Why Don't People Play Games - Game Invaders: The Theory and Understanding of Computer Games - page 59

game

fiero Curiosity

Easy
Fun

Hard
Fun

px

open
ended

goal

player
experience

Serious
Fun

People
Fun

relax

amuse

life

Figure 6.2 Emotional models of play. (Courtesy of XEODesign, http://www.xeodesign.com/
whyweplaygames.html . ) (See color insert.)

recorders to record play sessions and interviews. From their research they have built
a model of the basic types of emotions players experience and the relationship of
these to various types of gameplay, shown in Figure 6.2.
We will briefl y overview the main elements of the diagram and relate them to
our overall project, “Why don't people play games?” You can fi nd XEODesign' s
own paper on this model in the bibliography (“Why We Play Games”). In that paper
you can also fi nd details of their experimental methodology, the games people
played, and so on.
Xeo characterizes four emotional keys to gameplay:

• Hard fun: Overcoming obstacles, achieving goals, testing a player' s skills,
“the hard fun of challenge.” The associated emotion is fi ero or pride in
achievement.
• Easy fun: Exploration; just being there, seeing what happens in the story.
Curiosity is the state of mind.
• Serious fun: Altered states of mind, relaxation, feeling better about yourself.
The associated emotions are excitement and relief.
• People fun: Having fun with others, either inside or outside the game. Amuse-
ment is the emotion.

You should also notice the two axes that run horizontally and vertically through
the model: up/down relates to game-life axis, left/right relates to the goal-open
ended axis.