Abstract
Videogames receive increasing acclaim as a medium capable of artistic expression, emotional resonance, and even transformative potential. Yet while discussions concerning the status of games as art have a long history in games research, little is known about the player experience (PX) of games as art, their emotional characteristics, and what impact they may have on players. Drawing from Empirical Aesthetics, we surveyed 174 people about whether they had an art experience with videogames and what emotions they experienced. Our findings showcase the prominence of epistemic emotions for videogame art experiences, beyond the negative and mixed emotional responses previously examined, as well as the range of personal impacts such experiences may have. These findings are consistent with art experience phenomena characteristic of other art forms. Moreover, we discuss how our study relates to prior research on emotions and reflection in PX, the importance of games' representational qualities in art experiences, and identify lines of further inquiry. All data, study materials, and analyses are available at https://osf.io/ryvt6/.
Supplemental Material
Available for Download
Introduction These folders are the data analysis for the paper 'My Soul Got a Little Bit Cleaner': Art Experience in Videogames Read use:
- Jonne Arjoranta. 2018. Interpretive Challenges in Games. In Proceedings of Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) 2018. SocArXiv, 1--4.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Chris Bateman. 2014. Empirical game aesthetics. Handbook of digital games (2014), 411--443. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781118796443.ch15Google Scholar
- Julia Ayumi Bopp, Elisa D Mekler, and Klaus Opwis. 2016. Negative Emotion, Positive Experience?: Emotionally Moving Moments in Digital Games. In Proceedings of the 2016 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 2996--3006. https://doi.org/10.1145/2858036.2858227Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Julia Ayumi Bopp, Livia J. Müller, Lena Fanya Aeschbach, Klaus Opwis, and Elisa D. Mekler. 2019. Exploring Emotional Attachment to Game Characters. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play (Barcelona, Spain) (CHI PLAY '19). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 313--324. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347169Google Scholar
- Julia Ayumi Bopp, Klaus Opwis, and Elisa D Mekler. 2018. "An Odd Kind of Pleasure": Differentiating Emotional Challenge in Digital Games. In Proceedings of the 2018 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 41. https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173615Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Jürgen Bortz and Nicola Döring. 2007. Forschungsmethoden und Evaluation für Human- und Sozialwissenschaftler: Limitierte Sonderausgabe 4th ed.). Springer-Verlag. Google-Books-ID: 13GbPUYAUHsC.Google Scholar
- Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2006. Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology , Vol. 3, 2 (2006), 77--101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oaGoogle Scholar
- Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2019. To saturate or not to saturate? Questioning data saturation as a useful concept for thematic analysis and sample-size rationales. Qualitative Research in Sport, Exercise and Health (2019), 1--16. https://doi.org/10.1080/2159676X.2019.1704846Google Scholar
- Virginia Braun and Victoria Clarke. 2020. One size fits all? What counts as quality practice in (reflexive) thematic analysis? Qualitative Research in Psychology (2020), 1--25. https://doi.org/10.1080/14780887.2020.1769238Google Scholar
- British Academy of Film and Television Arts. 2013. Games -- Artistic Achievement in 2013. http://awards.bafta.org/award/2013/games/artistic-achievement, Last accessed on 2020-06-08.Google Scholar
- British Academy of Film and Television Arts. 2018. Games -- Artistic Achievement in 2018. http://awards.bafta.org/award/2018/games/artistic-achievement, Last accessed on 2020-06-08.Google Scholar
- John L Campbell, Charles Quincy, Jordan Osserman, and Ove K Pedersen. 2013. Coding in-depth semistructured interviews: Problems of unitization and intercoder reliability and agreement. Sociological Methods & Research , Vol. 42, 3 (2013), 294--320. https://doi.org/10.1177/0049124113500475Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Tom Cole, Paul Cairns, and Marco Gillies. 2015. Emotional and Functional Challenge in Core and Avant-garde Games. In CHI PLAY '15. ACM, 121--126. https://doi.org/10.1145/2793107.2793147Google Scholar
