Nordic Game 2007: Communities of Nurturing

Aki Jä[email protected]

http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net

Communities of Nurturing: How to Design Empathy? (and other things most game developers are embarrassed to talk about)

mailto:[email protected]




Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

Aki’s Background• Studying games academically since 1998, experience

from casual and mobile game design projects since 2000

• Experience from both academia, the game industry, and game journalism

• Ph.D. on player experience driven methods of game studies and design to be defended in 2007

• Drawing from psychology, study of arts, design research, game design literature, etc.


Set of Premises• Recent success stories indicate that games’ emotional

spectrum need not be restricted to competition and conflict.

• Communities of Nurturing are audiences ready and willing to experience other types of emotions when playing

• Animal Crossing and Nintendogs, among others, indicate that emotions concerning fortunes of others, real or virtual, can matter.

• How do games such as these create player engagement? What is particular to that engagement?

• Keys to answer: Emotion theory adapted for purposes of game studies and design


Embodying feeling into game designs• In aesthetic theory, artistic practice is understood as a

practice of embodying feeling into a work (painting, literature, film, music, etc.

• with techniques both particular to a medium, and the modalities it addresses

• ...and general techniques having to do with cognition, i.e. perception and understanding

• Like other aesthetic phenomena, Game designs embody eliciting conditions for emotions and subsequent moods

• Which we all ’know’, yet when we are asked about it, can we explain it?

• Here we go…


Applying Emotion theory• Ortony, Collins & Clore: The Cognitive Structure of Emotions

(1990)

• Emotions are valenced (+/-) reactions towards agents, events, or objects in the world

• Games create micro-worlds with agents, events, and objects

• Emotion categories according to the OCC model:

• Prospect-based emotions

• Fortunes-of-others emotions

• Attribution emotions

• Attraction emotions

• Well-being emotions


Player Experience• At present, games privilege prospect-based and

attribution emotions

• There is potential for new player experiences in fortunes-of-others and attraction emotions

• How can this theoretical premise applied into practice?

• How can fortunes-of-others and attraction elicited through design?

• Design of goals as a key


Psychology of Goals

• The importance of goals for player experience can not be overemphasized

• The road to attaining goals is beset by emotions

• Emotions function in the managing of goals. i.e. how players prioritize one goal or means over another

• Goals are embodied into the design of game components, characters, environments, and their attributes & behaviour


Fortunes-of-others as the key for empathy• Game designs can embody eliciting conditions

for empathy and Altruism:

• With goals the completion of which benefit other players or game characters

• With possibilities for players to act towards completing such goals

• With persuasive goal rhetoric embodied, e.g., into characters and their needs


Nurturing as a set of game mechanics• Concrete actions for players that support emergence

of a mood of altruism

• Gift-giving; Remembering

• Caring

• Delivering

• Sharing

• …You name it!


Rhetoric of Caring• Function of metaphor is to understand one

concept in terms of another

• In game design, metaphors are created for rules

• Sets of metaphors constitute the theme of the game

• Theme is communicated with a certain rhetoric that persuades the players to play

• Case example: Two designs of delivery with different metaphors: Ico vs. Thrust


Theme is everything!


Animal Crossing• Designing recognition, alignment, and/or allegiance to

characters is another key to empathy

• Dialogue as a characterization technique that elicits emotions: Behaviour of NPCs need not be restricted to animation techniques! (cf. ‘Uncanny valley’)

• Goal hierarchy as a key to achieve this:

• Goals-of-animals contribute to Goals-of-self and Goals-of-village

• Mood supported: Community spirit, i.e. caring about common concerns and the ‘feelings’ of the animal characters



Nintendogs• Simulation of a living being and its

behaviour as a set of eliciting conditions

• Gestures and canine behavioural cues (wagging the tail, barking) as constituents of eliciting conditions

• Dog as a faithful companion which, as a pet, still depends on the care of a human

• ’Pet schema’ as a structure, i.e. event schema about caring, functions as a metaphor for understanding Nintendogs rules


Shadow of the Colossus• Sense of Loss & Inevitability as key

moods

• The player is put to destroy that which provides the player experience of spectacle and struggle

• The tone of game rhetoric supports this; completion of high-order goals are communicated with tragic overtones

• Could be used as design solutions for an environmentalist game?


Dying in Darfur• Empathy through identification

with Goals-of-Darfurian refugees

• Empathy through persuasion

• Three types of persuasion:

• Response-Shaping,

• Response-Reinforcing, or

• Response-Changing

• Identifying with Fortunes-of-Darfurians as intellectual and altruistic ’Ideo-Pleasure’


Summary• Game designs embody eliciting conditions for emotions

• The constituents of eliciting conditions include goals, player possessions, player performances, etc.

• Emotion theory gives us concepts & vocabulary with which to talk about goal and player relationships

• At present, fortunes-of-self type of emotions are overprivileged in games.

• Designing constituents for Fortunes-of-others through goal hierarchies and game mechanics as a method

• ... in order to create community ties and broader audiences


Further Resources

• http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net

• Aki’s Thesis chapters & online analysis tools (TBA)

• http://gamegame.blogs.com

• Card game / brainstorming tool for game design

• [email protected]

http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net/

http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net/

http://gamegame.blogs.com/

http://gamegame.blogs.com/



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Nordic Game 2007: Communities of Nurturing