Creating emotion in games

Abstract

Why put emotion into games? The answers are art and money. Sure, it's an unholy alliance, but so are pineapple and pizza, windmills and tiny golf courses, the military and intelligence, and canned fruit and gelatin molds. Don't get me wrong. I think of myself as an artist first and a businessman second. But game companies that don't make a profit aren't game companies for very long. There are at least nine reasons that putting emotion in games can lead to greater profits, and it's worth taking a few minutes to mention them.

A preliminary experiment to assess the fear value of preselected sound parameters in a survival horror game

“…She exemplifies this process as "walking on cornstarch sounds much 'more real' on film than the actual sounds of walking on snow". Shilling et al [3] quote industry professionals: "A game or a simulation without an enriched sound environment is emotionally dead and lifeless", implying that sound effects must be analysed in terms of their emotional qualities so that they may be implemented in a way that will maximise the audience's sensory experience If we agree that sounds must be manipulated to maximise emotionality, it is reasonable to assume that specific game genres require specific audio 'emotioneering' [20]. Therefore the survival horror genre, most commonly associated with the emotion of fear, would require emotion-based sound design that strived to evoke fear [21].…”

Interaction, narrative, and drama

“…For several years, game developers held discussions at the Game Developers Conference, gave presentations (Kane 2003;Lazzaro 2005), and published books (Freeman 2003) on the topic of increasing engagement in games. While there are several successful game titles on the market, and while these game titles are fun to play, none of these titles reach the type of engagement described above (Blythe and Hassenzahl 2004;Blythe, Overbeeke et al 2004).…”

“…In particular, techniques to illicit these types of engagement have been addressed in screenwriting (McKee 1997;Freeman 2003;Lucey 1996), acting (Stanislavski 1936;Stanislavski 1949;Bruder 1986;Meisner, Longwell et al 1987;McKee 1997;Freeman 2003) and storytelling (Propp, Wagner et al 1968;Campbell 1972) theories. However, these techniques are difficult to use successfully within interactive narratives.…”

“…However, these techniques are difficult to use successfully within interactive narratives. Currently, game developers (and other developers) script the interactive narrative by embedding the dramatic principles they were trained to use; an obvious example of such work is Freeman's discussion of embedding screenwriting techniques within game narratives (McKee 1997;Freeman 2003). While these techniques enhance the quality of the narrative, scripting them tends to restrict the narrative to a linear form, as exhibited in games such as the Prince of Persia series.…”

“…While adapting the narrative to accommodate interaction is important, creating an experience that exhibits the type of engagement described above requires the representation of dramatic principles, including conflict, pacing, and temporal dramatic progression (Baid 1973;Halliwell and Aristotle 1998;Carson 2000;Freeman 2003). Few of the previous works mentioned above were constructed using dramatic theories.…”