Aki Järvinenaki@gameswithoutfrontiers.net

http://www.gameswithoutfrontiers.net

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

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.

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & 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…

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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!

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

Theme is everything!

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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?

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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’

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

Games without FrontiersA Resource for Game Studies & Design

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

• aki@gameswithoutfrontiers.net