Emotional Design of Computer Games and Fiction Films

Abstract

The majority of computer games share certain traits with fiction films. Both media often cover common ground in terms of genre, themes, settings, the aesthetics of audiovisual representation and cultural references. Thus, comparing them seems the obvious thing to do in order to learn more about their similarities and differences.¹ But until now, such intermedial analyses have focused mainly on the structural characteristics of games and films (Juul, 2001b), with the result that games appeared to be so different from films that it was easy to conclude that nothing could possibly be learnt from the older medium for the further development of the newer one. This article focuses on the emotional experience of games and films. According to Tan (1996, p. 46), emotion is defined as ‘a change in action readiness as a result of the subject’s appraisal of the situation or event’. The fiction film evokes emotional experiences by appealing to certain source concerns of the audience, such as security, love and freedom, which are endangered in the course of the narrative. The wish to restore the desirable states that result from the fulfilment of the source concerns promotes action readiness. This is basically true for computer games also. But in addition to the source concerns addressed on the level of narrative, games also appeal to game-specific source concerns such as agency and the feeling of sensorimotor or cognitive competency. Combining these two kinds of source concerns in a computer game potentially elicits a much more complex emotional experience than that elicited by watching a fiction film.