The role of negative emotions in videogames

Abstract

This work will explore the literature on the different ways in which videogames can elicit negative emotions and which game's elements can provoke such reactions in players. Videogame development and research have, in their early years, mostly focused on their fun and pleasant side. In the last two decades, however, research on different emotions evoked by certain videogame titles and essays on how failure is an indivisible part of the playing experience have been successfully illuminating the nuances of what we feel when we play. The tools used to bring out such reactions are many, such as story aspects, visual and audio cues and mechanical elements. Most of these not completely fun games are also pleasant, even though this is not their main characteristic, which implies a certain type of balance between positive and negative meanings, a composition that is similar to the eudaimonia concept of media studies. This research hypothesis is that, although the majority of videogames aim mainly to stimulate pleasure and fun in their players, there is a growing number of games that aim to engender negative emotions. These games, however, do not stimulate only these emotions, but rather, weaving them together with the most commonly used emotions, such as pleasure and fun. This will be done firstly by examining released games that already evoke these emotions, secondly by isolating the elements in the game that could be responsible. This research will be convenient for researchers by providing a snapshot of what is currently known about the relationship between negative emotions and game design elements and also for the game design field by providing designers with extra knowledge and even tools to approach their métier in a different light and crafting richer experiences.

Keywords: videogames, negative emotions, game design

DOI: 10.54941/ahfe1005474