- Tom Cole and Marco Gillies. 2019. Thinking and Doing: Challenge, Agency, and the Eudaimonic Experience in Video Games. Games and Culture (2019), 1555412019881536. https://doi.org/10.1177/1555412019881536Google Scholar
- Katherine N Cotter, Alyssa N Prince, Alexander P Christensen, and Paul J Silvia. 2019. Feeling like crying when listening to music: Exploring musical and contextual features. Empirical Studies of the Arts , Vol. 37, 2 (2019), 119--137. https://doi.org/10.1177/0276237418805692Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Katherine N Cotter, Paul J Silvia, and Kirill Fayn. 2018. What does feeling like crying when listening to music feel like? Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , Vol. 12, 2 (2018), 216. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000108Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Rui Craveirinha and Lic'inio Roque. 2010. Looking for the Heart of Interactive Media: Reflections on Video Games' Emotional Expression. In Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Fun and Games (Leuven, Belgium) (Fun and Games '10). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, 8--17. https://doi.org/10.1145/1823818.1823819Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Rui Craveirinha and Licinio Roque. 2019. Impact of Game Elements in Players Artistic Experience. In Extended Abstracts of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. 1--6. https://doi.org/10.1145/3290607.3313049Google Scholar
- Rowan Daneels, Nicholas D Bowman, Daniel Possler, and Elisa D Mekler. 2021. The "eudaimonic experience': A scoping review of the concept in digital games research. Media and Communication , Vol. 9, 2 (2021), 178--190.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Davis, Kendall Deacon. 2017. Can a Computer Make You Cry? https://medium.com/bestcompany/can-a-computer-make-you-cry-afc76bd27784, Last accessed on 2021-01--26.Google Scholar
- John Dewey. 2005. Art as experience .Penguin.Google Scholar
- Keith Diefendorff. 1999. Sony's Emotionally Charged Chip . Microprocessor report , Vol. 13, 5 (1999), 1--6.Google Scholar
- Pierre Dragicevic. 2016. Fair Statistical Communication in HCI . In Modern Statistical Methods for HCI . 291--330. https://doi.org/10.1007/978--3--319--26633--6_13 arxiv: arXiv:1011.1669v3Google Scholar
- Denis Dutton. 2006. A naturalist definition of art. The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism , Vol. 64, 3 (2006), 367--377.Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Kirill Fayn, Paul J Silvia, Yasemin Erbas, Niko Tiliopoulos, and Peter Kuppens. 2018. Nuanced aesthetic emotions: Emotion differentiation is related to knowledge of the arts and curiosity. Cognition and Emotion , Vol. 32, 3 (2018), 593--599. https://doi.org/10.1080/02699931.2017.1322554Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Alan Page Fiske, Beate Seibt, and Thomas Schubert. 2019. The sudden devotion emotion: Kama muta and the cultural practices whose function is to evoke it. Emotion Review , Vol. 11, 1 (2019), 74--86. https://doi.org/10.1177/1754073917723167Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Alf Gabrielsson and Siv Lindström Wik. 2003. Strong experiences related to music: adescriptive system. Musicae scientiae , Vol. 7, 2 (2003), 157--217. https://doi.org/10.1177/102986490300700201Google Scholar
- Berys Gaut. 2000. "Art'as a Cluster Concept. Theories of Art Today (2000), 25--44.Google Scholar
- Chad Phoenix Rose Gowler and Ioanna Iacovides. 2019. "Horror, guilt and shame"--Uncomfortable Experiences in Digital Games. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play . 325--337. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347179Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Julian Hanich, Valentin Wagner, Mira Shah, Thomas Jacobsen, and Winfried Menninghaus. 2014. Why we like to watch sad films. The pleasure of being moved in aesthetic experiences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , Vol. 8, 2 (2014), 130. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0035690Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Houlden, Sophie. 2012. Can Art be Games? https://sophiehoulden.com/can-art-be-games/, Last accessed on 2021-01--27.Google Scholar
- Wijnand A IJsselsteijn, Yvonne AW de Kort, and Karolien Poels. 2013. The game experience questionnaire. Eindhoven: Technische Universiteit Eindhoven , Vol. 46, 1 (2013).Google Scholar
