Developing a New Major

4 Keys to Fun

her company - xeo design - studies emotion, games, fun , “role of emotion in games”, “ways to create emotion other than story cut scenes”,

some of the questions their research tries to answer - “what makes failing 80% of the time fun? Do people play to feel emotions as well as challenge? If emotions are important to play, where do they come from? Do people modify games to feel differently? Is it possible to build emotions into games by adding emotion producing objects or actions to game play rather than cut scenes?, what do adult gamers consider good game experiences?”

“not all games with good graphics and advanced features are fun A Game’s value proposition is how it makes its customers think and feel”

variety of data - video of player comments while playing and their facial expressions, survey responses, session noes, used a wide variety of games in fighting, racing, puzzle, sports & strategy, and other genres

outcome - 4 keys to emotion iwthout story (without cut scenes), their criteria for the 4 keys were - what players like most about playing, creates unique emotion without story, already present in ultra popular games, and supported by psych theory or other larger studies. Importance of each key varies from player to player and from key to key. Each key creates a different kind of emotion, players move between the keys as the play.  Better to design “deep game experiences for each key” as a way to make better player experiences

Here is a shorthand version of the 4 keys from the Xeo Design website

The 4 Fun Keys create games’ four most important emotions:
1. Hard Fun: Fiero - in the moment personal triumph over adversity
2. Easy Fun: Curiosity
3. Serious Fun: Relaxation and excitement
4. People Fun: Amusement

1. hard fun - structure experience towards the pursuit of a goal, problem solving, strategic thinking, players for whom this is key play to test their skills, feel their accomplishment, want to see how good they really are, play to beat the game, like having multiple objectives in the game, want games with a range of strategies strategy more than luck, the game gives them feedback on their progress and success,  difficulty can be balanced across levels, player controls, player’s progress thru levels, there are things people with little skills can do as well as things for people with advanced skills, there is competitive game play and cooperative - they mention games like civ, halo, top spin tennis, crosswords, hearts, tetris, collapse, everquest, the sims as having this key

2. easy fun - aka immersion key, sheer enjoyment of experiencing the game activities, people enjoy intrigue, immersion when game takes up all their attention or takes them on an exciting adventure, plays with players curiosity & sense of awe and mystery and wonder, there is ambiguity, incompleteness and the sense of a living world with intriguing people, these palyers want something new, sense of excitement and adventure, they wnat to figure stuff out, like the sounds of cards shuffling, like growing dragons (???), want to feel like the player and the character are one (that immersion thing), they found this key in games like myst, splinter cell, ever quest, gta, max payne, halo, civ, collapse, tetris, dark age of camelot, hearts

3. altered states - aka internal experience key, games as therapy, players play games because of how they make them feel inside, people like changes in their emotions, aspects of the game (external to the player) change/”create emotions inside the player” like excitement, relief, players say they play to clear their mind by playing a level or two, to feel better about themselves, to avoid boredom, to be better at something that matters, they found this in games like collapse, halo, crosswords, gta, civ, tetris, everquest

4. the people factor  - competition, cooperation, performance, spectacle - people feel amusement, take pleasure at others pain (schadenfreude) and naches (pleasure, joy)people want to play with other people to the  point that sometimes they’ll play games they don’t particularly like because they want to hang out with their friends who are playing, multiplayer games are good for social play, there is competition and lots of ribbing and verbal sparring, there is cooperation as teams work together to accomplish a goal, lots to see for people watching (spectacle), mentions games like gta, halo, ever quest, dark age of camelot, soul calibur

emotions - fear, surprise, disgust, naches (pride in someone else’s experiences when you’ve mentored them/kvell, fiero (Personal triumph over adversity), schadenfreude, wonder

emotions show up in their verbal responses of gamers, in their facial expressions, in their visceral responses

people want to experience physical and emotional sensations, they want the increased heart rate, tension, want to exchange their worries about their daily life for relaxation and the challenge of the game

differences in emotional displays between single play and multi player (more and stronger emotion displayed) especially when playing together in the same room (not so strong when playing over team speak/over the internet because people can interact outside of the game too, change rules, add new content)

flow is good description for challenge in a game

the xeo design website has a case study called “The People Factor: Diner Dash Case Study that looks at hte game Diner Dash (we could play it and answer a few questions that set up the article  before reading this)

people care about people, even non-player characters. Everything the player does to the NPCs creates an emotional response in the npc for the player to respond to. The NPCs have a pretty wide range of emotional responses, the game involves helping people, giving htem pleasure, getting away from the original high stress job and doing something they really like - all those things appeal to people

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