Digital Games and Player Experience
2.7.1 Expectations in Digital Games
This section provides a discussion of expectations in relation to im- mersion in digital games, factors that affect these expectations, and theories on how players construct their expectations based on their personal characteristics. Moreover, it provides an overview of differ- ent factors that can affect one’s perception of digital games, and their gaming experience as a result of this.
Players form their attitudes toward a game based their general knowl- edge of the world and based on the information they know about the game. Game previews released to advertise games provide players
Players choose games based on the information available to them
with a suitable indication of the graphical detail and sound effects one might expect from the actual game, and players find these previews particularly useful when choosing a game that feels just right (O’Brien
and Toms,2008). They also consult other people, both their friends and
online reviewers, to select a product that best suits their needs. Players then become engaged in gaming if something resonates with their in- terests, whether it is the aesthetic appeal of the visuals or a novel story or concept. These elements capture players’ attention and interest and move them toward engagement.
When selecting a brand new game, players often rely on their pre- vious experiences and preferences to direct them toward games that look and sound most appealing. Research done by Livingston, Nacke,
Subjective
information and Mandryk (2011) shows that players’ enjoyment of a digital game
changes depending on the tone of the review they read about this game. In their studies, players who read negatively phrased reviews rated the game considerably lower than the players who read posi- tively phrased text, and the biasing effect was stronger when being exposed to a negative text than a positive one, compared to the base- line of players who did not read any reviews at all. The researchers
also found that the reviews written by critics and by other game play- ers affect players’ perception of the game in a similar manner.
Apart from the subjective information that players read before try- Objective
information
ing a game out for the first time, there is more objective information that can also affect their expectations. Reading game descriptions and watching trailers that advertise clever AI, exciting narrative, and pro- cedurally generated content can set players’ expectations high. These expectations, however, have to be met by the game conventions, other-
wise players might never get immersed in the game (McMahan,2003),
or even worse – give up on playing it and never return. For exam- ple, dynamic difficulty balancing implemented in multiplayer digital games is typically perceived as a beneficial feature that aims to pro- vide a better balancing of players based on their skills. However, being aware of its existence may bias players’ perception of the feature and consequently lead to less satisfactory experience of gaming (Hunicke,
2005).
However, this might not always be the case. When being highly en- Suspension of
disbelief
gaged in the act of playing, a player can subconsciously compensate for certain inconsistencies inside a digital game – a phenomenon known
as ‘suspension of disbelief’ (Vorderer, Klimmt, and Ritterfeld, 2004).
This term describes a state when a player willingly decides to ignore inconsistent information presented by the medium in order to have a positive experience. In the context of digital games, the term means more than just coping with inconsistent storyline and fantastic plot – interactive nature of games also can affect a person’s judgement of incoherent behaviour, low level of realism, or even the fact that the player is interacting with the game world through a controller with- out natural mapping to their actions. Players often choose to ignore the fact that their characters do not have the same basic requirements as humans – travelling through enormous worlds for virtual days or fighting off enemies without the need for a nap or a drink; their health often regenerates all by itself and their weapons can have no lifetime with unlimited number of ammunition in the inventory.
It is entirely possible that a player can get so immersed in the game that particular inconsistencies are overlooked in order to keep the bal-
ance of experience. A study by Cheng and Cairns (2005) demonstrated
that players can get so immersed in the game that they do not notice significant changes to the physics of the game.
A recent but anecdotal evidence has also demonstrated how players Placebo effect in
games
game8
. According to an interview with Jeffrey Lin, the lead game de- signer of social systems at Riot Games, League of Legends (LoL) players’ experiences were affected by a supposedly nerfed (made less effec- tive or desirable) performance of a Champion in the game, while the nerf was not implemented in the patch to the game. The sole knowl- edge that it was there made the player change their game play. This suggests that the information players know about the game not only before they try it for the first time, but also during their engagement, can affect their experience.