- Katherine Isbister. 2016. How games move us: Emotion by design .Mit Press.Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Henry Jenkins. 2005. Games, the new lively art . In Handbook of computer game studies . IEEE Comput. Soc, 175--189. https://doi.org/10.1109/MASCOT.2002.1167092Google Scholar
- Bryan Jenner, Uwe Flick, Ernst von Kardoff, and Ines Steinke. 2004. A companion to qualitative research .Sage.Google Scholar
- Rilla Khaled. 2018. Questions over answers: Reflective game design. In Playful disruption of digital media . Springer, 3--27.Google Scholar
- Kroll, Jack. 2000. Emotion Engine? I Don't Think So. https://www.newsweek.com/emotion-engine-i-dont-think-so-156675, Last accessed on 2021-02--14.Google Scholar
- Shringi Kumari, Sebastian Deterding, and Jonathan Freeman. 2019. The Role of Uncertainty in Moment-to-Moment Player Motivation: A Grounded Theory. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play . 351--363. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347148Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Karen S Kurasaki. 2000. Intercoder reliability for validating conclusions drawn from open-ended interview data. Field methods , Vol. 12, 3 (2000), 179--194. https://doi.org/10.1177/1525822X0001200301Google Scholar
- Helmut Leder and Marcos Nadal. 2014. Ten years of a model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments : The aesthetic episode - Developments and challenges in empirical aesthetics. British Journal of Psychology , Vol. 105, 4 (Nov. 2014), 443--464. https://doi.org/10.1111/bjop.12084Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Limesurvey GmbH. 2020. LimeSurvey .Google Scholar
- Kirsti Malterud, Volkert Dirk Siersma, and Ann Dorrit Guassora. 2016. Sample size in qualitative interview studies: guided by information power. Qualitative health research , Vol. 26, 13 (2016), 1753--1760. https://doi.org/10.1177/1049732315617444Google Scholar
- Tim Marsh and Brigid Costello. 2013. Lingering serious experience as trigger to raise awareness, encourage reflection and change behavior. In International Conference on Persuasive Technology. Springer, 116--124. https://doi.org/10.1007/978--3--642--37157--8_15Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Elisa D Mekler, Ioanna Iacovides, and Julia Ayumi Bopp. 2018. "A Game that Makes You Question..." Exploring the Role of Reflection for the Player Experience. In Proceedings of the 2018 Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. 315--327. https://doi.org/10.1145/3242671.3242691Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Winfried Menninghaus, Valentin Wagner, Julian Hanich, Eugen Wassiliwizky, Milena Kuehnast, and Thomas Jacobsen. 2015. Towards a psychological construct of being moved. PloS one , Vol. 10, 6 (2015), e0128451. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0128451Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Winfried Menninghaus, Valentin Wagner, Eugen Wassiliwizky, Ines Schindler, Julian Hanich, Thomas Jacobsen, and Stefan Koelsch. 2019. What are aesthetic emotions? Psychological review , Vol. 126, 2 (2019), 171. https://doi.org/10.1037/rev0000135Google Scholar
- Katharine Neil. 2007. My game in your gallery? the user manual (2007).Google Scholar
- C. Thi Nguyen. 2020. Games: Agency As Art 1 ed.). Oxford University Press. https://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780190052089.001.0001Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Niedenthal, Simon. 2009. What We Talk About When We Talk About Game Aesthetics. Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) Online Library. http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:mau:diva-11023, Last accessed on 2021-02-08.Google Scholar
- Ninja Theory. 2017. Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice . Videogame [Multiplatform]. Ninja Theory, Cambridge, England.Google Scholar
- Karen Nylund-Gibson and Andrew Young Choi. 2018. Ten frequently asked questions about latent class analysis. Translational Issues in Psychological Science , Vol. 4, 4 (2018), 440. https://doi.org/10.1037/tps0000176Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Mary Beth Oliver and Tilo Hartmann. 2010. Exploring the role of meaningful experiences in users' appreciation of "good movies". Projections , Vol. 4, 2 (2010), 128--150. https://doi.org/10.3167/proj.2010.040208Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Felan Parker. 2018. Roger Ebert and the Games-as-Art Debate . Cinema Journal 3 (2018), 25. https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2018.0032Google Scholar
