a sub-field of Affective Computing that tries to study how to design videogames that are able to react to the emotions expressed by the player, as well as provoking desired emotions to them. To achieve those goals it is necessary to research on how to measure and detect human emotions using a computer, and how to adapt videogames to the perceived emotions to finally provoke them to the players. This work presents a taxonomy for research on affective games centring on the aforementioned issues. Here we devise as well a revision of the most relevant published works known to the authors on this area. Finally, we analyse and discuss which important research problem are yet open and might be tackled by future investigations in the area of Affective GamesThis work has been co-funded by the following research projects: EphemeCH (TIN2014-56494-C4-{1,4}-P) and DeepBio (TIN2017-85727-C4-3-P) by Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitivity, under the European Regional Development Fund FEDER, and Justice Programme of the European Union (2014–2020) 723180 – RiskTrack – JUST-2015-JCOO-AG/JUST-2015-JCOO-AG-

Effect of the frustration of psychological needs on addictive behaviors in mobile videogamers. The mediating role of use expectancies and time spent gaming

Casual videogames (CVGs), played on smartphones, are becoming increasingly popular, especially among females and adults. Whereas the addictive potential of online (computer) videogames is well-established, there is yet insufficient evidence for Internet gaming disorder (IGD) in mobile gamers and for the mediating role of some mechanisms involved. The aim of this study is to investigate the impact of the frustration of psychological needs on mobile videogamers' addictive behavior as well as the role of cognitions (game-use expectancies) and behaviors (time spent playing) through a hypothesized serial mediation model, while controlling for important correlates, such as game genre, age, gender and payment during play. A total of 471 mobile game users (211 males) with an average age of 21.73 replied to an online survey containing sociodemographic and game variables, the Need Satisfaction and Frustration Scale (NSFS), the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS9-SF) and a slightly modified version of the Internet Use Expectancies Scale (IUES). The results corroborate the negative effects of need frustration on IGD among mobile gamers and clarify the role of time spent playing and game-use expectancies in the development of IGD, highlighting the important role of cognitions in this relationship. We conclude that both the time spent playing and game-use expectancies should be important targets for clinical interventions, even though they are not included in the diagnostic criteri

Emotional Gaming

In recent years, research on the psychology of gaming has examined the negative and positive outcomes of playing video games. Thus far, a variety of affective phenomena have been investigated. In this chapter we will continue this exploration by examining the emotions elicited by the act of playing video games. Because the study of emotions must rely on different type of methods, including subjective self-reports (e.g., description of feelings), neuropsychophysiological measurements (e.g. electromyography, skin conductance, heart rate, event-related potentials, functional magnetic resonance imaging), biological markers (e.g. cortisol, testosterone) and behaviours (e.g., facial expressions), we will cover all these distinct methods. We will explore how dimensional and categorical models of emotions have been used to identify the emotional responses of players, including their enjoyment experience. Expanding upon past research findings we will also discuss the social implications of gaming and suggest areas for future research.This chapter was supported by a grant from the Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT) (GRANT PTDC/PSI-PSO/099985/2008

Effects of Team-Based Computer Interaction: The Media Equation and Game Design Considerations

The current paper applies media equation research to video game de-sign. The paper presents a review of the existing media equation research, de-scribes a specific study conducted by the authors, discusses how the findings of the study can be used to inform future game design, and explores how other media equation findings might be incorporated into game design. The specific study, discussed in detail in the paper, explores the notion of team formation between humans and computer team-mates. The results show that while highly experienced users will accept a computer as a team-mate, they tend to react more negatively towards the computer than to human teammates (a ‘Black Sheep’ Effect

A Review of Affective Design towards Video Games

AbstractOver the past decade, gaming has become a mainstream form of entertainment. It is one of the fastest growing forms of entertainment and has become a big business, easily rivaling the film industry in terms of consumer spending. However, due to the rapid growth of technology and competitiveness in the industry, game designers are increasingly faced with the challenge of making their games attractive and engaging to its intended users. Over the years, practitioners and researchers in the human-computer interaction (HCI) community have placed a lot of effort in developing processes and methods for use in interdisciplinary fields. An effective user-centered gaming interface plays an important role in the gaming industry and provides valuable contribution in the HCI practice. This is because it supports the mental communication and emotional response of its audiences that is the gamers, thus improving the interaction modes between the user and product. Hence, designing games in a manner that provides the same user experience to all players, irrespective of player motivation, experience or skill is becoming the focus of modern game research. This paper will attempt to address and review the literature on affective design elements, principles and methodologies that are suitable for the video games industry