Deception though, whether intentional or unintentional, is typically
Benevolent
deception perceived as having negative connotations. Nonetheless, it can be used
to improve one’s experience of a product, in which case it is known
as a term ‘benevolent deception’ (Adar, Tan, and Teevan, 2013). The
researchers describe this phenomenon as a tool used by product de- signers to mask some features, which do not affect the users’ perceived productivity, which, in turn, keeps them satisfied. Some of the promi- nent examples where this concept has been implemented include the ‘placebo’ traffic lights buttons, which do not affect the speed of the traffic light changing its colours, but the users of the button are mis- lead into believing they do, which makes them feel in control and sat- isfied as a result of pressing the button. Similarly, during busy times, Netflix switches the personalised recommendation system off and dis- play a generic star-rated system for their users, who are not aware of
the change (Adar, Tan, and Teevan,2013). This kind of deceit can be
used to benefit either the game developers or game players, or both, depending on the nature of the deceit. For example, in the case of an unimplemented nerf gun in League of Legends, the deceit was uninten- tional and affected only the players.
Additionally, previous experiences of games and players’ personal
Preferences
traits and general knowledge often lead to the formation of preferences toward certain genres, games, and their features. In psychology, pref- erences refer to an individual’s attitude toward a set of objects (Licht-
enstein and Slovic,2006), and can help a player choose games from a
multitude of digital games available on a market. However, they can also limit players in their choices and could break their engagement
when not met O’Brien and Toms (2008).
It is evident that even before playing a digital game, people already have an idea of what they are expecting to experience, which can affect their objective judgement of this particular game. It is also possible that
8 Jeffrey Lin’s interview about the ’placebo effect’ in LoL: https://www.
in a sequel, players already have an established expectations based on the previous versions of the game, and therefore may miss new possibilities of play provided in the newer version of the same game
(Lindley and Sennersten,2006).
Overall, it is evident that players’ can be subjected to numerous ef- fects depending on the different information they are exposed to be- fore and during game play. However, the literature on the effects of information on player experience is scarce and often lacks empirical evidence, particularly with regards to the effects of information intrin- sic to digital games, such as adaptive technologies, on players’ immer- sion.
2.8
Summary
Many different concepts and theories have been developed in order to describe a positive experience of playing digital games. Each theory has its own merits, and aims to describe nuanced experiences from var- ious viewpoints. However, it is evident that a comprehensive model of player experience has not yet been developed. Nonetheless, immersion is a broad and all-inclusive experience that amongst other concepts is often used and valued by game researchers, developers, and players to describe their positive involvement in digital game playing.
However, the existing models of immersion are limited in the way that they are mainly focused on the influence of game factors on this player experience, and often ignoring the fact that immersion is de- pendent on how the player perceives such technology as well. The
hypothesis, drawn from the work of McMahan (2003) and Kücklich
and Fellow (2004), is that player’s expectations play a major role in
shaping the experience of playing a digital game – if these expecta- tions are matched by the conventions of the game world, the player feels immersed, while unmet expectations can distract the player and decrease their level of immersion.
The overview of the games user research unveiled the importance of studying the effects of player factors on gaming experiences, and the lack of progress in this part of the field compared to the effect of game factors on player experience. Players’ expectations and percep- tions of games can change their experiences when playing with the game, as seen in this literature section. However the influence studied so far typically depends on one’s exposure to subjective opinions in the form of magazine articles, game ratings, and reviews. While anec-
dotal evidence suggests that players’ perceptions of the game and their experience of playing it can be affected by the information they know about the game itself, i.e. neutral information about game features.
A prominent example of a game feature that players often perceive as potentially beneficial to their game play is the ability of a digital game to adapt to their behaviour and performance. The next chapter, therefore, describes adaptive technologies used in contemporary dig- ital games, their benefits and drawbacks, and discusses the potential influence of players’ perception of such technologies on their gaming experiences.