- J. R. Parker. 2013. Games are art: Video games as theatrical performance. In 2013 IEEE International Games Innovation Conference (IGIC). IEEE, Vancouver, BC, Canada, 203--208. https://doi.org/10.1109/IGIC.2013.6659148Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Matthew Pelowski and Fuminori Akiba. 2011. A model of art perception, evaluation and emotion in transformative aesthetic experience. New Ideas in Psychology , Vol. 29, 2 (2011), 80--97. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.newideapsych.2010.04.001Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Matthew Pelowski, Michael Forster, Pablo P. L. Tinio, Maria Scholl, and Helmut Leder. 2017a. Beyond the lab: An examination of key factors influencing interaction with "real' and museum-based art. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , Vol. 11, 3 (Aug. 2017), 245--264. https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000141Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Matthew Pelowski, Young-Jin Hur, Katherine N Cotter, Tomohiro Ishizu, Alexander P Christensen, Helmut Leder, and IC McManus. 2019. Quantifying the if, the when, and the what of the sublime: A survey and latent class analysis of incidence, emotions, and distinct varieties of personal sublime experiences. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts (2019). https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000273Google Scholar
- Matthew Pelowski, Patrick S Markey, Michael Forster, Gernot Gerger, and Helmut Leder. 2017b. Move me, astonish me? delight my eyes and brain: The Vienna integrated model of top-down and bottom-up processes in art perception (VIMAP) and corresponding affective, evaluative, and neurophysiological correlates. Physics of Life Reviews , Vol. 21 (2017), 80--125. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.plrev.2017.02.003Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Matthew John Pelowski. 2015. Tears and transformation: Feeling like crying as an indicator of insightful or "aesthetic" experience with art. Frontiers in Psychology , Vol. 6 (2015), 1006. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2015.01006Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Xiaolan Peng, Jin Huang, Alena Denisova, Hui Chen, Feng Tian, and Hongan Wang. 2020. A Palette of Deepened Emotions: Exploring Emotional Challenge in Virtual Reality Games. In Proceedings of the 2020 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. ACM, 94. https://doi.org/10.1145/3313831.3376221Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Pippin Barr. 2011. The Artist Is Present . Videogame [Browser]. Pippin Barr, Montréal, Canada.Google Scholar
- Pippin Barr. 2020. The Artist Is Present 2 . Videogame [Browser]. Pippin Barr, Montréal, Canada.Google Scholar
- Doris C. Rusch. 2017. Making deep games: designing games with meaning and purpose .CRC Press, Taylor & Francis Group, an Informa business, Boca Raton, FL.Google Scholar
- Doris C Rusch and Andrew M Phelps. 2020. Existential Transformational Game Design: Harnessing the "Psychomagic" of Symbolic Enactment. Frontiers in Psychology , Vol. 11 (2020), 3021. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2020.571522Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Mike Schaekermann, Giovanni Ribeiro, Guenter Wallner, Simone Kriglstein, Daniel Johnson, Anders Drachen, Rafet Sifa, and Lennart E Nacke. 2017. Curiously Motivated: Profiling Curiosity with Self-Reports and Behaviour Metrics in the Game" Destiny". In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. 143--156. https://doi.org/10.1145/3116595.3116603Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Ines Schindler, Georg Hosoya, Winfried Menninghaus, Ursula Beermann, Valentin Wagner, Michael Eid, and Klaus R Scherer. 2017. Measuring aesthetic emotions: A review of the literature and a new assessment tool. PLoS One , Vol. 12, 6 (2017), e0178899. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0178899Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- John Sharp. 2015. Works of game: On the aesthetics of games and art .mit Press.Google Scholar
- Aleksandra Sherman and Clair Morrissey. 2017. What is art good for? the socio-epistemic value of art. Frontiers in Human Neuroscience , Vol. 11 (2017), 411. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnhum.2017.00411Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Eugénie Shinkle. 2005. Feel It, Don't Think: the Significance of Affect in the Study of Digital Games . Digital Games Research Association (DiGRA) 2005: Changing Views: Worlds in Play (2005), 7.Google Scholar
- Paul J. Silvia. 2010. Confusion and interest: The role of knowledge emotions in aesthetic experience. Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts , Vol. 4, 2 (2010), 75--80. https://doi.org/10.1037/a0017081Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Martin Skov and Marcos Nadal. 2020. A farewell to art: Aesthetics as a topic in psychology and neuroscience. Perspectives on Psychological Science , Vol. 15, 3 (2020), 630--642. https://doi.org/10.1177/1745691619897963Google Scholar
Cross Ref
- Smithsonian American Art Museum. 2012. The Art of Video Games. https://americanart.si.edu/exhibitions/games, Last accessed on 2021-02--14.Google Scholar
- Aaron Smuts. 2005. Are Video Games Art? Contemporary Aesthetics , Vol. 3, 1 (2005), 6.Google Scholar
- Eva Specker, Michael Forster, Hanna Brinkmann, Jane Boddy, Matthew Pelowski, Raphael Rosenberg, and Helmut Leder. 2018. The Vienna Art Interest and Art Knowledge Questionnaire (VAIAK): A Unified and Validated Measure of Art Interest and Art Knowledge . Psychology of Aesthetics, Creativity, and the Arts October (Oct. 2018). https://doi.org/10.1037/aca0000205Google Scholar
- Steve Swink. 2008. Game feel: a game designer's guide to virtual sensation .CRC Press.Google Scholar
- Grant Tavinor. 2009. The art of videogames .John Wiley & Sons.Google Scholar
- thatgamecompany. 2012. Journey . Videogame [Multiplatform]. Sony Interactive Entertainment, Tokyo, Japan.Google Scholar
- Alexandra To, Safinah Ali, Geoff F Kaufman, and Jessica Hammer. 2016. Integrating Curiosity and Uncertainty in Game Design.. In Proceedings of the First International Joint Conference of Digital Games Research Association and Foundations of Digital Games .Google Scholar
- Alexandre N. Tuch and Kasper Hornbæk. 2015. Does Herzberg's Notion of Hygienes and Motivators Apply to User Experience? ACM Trans. Comput.-Hum. Interact. , Vol. 22, 4, Article 16 (June 2015), bibinfonumpages24 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/2724710Google Scholar
Digital Library
- April Tyack and Elisa D. Mekler. 2021. Off-Peak: An Examination of Ordinary Player Experience. In Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Yokohama, Japan) (CHI '21). Association for Computing Machinery, New York, NY, USA, Article 115, bibinfonumpages12 pages. https://doi.org/10.1145/3411764.3445230Google Scholar
- Jan B Vornhagen, April Tyack, and Elisa D Mekler. 2020. Statistical Significance Testing at CHI PLAY: Challenges and Opportunities for More Transparency. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play. 4--18. https://doi.org/10.1145/3410404.3414229Google Scholar
Digital Library
- Jonna K Vuoskoski and Tuomas Eerola. 2017. The pleasure evoked by sad music is mediated by feelings of being moved. Frontiers in psychology , Vol. 8 (2017), 439. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2017.00439Google Scholar
- Ge Wang. 2018. Artful Design: Technology in Search of the Sublime, A MusiComic Manifesto .Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
- Matthew Alexander Whitby, Sebastian Deterding, and Ioanna Iacovides. 2019. "One of the baddies all along" Moments that Challenge a Player's Perspective. In Proceedings of the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play . 339--350. https://doi.org/10.1145/3311350.3347192Google Scholar
Digital Library
Index Terms
"My Soul Got a Little Bit Cleaner": Art Experience in Videogames
Recommendations
Off-Peak: An Examination of Ordinary Player Experience
CHI '21: Proceedings of the 2021 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing SystemsVideogames’ increasing cultural relevance and suffusion into everyday use contexts suggests they can no longer be considered novelties. Broadly speaking, games research at CHI has concerned two forms of peak experience—historically, research aimed to ...
Evaluating GameFlow in a Multiplayer Online Strategy Game Under Development
ACSW '20: Proceedings of the Australasian Computer Science Week MulticonferenceGameFlow is a widely used model of player enjoyment, with hundreds of applications to designing and evaluating games and game-like experiences since its first publication. Derived from a general set of heuristics for creating enjoyable player ...
Engaging in Videogame Play: An Activity-Centric Analysis of the Player Experience
OzCHI '15: Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the Australian Special Interest Group for Computer Human InteractionThis paper focuses on examining play activities in people's favourite videogame experience. Through interviews with 30 videogame players we discovered which types of play activities are most appealing. Our research identifies the level of appeal of a ...






Comments